This story follows The Kiss of Infamy (A Lucas Morrison story) chronologically.
"All right," I thought. Last chance to change my mind. I let my hand drift over my spread out tarot cards until one seemed to draw my hand to it. I took it and flipped it face-up. The Devil reversed.
"Of course it is." Why wouldn't it be?
The Devil card means bondage, enslavement to the flesh and its appetites. Reversed, though, it means liberation from the material.
So it looked like I was doing this. All my gear was already assembled but I wanted to do one last quick divination to see if it was the right time to do the spell. Liberation from bondage was more or less what I was after, broadly interpreted, and all of this pertained to the devil. It had been about a year since the devil had come to me in a vision and asked me to perform the kiss of infamy. I still hadn't figured out what it meant, or who I thought the devil was or what he represented. I hoped my spell tonight would help me.
Various bowls and jars covered my kitchen table, but the main item was the orange lump of wax that I'd shaped into an egg.
I now scratched my symbols into the wax with an unbent paperclip, an important and overlooked tool of witchcraft. Into the bowl of vegetable oil I dripped a few drops of jasmine essential oil, then prepared a dough from the flour, salt, water, and oil. I held up a handful of dried jasmine flowers, an herb known for increasing intuition and helping people out when they're at a crossroads (which I scavenged from a teabag if I'm being honest), and breathed on it to awaken its energies. I dropped it into the dough and then scooped a handful of mugwort, an herb famed for increasing psychic abilities and giving prophetic dreams, and did the same. I folded the herbs into the dough until it was completely mixed. Lastly, I took the small pile of papers onto which I had written the specifics of the spirit I intended to create.
"You are Periphas," I read the first paper aloud, then ignited it in the flame of a red taper and dropped it onto the dough.
"You are a golden eagle larger than a horse, with an orange gem set upon your forehead. The scales of your talons are chips of gold and gemstones." The paper went into the fire and then into the bowl.
"Your purpose is to seek out, find, and bring to me whatever I ask of you, be it information, an item, or anything else I command."
I burned all of the instructions, one by one, and finally Periphas' symbol, and then mixed all of the ashes into the dough. The now-ready dough I caked onto the wax egg, first filling in the symbols I had carved into the wax. I left one large bare spot in the middle of the egg's length. Once I'd put all of the dough on, coated very thickly, it was between the size of a softball and a football.
I put the egg into the oven, resting on a sheet of tinfoil with a hold poked into it, and this suspended over a deep pan also lined with tinfoil. As the dough baked and hardened, the wax would melt off and fill up the pan.
While it baked I sat down and meditated.
Not for the first time, I meditated on the golden image, the vision of Satan that came to me as a hunky angel with long blonde hair. Since his first appearance I had received no revelations, divine or otherwise, to explain to me who he was or what he wanted from me.
If the devil is like the Christians say, then I wanted no part of it, even if I had already administered the kiss. But I felt like he wasn't that, or at least, that's not who came to me that night. I had my theories but nothing yet had explained it to my satisfaction, and the egg baking in the oven was my next attempt.
I meditated for a good ten minutes before I started to nod off, jerking back awake whenever I started to tip too much in one direction on my cushion. In a dreamlet that I barely remembered five minutes later, I saw the god Hermes. Among many other things he's the god of the gymnasium, but in this dream he was a handsome twink-verging-on-twunk with shaved armpits, lifting weights in the gym.
"OK, I guess meditation isn't going to happen today," I said to myself. One of the hazards of meditating this late at night.
I looked at the tarot card again. The card depicts the devil crouched on a sort of throne. A male and female demon stand before the throne, chains around their neck securing them to it. But the chains are completely loose; they could take them off if they want. The male demon has a little fire on the tip of the tail, representing servitude to his passions and anger. The female demon has a little bunch of grapes on the tip of her tail, representing slavery to the desires of the flesh. The card represents how we ensnare ourselves in this world, how we let ourselves be ruled by it. Reversed, the card means a person is becoming free of this entrapment.
