jsmn_kinkmeme | ☆ Round Two!

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☆ Round Two!

Welcome to the second round of the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Kink Meme at

jsmn_kinkmeme!

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Guidelines:
■ Anonymously comment with your request – a character/pairing/nthsome, and a kink or prompt.
■ Only one prompt per post.
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■ Have fun! :)

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■ Any kinks welcomed!
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Links:
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☆ Previous Rounds: Round One

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Do you find me terribly shocking?" Miss Absalom asked. An impish smile was playing about her lips.

"I—" Segundus hedged. In truth, he found it difficult not to gaze at her mouth. She had a very small full mouth, like a half-opened rose set amidst the milkmaid complexion of her face. He was convinced that kissing her would be like laughter in a late summer twilight: drowsy and playful and delicious, with just a slice of heat. He very much wanted to kiss her. But it was entirely out of the question. It would not be proper at all. Not even in a dream.

But Miss Absalom was leaning close to him, with her fiery hair around her shoulders, smelling of roses and lemons and pale sweet perfumes, and touching his face with a soft cool hand. "Do you not wish to kiss me?" she murmured. "You do; you're trembling. What a lovely creature you are."

She laid a finger on his lips. Segundus closed his eyes and exhaled hard. "I cannot," he said with difficulty. "We cannot."

"Mm." That finger traced his lips. "Perhaps you cannot. But I would like to kiss you breathless. You do have the most darling lips. Let me have you, just for a moment. No one will ever know."

It was impossible to resist such blandishment as this, and in another instant Segundus had surrendered. He had been right, he discovered, about the summer twilight, and yet he also had never been kissed as filthily as this: slowly and deliberately and a little bit wetly, in almost a teasing fashion. Miss Absalom sucked at his lower lip, and touched just the tip of her tongue into his mouth, so that he had to stifle a small gasp when he felt her probe delicately with it. He felt that he was in comparison a clumsy kisser. He had not kissed many women, though he had put significant effort into learning the skill. (He was studious about everything he did.) Still, he cupped his hand to her lower back and felt her press eagerly forwards, coming into his arms so he could feel the peaks of her breasts.

That made him feel quite hot, yet at the same time ashamed. His nipples were quite distinct against his chest, and he imagined taking one in his mouth, toying at it, stroking a hand down the skin of her pale soft waist... And below, dipping into the hot wet well of her with just the shallowest fingertip...

He broke away abruptly. "I am so sorry!" he blurted. "Forgive me! I should not be—"

Miss Absalom looked a little exasperated. She was very out of breath. "It is a dream," she pointed out. "There is no question of propriety. If it does not please you, that is one matter, for I certainly wish to please you— I wish to please you a great deal, in a variety of configurations, quite possibly on the floor of this very room, because I have a fancy to see your face in the utmost throes of pleasure, and hear you cry out and beg me for release—"

"—Oh, God—" Segundus whimpered. He did not think he had ever whimpered before, but he recognized the quality of it in his voice.

"—so if it does not please you, I shall leave off entirely. But if it is only that you fear some trivial social consequence, I may assure you—"

Segundus surged forwards and claimed her lips. He was agonizingly aroused, and he pressed her back against the wall, feeling her laugh softly against him in what sounded like delight. She hooked a small ankle around his leg and drew him even closer, scraping her short nails through his hair and down his neck.

"Oh," he said helplessly, and: "oh," and frotted gently against her. She crooked her knee so he could thrust against her leg, and he dropped his head against her creamy, perfect shoulder, inhaling the scent of her and bringing a hand up to cup her breast.

"Yes, please," she said, as he touched his thumb to her nipple. "Have you ever been with a woman, John Segundus?"

"I— yes," he managed. "But hardly— hardly— and it has been years—"

"Well," said Miss Absalom, "we shall have to renew your education. Let us begin with how much nicer that feels with the clothing off." And she proceeded to divest herself of her simple muslin gown in a few short movements, flinging it carelessly across the room to land atop a chair-back.

She was naked underneath, and quite perfect. Segundus drowned for a moment in the sight of her rounded breasts with their sharp nipples, the slope of her waist, and the patch of ginger hair below it, descending delicately to a point between the happy curves of her thighs. He felt weak at the knees. But he reached out his hand once more, and repeated his careful touch of her breast. He rubbed his thumb against her flushed nipple, and heard her exhale softly. The sound made his hips flinch. He wanted her to make many more such sounds. So he bent his head and licked one nipple, then the other, then nuzzled more lastingly at each one. Her hands threaded themselves in his hair and held onto his head.

"That is very nice, she said. "Shall we get you out of your clothing as well?"

Segundus tried to mimic the boldness of her actions in casting off his waistcoat and his shirt, but he feared he seemed quite nervous and shy. Certainly as he was unbuttoning his trousers, his hands shook, and there was no dignified way for a gentleman to take off his stockings. So he blushed a little, feeling awkward, and was ashamed at the obviousness of his physical desire— his prick was jutting out stiffly, and it was wet at the tip.

But Miss Absalom smiled at him with that same easy, comfortable, desirous smile, and reached out to drawn him close to her again, and set her hand straightaway upon that cock, which made him gasp and kiss messily at her collar and neck.

"Oh," he whispered, overwhelmed, as he glimpsed her slim hand upon him, one of her beautiful fingers sliding slowly and filthily over the slick head, so that he bucked forwards.

She looked up at him somewhat mischievously through her eyelashes. "I believe I said something about the floor of this room," she said, and proceeded to push him down: first onto his knees, then flat on his back upon the floor. Dazed, he watched her straddle him, opening her thighs wide in a devastatingly provocative fashion. He trailed his hands up the insides of them and touched the soft curls that sheltered her intimate parts.

"Please me. I wish you to please me," Miss Absalom told him.

"You will have to teach me." But already he was engaged in exploration, stroking a fingertip where she was wet, noting how she gasped and rode herself against him. He pushed that fingertip in a little ways and was left breathless by her tight hot grip. He pushed in further, still stroking her gently with his thumb.

"Yes," she said. "There, harder, like that— do you like me? Do you imagine yourself inside me, there, where I am hot for you and wet?"

Segundus made a thoroughly unintelligible sound. His other hand grabbed hard at her hip, and he thrust up frantically against her buttocks. "Oh please," he gasped out. "Please, if— if that would please you—"

"It would please me very much," she said rather imperiously. "But not yet. You are very beautiful doing exactly as you are doing."

So Segundus redoubled his efforts, working his now-slippery fingers into and against her, pushing at the hard nub of her pleasure again and again, briefly arching upwards to worshipfully kiss her breasts before she pressed him down once more. She was not tentative about expressing her enjoyment; she moaned and ground down against him and said "Yes, yes, just there— oh God yes, faster, put your fingers inside me!" When she climaxed, though, she fell rapturously silent and stiffened all over, throwing her head back in a perfect ecstatic pose. Segundus stared at her wild-eyed, thinking he would die of desire.

Fortunately, she soon returned to moving lazily upon his fingers, though she was gasping heavily for breath. She looked at him with heavy-lidded eyes and said, "Shall I give you what you want now? Would you like to enter me?"

It took Segundus a moment to be able to offer a coherent "Yes, please, please!"

She lifted herself up a little ways and sank in a very leisurely fashion onto his prick. Segundus cried out and jerked wildly, because the sensation was simply overwhelming— the most perfect embrace imaginable, the hottest and wettest grasp around him. She simply lingered there for a moment, moving in slow, torturous circles, before beginning to very shallowly ride him.

