Subject: The Misspelled Girl
From: johnb@ssec.wisc.edu (John Benson)
Date: 14 Apr 1998 05:39:59 -0700
Do you know how to take a spell from a body? No, it's no curse of ill intent, this one. Something done of my own free will out of love and false hope and gullibility. Now that it's on me, though, it's as vexing as any curse.
It started with my Tommy. The soldier. I love him to pieces and Daddy will have none of it so we must sneak around behind his back. Well Tommy was cross with me that day and I anxious not to lose him. So I remembered words he'd said before, about a spell now mostly out of fashion, but which he thinks is a splendid good idea.
The spell was used on disobedient young wives, and caused a good sound strapping of the girl's bare arse to bring forth that need in her which her husband by law could surely fill, if you know what I mean. After a time, she would begin to crave the strapping too, perhap because of what followed it. But in any event it did wonders to quell her taste for disobedience, and Tommy thought it just grand. He likes his women docile and ready when he is.
So even though we're not married yet, I thought what a great gift it would be if I gave him my own self with that very spell upon me. How happy he would be. How much more he would then love me. How much more of his attention would be lavished upon me as I was first punished and then rewarded according to his will.
The thought alone rose a bit of that very need in me, even without magic, and I knew that I must do this thing or be never content. So I sought out Mort the Wizard. Oh he's an ugly bugger and tricksey to boot, but who else could I go to after all? It was Mort or none, so in the state I'd worked myself into, that meant it would be Mort.
He listened all quiet and not interrupting and told me that he remembered the spell fondly from when he was young and would do it again just for old time's sake and I need not pay even a penny. So he took away my clothes and bade me kneel across a bench there in his dim little shop and there were words and sounds and smells, and I could feel the changes right in my own heart.
I doubt he added or took away anything, in truth. But of what there is inside of me, some was made more important to the inner sense of my nature, and some was rendered less. And then as his spell casting came to an end, he beat me with a strap!
What was this, I asked, and he explained that he must needs test the spell to see that it was working. Oh but it was, and it caused me to beg that old toad to enter in where only Tommy had gone before, so that he was indeed paid back for his efforts. What shame, for surely I should have seen it coming. Anyone as gullible as I had been just begged to be taken advantage of.
When it was over and I was again dressed, I calmed and looked forward to better things, for it would be sweet Tommy who'd use me next and always, and if ever I craved an especially stiff whacking, I could always confess about what I had given Mort and get it sure.
So I walked back toward home with most of the heaviness gone from my heart for joy and anticipation, but when I checked at the farm next door, Tommy was not there! Called back to his regiment, his Ma said. Probably be back in a couple of years. Years?
Oh but it gets worse. Da is set to put me out to labor at the bakery since there's younger mouths to feed and I do not marry his choices. And you know what old Mr. Baker does when he's the least bit unhappy with a girl's work, don't you? That's right. He straps bare bottoms. And me with a spell that raises up a full sluttish need at that very thing. I had to find Mort and get it all undone.
He's gone. Upset the village gentry and snuck out of town. His little shop holds a candlemaker now, and I'm in a pickle unless you know how to take away a spell.
Hey. What are you doing? Let go of me. No. Don't raise my skirts. Stop it. No. Please get away from me with that strap. Please! Please? No. Oww. Oh! Ooooh!