Oh shit. I hoped the Devil reversed didn't mean my new spirit was going to break free and become its own agent. "No time for doubt now," I told myself. Doubt will fuck your magick faster than anything.
The oven buzzer went off and I pulled the egg out of the oven. Everything worked exactly as I hoped. The wax melted and poured out of the baked egg, which was nice and solid. While it was still liquid I poured off the wax into a glass jar with a wick in it. It filled it up perfectly. I set it aside to use in a few weeks to complete the ritual.
The egg was hot but it seemed solid enough to handle, so I set it in a tray and took it to my ritual room.
I read aloud my charge to Periphas, basically the same commands that I had already burned and mixed into the dough. I imagined the enormous golden eagle, the scales of his talons gleaming like real gold, and the orange gem on his forehead. I saw him before me, and then reminded myself that he really existed inside me, in my mind.
Because I had carved the wax egg with backward versions of Periphas' symbol, the inside of my egg should now have the symbols the right way. But I had also drawn his symbol on paper and inserted this into the empty egg.
Refusing to feel awkward about this, I took my small stroker toy and inserted it into the opening left in the egg. It's a sorta pear shaped toy and I inserted the narrow end until it fit snuggly.
I had assumed we'd be thinking about Timothee Chalamet to make this happen, but instead I decided to think about that image I saw in my meditation/accidental nap. A hot young guy working out in the gym on an overhead pulldown machine. Like an invisible ghost in the gym I watched him work out. His jaw was chiseled enough to make him look more top than bottom, but he was exactly the kind of sandy-haired pretty boy I usually like. I walked over to him and looked into his eyes, squinting in intense concentration, his face turning red as he breathed hard. I put my hand on his chest and felt the muscles ripple as he worked, then slipped my hand under his shirt. Slick with sweat, my hand glided over his smooth chest.
Slick with lube, I glided into my stroker.
His nipples were already hard before I touched them. In my fantasy I wasn't using my stroker, but jerking off with one hand as I touched him with the other. Like an invisible man from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, I could do whatever I wanted and my gym bunny wasn't going to notice. I ran my hand all along his chest and started to kiss his sweaty neck. I stroked my dick so close to him that the head rubbed against his smooth thigh. He continued pulling down the bar as I lifted his shirt up. Not too beefy at all; he had large pecs but his slender little tummy was more of a smooth plane than a six pack. He moaned slightly as I bit his nipple, but otherwise ignored me.
I let his shirt fall and slid my hand up his nylon shorts. I found his huge limp cock and started to caress the entire package, balls and all. My dickhead rubbed all over his thigh as I kissed his throat, his cheeks, his lips. He didn't kiss me back which was actually kind of hotter. "You are so fucking hot," I whispered into his ear and then nibbled the lobe. I kissed down his neck to the crevice where his bicep met his armpit. He stopped pulling and just left his arms up, holding onto the bar. His armpit was perfectly smooth and damp with sweat. I put my face in it, breathing in the smell of him, and started to lick him clean of sweat as his dick grew hard in my hand.
I was so close. I got on my knees, my dick head rubbing against his shin and the side of his calf as I popped his dick out of the leg of his shorts. A huge beast, the kind I've only seen once or twice in real life. I licked the frenulum and then around the corona, feeling the details with my tongue, until I finally put the entire head in my mouth.
My orgasms muscles started to clench. I dropped the fantasy and imagined the eagle Periphas dwelling in my mind. As I started to spasm I saw him, the latent idea of a spirit, ejaculating out of me into the egg. A powerful orgasm overtook me; I felt my blood pressure pounding in my neck and ears, almost painfully. Then it subsided and I imagined the eagle gestating in the egg as my dick slowly softened. I withdrew myself and the stroker and plugged up the egg with some clay.
I took a good minute to catch my breath and then cleaned everything up, leaving the egg on my altar. I tiptoed into the bedroom and slipped into bed. "I love you," I whispered to my husband. He smiled in his sleep and then stirred a little, finally sliding over to me to get a kiss. Within seconds he was back asleep and I lay on my side, casually visualizing the eagle as I drifted away.
