The College Of Locks And Keys 03

This story takes place at the Western College of Locks and Keys, a modern academy of magic. Students who choose to pursue this unique program are challenged to follow a strict chastity regimen, to heighten their sensitivity to chemistry, desire, and dom/sub dynamics. These are the sources of their power.

Up until now, Nathan has been practicing playing the dom partner in his school work with Ruby, and relying on Miranda to secretly guide him through it. In this one, Ruby finally finds out what Nathan and Miranda have been up to, and has to decide how to respond, now that it's her turn as the dom!

Expect a whole lot of tease-and-denial frustration, f/f and m/f sexual tension, gentle d/s dynamics, magic, and some m/f sex at the end.

All depicted sexual interactions are consensual, and all characters are above the age of 18.

***

Ruby

Oakley has been given an emergency housing transfer, and her status as a WCLK student is under official review. For the first time since I arrived on campus, I can lock my bedroom door and go to bed feeling safe.

I'm sure to be assigned a new roommate soon, but as Nathan keeps reminding me whenever I get nervous about it, they're practically guaranteed to be a step up.

Our midterm project hasn't officially been graded yet, but by the approval on Professor Chicory's face when she calls on us in class, I'm hopeful we're going to be happy with the results, at least for the first half.

It feels like an awful lot to live up to, as Nathan and I brainstorm ideas for the second half of the project. The half where I have to take the dominant position.

Nathan substantially improved my living situation with some really impressive possession magic on his turn. Meanwhile, most of my best ideas so far have involved conjuring bouquets of flowers for him.

"What do you wish for?" I ask, sitting in the study pod across from him. "What can I do for you that you really, really want?"

This is how he found the inspiration for the first half of the project, by asking me questions like that until he'd finally coaxed the truth about Oakley out of me. It was embarrassing as all infinite hells to admit how much my klepto roommate's bullying was getting to me, but ultimately, it turned out to be a clear, fixable problem. Perfect for a project.

Nathan's wishes seem to be a lot more nebulous. Or maybe I'm just not doing a good enough job at the coaxing part.

"I wish... I wish I could get into the flow of things," he says.

"Uh, okay," I say. "In what way?"

"I wish..." he sighs. "I wish stuff flowed through me the way it's supposed to. You know, energy, magic... everything."

There are definitely words trapped behind his tongue, words more useful and specific than "everything," but I have no idea what they are.

My best guess is that he's still beating himself up over freezing in the in-class exam and getting us switched over to the homework project option. But he isn't

always

freezable. His magic worked just fine when he was possessing me and sending me all over town following Oakley.

Maybe he gets hung up on the flaws even when things are going great. I know what that's like.

And I know what a relief it was to let someone else take responsibility for all that for a while. To feel myself live as a braver, more confident version of myself, puppeted by someone else.

"What if I could channel a firehose's worth of magical energy through your body, while you just sit back and let it happen?" I ask. "Would you enjoy that?"

His face warms, and the corner of his lip pulls upward, still at a frustratingly secretive angle, like I've said something I don't fully understand, and he isn't going to explain it to me.

"That sounds amazing," he says, "but you make it sound so simple."

"Maybe it can be," I say. "Maybe we're overcomplicating this. What if we just go over to the combat range? I'll turn you into a weapon, and make you shoot every kind of magical projectile we can think of out of every appendage you've got."

I wish he'd tell me, or just let me

see

, what's behind the three quick blinks and the nibble of his inner lip that precede his answer.

"Yeah," he says. "Whatever you want."

#

Miranda

"You have a serious problem," I tell Nate, with my hands over my face, still trying to soak in the contents of his latest panicked spew of words.

"No shit, I have a problem!" he says. "I'm useless, okay? I'm a complete fraud who can't do the simplest magic without your help."

"That's not true," I sigh half-heartedly. He's so talented, and I want to tell him so, but I know he's trying to get me to tell him that he can do anything, and also that doesn't

have

to do anything, because I'll take care of it.

And why shouldn't he expect me to? I always have before.

It was the easiest thing to do, when it was just one more test to pass, one more group assignment to hold up his end of, one more little nudge, and one more after that.