"Oh, that is lovely," she said. "You feel delicious inside me." She raised herself up until the barest inch of him was inside her and slowly, slowly descended again— causing him to arch and thrust up frantically at her, trying to get more and deeper. "How frantic you are to chase your pleasure. We shall have to work on that. Though you are very appealing, I admit, when you are frantic..." She smiled reassuringly at him, as though to take away any sting of disapproval.

Then she began to work herself more steadily on him, a hard and solid rhythm that made nonsense of Segundus's thoughts. He was reduced to the ability to thrust up and up again, driving himself into her, each time a shock of joy. After a little time she took his hand and moved it against her, and he began to stroke at her again, and felt her whole body tighten slightly. Then he realized that he could feel himself sliding in and out of her— feel the firm slick length of his prick taking her again and again— and he had to shut his eyes and think of anything else at all in order to avoid his finish.

He thought he must have made a distracted job of that work, for he could think of little other than the rapture building under his skin, but nevertheless he rubbed fiercely at her. She sped her motions, and closed her own eyes, clenching a little around his prick. "Oh, yes!" she said. She pressed his hand hard against her so she could rut fast and ferociously against his fingertips, and in a very short time she was shouting and then going silent as she climaxed— tightly, astoundingly— around his prick.

Segundus said something, but he had no idea what it was. He could not imagine what to say to such a thing. He gaped at her in a kind of astounded wonderment, watching all the motions of her pleasure— the bend of her neck, her bowed back, her muscles straining— and feeling that hot clench within him. Then he was hanging onto her hips and driving into her very hard, very sloppily, with one singular purpose, which he found as he shot his seed inside her, straining up, making high little wounded noises that he thought certainly should have embarrassed him.

At the time they did not embarrass him, because he was beyond the capacity to be embarrassed. He was in a place of such extreme physical delight that it took him a good few moments to recall even that he was possessed of a body, or what he might be meant to do with such a thing. After he came to this recollection, he realized that he was drenched in sweat and trembling slightly, and that Miss Absalom was lifting herself off of him.

She sighed heavily, and lay down beside him on the floor. "Well, that was quite as nice as I expected it to be," she said. She sounded enormously satisfied. "You are a treasure. How fortunate I am to have found you."

Segundus gazed at her a little uncertainly. "So that was— I mean to say, my lack of skill—"

Miss Absalom waved a careless hand. "You need not worry about that. You are an apt learner, and your enthusiasm is charming." The way she said charming made it sound as though she meant something quite dirty by it. "I shall look forward to taking you as my pupil as many times as you desire."

Segundus's breath caught, and he licked his lips. "Oh," he managed. "I should— I should like that extremely. I mean to say that you are— beautiful, so beautiful, I have never known a woman like you, a woman whom I enjoyed touching so much, in fact—" He was aware that he was babbling. "I should very much like to kiss you again, if that is permissible."

It was. He did. It was a soft, tender kiss that was quite nice for all that it was chaste. He stroked her hair and gazed at her, feeling foolishly happy. There was something about her that brought out the feeling in him. He had been quite wrong to ever think of her as grand or remote; she was very warm and down-to-earth and full of laughter. In fact there was a slight gap between her front teeth, which seemed to him to emblematize all of these qualities in a mysterious way that he could not quite express. It was beautiful but imperfect, and ordinary, and hers, and Segundus thought that though she was a great sorceress, she was more familiar than many village girls he had known.

"Although," he said aloud somewhat sleepily, "I must talk to you of magic, for I very much wish to know all your thoughts on it. I am sure you are possessed of a deal of lost knowledge. Just imagine what-all I shall learn! I only wish I had more to offer."

Miss Absalom kissed his forehead with great affection. "Oh, dear. Don't be silly. Go back to sleep. We shall see each other again soon, and then we shall talk of magic and all manner of things."

Segundus frowned at her, a little confused, for he had an idea that something about this sentence was not quite logical. But he was very worn-out and comfortable, and already drifting to sleep, and in no time at all the dream had faded around him. For it had been a dream, of course it had been a dream; how could he not have noticed?

Oh, he thought regretfully. But I so wished to see her again! How unfair! He had been entirely bewitched by her.

But, of course, real life was not filled with glamourous enchantresses who wished to teach shy, shabby magicians how to please them. No matter how extraordinary his life might have become, it was not that extraordinary! So upon waking in his empty bed, Segundus set himself to dismissing the dream. It would do no good to dwell on it. And— as was brought home to him vigorously when he descended to the kitchen and discovered Childermass spooning sugar into his tea and eating toast with Segundus's best blackberry jam— real life had more than enough challenges to offer. Too many, he was coming to believe, in fact.

Ahhhh, this is delightful! Very much looking forward to more :)

The prompt was delightful and this fill more than lives up to it. So many lovely and funny details, and THEN we get impossibly hot Maria/Segundus.

Genuinely cannot wait to see what your Childermass makes of all this, he has trouble written all over him.

OP here, and oh god, this is lovely. Very, very lovely, and so much fun. This is beautiful. Thank you for it!

This is so good! You've captured their world perfectly and I love your characterizations. Looking forward to more!

whoops, there go my bloomers...

By which I mean this is a beautiful gem of a fic! I love Segundus working in the garden and Childermass being such a pain and how you've written Lady Absalom is AMAZING. I love that Segundus is a little inexperienced and a little insecure but gives himself over so enthusiastically to pleasure and experience. perfect! <3

Over the course of the following week, Segundus accomplished a great deal. He reshelved all of the books that Childermass had made use of, it being Childermass's habit to remove a great many books from the shelves and leave them stacked across the floor in mysterious configurations that possibly functioned as defensive stockades. Then he reshelved all of the books again, after Childermass complained that he had not yet been finished and removed them into even more convoluted stacks. He convinced a patch of hair-grass that it did not wish to grow in the Starecross garden, and spent a very long time explaining to the rosemary bush that it could not grow any further, for it risked putting its neighbour in shade. The rosemary had a prickly temperament, which made this a delicate matter, and was rather arrogant as well, but in the end Segundus appealed to its sense of mercy.

"You are such a very grand plant," he told it, folding his arms around his knees and leaning earnestly close. "You must consider those who do not stand so high. The creeping thyme lives close to the ground, and it cannot contest you! It is quite dependent upon you to be kind to it."

The rosemary rustled imperiously. But it liked being so flattered, and conceded that it would grow no further this summer, though it reserved the right to do so next year.

Childermass, who was leaning against the garden gate and smoking his pipe, said, "You'll spoil them if you keep that up. Catering to their egos in such a fashion."

"It certainly does not astonish me that you would say so," said Segundus, looking up from the rosemary. "However, I am astonished that you are so replete with gardening advice, yet never seem to do any gardening."

Childermass shrugged. "What were you planning for dinner?" he asked.

"Your visit seems to be stretching on for a very long time," Segundus said.

But he grudgingly got to his feet and went into the kitchen, where he had half of a very nice venison pie and some wild cloudberries which would go nicely in a tea-cake. As he was baking the tea-cake, Childermass stole half the cloudberries, in spite of being whacked sharply several times on the hand.

"You are incorrigible," Segundus said. "You are like a child. You are worse than a child."

Childermass appeared not very much bothered by this. "Children are clever," he said. "They take what they want."

"But they do not get what they might have had, which is cloudberry tea cake," Segundus said. "I am going to give you the slice that has the fewest berries in it."

"Why do you not cater to my ego?" said Childermass, disgruntled.

"Because you are not a plant," Segundus said.

Childermass offered that he might become a plant if it meant that Segundus would stop nagging, and stop reshelving books before he, Childermass, was done with them. It was, surprisingly, one of the nicest conversations that Segundus had ever enjoyed with Childermass— though this was not saying much, and he suspected that he was greatly influenced by his general satisfaction after the dream about Miss Absalom.