The next morning, Thursday, I got up a little earlier than usual. Keane had already left for work and I had a vague memory of him kissing me on his way out.
I got up, showered, and started my morning prayers. I prayed first to the goddess Hestia and poured out some wine into a glass for her. The first and last of all offerings are always for Hestia, goddess of fire and family. She's a virgin goddess so I'm not sure how she feels about me mentioning her in erotic stories from my life, but I like to be thorough.
The devil's appearance, a year or so prior, had knocked my spiritual practice all to hell, but by now I'd gotten it into some semblance of order. I'm still a Hellenic witch - I worship the Greek gods, if in a much more spell casty way than the ancient Greeks would have approved of - and trying to figure out how the devil fits in to that.
There really is no Greek Satan. And the Christian Satan, well as I said, I'm much too love-and-light for all that. So I poured out offering wine to Hades, Prometheus, Dionysus, and Pan, four Greek gods that to some degree fit the devil archetype. I poured out some wine for all the gods - the glass was nearly full now - and lit a stick of incense. I sat in prayer for a while, asking for protection for my husband, my family, and myself, and as the incense burned low I poured out the last bit of wine for Hestia.
I put on some water for tea and then went and buried my egg in the backyard. Keane is used to this shit by now. Holes in the yard, strange smells coming from the ritual room, all of it. I hoped it wasn't my imagination but the egg seemed to throb with power. I'd never done this kind of ritual before, my own modification of A.O. Spare's earthenware virgin procedure. He designed the ritual before silicone strokers were invented but I thought it was a nice addition.
When it was buried I settled down for some tea and toast. I scrolled through my phone, thinking about that image of Hermes that came to me. I knew that in ancient Rome men shaved their armpits, but did they in ancient Greece? Since I have a pretty strong interest in both Greek religion and men's armpits, you'd think I would know.
It got me thinking about my own body and how I've gained a few in the last few years and gotten into a sexual slump.
I'm a firm believer that wizards should go on adventures. And some of my favorite are sexual adventures, but the sad truth is that I've been a non-practicing slut for years and have been itching to get a little practice in.
It was probably just a dream, some mental flotsam, but maybe it was a message?
I texted my friend Ash.
Want to be my gym buddy? I need to get fuckable.
He responded with an annoyed face emoji. -_-
OK if you don't want to
He responded: Yes, clearly that's why I was rolling my eyes.
Ok, why then?
Because it's confidence you lack, not fuckability
I shot back, Well it's certainly not weight that I lack
The annoyed emoji again.
I texted back, Dude I haven't gotten laid in a year. That's more than just confidence.
Don't be crazy.
Did he know how irritating that response was? My religious beliefs may be a little crazy but I remember being a young, newly out twink, and I remember what it used to look like when guys checked me out.
I texted back, When I was skinny I lacked confidence but got laid anyways.
You also used to leave the house.
Well, he got me there. Introversion had gone from a hobby to a way of life. Keane and I did date night, and I hung out with my family, but otherwise it was work and home.
Going to the gym means leaving the house.
Fine.
I immediately regretted it. I hate the gym. But his membership allowed him to take a free guest so at least there was that.
Let's start this weekend
You're the one starting. I already go to the gym
Oh yeah
I'm not a morning person so I don't leave myself a lot of getting ready time before work. Getting up early enough to bury a spell is way more time than I usually give myself, so after securing my new gym buddy I threw on my clothes and ran out the door.
The rest of the day I thought about what Ash said. But I still wanted to do some beauty magick, even if only to give me confidence. I waited until Friday because that's the day for beauty and sex magick.
After Keane went to bed on Friday I drew a hot bath, filled with Epsom salts and lotus-scented oil. I placed a rose quartz into the water, a symbol of self-love and beauty. The scented oil slicked the surface of the water as I stepped in. Green and pink candles and seashells I gathered on the beach lined the sides of the tub.
