Sympathetic Magic - Chapter 1 - Part 1

Chapter 1 - Part 1

"When I said you could come inside the lab and watch me work, as long as you don't touch anything," Tamsin of Red Hill said sharply to her half-sister, "I really meant don't touch anything."

Melantha put down the vial of shining purple liquid that she had been inspecting and wrinkled her nose. "I didn't touch any of your stupid potions." She looked around, jaw set sullenly. "I thought it would be more interesting. All you do is chop stuff and mix them together."

"Sorry to disappoint you," Tamsin said dryly. "The work of a potioneer is long and fruitful, but unfortunately very boring."

As Melantha made another face, Tamsin mentally cursed her father for marrying again, and having another child when Tamsin was just fifteen. Then, she cursed her father twice for dying with his second wife in the recent plagues and leaving this troublesome teenager in her care. Hadn't his wife a whole bunch of relatives? Why wasn't Melantha sent to live with them? Tamsin was barely thirty, and had been happily living on her own. She had no idea how to care for someone else.

Scratch that; Tamsin was cursing her dearly departed dad three times.

Melantha moved to another long table, poking at the delicate ingredients that Tamsin had laid out very carefully from this morning. Tamsin frowned; the ingredients shifted out of the reach of Melantha's meddlesome fingers under the power of Tamsin's will; using her energy like that was a little tiring, but she really couldn't stop stirring this particular cauldron right now.

Instead of looking impressed, as most people would, Melantha frowned. Tamsin frowned back. If Melantha wasn't so sour-looking all the time, she would be fairly pretty. She had the same long, thick black hair as Tamsin, courtesy of their father, and the same distinct features: heavy eyebrows, strong jaw and aquiline nose. While Tamsin had inherited the light-grey shade of eyes from her mother, which was sometimes quite useful when scaring potential clients into using her potions, Melantha's eyes were dark, and heavy-lidded.

"You know what's kind of funny?" Melantha now asked, removing the cover from a small earthenware pot and peering inside.

"Isn't it time for school?" Tamsin wondered aloud and threw a handful of ambrein crystals inside this bubbling potion. The thick liquid turned white, and became still, just the result that Tamsin had expected.

Melantha ignored the pointed question, even though she was indeed dressed in her school-clothes. "You're like, this big potion-witchy type, and all you brew is stuff for those sex-actors down on the Love-de-Sac."

Tamsin went red at that and hurriedly doused the flame underneath this current potion before it burned. Melantha was giving her a nasty little smile.

"You shouldn't be going to those shows," Tamsin lectured. "They shouldn't let you in, as a matter of fact!"

Melantha shrugged carelessly. "If you have enough money, you can go anywhere," she said and Tamsin made a mental note to monitor the substantial inheritance their father had left her. "Makes me proud," Melantha continued in a darker, mocking tone, "when I see those actresses and actors going at it for so long, I know it's thanks to all these potions you make."

"Shut up." Tamsin hurriedly bottled her cooled potion, scowling. "Pays the bills, doesn't it?"

Melantha huffed and went over to a locked cabinet, tapping on the glass door. "What's this one?" She narrowed her eyes at the woven wire-mesh that was placed in the glass itself, almost obscuring the view of the small phials containing a bright blue substance. "And why all the special protection?"

"It's a very expensive and delicate potion," Tamsin snapped, deftly spooning the white liquid into freshly sterilised white bottles, packing them in a wooden box lined with satin for delivery.

"What does it do?"

"None of your business."

"Come on, tell me," Melantha cajoled. "I could get nosy and break in and probably take it. That would be bad, right?"

Tamsin stared at her incredulously, but Melantha's grin was sharp and bright and oddly, quite serious.

"Fine." Tamsin placed the last bottle in the wooden box. "Increases the size and length of the human female clitoral hood and glans, adjusts the suspensory ligaments to aid in erection and adapts the internal pudendal artery for the sexual load."

"What?"

"Makes the clit bigger!" Tamsin closed the cover of the box with a little more force than necessary and hoped that she hadn't broken any of the boxes. She glowered at Melantha's shocked expression. "Makes it big for fucking," she said slowly. "Happy now?"

"Why would you make that?" Melantha didn't sound particularly reproaching, though, despite her hushed tone; she seemed... overly curious.

Tamsin shrugged, and hoped she didn't look too much like Melantha with that action. "A wealthy client commissioned me to make it. Said she had a pretty little servant-girl she wanted to get inside."

"Are you serious?" Melantha went back to gazing at the small phials in neat rows, locked away behind the secured glass. Tamsin patted her collar briefly; beneath the high-necked dress, a silver key hung on a slender length of red cord. The key for that cabinet, in fact.