Shortly thereafter, a boy from the village came to say that there was a drunken magician in the pub, and could Mr Segundus come and remove him please, before he frightened any more cows. Segundus and Childermass both immediately assumed the man in question to be Vinculus, who was more or less a magician and almost always drunk, but it rapidly transpired that Vinculus was asleep in the Starecross garden, entangled in an extraordinary number of vines and brambles. The drunken magician in the pub, on the other hand, was demanding cider and issuing challenges to the livestock of the village, inviting them to participate in magical combat.

When Childermass and Segundus arrived, the magician also issued a challenge to Childermass, opining that he was unfit to be the Reader of the King's Book, and also that in general the process was undemocratic. "Why shouldn't I," slurred the man, "have a look at the King's Letters? I've as much a claim as any man!" It was unclear what role the livestock played in this particular resentment. Nevertheless, he had behaved very badly towards them— alarming several sheep and a herd of cattle with his shouting— and his slurs again Childermass could not be allowed to stand.

"Shall you call him out?" Segundus asked Childermass, gazing at the man very dubiously.

Childermass gave him a sarcastic look. "I am not a gentleman."

"Shall I call him out for you? To defend your honour?"

"Nor am I a maiden," Childermass said. "Though I am very intrigued by the idea of you calling anyone out. What would you duel him with? A crocus? A tea cosy?"

Segundus felt a little stung by this. "I do not see anyone else leaping to defend your honour," he pointed out stiffly. "Perhaps you would do well not to scorn the offers you get."

Indeed, the villagers of Starecross seemed quite content to leave the magicians to it, having ascertained that no magical combat with livestock was likely to occur. They had dispersed, leaving the road outside the pub empty but for the drunken magician, Childermass, and Segundus. The drunken magician was finding it difficult to stand upright.

"You have cursed me, sir!" he said to Childermass. "How dare you! I insist that you remove this curse at once!"

Childermass cast his eyes skyward and sighed. "Run along home," he said to Segundus. "I shall see the gentleman safely to an inn."

Segundus said, indignant, "I see no reason why I ought to run along home! This is my village, sir, and it was not your aid that was requested! I am aware that you think very little of me; however, the people of Starecross have a higher opinion! I will not simply fob off their concerns—"

At this point, the drunken magician vomited onto the cobbles. This caused a variety of untidy weeds to sprout from between the cobblestones and give off an alcoholic odour. It was rather an interesting display of magic, Segundus thought, though he doubted it would be appreciated as such by whoever had to clean the street.

Childermass pinched the bridge of his nose. "One quarrelsome magician," he said, "I can handle. Two risk testing my patience. Run along, and we may discuss the matter in the morning."

This did not significantly improve Segundus's temper. He had called Childermass a child, but now Childermass was treating him like a child— a badly-behaved child who was beneath his attention. Segundus disliked being condescended to in such a fashion. It was the sort of treatment that most rankled him, for he had been subjected to it most of his life, before the revival of magic. He had no intention of letting Childermass get away with it.

"Very well," he said. "Very well. I shall run along, as you put it. But since I am of so little use to you, and you so scorn my presence, I trust that you will not be lingering at my home. It would be very inconsistent for you to do so."

He searched Childermass's face for a reaction to this, but Childermass was, as usual, quite unreadable. So Segundus turned and marched towards Starecross feeling very dissatisfied.

"He is intolerable!" he told Miss Absalom later. "He acts as though I am the most ignorant of fellows! He constantly mocks my work in the garden; he continually belittles me, merely because I cannot make the rosebushes bloom, or the brambles behave as I will; and yet at the same time he abuses my library and takes liberties with my food!"

Miss Absalom looked extremely amused by this tirade. "Men are peculiar creatures," she said. "I daresay you yourself are quite as difficult, when you set your mind to be. As for the rosebushes; it is the simplest thing— they have no confidence. You must flatter them sweetly before they will flower. They are so very diffident, you see."

"Oh!" Segundus said, surprised. "I had not thought of that!" Then he realized for the first time that he was in Miss Absalom's kitchen, sitting in the late sunlight, drinking a golden kind of wine that tasted like laziness and lovemaking and heavy wildflowers in sleepy groves that hummed with bees. He set his glass down carefully. "Forgive me!" he said. "This was not at all how I meant to greet you!"

Miss Absalom tilted her head and said teasingly, "How did you mean to greet me?"

Segundus answered by leaning across the table and kissing her passionately. She tasted a little of the wine they were drinking, which is to say: very sweet. He moved his tongue in her mouth in a slow, concentrated fashion. When at last, out of breath, he pulled a little away, he said, "I feel I could kiss you forever, and never grow tired of it. I wish to kiss every part of your body; it is all I have thought of—"

She gave a gasping little laugh, and took hold of his neckcloth to pull him towards her and into her lap. "How bold you have turned!" she said. "I find it very exciting. I should like you to kiss every part of me. You have a clever mouth and a clever tongue; let us put them to work—"

Segundus was already kissing ravenously at her throat, his hands sliding down her body to caress her and trace the outline of her breasts. It was true what he had said; he had thought of her a great deal. He was not normally a man much given to sexual excitement, but the concrete memory of her soft, willing body— the pleasure that she had taken from him— her warm laugh and the heat of her clenched around him— had proved irresistible.

"I touched myself," he said breathlessly against a constellations of freckles, "thinking of you, I could not help myself—"

"Oh," Miss Absalom said, taking hold of one of his hands and slipping it inside her bodice, so he could touch the bare skin of her breast. "Yes, I like that very much. Tell me what you imagined. Being inside me?"

"Yes," Segundus said, "yes, and— pleasing you, feeling you all around me—" He blushed ferociously at having said this, and to hide it, lowered his mouth to her nipple. By licking very delicately at it, he could make her squirm, and he devoted a great deal of attention to achieving this effect, until she put a hand in his hair and pulled him back.

"Every part of me," she said. "Will you? I am wet for you. I want you on your knees."

As much as this rendered Segundus even further red, for he had never known a woman to say such things, it also stole his ability of speech. He gaped at her for a moment, and then fumbled in his haste to slide to the floor, hiking up the light cloth of her dress and pressing his mouth to the inside of her thigh. He wanted to touch every inch of her skin, which was so bare and so fragrant and so enticing. He kissed her thigh in a long, confused, shaky line, spreading her legs wide as he did so. She leaned back in her chair, tilting her hips up. She had told the truth: she was very wet. Segundus parted the lips of her and gazed at her in fascination before lowering his head to tentatively lick. The taste and texture of her were strange and exciting; when he probed at her with the tip of his tongue, he could feel her tense, and her hand came down to clutch at his hair. This was even more exciting, and he pushed his tongue in: lapping at her folds, at the stiff little organ that made her jerk and gasp and beg. He could not resist pushing a finger in her, and feeling the deep well of her, so wet, where he would push his prick— where he would fill her with himself—

The thought made him moan against her, which she seemed to enjoy. He licked at her more fervently, learning the map of her pleasure so he could leverage it against her: employing that knowledge, merciless, to drive her quite wild and nonsensical, till she was crying out and tightening and dragging his head against her, holding him there firmly, saying, "Yes, yes, yes!" And then her climax.

He leant back, wiping his mouth, breathless. He stared at her. She had shucked her dress over her head, and was dappled red as though with sunburn, sweat curling tendrils of hair to her neck, and he had never desired someone more. He wanted to do it to her all over again, to make her make those sounds, to feel her hands clutch at his head, and to feel the quiver of her most sensitive flesh where it was subject to his tongue, leaving her quite helpless.

He rested his hot face against her thigh and touched her lightly as she recovered, slipping two of his fingertips just inside her, just enough to feel her wetness. She made little noises at this, but they were noises of delight, so he pushed the whole fingers in and she took them eagerly, riding lightly against them. He had to push a hand against his prick at this, for it was painfully hard and her eagerness made it jump.