It wasn't even technically cheating, most of the time. I was just being a good friend, a good study buddy. After all, there are no truly solo achievements at the College of Locks and Keys. All of our magic requires collaboration, so who cares if I just collaborate a little extra?

Well,

I

care, it turns out. Not for the sake of school rules or grades or any of that, but ever since Nate brought me to the table with Ruby, and made me watch the way the two of them look at each other -- like so much more than temporary project partners -- I've had this gross, guilty feeling gnawing at the back of my head.

It gets worse every time I think about helping him out behind the scenes, behind her back, again.

I'm almost certain I'm not doing either of them any favors.

But the sparks between them... that's magic, plain and simple. I'd hate to watch it fizzle out if there's something I could have done to save it.

And maybe there's a tiny sliver of me that can't get enough of being part of it.

"Please," Nate is straddling the bench we're sharing in the quad, wringing his hands together in front of him, the way he does. "I put her in this situation. I can't let her down now."

"You just have to play the sub this time," I remind him. "That's what you're best at. What's the problem?"

"The problem is that's what

Ruby's

best at too," he says. "She's going to be out of her comfort zone, and she won't have someone in her ear to keep her on track like I did."

"Most people get by without one, you know," I say.

"I know, I know, I just want to give her as much support as I can," he says. "I want to make sure I react right to whatever she throws at me."

"There's not one 'right' way to react," I tell him. "If you're liking what she's doing to you, that's right. If you're not, that's important. She doesn't need a canned laugh track, she needs accurate feedback she can use."

"But what if she does everything perfectly?" Nate protests frantically. "What if she reads me just right, pushes my buttons as well as can be expected, what if she does stuff my mind genuinely wants to cooperate with, but my body, my defective fucking magic plumbing, won't get with the program?

She

shouldn't be penalized for that, right?"

He makes a compelling argument. As usual.

I picture Ruby's fragile beginner practice at dom magic, her frustration with trying to predict a mind as convoluted and self-defeating as Nate's, her inevitable and pointless fits of blaming herself for whatever pit he burrows his own way into.

I sigh again. "I'll hang out in the background, just in case. But you're going to forget I'm there and give Ruby absolutely every chance to handle you herself."

"Deal!" Nate grabs my hand, kisses my knuckles, and springs to his feet. "Thank you thank you thank you you're the best!"

#

Nathan

The Western College of Locks and Keys has stood on this spot for two hundred years, and was built in the style of its older sister schools in Europe, so the gym is a relic of a time when magic schools primarily turned out soldiers and mercenaries.

There are dance studios now, where people can jam out to their own homemade light shows, and some practice courses for actual useful things like flying and precision telekinesis, but the vast majority of the building is devoted to honing magic for a use that most of us will rarely if ever need it for in the real world: kicking ass.

Ruby leads me to one of the many magically reinforced shooting ranges and orders, or more like politely suggests, that I stow my clothes in one of the lockers so that they don't get damaged.

The air, as usual, feels unnervingly brisk on my skin, but I know I'll be sweating once we get started.

Ruby runs her fingers lightly from my left shoulder down to my wrist, making me shiver. She cradles my whole arm in both of hers, laces her fingers through mine from behind, and extends my palm forward.

"Ranged attacks are all about pressure," she says softly in my ear. "Pressure on the nock of an arrow. Pressure in the chamber of a gun. Pressure is the source of all propulsion."

She's reciting from the textbook, not really charting any new territory, but she delivers it surprisingly well. Her voice is steady and smooth. I instantly want to please her, which is nothing new, but the flavor of the desire is slightly different. It's less like wanting to hold her and make her comfortable, more like wanting to win the approval of a cool professor.

"There's pressure inside you right now," she whispers against my neck.

Oh boy, is there ever. A warm tingle of blood flow spreads down and outward from where her breath touches my skin, before gathering in my pelvis. The dormant pressure already lying there wakens and grows, and my cock presses against the hard downward curve of my chastity belt.

"But in order to be useful, pressure must be directed, channeled, to where you need it to go."

Need

is the word in the book, the word on her lips. Need, not want. Which is fitting, because in this particular instant, a good portion of me

wants

to forget about projectiles and settle for a nice, uncontrolled explosion.

