by John Benson
Ysabet seldom fretted. Just figured out what needed doing and did it. Not much self-reflection in Ysabet. But she sure was fretting now, which is why she found herself in this fusty room in this fusty old house speaking to Old Cadwallon who, beneath his fustiness, was also fairly wise.
"I knew it would happen someday," complained Ysabet. She didn't like her voice right now. It sounded whiny. She didn't like whiny. Why was this so hard? "Sooner or later every magegirl puts on the short-short skirt so guys know she's safe to mate with, as long as you spank her first. But I always figured that was for later, when I'm ready for making babies. This isn't the time for babies. I'm way too young. I should be out having fun. Having adventures."
"But sex is fun," Cadwallon said. "And learning to be friends with a boy can be a great adventure. There's more to it than babies."
Sex is fun? Well, maybe. But it's also very naughty, which is why she was so conflicted. "I don't second-guess myself much," said Ysabet. "Just make up my mind and do stuff. But now I'm absolutely sure I'm going to do this thing, and I'm also sure it's naughty. And I'm not even sure why I'm going to do it. I mean, which is the really important part? Do I have to let some guy spank me hard because that's what it takes so I can feel what it's like to mate, or do I have to let a guy mate with me because that's what I have to do to make sure I get spanked hard? What's wrong with me, Cadwallon? Why can't I figure this out?"
"You were so single minded in your studies," the old man said. He moved aside some clutter so he could find a place to sit. "So intent on practicing your magic that you pushed other things aside. Things about growing up. Things about your past." He sank heavily to his seat. Sighed. "Now your heart is full of unfinished business. Luckily a nice affair is exactly what you need to start getting things sorted out. You're going to make some lucky boy so happy."
Boy? Ick. "Not a boy, nuh uh, no way. They just do it so they can brag about it to their friends. No way I'd do it with a boy. And not a girl either, you dirty minded old coot. I know how your mind works. No. It's got to be a man. If I'm going to let myself get punished until I promise to obey, it's going to have to be a man."
Cadwallon shrugged. "It's your adventure, dear. Have it any way you'd like. But I feel I have to warn you. A boy would enjoy it mostly because you're cute and it's always fun to turn a cute girl fuckable when you get the chance. A man will also enjoy it because you're such a brat."
"Am not," said Ysabet almost automatically. "Well, not as much, anyway."
"Right, child. A man will remember what you were like when you first came here."
When she'd first left the strict discipline of her family and not yet absorbed the self discipline of the mages. She'd been a holy terror. "I, um, guess I better go find a stranger, huh?"
"Safe journey, dear one," Cadwallon said. "Almost, I wish that I were younger. Almost I wish I could do the job myself."
She tore a tiny slit in a weak spot in the Here and Now and slipped into the slidy way, and behind her in a fusty parlor the small rift slowly healed. And an old mage sighed. And then he smiled.
A complete stranger, she'd told the slidy way, someone who will like me just a little but will make the spankings real. And it had decanted her here in this pleasant meadow all set about by forest so very far from home and there was no man here. Yet. Which meant it was time to wait. And think. Alas, to fret.
So what was it about her past then, what issues? The past was past, wasn't it? What was it like then, back when she was only seven and didn't yet know that she was magic?
Soft breeze caressed her hair as she let herself remember. She had always been a clever child, able to get away with almost anything. But not always, no, sometimes she'd get caught out, and Papa would take a harness strap to her bare backside until her bottom ached. She'd never liked that. Never. So why was the idea of being spanked now almost a sort of sexy fun?
But let's be truly honest. Being whipped may not have been sexyfun, but the risk was, right? The fact that it could happen, the fact that she'd have to be careful or it would happen, that made it more exciting, right? The getting away with things was more rewarding because sometimes she did not. And now it was all different. She was a magegirl and messing up meant someone died, or maybe she got eaten by a Demon, and there's no sexyfun in that at all.
So okay. Her past was full of spanking, not getting it so much as thinking about it, always careful or it might happen. And, and that's where that thing about sex being naughty came from, right? From her childhood. The mages didn't think sex was naughty any more than they thought shitting was naughty. In the wrong time and place it sure as heck was, but not the act itself. But her parents would have whipped her for kissing, or even holding hands.
But why did she want to have sex when she was too young to be wanting babies? Why? Could it be because a magegirl is still a girl, whatever else, and girls grow up? Now there's a thought that stopped her cold. She knew a lot more about being a mage than she did about being a girl. A calm breeze touched her cheek, and shook the grass, and sighed.
Any time now. She could taste it. In just a moment her life was going to change forever, a moment so big that it would divide her life into everything that came before and everything that came thereafter. But wait. She'd almost forgotten the most important part. The act of true surrender. The making her skirt real short so everyone would know she was spankable and therefore fuckable. The letting everybody know that she was vulnerable to, well, maybe not exactly the first guy to come along, but anyone a tiny bit suitable. Come on, Ysabet. If you're going to do it, do it. Make it short. Not just cute short, not 'maybe I will and maybe I won't' short. Really, really short. Naughty girl short. Embarrassingly short. If you're going to do it, do it. Otherwise admit you're just a chicken and go back and tell old Cadwallon you changed your mind.