"I want to," he said dazedly, "can I, again, I want to— give you your pleasure..."

"Oh," she said in a low dark voice. "Yes, yes, only— I do not know if I am able."

"You are," Segundus said rather boldly, and he thrust his fingers sharply in before bending his head and giving her the full intensity of his tongue: the broad flat of it in heavy licks, and the sharp edge in delicate patterns. He was aware of her crying out almost ceaselessly above him. For a time he had mercy and immersed himself in licking his way inside her, beside his fingers, as though he were fucking her slowly with his tongue, emerging occasionally to tease her into noisiness once more. At last she grew very desperate and began begging him for it, tugging at fistfuls of his hair, so he gave himself over to evoking her pleasure. He felt he was dragging it out from under her skin, pulling all her nerves into a point of high tension. He scraped his teeth against her and felt her thrash, and then he was giving her the hard fast tonguing that sped her towards her climax. She seemed to hover at the edge of it for a very long time— her body bowed, straining, quivering all against him— and then he could feel the instant of it under his hands. It was extraordinary, watching her give herself to it. He had never given another person so much pleasure.

"You are astounding," he told her, kissing her thighs, her belly; lifting his head to kiss her breasts. "Astounding, wonderful, please let me, please—"

He was half-lifting her out of the chair, and she half-stumbled into his arms with a great deal of laughter, and then she was unbuttoning his breeches hastily, pulling him out, and lying back upon the floorboards, so he could enter her and fuck her frantically. She was so wet and so hot, and welcomed him into her; after a moment, she lifted her legs up to his shoulders, which changed the angle of his thrusting in a way that was intensely delightful. He was shuddering already, so overcome by the intensity of being inside her. At one point she clenched very hard around him and let him push his way against her, and he had to clench his eyes shut and cry out. She seemed to enjoy this effect.

"Beautiful," she murmured. "Yes, take your pleasure, give yourself to it." She put a hand against his overheated cheek, which was cool and welcome.

"Oh, God," he choked out, desperate, and thrust wildly forwards, and climaxed very violently.

It took all of the strength out of him. He could do nothing afterwards except lie limply upon her, breathing wetly, feeling as though someone had wrung him out like a cloth.

Miss Absalom stroked his back. She remarked, "It astonishes me that you have no other lover. I think you are the most delightful lover I have ever had. You have so much zeal for the act. It is very charming."

"Mm," Segundus said. He felt very warm and contented, and was happy to be petted, but he was not quite up to conversation yet.

She laughed at him, and pushed his hair back from his face. "Truly. And I have had my share of lovers. Are you as talented at magic as you are at pleasure?"

Segundus groaned. He hid his head at her shoulder. "I am quite hopeless. I fear you would abandon me entirely if you saw me perform magic."

"I doubt that very much."

"I am the humblest of scholars. I fear I am artless."

"But you have love," Miss Absalom said. "With love, a great many things are possible, you know. You may find your artfulness yet."

And she kissed him very tenderly, and began to tell him a long story that she claimed had been told to her by the ghost of Ralph Stokesey. It involved a young girl who wished to ask the Raven King a favour, and who undertook a great many trials to win this right. Segundus kept interrupting her to ask questions, but Miss Absalom never seemed to mind. Indeed, she had the scholar's delight at digressions. The unfortunate consequence of this, however, was that by the time she came to end of the story, Segundus was so very sleepy that he could not keep it straight in his head. He did not think that she had reached the conclusion by the time he drifted away into weightlessness.

This is an amazing combination of adorable and very, very hot. Miss Absalom, you are certainly making the most of your dreamscapes! Also, Segundus offering to defend Childermass' honour is both sweet and hilarious when they're both so grumpy about it. This is lovely!

This fic is just adorable. I particularly love how Childermass and Maria are perceiving Segundus so differently (and am not surprised she is finding him irresistible). The whole thing is incredibly charming and yet ridiculously hot.

Oh my god, this fic (and prompt) is amazing! So wonderfully charming, funny and HOT at the same time. Love Segundus giving into his desire and just losing himself with Maria Abasalom and also the bickering with Childermass (I'm so used to reading the latter, I feel oddly safe and comforted whenever it happens). Can't wait to read the next instalment!

To whom it may concern: I wish to be reincarnated as Maria Absalom in this fic, so I can seduce eager young magicians with a talent for cunnilingus and eat lots of cake. Thank you.

This continues to be a beautiful story! I am a particular fan of the interplay between Childermass and Segundus, but I'm also half in love with Miss Absolom thanks to you!

Your writing is so delightful! It is so much fun and so hot! I normally find het a little difficult to read but I AM ALL OVER THIS. I... Segundus confessing to touching himself, and then double cunnilingus and... So good. So adorable. Oh Mr. Segundus!

Segundus confessing to touching himself

I think we can all agree that was a particularly fine moment.

This is making me wish I could draw, because it's given me such a charmingly lascivious mental image of Maria Absolom.

The next morning, he awoke feeling drowsy and satisfied. He lay in bed for a long time, contemplating the dream. It had not really felt like a dream, and Miss Absalom had remembered him. She had called him her lover. She was not a figment, in the manner of dreams. He had not ever really thought she was, only— it seemed very presumptuous, at the same time, to imagine that she was anything but. Jonathan Strange might have gone about summoning enchantresses up at a whim, but John Segundus was far more meek. He could not think how he might merit Maria Absalom's time, however great his zeal might be... though a small, painful part of him wanted very much to have this power, to win her attention through being extraordinary. She was so very beautiful, and rather rambunctious, unabashed in her pleasure, and every time she looked at him he felt as though the sun itself had turned and singled him out directly.

Oh, he thought: what a quandary. She was real and yet unreal. He wanted her to be real, and did not believe she could be, yet he only disbelieved she could be because he thought her real! It was quite impossible! But still, he found himself so generally pleased that he was all smiles as he dressed in his bedroom. He even whistled a small phrase of music, which was not very like him. The alteration wrought by his dreams was astonishing.

Upon descending the stairs, he found that the house was oddly silent. This, of course, was because Childermass had left. Childermass had left because Segundus had asked him to leave. His absence could surely be counted a success. Yet there was no denying that without him Starecross felt very empty. Presumably this would change when the school opened in the autumn; then the house would be very busy indeed. But for now he was the sole creature rattling about it. He thought somewhat dolefully that he would be quite pleased for his housekeeper to arrive the next day, or for someone from the village to seek magical assistance, for at least this would afford him some companionship.

To distract himself, he took his morning cup of tea into the garden, and sat cross-legged beside the rosebushes. It was a very fine Yorkshire day. A little damp, but not rainy: with only a refreshing hint of rain in the air. The smell of the garden was a riot of herbs, a tangled and almost medicinal scent. Segundus spied a snail making its way over a stone. "You will refrain from eating my plants, sir," he instructed it with a frown.

Then he turned his attention to the rosebushes. "Hello," he said. "I fear we have got off on the wrong foot. You must think me very demanding. It is only that I wish to enjoy your splendid flowers! I am also starting a school, and I believe it would benefit the students greatly to be surrounded by beauty. You could be part of that. In a way, you could be said to teach them. It is a very noble undertaking, I think. I should be honoured if you would join me in it."

He waited, but there was no sign of response from the rosebushes. He sighed, and thought that he at least had made the effort, and went back into the house to finish his tea.