But on the off chance I ever

need

to shoot someone with my bare hands, it'd be good to know what I'm doing before it comes up. I guess.

"We're going to start with a spell that barely requires you to convert the form of the pressure at all. A water spout."

Makes sense. The explosion I'm brewing is certainly liquid in nature.

"Drink," Ruby instructs, nodding at the water bottle on the side table. "The whole thing. This will be dehydrating."

I clumsily unscrew the cap with just my left hand and chug it down.

"Now focus on the target," says Ruby. "You're going to

splatter

that target. You might even split it in half with the amount of pressure you've got built up."

That sounds... satisfying.

"I'm going to move the pressure you're feeling to your hand now. Try not to resist."

I feel the extra, different sort of pressure of a magical suggestion being pushed down the thread that connects me with Ruby, into my being. The pressure already gathered inside me shifts upward.

My instinct tells me to fight it. The prospect of taking power and sensation away from my cock triggers an irrational panic, but Ruby's voice is soothing, and her hands on my body give the energy a reassuringly clear path to follow.

It rises and lurches to my chest, and then slides along my arm, coming to rest inside my stretched palm.

"Are you ready?" Ruby asks me.

Oh no, she's giving me time to think. I immediately imagine this pressure rebelling and fizzling out, just like it so often does in my pelvis.

"Ready," I tell Ruby hurriedly, before imagining the fizzle can cause it to happen. "I'm ready, do it now!"

"Three," says Ruby. "Two... one... fire away."

She squeezes my hand and bites my ear, and roiling white water spurts outward from my palm. I hit the old plywood target twenty feet down the range, dead center, thanks to Ruby's steadily guiding grip.

My hand is buzzing with ecstatic power, twitching as smaller after-spurts of water follow the first one. It's not an orgasm, nothing is an orgasm except an orgasm, but it's something in the same ballpark. The rush in my chest and head is shockingly similar.

"Good job, babe," says Ruby, releasing my hand and patting my back while we watch my seafoam-like magical ammunition drip down onto the floor.

The 'babe' part is definitely not in the book.

"Take a breath," she says. "Let the pressure settle back down to where it normally sits, so that you can fully experience how unsatisfied you still are."

A restless tingle trickles downward inside me at her words. It doesn't take much for me to feel myself getting hard against tight magic steel again, harshly aware that I didn't actually cum, whatever the lightness around my heart might say.

"We'll try a fire spout in a little while," Ruby whispers, putting her hands lightly on both my shoulders. "So, you might want to start thinking, just in the background, about how

hot

that pressure feels. But for now, I'm going to have you cast a shield. A short, powerful one, like what you'd use if you had to block a magic attack from someone else."

I nod.

"Even before you cast it, you know that you're safe. The external shield will only be a physical manifestation of that knowledge, the tip of an iceberg that extends deep into your bones."

I've read the words she's reciting plenty of times before, but her voice turns them from just words into an imperative truth.

"Your mind is already a maze of sturdy, protective walls," she whispers. "You've been building them since the day you were born. Sometimes even you forget the way through them all."

That's for damn sure. Nobody can put up walls like I can. I sink deep into the security of knowing that this is something I'm actually good at for a change.

"It's the easiest thing in the world to grab what protects you, and push it right out in front of you, so it can do its job."

I find and savor the feeling of being protected, focus on the range before me, and

push

.

By the time I realize what I'm pushing, it's too late to pull instead.

An image of Miranda, larger than life and crackling with power, leaps from my mind to the mat in front of me in a fighting stance, ready to protect me from the world.

"Shit, sorry!" I tell Ruby immediately. "I didn't mean to make that."

"Oh... it's... it's fine," Ruby says, with a smile of understanding that's simultaneously painful and sincere. "We can't always control what our subconscious spits out, I know, believe me."

I'm about to thank her, when it gets worse.

"What in all hells?" The image of Miranda turns away from the range, toward us, examining her own semitranslucent arms. "I gotta drop the telepathy, Nate, something's wrong. I can see-- She can see me," Miranda finishes with a resigned sigh as her eyes meet Ruby's. "Hi."

She waves sheepishly.

Ruby takes several seconds to respond.

