Matteo was finding it hard to concentrate on Ctharaen history. He was staring at the face of his teacher, Miss Lightwater, trying to make it look like he was interested in the class instead of her. She was distractingly pretty. She had a bold freckled face. The sunlight glinted off her coppery red hair. He hoped she would think he was studious. She looked right at him. Her eyes were green as any cat’s. She really was stunning. Her breasts looked firm too.
She turned to him, about to test whether he’d been listening. “So Matt, tell me what you’ve learned about the formation of the sewer system.”
“I’d like to be friends with the slime creatures down there,” he blurted out.
There was a ripple of laughter throughout the class.
“Ooh!” squealed Josie, one of the girls.
Miss Lightwater smiled at him. “A very sweet thought. But I was actually asking about why they were built.”
Sweet thought? Matt thought it was an obvious thing to say. The creatures that lived in the sewer were really cute – little slime blobs with smiling, toothless mouths and single eyes on stalks. They were called Yorps.
Miss Lightwater flicked a strand of her coppery hair away from her freckled face. Matt thought about kissing her freckled nose. “Anyway,” she said, “some of the Yorps have turned to dark ways – by channelling underworld energies, they became the monstrous Gargs.”
“A shame.”
Miss Lightwater smiled at him, her eyes shining.
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Studying the Black Forest language was tougher than History. The teacher, Susana Feldman was pretty scary. A silver haired lady with a gimlet eyes who got angry easily. She lost patience with a curly haired boy named Bobby when he mispronounced the first person pronoun and cuffed him. Was she allowed to do that?
They were supposed to be reading stuff on the chalk board, but couldn’t quite read it.
“I can’t quite see? Can I sit nearer the board?”
Susie smiled at him. “Come nearer, Matti. Come right to me.” She made as if to drag his chair right up to the board. She seemed almost disappointed that he didn’t actually want to sit right by her. She really was weird.
Last class was literature – rather a relief. Mrs Moal had long, black hair and clear grey eyes. Her method of instruction wasn’t as scary as Susie’s. She was telling them about a three act structure in a play. “The point of attack is the thing that gets the ball rolling. An incident that’s outside the character's control. Then the character’s need in the Second Act will be resolved in the Third Act. But this doesn’t apply to every story. What is common is for one character to push the plot forward.” She smiled, her dimples showing. “This will become relevant.”
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After classes that day, Josie walked up to him as he headed for the school gates.
“Hey.” She had a heavily freckled face. That’s what he’d noticed first about Miss Lightwater. Perhaps he had a thing for freckles on the opposite gender. Her glossy, light red lips formed a smile.
At that moment, Phia, Kada and Lemi walked passed. Those three girls thought themselves the top of the pecking order. “Hey, I think you’re really fit!” said Phia. The other two sniggered. Josie frowned at them. Matt wondered why.
“Wanna lift home?” asked Josie.
“No, it’s OK,” said Matt. Josie stared at him with bright, brown eyes. Matt wasn’t sure why he’d refused. He just thought he hadn’t needed a lift. Josie was going back in a horse drawn carriage.
The trip back was uneventful, until Matt took a shortcut down an alley. A manhole in the alley rattled, and an oozing appendage made of green slime pushed it aside. A bloated blob of green slime emerged. It had three glowing red eyes on stalks and a gaping maw ringed with sharp teeth. A Garg! A sewer creature that had chosen to mutate itself into a monster.
Matt was paralysed with fear.
The monster lurched at him. “Eat choo…!” it bawled, its hungry tentacles reaching out.
“Stop!” There was the sound of a door bursting open and a flash of purple light. The Garg roared, its eye stalks waving and tentacles going rigid as it was surrounded by an aura of the purple light. Then it dissolved into slime that slid down into the manhole again.
“What’re you doing, wondering around here?” A lady stood before him. Matt stared. This lady had bright green skin. She glared. “What’re you looking at?”
“Sorry. I – I – Thanks, so much.” His heart was still thudding. “Don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
Her expression softened and she strode towards him. Her bright green face, framed by frizzy red hair, looked really smooth and shiny. She leaned close to him. There was a slight bump in the shape of her green nose. “Why are you skulking around here?”
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“Trying to take a short-cut.” he said. He was still shaken. “I – I got lost.”
She took him by the hand. “C’mere.” She led him through the door in the stone wall, through a passage and into a parlour decorated with weird symbols and globes of the moon that emitted a silvery light. The silvery light made her face look really weird. She pushed him into an armchair and put a cool, green hand to his forehead. “You’ll be alright,” she said aloud.
“I know,” he gabbled. “It’s just sad the Yorps got like that. I could be friends with an untainted Yorp…”
She gazed at him and rubbed her shiny green nose. “You looking for work, boy?”
That was sudden. “Mum has been nagging at me to find a part time job. Bit hard, cos employers think I’m still a kid.”
“Mm. I’m Serena. Serena Gladestalker. I’m a witch, as you should be able to tell.”
She held out a hand and he took it. She did feel cold. “I’m Matteo. Um, Matt.”
“Well, Matt, even though you’re unmagical, you can help me with those tedious chores that take up the energy I could be using for making magic.” She patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’s all straightforward.”