To his surprise, when he returned the next day, he found that every rosebush was now in half-blossom: dense with buds that had begun to unfold. He counted several colours amongst them: a deep dark red, a pale and lightweight creamy pink, an ivory shade, and a yellow-peach pink. Each was wonderfully charming in its own right, and Segundus made sure to compliment the bushes individually. Miss Absalom had been correct, or at least her advice had been sound— he wondered if he ought to consider this a mark in favour of her existence as more than a simple figment of dreams. He could not quite reach a conclusion.

Though he was pleased about the roses, by the time the week drew to a close he had begun to feel rather bored. No one from Starecross village had arranged to encounter a magical problem— which was not to say that Segundus wished the villagers to be beset by magical problems, and indeed he had sometimes lamented how often they seemed to be so troubled, especially on those occasions when it interrupted his research— but it was the only context in which he seemed able to befriend them!

"I suppose I am not a socially graceful man," he said to Miss Absalom one afternoon, resting whilst in the midst of digging the hole in the garden. "I do not share a great many interests with other people, assuming they are not interested in magic. They wish to talk of farming, or the weather, or— if they are gentlemen— of politics, and business, and such."

Miss Absalom was lounging upon a calico picnic cloth, sipping pink wine from a champagne coupe. Beside her was a silver tea-tray bearing an array of iced cakes. She did not seem at all concerned that the ants would get into them. "I have always suffered from much the same trouble," she said. "Well! And it is very much worse if one is a woman. It is all frocks and servants and men. I am quite happy to talk of frocks and servants and men, but to talk of nothing else! It becomes very wearying, especially when one would rather talk of magic."

"Mm," Segundus said, to indicate his agreement. "I suppose I assumed, when magic returned to England, that it would alter matters. But society proceeds much as it did. Even many magicians prefer to talk of business. I cannot comprehend it!"

"Can you not?" Miss Absalom asked, amused. "Magicians are only men and women, after all. Chiefly men."

Segundus sighed. "It is enough to make me wish I had not sent Mr Childermass away. Extraordinarily irritating he may be, but at least he is not dull. I am most eager to see his reaction when he hears I have conquered the roses, and without a jot of his aid!" This reminded him that he had not, in fact, informed Miss Absalom that he had conquered the roses. He did so now, describing their various pleasing colours. "You were quite right," he said; "they only needed their confidence built up."

"Of course I was right," Miss Absalom said. "Half of being a magician is the diplomacy of wild things. And I was a very great magician in my day."

"You still are, I suspect," Segundus said. He frowned. "That is to say, if we are in any particular day. Are we? I can never decide if I am dreaming when I am with you."

"You are dreaming," Miss Absalom said. "But that does not mean it is not real." She sipped her wine and smiled enigmatically.

"So you are real," Segundus said uncertainly. "You are not simply a fantasy of mine."

At that, Miss Absalom gave a full-throated laugh. "How flattering!" she said. "No; I am not your fantasy, though it is sweet of you to make such an accusation. Do I really please you so much?"

"Oh, yes," Segundus said. He abandoned his digging and clambered over to where she sat. "I think you are the most pleasing person I have ever encountered!"

Miss Absalom looked very satisfied by this answer. She beckoned him closer and lifted the glass of wine to his lips. "Drink," she said. "This is a very fine vintage from the year that John Uskglass quarreled with winter, and the grapes ripened for four full summers."

Segundus tasted the wine. It was like green apples and clean linen, gold wheat and crushed berries and days of sunshine. He gazed at Miss Absalom over the brim of the glass. She was watching him with a lazy expression of want. She tipped the glass forwards and he drank again. A droplet of wine spilled past his lips. She set the glass aside and leaned forwards to capture it: tracing its path with the tip of her tongue.

Segundus found himself very short of breath. When she pulled away he chased her mouth with his own, and they met in a slow, hot kiss. Segundus was surprised to find after a few long, delicious moments that what he chiefly wanted was to continue that kiss. It was so nice to be sitting with her there in the sunlight, tasting the faint trace of wine on her lips, with one of her hands combing through his hair. He said rather shyly, "May I kiss you for a while?"

"I would like that very much," Miss Absalom said.

She drew him down beside her on the calico picnic cloth, and they kissed for a very long time like that: Segundus smoothing his hand along the white slope of her shoulder— at one point touching all the little marks of freckles that he found, for he was very fond of all her freckles— and stroked her copper-coloured hair, which gleamed in the sun.

"It seems most unfair," he said, "that you should be so lovely and so kind and so gifted. You are like a cup that is constantly running over."

Miss Absalom screwed up her nose at this idea. "That sounds rather messy," she said with a laugh. "Though perhaps I should say— if I am a cup, then you should drink from me!"

And in the end, after a great more heated kissing, drink from her he did: pushing her skirts above her waist to sink his head between her legs, practicing meticulously the art of bringing her to her climax. Scarcely had he finished than she was climbing forwards, pushing him flat onto his back, and taking him into her small warm hand.

"I want to taste you," she murmured. "Would you like that? For me to take my time, tasting you all over, taking your pleasure from you inch by inch?"

Segundus gasped out something that approximated a yes. She undressed him slowly, pausing as she removed articles of clothing to kiss the most startling places: his nipples, which was astonishingly pleasurable and made him arch up towards her, and his elbows and wrists, and the soft skin over his ribs, and his hipbones, and— after removing his stockings with a great deal of amusement— the bones of his ankles, which was oddly erotic. She was very thorough. He had never been kissed so thoroughly before. By the time she settled herself between his legs, he was very erect. She did not do as he had expected, though, or as he had understood the act to be practiced, but rather began by licking every part of him thoroughly. She applied the broad flat of her tongue to his prick, which made him gasp and pant, and then to the soft skin of his scrotum, which made him writhe, and then dipping lower licked daringly at another place entirely. This caused him to rake his hand through the grass, for he had never imagined that such a thing might be so exciting. But the longer she lingered there, the more exciting it became, and by the time she penetrated him with a firm, deliberate finger while mouthing wetly at his scrotum again, he was quite ready to climax on the spot.

But Miss Absalom did not permit him this. She paused in her efforts and looked up at his moan, smiling crookedly at him. "You are so hasty," she said. "Rushing towards the final pages. You must learn to enjoy where you are in the book."

This was such a delightfully scholarly metaphor that it made Segundus moan again. But she forced him to enjoy the point where he was a great deal more, moving her finger inside him slowly, making him feel as though his whole body were throwing sparks like a lightning storm, and licking his prick in little, gentle tongue-strokes that quickly became almost tortuous.

"Oh," she said, "you are very beautiful like this, wild with your desire for release. Look at you." Indeed, she was gazing at him with fascination, touching herself with one hand. "I should make you satisfy me again before I let you have it. Would you like that?"

Segundus had to bite his lip from uttering an obscenity. He nodded his head frantically.

So with one last hard thrust of her finger and a long, wet kiss to the head of his prick, she crawled up his body and settled herself at his shoulders. She had shed her frock by this time, and was fully naked— gloriously, exquisitely, mouth-wateringly naked. There was something very imperious about the way that she spread her legs and lowered herself onto his mouth so that he could press his tongue against her. He did so fervently, parting the lips of her with his fingers working his tongue fervently where it excited her the most. At the same time she ground herself down against him, panting with the intensity of her pleasure, almost as though she were fucking his mouth. He kept making little helpless noises against her, noises that expressed how overwhelmed he was by arousal. He thought he might finish just from this, he was so desperate for it— and the sounds she made, and the wet heat of her quivering at his tongue-tip— but he did not, and when she had stiffened and said in a drugged voice, "Oh, yes— just a little more, a little more—" and climaxed shortly thereafter, she moved to take him once more with her mouth. This time she did not hold back, but applied herself with fervour, and almost immediately— feeling dazed and intoxicated— he spent.

Afterwards, they lay side by side upon the picnic cloth, naked and comfortable.