"This isn't from your imagination, is it?" she asks.

My voice feels so tiny and distant in my throat that I don't think she hears my "No," so I shake my head.

"She's been here the whole time," says Ruby.

"Yeah," Miranda admits before I have the chance to try again.

"Not for the

first

time," Ruby realizes aloud. "This is why it sometimes seems like you're switching between two totally different personalities, not just different modes."

Miranda's chin twitches down toward her chest with guilt. It's a strange look on her.

Ruby swallows, angles her body toward just me, and asks in an effortfully steady tone, "Why?"

I open my mouth.

"Tell her what you told me," Miranda advises. "Tell her--"

"I'd like to speak with my project partner alone, please," Ruby raises her hand, and Miranda goes silent. Her image dissolves into thin air.

I feel a faint

pop

in my head, a line going dead, and then even Miranda's silence is gone.

Reeling from the sudden loneliness inside my head, I cling to Miranda's last instructions and try to explain myself. "She was a safety net. Just in case I got--"

"Bored?" Ruby guessed. "Scared? What exactly was it about working with me that you couldn't face without backup?"

"I could never be bored with you!" I say. "And scared... sure, yeah, of course I get scared, I've got the world's biggest crush on--"

"No, don't you dare," Ruby sharpens her raised hand to a single finger. "You're not going to say something sweet and romantic that you only get to say once, and completely waste it by trying to use it to brush this off!"

I snap my jaw shut, awaiting further instructions.

Ruby just stands there, staring, breathing. Twice her breaths get so high and fast that I think she's going to look away and cry into her hands, but she just takes a longer breath and starts the cycle over.

The seconds dilate. It's excruciating.

Finally, Ruby swats a few escaping tears away with the back of a hand, and says, "I didn't bring a safety net when I gave myself over to you."

"I know," I acknowledge.

The truth of this sinks into my chest like a knife.

"I was scared too," she says. "Terrified, in fact."

"I told you, you didn't have to be," I defend myself meekly.

"But I wanted to!" she yells. "I wanted to be there, with you. I wanted to feel it, all of it. And when it got to be too much, I told

you

. No one else. I trusted

you

to listen, to take care of me...."

She looks down and sighs.

"I'm... not entitled to your trust, I know," she says. "If it's not there, it's not there, I just... you had me completely fooled. I was

a

complete fool."

She slings her backpack over her shoulders and starts toward the exit.

"It's nothing to do with not trusting you," I try to explain. "I don't trust

me

. My body, my mind, my magic, I couldn't be sure it would all respond right."

"And you assumed I'd be such an incompetent dom that I wouldn't be able to handle working with a complicated, unpredictable human being who doesn't always do exactly what I want."

"I didn't want you to

have

to handle--"

"My fair share of the project," she finishes for me.

"Working with me isn't a 'fair' anything," I say. "I'm sorry, I thought it'd be better for both--"

"

You're

the one who can't handle not getting something perfect on the first try, Nathan," she says, turning to fix me again with that time-altering disappointed gaze. "So don't put that on me. And don't ever take it upon yourself to

cheat

for me again. I may not be the most versatile student WCLK has ever seen, but I'm going to graduate, and when I do, it's going to be because I learned enough to earn it."

She yanks the gym door open and lets it fall closed right behind her. By the time I get it open again for myself, she's gone.

#

Miranda

Ruby doesn't know where I live. So, when I see a magical signal flare outside my window, I know she either took a lucky guess, or she's been doing this outside of every student housing block on campus.

She can't find me unless I let her. But I owe her that much.

I shove my window open and lean on the sill.

"How are you doing that without a partner?" I ask, as a purple shower of sparks bursts and falls to earth in front of me.

Ruby bites her own lips furiously and answers, "You

are

the partner. I opened a circuit. You just closed it."

"So, if I weren't going to answer, it never would have worked?" I ask.

I've never been great with temporal theory.

"I don't know! You

did

answer!" Ruby says, exasperated. "Can I just come up?"

"Yeah," I say. "Unit thirty-four."

Less than a minute later, she's pacing the floor of my dorm, silently raising the ambient temperature by at least a degree every few seconds, while I watch her from my desk chair.