"Make me fuckable," isn't really a chant and neither is, "Make me conventionally attractive because I've internalized Western standards of beauty and don't want to fuck guys that look like me." So I chanted the names of the three Graces, the attendants of Aphrodite: Mirth, Splendor, and Good Cheer. I'm pretty good on mirth and good cheer, I thought to myself. A little more splendor though, please.
I felt them drawing near. A whisper of air against the skin, a whiff of rose and violet, the sound of laughter echoing in the back of my mind. I closed my eyes and imagined a scene from history - that's mythology to most people. Aphrodite emerged from the sea that bore her and walked naked onto the shores of Cypress. There the Graces found her and worshipped her. Goddesses themselves, they recognized her absolute Beauty and Love and devoted themselves to her, draping her in beautiful fabrics and flowers.
I imagined my body transformed into its perfect form. Thin but healthy, full blond hair, eyes shining blue. One last time I chanted their names: Aglaea. Euphrosyne. Thalia.
I let the image fade and settled back into the tub and half-meditated, half-daydreamed. Desire faded, willpower faded, and I just relaxed into feeling sexy and loving my body. Within a few moments I saw a dark staircase in front of me, opening beneath my legs like one of those staircases from Zelda, and I followed them down, down, far away from my anxieties and cares.
I hadn't meant to do this meditation even though it's a huge part of my spiritual practice, the descent into the unconscious and the underworld. But I went with it, descending long stairs in a lightless chamber. Eventually the stairs let out into a dark room and I saw Aphrodite ahead of me, radiant with white light. In awe I approached her.
She didn't move as I drew near. She looked just like my statue of her -- white as marble, posed with hips shifted to one side, arms uplifted and holding locks of her hair in her hands. When I reached her I realized she was a statue, frozen in stone but radiating warmth and light.
Her stone eyes turned and met mine.
A chill went up my spine.
"You don't need any of this," she said.
"Any of what?"
She looked to my hand and I saw I had the rose quartz from the bath with me.
"What do I need?"
"Release me!" She cried.
I saw then that she was wrapped in chains, and I also knew that she meant I needed confidence, not beauty. I did as she asked, grabbing her chains and pulling them off of her. Like the chains in the Devil card, they were loosely draped and came off easily.
When the chains hit the floor the statue exploded. Rock dust filled the air and Aphrodite stood in the center, not white but a golden-skinned Greek woman radiating golden light like the coming of sunrise.
I snapped back to my bathroom.
I committed everything to memory. And then I jerked off in the bath because that's what magicians do. Seriously, ask any magician.
I anointed my forehead with a mixture of rose oil, water, and my own cum and imagined the Aphrodite within -- the archetype of love and beauty within me -- awakening and healing. I felt her presence as I dried off, put on a robe, and went to pour a little wine outside as an offering.
I saw the patch of lawn where I had buried the egg and gave a few moments thought to the eagle spirit growing within. This was my first time ever creating a servitor, and I only did it because I had had my infernal vision so long ago and was getting nowhere with figuring it out.
A servitor is a being that a magician creates. Unlike summoning a spirit from a grimoire, or praying to the gods or the ancestors, a servitor is completely loyal to the magician who created it. Ash had actually suggested a long time ago that I try it, but it never felt right to me. It felt like slavery. But recently I had been thinking about it and read up on it. Is it still slavery if you program it to want to serve, and to enjoy doing it? I mean, all of us are born with hardware and software, and are born to like some things and not others. Do I feel bothered that my brain inherently wants me to avoid pain or to seek out food? Or do I just embrace the fact that we all come with some preprogramming and no one is a blank slate?
That argument still felt like a rationalization until I decided that a servitor is probably not a real independent entity anyway, but a part of the magician split off and expanded into something greater.
And now here we were. I sensed the spirit under the soil, somehow. Humming, throbbing. When I got close I felt the energy pulse beneath my feet. Within a month he would be born.