Segundus said, "You seem a scholar of the art of love as much as that of magic."

"They are surprisingly similar," Miss Absalom said. "As I told you: a form of diplomacy. You are gifted in both, I think. One must either want happiness for other creatures or to subdue them. Sometimes both. The former is your quality. Perhaps next time I see you, we will work on spellwork. If I can keep my hands off you."

Segundus quite liked the idea that she could not keep her hands off him. He had never before had this effect. He wriggled closer to her and laid his head upon her shoulder. He felt a great surge of contentment. He entirely forgot that he had been lonely, or that he was in fact asleep in Starecross in his bed, and instead breathed in the fragrance of her warm body, enjoying the sense of being wanted.

This fic is just adorable and lovely in every way.

Your Segundus is just the most delightful character - modest, eccentric, sweet, thoughtful, a little bit cranky and hot as hell. I think I'm in love.

Aaaaaah I love it. I LOVE Maria Absalom and her tumbledown yet very cosy house. I love Segundus' joy in lovemaking. I love his loneliness in the waking world despite making himself very useful. And I love Childermass being a pest and Segundus not appreciating how much they have in common till he's gone.

Basically LOVE.

Over the next few days, Segundus thought a great deal about what Miss Absalom had said to him— about magic as a form of diplomacy. He was familiar with the many ways in which magicians made petitions to various persons, and naturally he knew of the Raven King's many contracts with the earth and sky of England, but he had never before thought of English magic in quite this way. He supposed he had not thought of himself as having the authority to negotiate with England, or with any of its component parts— even so much as a rosebush or bramble. He was, after all, no Raven King. He did not have anything to offer England, apart from an occasional poorly-composed sonnet or jar of blackberry jam. Even Archibald Unsig the raven seemed at times unconvinced of Segundus's mastery. He eyed Segundus as though considering that perhaps he ought to be the owner, and Segundus ought to be the pet in the cage.

Yet Miss Absalom obviously felt he held a negotiating position. Miss Absalom had been very encouraging to him, and he was inclined to think she did not dissemble. So Segundus began to consider how he might go about negotiation. It was quite plain to him that Childermass's method of intimidation and sternness would not suit him well. The snail, for instances, which he had very strictly admonished not to consume his garden, had now made its home amongst the rhubarb plants.

Segundus sighed heavily when he saw this. He crouched down close to the snail. "Sir," he said, "this is most inconvenient. I shall have to remove you from the garden if you cannot restrict yourself to the weeds. I am very fond of rhubarb. I plan to make a cake with it."

He became aware that he had the snail's attention, and that in some sense he had the rhubarb's attention as well.

"Perhaps you could feast upon the hair-grass," he suggested to the snail. "I have no particular use for it, and it keeps sending up patches where I would not have them grow. Would that do?"

The snail considered that it would, so long as Segundus would not exercise his raven in the garden. The presence of the raven was why there were not more snails.

"That seems reasonable," Segundus said. "Yes; I think it will do very well. And if I see any more weeds, I shall inform you of their location."

The rhubarb was very pleased with Segundus's bargain. It did not mind being eaten; it viewed itself something in the nature of a collective being made up of a unity of many generations of rhubarb. It wished for Segundus to ensure the life of its future generations through careful and sympathetic replanting, which snails did not regard, being limited creatures. Therefore the rhubarb viewed Segundus as its benefactor, and would henceforth put special effort into its ripening.

Segundus left the garden feeling that this had been a very successful encounter, and also that possibly the rhubarb regarded it as its king, or at the very least a feudal lord and overseer, which did not really suit his principles— he being far more inclined to a constitutional system— but which he supposed he could manage. He did not know if what he had done was precisely magic, but he found that he was satisfied by it.

That evening, as he was enjoying a light supper that his housekeeper had left for him (a portion of jugged hare and some very nice bread, which, however, left him thinking rather longingly of Miss Absalom's iced cakes), he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

It was the same boy from the village who had come to inform Segundus about the drunken magician. This time, he had come to inform Segundus about an angered water spirit. Segnds asked him, "What is your name?"

"Jeremy, sir," said the boy. "Jeremy Hopper. They always send me on account of I am not afraid of you."

"Afraid of me?" Segundus asked in astonishment, in the act of putting on his coat. "Surely you mean afraid of the other magician. My colleague, Mr Childermass."

"Oh, no, sir," said Jeremy Hopper. "We have known Mr Childermass this year and more! He would not hurt a soul! He is all powder and no shot, as my father would say."

As they hurried off, Segundus reflected on this astounding description of Childermass. He had cause to be aware that Childermass was certainly not all powder and no shot; Childermass was enough of a shot to have once occasioned someone to shoot him, and to have caused dear meek Mr Honeyfoot to have strongly considered it. It was true that Childermass was also a great deal of powder, (a significant amount of this powder tended to be visible under his fingernails), but shot there certainly was. Segundus, on the other hand, was neither shot nor powder. So why on earth would someone be afraid of him?

"Because you are silent and remote and fix your mind upon the cosmic matters," said Jeremy Hopper. "You are always thinking about them. The cosmic matters. So you might at any moment quarrel with the dark or cause a lightning storm in the village."

"I might certainly not!" Segundus said, taken aback. "That would be most unlike me!"

Jeremy Hopper looked a little disappointed by this answer. "You might cause the river to be filled with horrible sea monsters," he suggested.

"I do not know of any horrible sea monsters," Segundus said, "and if I did, I certainly should not wish them to fill the river! Why should I? The logic of these theories seems very thin!"

There was a long pause as they crossed the market square of the village. "You might be enraged," Jeremy Hopper said. He sounded rather sulky. "You might work yourself into a magical tempest."

"I am sorry to disappoint you," Segundus said. "Truly. But such an event is very unlikely to occur. I am the most even-tempered of fellows! If anyone, it is Mr Childermass who might work himself into a magical tempest; he—"

He stopped because they had arrived at the little mill pond where Jeremy Hopper claimed the angered water spirit to be. The sun was setting behind a far ridge, casting mauve light and blue shadows across the placid scene. There was no sign of the water spirit as such; however, as soon as they had left the road the sound of birdsong had ceased, which made the tableau an eerie one. Indeed, there was no sound at all: not the wind rustling in the bushes, not the hum of dragonflies, not crickets calling to one another in the bushes. There was only the water lapping in the mill pond. Segundus felt very uneasy about this indeed.

"What is it that the water spirit did?" he asked Jeremy Hopper. He supposed he ought to have asked this to begin with. He had assumed the water spirit was more-or-less simply splashing about in an angry fashion.

Jeremy Hopper's eyes lit up. "It stole three cows!" he said. "Just sucked them up in a sort of waterspout! Do you suppose it crunched their bones for bread?"

"You are a very gruesome young man," Segundus told Jeremy Hopper severely. "I shall try to speak to it and see what it wants."

He approached the mill pond. "Excuse me, sir!" he called out towards it. "My name is John Segundus. I am the local magician. I have come to discover why you have stolen these good people's cows! Perhaps you did not realize that such an act is most improper?"

The water lapped sullenly against the shoreline. Segundus had a sense that he was being attended to, however reluctantly. But there was no response.

He tried again. "I often find," he said, "that I am more amenable to conversation when I have a nice cup of tea. Would you like a cup of tea? Perhaps some cake? I have a very nice cloudberry cake back at my home."

There was a pause. Water seeped up under Segundus's shoes. He had a strong sense of a sulky voice telling him that if he were a magician, he would know that was improper to negotiate after sundown, certainly far more improper than it had been for the voice to steal the cows, which anyway he had not stolen, but removed at their own— that is, the cows'— request, for their lives were very dull, and they grew tired of being milked every day, and they wished to visit the Other Lands.