If I do this, I'm a bad girl who deserves whatever she gets, she told herself, certain she was going to do it but not at all certain it was a good idea. And suddenly most of her long yellow dress was gone, and all of her underwear. What was left barely hid her crotch. What was left didn't quote cover the rounded bottom of her naughty bottom. I'm spankable, she realized. In the grownup meaning of the word. Which means I get to get used for sex and stopping it would be cheating and magegirls never cheat. Nobody made me do this, I did it to myself. But now I have to go through with it or I'll never be worth a damn. My word has no power, no purpose if I can't even keep a promise made only to myself.
She felt a tear, a rip in the Here and Now and leapt to her feet. A Demon? It had been an unsubtle rip, made with more strength than skill. But no. There was no ravening hunger, no insane purpose from some Demon mind. What she sensed was calm and curious.
((?))
A bright little wordless question. (Hello,) she sent back, trying not to seem too eager, too excited, too damn horny.
(Is someone there?) came back, but in a different language, the Scholars' language. You know, the one used for reading and writing things.
(Greetings,) she sent, for the written language is a more formal one. (I am Ysabet, the magegirl. Are you the man for whom I seek?)
(Man?) the bright thing answered. (I am not a man. Men cannot communicate on the Spirit Band. I am the Starscout Vorpal Sword. My partner is a man, Commander Joseph Scott. Will there be trouble if we come down?)
What's a Starscout, she wondered. Come down from where? (So long as ye come in peace, be welcome,) she answered. And a great metal and crystal thing blotted out the sun and sank to rest soft as a feather on the other side of the meadow.
Gentle breezes teased the hem of a very shortshort skirt. Maybe the slidy way has a sense of humor, thought Ysabet. I'd said a stranger after all, and this is about as strange as it's ever going to get.
The metal and crystal monster extruded a long tongue, and down it strode a man clad neck to ankles in a black one- piece body suit. He carried a weapon. How covered up he was reminded her of how almost undressed she was, and she didn't need much reminding.
"Hello," the man said. He spoke the Scholars' tongue with a thick accent, but if she concentrated she could make it out. "Do you speak Old Empire? I'm looking for an old artifact that contacted my Starship. It speaks Old Empire, and calls itself Ysabet the magegirl. Would you know where I could find it?"
Now that was downright odd. "They're all dead 'round these parts sir," said Ysabet. "Have been for the last thousand years. I never met a made thing that could talk until today. Is that big thing the Starscout Vorpal Sword? If so you must be Commander Joseph Scott. And I am Ysabet. Very pleased to meet you." Very pleased, and downright needy. She blushed, feeling very bare.
His feet touched the ground of the meadow and he looked her up and down and smiled. "Very cute," he said. "But I don't believe it. Whoever talked to my ship did it telepathically. There are no telepathic humans, and you are obviously human."
"We're mongrels," said Ysabet. "There's a bit of Ythran in the stew, we think."
"A fertile hybrid," a woman's voice said. One she'd heard before. The crystal and metal thing, but now it was using sound, instead of mind to mind.
"Well, kind of," said Ysabet. "Only the girls who have it tend to live very long, and what boys survive it can't make babies. So there never can be an interbreeding race of mages. We have to do it with human beings, which is why I'm dressed like this." There. Get the conversation back to what was really important. Her vulnerability. Her need.
"Not just because you look so pretty in a very short skirt?"
He thought she was pretty. She had hope. "No, sir. I dress this way to signal that I am ready to be taken. That I am safe to spank. And once I'm spanked, I'll do anything you ask which isn't downright evil. So you can mate with me." Oh wow. She must be blushing scarlet. She could feel her heart beat down deep in her girlness. Wow.
"Cute custom," the man she wanted said. "We tend to do things differently. Well, you seem to know a lot for one so young, so maybe you can help me. I'm here studying something odd. Yours is the only planet which suffers a plague of transdimensionals yet life survives, even thrives."
"A plague of what, sir?"
"Transdimensionals. Maybe you've heard of them. Black formless blobby things, always hungry, destroy everything they get close to, very hard to kill?"
"Oh. Why didn't you say so? Demons. But you're never supposed to kill a Demon. That's a beginner mistake. Really bad idea."
"Oh?"
He looked really interested. But this conversation had to be got back to what mattered. To needy little Ysabet. "Look," she said. "This isn't working for me. You're getting what you want, which is answers, and I'm not getting what I want, which is spanked. Good thing it's a problem that's so easily fixed. Once I'm all spanked I have to cooperate with you, at least until the bruises fade. That's how you make me safe to mate with. But it will make me do other things you want as well, even answer all these questions. Serves me right. I wanted a guy who was a total stranger, and now I've got one who's so strange I have to explain everything."
"Do you actually want to be spanked, girl, or is it just some tribal ritual you're supposed to fulfil or something?"
Want? Could it really be called a want? She needed it to happen, but did she want? Suddenly, yes. Hope had given her lust. She very much did want. "Uh huh. Please do it, please? Make it hurt. Then do it. Take away this useless purity from me. Give me both parts of what bad girls get. Both parts. The punished and the used for sex."
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