First Serena showed him how to stamp out pills from her ‘magical paste.’ The paste was a doughy substance, and she had her own pill stamper. She was right. This really was simple.
“These pills are just for headaches, colds and the like,” she explained. “They have really basic ingredients. I put a lock of my hair in this batch. I also make beauty aides.” She pointed at a bowl of green slime. Matt wondered how it would work.
Serena showed him an open tome with a diagram of what looked like a ginger bread boy. “This recipe is more complicated. It’s about spells used for lady troubles. Sensitive stuff. Tougher to make.” She tapped her green nose. “And the ingredients are precious.”
“Wow, you’re clever to know all this,” said Matt, his eyes wide. She was an attractive woman too, with firm breasts. He blushed at the thought of her naked, revealing the curves of her green body.
The witch simpered and shrugged. “Well, yes. I think that’s right. Listen, I need an ingredient for this spell.” She tapped the open page. “Your seed.”
Matt was startled. Had he heard right? “My seed?”
She held up a little white bag. “Yes, please. If you do your business into this bag, I can prepare a spell to make a patient very happy.” She narrowed her eyes. She had very piercing blue eyes. “You do want to help?”
“Well, yes, but I’m not sure I can just do it in the bag, like that… um…” This was embarrassing. He’d never thought how to explain this to a strange woman. How could he get into the mood to deposit his seed into a little bag?
She was glaring at him.
“I don’t know how,” he said in a rush. “I’d need help.”
Her expression softened. “Well that’s no trouble. I can help you do it.”
The hot green woman would help him do it? That was an intriguing notion. “Oh well, that would be great.”
He was thrilled when she brought him to a side room and told him to strip down and lean over the table with the bag ready to catch his seed. “There’s a trick to help a guy give his precious seed and keep things moving. A cleansing experience.” The witch murmured softly in his ear, her warm breath tickling.
She inserted her green finger into his rear, and he yelled as waves of pleasure and pain coursed through him. His manhood hardened and grew and he found himself screaming for release… until he came and spurted his seed into the witch’s bag.
Serena held up the bag in a green hand. “All done. A bagful of precious seed. What a wonderful effort! You’ve filled a bag in one go. You’ve earned your first payment. She put a silver piece on the table in front of him. The she attached a nozzle to the bag. “Like a pastry bag, only a magic container,” she explained. “Now I’m expecting a patient. A certain Miss Feldman.”
“Not Miss Feldman the schoolmistress? Susie?” asked Matt.
“Why yes. You know her.”
“Yes. She’s scary.”
Serena’s dark green lips twitched to form a smirk. “Oh, she’s scary? Like a witch.”
“N-No. You’re not scary.”
She blew him a kiss. “You don’t have to see her here. But you can watch our consultation through a one way pane. That one.” She pointed a green finger at a window in the wall that looked into another room, this one filled with the light of the setting sun. “No one in that room can see through it.”
Matt was curious as to why the witch wanted him to see the consultation. He felt a little nervous when he looked through the one-way window and saw Serena leading Susie onto a couch into that room. And Susie started speaking bluntly to the witch.
“I’m a lonely spinster and that won’t do. I’ve never found a man who would commit to me. It may seem selfish, but I want the experience of being a mother. And I want to have my own baby. I’m not young. It’s very nearly too late.”
So, Susie wanted to be a mother? Weird.
“My spell can help with that,” said Serena, holding up a picture. "Look."
“A pastry bag and gingerbread boy drawing?” said Susie, raising her eyebrows.
“Sorry, I guess that’s a bit dumbed down,” said Serena. She pushed her red hair away from her green face. “Listen, I will guarantee you will have your baby. If you don’t, there’ll be no need to pay. But I’d appreciate if you tell your friends and colleagues.”
She took Susie to another room to work her magic. However that was done.
The next evening, Matt went back to work for Serena, stamping out pills and then donating more seed. Spying on the next consultation, he was thrilled to see Miss Lightwater. The light of the setting sun lit up her beautiful freckled face. She and Serena both had coppery red hair. Miss Lightwater was the even more beautiful of the two in that she was the one with freckles and she had green eyes rather than a green face.
“I’d like a fertility charm for me and boyfriend, please,” she said, her cheeks flushing pink.
The witch nodded. “Simple. Afterwards, best to make love to your partner directly.” She led Miss Lightman into another room.
The third evening, Matt spied on Serena and another of her patients. This time the patient was Mrs Moal. She admitted that she and her husband were trying to conceive. Matt wondered whether he should be watching. Mrs Moal looked sad. Matt had noticed before that she had a snubbed nose. Kind of cute.
“We haven’t found the answer to that one burning question,” sighed Mrs Moal. “Are we going to be parents?”
“Oh you will,” said the witch, confidently. “I’ll throw in a beauty spell too.”
Mrs Moal’s grey eyes narrowed. “You think I need one?”
“No, you don't need improving. But I can still add something,” said the witch, stroking her green cheek pensively. “How about a freckled face?”
She brightened. “I always wished I did have freckles.”
Matt spying on his teachers was becoming routine, but did he really know what was going on?