Segundus lifted his feet up gingerly, attempting to preserved them from the water. "I am sorry to have made such an inappropriate suggestion, in that case. Perhaps I might return tomorrow, in the morning, and at that hour bring you some tea and cake, and then we might chat?"

The water spirit grudgingly admitted that this was possible. It withdrew into its little pond, leaving Segundus's shoes sodden and smelling of moss.

So the next morning, Segundus bumbled his way back down to the millpond, with a wide hat on and a large hamper carried on his arm. It was raining, a light warm summer mist, and the ground beneath his shoes was soggy and wet. It was not his idea of preferable picnic weather. But he supposed that a water spirit might have different standards. Perhaps the damp day and drizzle would have made it better-tempered. But if a river spirit thought a damp day was the finest weather, would it still enjoy a cup of tea? Segundus pondered this rather profound question.

Jeremy Hopper, though his presence was not required, had chosen to observe the proceedings from the branch of a nearby apple tree, where he sat swinging his legs and eating small green apples that Segundus suspected did not belong to him.

Segundus spread a chequered cloth upon the damp ground and produced a china teapot. He had cast a spell upon it to keep it hot, and another so the china would not be chipped. He had also brought china cups and saucers, and little china plates for the cake, and silver forks. He felt a bit silly laying out the tea things at the edge of the pond, with rain speckling his coat-sleeves but he was determined not to allow this to affect his behaviour.

"Now, then," he said to the water spirit. "Do you take any sugar?"

The water spirit took two lumps of sugar. It did seem somewhat appeased by the damp weather, or perhaps by Segundus's cloudberry cake. As Segundus sipped his tea, it complained at length about its life. It was dreadfully bored. No one ever spoke to it except the cows and the geese, and occasionally a few tadpoles that turned into frogs. The earth spoke, but it did not speak the same language, and the sky— well, whoever got any sense out of skies? In the old days, there had been magicians everywhere, traveling here and there on John Uskglass's business, or getting themselves into trouble, or needing favours. But now they all stayed in York or Leeds or London! No one ever needed favours anymore. The water spirit had been very happy to send the cows to the Other Lands, because they had asked him so politely, and it had been nice to be needed again.

"I see," Segundus said, listening sympathetically and folding his arms around his knees. "Well, I cannot say that you have done wrongly. I find it very difficult myself, being the only magician in the locality. It can be a dull business, and no mistaking. But, you know, the cows were not really free to do as they wished. The farmer has put a great deal of work into their upkeep! He has fed them and cared for them! You can see why he is a little put out."

The river spirit admitted that perhaps it could see. But, it said petulantly, it was the farmer's own fault for failing to entertain the cows!

"The farmer did not know," Segundus explained. "He is not like you or I. I shall explain to him, and then perhaps he may tell the cows stories, or sing the cows songs, or send them on holidays." He did not really look forward to this conversation, as he could imagine the look on a Yorkshire farmer's face when a magician explained to him that his cows required holidays, but he was willing to undertake it.

—Oh, very well, the river spirit surrendered with a certain amount of bad humour. It felt, however, that if it did this, Segundus would owe it a favour.

Segundus hmmed thoughtfully. "I do not suppose," he said, "that you might be interested in a relocation?"

A short while later there was a great disturbance in the water, very like a water spout, and a noise of unhappy mooing emanated from the mill pond. Three large dappled cows hurtled through the air and landed gently upon the pond's bank, where they lashed their tails and gazed balefully at Segundus.

Jeremy Hopper said, "You've got Old Jack's cows back! They wasn't all horribly gnashed up!"

Segundus sighed and experienced a strong urge to bury his face in his hands. He turned towards the mill pond. "All right," he said. "Come along, then."

A little wave of water splashed itself meekly into the teapot. Segundus put the lid on the pot and loaded it back into the hamper, accompanied by the chinaware, the forks, and the chequered cloth.

"Whata day it has been!" he announced to no one in particular. Then, clapping his hat onto his head, he was off— leaving Jeremy Hopper to inspect the cows dubiously, prodding them with a suspicious finger, as though he would not at all have been surprised to discover they were sea monsters after all.

Every bit of this story is UTTERLY DELIGHTFUL. I gush.

Re: FILL: John Segundus/Maria Absalom, Dream Seduction (6/?)

(Anonymous) - 2015-09-13 08:45 (UTC) - Expand

Re: FILL: John Segundus/Maria Absalom, Dream Seduction (6/?)

(Anonymous) - 2015-09-13 09:01 (UTC) - Expand

I am struck by a feeling that - whether they are read stories or taken on holidays or not - Mr. Segundus has just made enemies of the cows. I can't stop laughing.

Re: FILL: John Segundus/Maria Absalom, Dream Seduction (6/?)

(Anonymous) - 2015-09-13 05:02 (UTC) - Expand

Re: FILL: John Segundus/Maria Absalom, Dream Seduction (6/?)

(Anonymous) - 2015-09-13 18:53 (UTC) - Expand

This is so lovely, and completely hilarious. I feel that I am writing the same comment every time, but it's true. This is the fictional equivalent of an erotic comfort blanket.

The water spirit settled very happily into a small pond on the left side of the garden. Segundus laboured for most of that day till the pond was dug and he had laid a flat bed of stones for its base. Then he poured out the water from the teapot, and felt a very peculiar rush as the water spirit went with it. In a short time he had filled the rest of the pond as well, and it was bubbling contentedly as the snail investigated it.

That evening, as Segundus enjoyed a small glass of sherry and read a new magical journal that had just arrived from London— the journal endorsed making use of the principles of natural science to investigate and classify English magic; Segundus rather wondered what its editors would make of the water spirit, or indeed of cows wishing to go on holiday— he was startled to hear the unmistakable sound of a horse approaching in the lane.

Frowning and wondering if the village had experienced further magical trouble, Segundus left his comfortable dining room and went to the gate. He was astonished to see that the horse he had heard was Brewer, and that Childermass was astride him.

"Mr Segundus," said Chidermass forbiddingly.

"What are you doing here?" Segundus asked rather rudely.

"I heard there was trouble hereabouts," Childermass said. "I thought it best that I keep my eye on it."

"Well, there is no need for that," Segundus said. "I have resolved it already."

This seemed to give Childermass pause. "Did you now," he said at length.

"It may surprise you to learn that I have some small skill at magic, and also that I have other skills, many of them unknown to you, sir— many of them skills which you yourself are lacking!"

This gave Childermass even further pause. He peered at Segundus closely, looking very suspicious. "There is something different about you," he said. "What have you been up to?"

Segundus said, "I have been resolving magical problems, with a good deal of success. I have convinced the rosebushes to bloom, and instituted a number of reforms to my garden, and I have fed your slice of the cloudberry cake to a water spirit. He lives in the little pond to your right. He is a more congenial conversationalist than you have ever been."

"No; that is not it." Childermass frowned at Segundus some more. "Are you not going to invite me in?"

Segundus crossed his arms over his chest. "Why should I?"

"Because I have ridden a very long way."

For a moment, Segundus tried to summon up the strength to refuse him. He thought indignantly: no one asked him to ride a very long way! He did not bother to send word! It is his own fault if he sleeps in a field! But he was not the sort of man who could be so firm-hearted. He sighed heavily. "All right," he said. "You may come in. But I am not offering you any sherry!"

Childermass's mouth quirked in amusement, but he said nothing.