"Yes, I'm serious." Tamsin remembered the day the woman and her servant had come to pick up the potion; the woman, a tall, regal woman with grey hair piled regally on top of her head, had clutched at the small case that Tamsin had handed to her, her eyes gleaming in excitement. The servant, who was indeed very pretty, had flushed as the woman gripped her hand eagerly and dragged her out of Tamsin's small shop. Tamsin had barely enough time to to rush out after the woman and give her a list of instructions, so she wouldn't overdose herself or her servant, if she wanted to go that route.

"It's very strong," Tamsin continued, hefting the box and placing the strap securely over her shoulder. "But enough of that. Let's go, I'm sure you're late for school."

"School is stupid," Melantha griped, but she still picked her her own book-bag and stomped out of the front door that Tamsin held open. "All the girls there are stupid," she explained after Tamsin locked her shop and they set off down the road. "Very, very stupid."

"I'm sure you're the pinnacle of brilliance there," Tamsin muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" Melantha peered at her suspiciously.

"Nothing. Get to school." Tamsin tried to sound like a responsible caretaker, but Melantha rolled her eyes and ambled down an intersecting cobblestone road. "And don't go to those shows!" she added loudly.

Melantha only raised one hand and made a very rude gesture. Tamsin wrestled with the urge to use her will and break that finger; she managed to get over it, and make her way down to Love-de-Sac.

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"Good work," Big Martin grinned, his gold tooth glinting, as he took the new vials from Tamsin and handed her the used ones. He went over to the desk in his cluttered office and rummaged through, hauling out a leather pursed stuffed with money. Laboriously, he counted out crushed bills and heavy bronze coins as Tamsin wrote out a receipt.

"Lorna said the new lubricant makes her pussy itch somethin' fierce," Big Martin noted as he handed over the money and squinted at the receipt Tamsin gave to him.

"Tell Lorna that she should stop allowing people to push money up her snatch," Tamsin said in return and Big Martin laughed loudly. "The metal and ink will react with the potion, Mart. That fucking nasty bitch."

"I know." Big Martin continued to chuckle, putting his receipt inside a ledger. "But she's me best girl, ain't she? She'll do just 'bout anything the crowd wants. Besides, that's how she gets her tips." He winked at Tamsin, who sighed.

"Maybe I can make a new one for her, to counteract the itching," she conceded and Big Martin nodded. "But it'll cost you more."

Big Martin waved a meaty hand dismissively. There was a reason he was called Big Martin, with his massive frame and jowly face. He had the soulful brown eyes and expression of a faithful bloodhound; these made people think he was soft-hearted.

They were always caught off-guard when Big Martin threw them out of his dark show-house, sometimes two in each hand, for going too far with his actresses and actors. Granted, most things weren't too far enough, but if a performer said no, then no it was. Any further, and Big Martin would fling people out.

"Money's no problem," Big Martin assured her and dropped another conspiratorial wink. "Sex always sells. Ain't that right, Tam?"

"Thank you for your business, Martin," Tamsin said stiffly, but she couldn't help a rueful grin for Big Martin's massive smile. She'd known him for a long time, even from before her mother had died. Tamsin's mother, in her prime, had been one of Big Martin's best performers. Tamsin had a very hazy memory of peeping beneath a curtain backstage and watching the flexible woman under the bright lights, writhing on stage with an assortment of men and women.

Tamsin pushed the memory of her mother out of her mind and nodded at Big Martin, leaving his office quickly and making her way though the still-quiet theatre. Tonight looked like it would be a leather night, she noted, seeing the stage set up with restraining belts and cold steel benches. She wondered idly if Big Martin had enough of the pain and healing solution she had whipped up recently. He should, she decided and walked out into the late afternoon sunshine of Love-de-sac.

The whores were already out, nodding at Tamsin as she passed them by on her way to the exit of the narrow alleyway; Big Martin's Place was at the dead-end of the cul-de-sac, the older whores idling near that section, while the newer ones were at the entry of the road. Tamsin knew most of the established ones by name. She'd know the newer ones soon enough, when they were informed of her gentle healing potions and the very strong ones that prevented disease.

"Alright, there, Tam," someone drawled in greeting and Tamsin waved without taking a look. Sometimes they offered sex for payment of the potions; sometimes Tamsin took it. Business was business, after all and the whores on Love-de-sac knew better than to try cheat her out of her wares. Who would help them out when they had those large boils erupt on their dicks and cunts if they did?

All in all, it was a fairly comfortable life, and Tamsin hoped her half-sister wouldn't go about fucking it all up.

Continued in Chapter 1 - Part 2

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