Once Brewer was in the stable, and Childermass had settled by the fire with a glass of sherry in his hand— "I have ridden a very long way," he had repeated, gazing with a certain profundity of sorrow at the sherry bottle, and Segundus had said, bad-tempered, "Oh, very well! But there will be absolutely no cake!"— Segundus discovered that in addition to his unpleasant demeanour and his dreadful habits, Childermass had brought a large number of magical magazines with him, including several from Edinburgh which Segundus had not known existed. The two of them therefore passed a very pleasant night reading quietly and drinking, occasionally offering observations on topics of mutual interest. With Childermass, there was no need to offer pleasantries, since he himself did not observe the art, and Segundus found this quite comfortable. From time to time, he caught Childermass staring at him a little fixedly, as though trying to perceive some unexpected dimension of him, but Childermass said nothing further on the topic of Segundus's apparent alteration.

Only, just before they both retired to bed, Childermass said, "I believe you are happy." His tone was one of accusation and displeasure.

Segundus considered this statement. "I cannot say for certain," he said at last. "I suppose I am."

In his dream that night, he was already naked, stretched out upon a rather sumptuous bed, which had wine-coloured sheets and more pillows than he thought were strictly necessary. He was thinking of Miss Absalom— how filthily she kissed him, how her long ginger hair tumbled down her back as she rode his prick, taking it inside her, letting him pierce her where she was hot and wet and tight— the loud cries she made whenever he pleased her, and how very demanding she could become, pressing herself down against him, greedy with desire... Before he knew it, he had taken himself in hand, and his breath was coming fast as he pleasured himself.

Then Miss Absalom, also naked, was crawling into the bed, giggling at his guilty look. "Oh, do not stop. Do not stop," she said, and gently placed his hand back on his prick. She did not remove her own hand, but guided him to continue touching himself in slow strokes. "Were you thinking about me?"

"Yes," he said fervently. "About— about being inside you. Pleasing you, while I—"

"Mm," she said, her eyes heavy-lidded. "While you fucked me. Is that what you were going to say?"

Segundus could feel himself flush, but he also felt his prick jump. He knew that Miss Absalom felt it as well, for she laughed low and delightedly. "Is that what you would like?" she asked him. She still had not moved her hand.

"Yes," he said, hoarse, gazing up at her.

"Then come and take me," she said, releasing him and lying back in a seductive pose. Against the dark red sheets of the bed, her skin looked especially soft and creamy, her body like something from a Botticelli painting, though it had also a quality of the English rose to it.

Segundus stared at her, breathing hard, his mouth dropping open. Then he was crawling towards her, frantic with desire, and draping himself against her, and pushing into her with his prick. It was so good— so good, to be tangled in that double embrace, the hot wet grip of her body around his prick, and the close sweet tangle of her limbs around his body as he pressed her back against the bed. She did not lie still, but instead was in constant motion: her hips rocking forwards to him so that on each stroke he was pushed as deep into her body as it was possible for him to go; her hands moving ceaselessly against his chest, his shoulders, his back, stroking in almost an inquisitive manner, as though investigating all the parts of him; even her toes trailed up and down his legs, the feeling of which had an odd power to arouse him. He, for his part, could not stop himself trying to kiss her, even as the coordination required to do so became so difficult that he was reduced to mouthing shakily at her jawline and neck.

He could have finished quickly, but he did not wish to. He wished to savour every slide of his prick inside her, the way her eyelashes fluttered when he pushed very deep, the short cries she uttered, the disarray of her hair like a cloud of copper silk floss around her head. He had to stop and move slowly, closing his eyes, pushing in very carefully, one stroke at a time. But this made her impatient, and she pulled him flush up against her, then pushed him forcefully over so that she was now astride him.

This robbed him of his breath. For she then kissed him passionately and immediately began to ride him, rolling her hips while keeping him pressed inside her, working him according to her own pleasure. She grew increasingly vocal, moreso when she reached her hand down to pleasure herself. "Oh," she moaned, sliding sharply up and down him, "yes, you feel perfect, so deep inside me..."

Segundus reached his hands up to touch her breasts, half to pleasure her, and half because he could not resist them. He loved the feel of her nipples hard between his fingers, the small swell of each breast under his hand. But his touch did pleasure her, and in a very short time she came to her climax upon him. He barely managed to hold off his own climax so long, and finished in fact perhaps a beat before she did, so that they shuddered through the aftermath more-or-less together, breathing hard and touching one another gently, given over to that small kind of flinch that arises after orgasm like the small shocks before sleep, perhaps marking one's transition between waking and dream.

Segundus stretched his arms out langorously, but was in no hurry to move her. He gazed up at her rather foolishly, feeling enormously happy and very comfortable. "That was lovely," he said. "I loved that. I—"

She kissed him very sweetly, lowering herself to lie curled beside him with her head upon his shoulder. "Yes," she agreed airily. "It was very lovely. I thought we were going to talk about spellwork. But then you showed up naked in my bed, and all thought of spells flew right out of my mind."

Segundus said dryly, "I do not believe you." He had a great deal of experience with what it means to be a magician.

"Well, most thoughts of spells flew right out of my mind. Quite a few. Perhaps half my thoughts of spells. A few remain. Shall I teach you a spell now?"

"Oh, I would like that!'

"All right. Hmm. Let me see." She drummed her fingers thoughtfully upon his thigh, which sent a pleasant shiver through him. "A spell to banish dust from your house? A spell to make a star tell you all that it is seeing? A spell to cause someone to speak in sonnets?"

Segundus was quite taken by the idea of causing Childermass to speak in sonnets, and for a moment he strongly considered it. However, he had a feeling that Childermass would not care to be enchanted, so with some regret he said, "Perhaps the first. It seems very practical."

"It is! But very complicated, because it involves every object in the house— every object past, present, and future. You must account for all of them." Miss Absalom launched into a long, complicated, and interesting theoretical explanation. It had to do with webs of obligation, which she called liege-cloths, for she was in the habit of picturing magic as weaving. Segundus thought a little drowsily that Childermass would be interested in this, and that he might see a way to use it upon the roof, which was prone to leaking in various places when rainstorms came.

He had just asked Miss Absalom what he thought was a fascinating question about obligations between the past the present when he had the strange sense that a bird was whistling directly into his ear, though there did not seem to be such a bird in the dream. He frowned and shook his head, but the birdsong was not silenced.

"Oh, bother," he said vaguely. "It is going to wake me up!"

Miss Absalom made a noise of complaint and nuzzled against him, stretching a leg across his body. "How inconvenient! I was almost going to propose that we go again!"

Segundus groaned aloud, for now he very much wanted this to happen. Her small hand was wandering towards his prick, which had begun to rise at the thought of having her once more. "Tonight," he said desperately. "Come back tonight, will you, please?"

He did not receive her answer, for he woke then. A chorus of birds was singing in extremely shrill tones outside his window. He did not recall ever having heard such a racket before. He dressed in a very bad temper as the birds went on singing, and thudded down to the kitchen in search of some tea.

Childermass was there, eating ginger biscuits. He had piled the kitchen table with library books. He turned a very suspicious gaze on Segundus, eyes following him about the kitchen. "Why is there so much magic in this house at night?" he asked.

Segundus turned an innocent look on him. "I've no idea what you mean."

"I have noticed it before. At night, the house fills up with magic."

"Why are you creeping about my house at night, making such measurements?"

"I am not," Childermass said, "creeping about your house at night. I—"

"It is a disturbing habit, this creeping about; do you also stand outside my bedroom door?"

"I do not creep about your house! Nothing about your bedroom is the slightest bit interesting to me." Childermass affected to return his attention to his book, ignoring Segundus, though he appeared a little flustered.

Segundus set himself to brewing tea. "It is a very magical house," he said at length. "It was Miss Absalom's, after all. I dare say you are only sensing the house itself."

"Perhaps," Childermass allowed. But he did not seem convinced. Over the course of the morning, he directed a number of sceptical looks at Segundus, which grew more and more confounded throughout the day.