My daughter Chloe's eighteenth birthday was turning out to be a lovely day. Not a perfect one, since her father, Rob, was gracing us with his presence, but at least he was behaving himself.
He had bothered to show up to the family party, remained relatively sober until after the last guest had departed, and even diffused the situation when a distant cousin of mine got rowdy with a hot poker. He also gave Chloe a meaningful gift, a ceremonial robe that had been passed down in his family for generations.
When Chloe pulled up the hood and tucked her hands the sleeves, the deep purple fabric blended perfectly into the twilight, making her nearly invisible. She removed the hood for the walk from our farmhouse to the edge of the woods, and it was unnerving watch her head and long blonde hair appear to float through the air without a body.
Rob apparently expected a reward for his uncharacteristically adult behavior. He kept giving me a look that said, "Come on, Ruby, I deserve a reward for being such a good boy, and you know that you want to give me one."
I chose to ignore it for the time being. Rob was my ex for a reason, or, more accurately, for many reasons. We had kept our relationship a secret because his parents wouldn't have approved, but getting pregnant with Chloe had let that cat out of the bag. His parents could forgive him for slumming it with a low class White Council witch, but they were rich blue bloods from the Mages Guild, and would have cut him off if he had stayed with me. So, the weak-willed jerk had promptly dumped me and spent most of the last eighteen years on the road with his band. Other than stopping by a couple times a year to visit Chloe he never even tried to be a real parent to Chloe or a partner to me.
The only regular support I got was from his parents. In eighteen years, they had never once lowered themselves to speak directly to me, 'the white trash gold digger who tried to trap their son into marriage.' Their staff managed Chloe's twice-yearly visits and the child support they paid in place of Rob and arranged and wrote the checks for Chloe's elite private schooling. I was sure that they had come to care about her over the years, but their support had had nothing to do with her well-being. It wasn't a secret that Chloe was Rob's illegitimate daughter, but the rich and powerful considered it a youthful indiscretion. If they had abandoned a child of their bloodline, though, that would have reflected badly on them. I put up with their crap because that kind of education opened doors for Chloe. Without it, there was no way she would be headed to Oxford that fall.
"I can't believe it's happening. After all this planning, the day is here," Chloe said. "Take a deep breath, Mom. After tonight our lives will never be the same."
Chloe looked unusually solemn and mature, and the slight tremor in her voice worried me for a moment. By the time I blinked Chloe was back to normal, and it made sense for even my typically overconfident daughter to waver for a moment. The ritual to summon a familiar had been a game changer for every woman in our family for hundreds of years, including me. When I was Chloe's age I had summoned Gertie, a midwife and healer killed in the early witch trials. True to family lore, the spell had given my exactly the familiar I needed in life. She taught me all the things my mother had died before she could teach me, encouraged me to finish my education by getting a GED, and taught me midwifery so I had a career. I didn't know what I would have done without her.
Tonight, Chloe would be performing the same ritual, inviting a willing ancestor to return from the world of the dead as her familiar. That familiar was dependent on the summoning witch's her life force to remain in this world and would only be released from that bond when that witch died. Considering how insanely powerful Chloe was, I was both excited and nervous to see who she would summon. I hoped that whoever it was would be as perfect for her as Gertie had been for me.
When we reached the edge of the woods, Chloe casually hugged her father before squeezing the wind out of me with a tight hug. She and I had always been remarkable close, and I liked to think I done plenty of things right raising her. She turned out to be everything I wished that I had been at her age: she was gorgeous, got straight A's in school, had been smart and focused enough to avoid dating, and was the most talented witch in centuries.
Most days it felt like I had raised a perfect kid. Until I watched her sashay towards the woods at least. Yup, there it was. The only problem with Chloe was her ego. She knew that she was all that and a bag of chips, and she had no qualms about using any tool at her disposal to get what she wanted, including seduction. Unlike me, she also had little to no modesty. Even though it was a solo ritual, I had been mortified to perform it nude. Eighteen years later, I was still so uncomfortable with nude rituals that I did my best to avoid them.
Not Chloe. When we reached the edge of the woods, she stripped off her robe without hesitation and twirled around under the full moon for at least a minute before disappearing into the trees. She still needed to walk about half a mile through the woods to reach the sacred circle, so thank the gods she was more graceful than me. There was no way I could have made it through the woods naked without falling bare-assed in a patch of poison ivy, either back when I was sixteen or today at the ripe old age of thirty-three.
It was about a quarter of a mile walk back to my farmhouse, and Rob didn't shut up the entire time we trudged through the long grass. He kept making noises about what an amazing job I'd done raising Chloe while I just tried to tune him out. His judgment was so questionable that any complements from him made me wonder if I had done something spectacularly wrong.
Pondering if and where I could have gone wrong raising our little exhibitionist was just distracting enough that my natural grace took over. I tripped on the uneven ground and Rob grabbed for me, but of course he had the less than stellar balance of a stoned drunk. Instead of keeping me upright, he tumbled down on top of me.
We landed crotch to crotch and nose to nose. He had been a handsome kid when we were together, and had grown up to be a striking man in a scruffy stoner musician kind of way. He was lean and only a couple inches taller than me, with light brown hair a couple months overdue for a haircut, hazel eyes, and a scruffy week-old beard that scratched my face as he kissed me.
The kiss was slow and long and demanding and I could feel it in every inch of my body. It only took a few minutes to go from zero to little moans escaping my lips between kisses, my legs wrapped around his waist as we moved against each other.
Once I was nice and worked up, he slid onto his knees and kissed his way down my neck, then along the line of my collarbone while he slid the spaghetti straps of my dress down over my shoulders. Knowing exactly where he was headed, I arched my back up so that he could unzip my dress and slide it down to my waist and unhook my strapless bra.
One of his legs was firmly planted between mine so that I could keep moving against him as his mouth found one of my nipples and sucked. When he bit down, it was hard enough that I cried out and moved even harder against him.
Sweet baby Jesus I hated him, but even after all these years my body still hadn't gotten the memo. He was the only man on earth who knew exactly what I liked and how I liked it - because he was still the only man I'd ever slept with. The funny part was that made Rob, the man who destroyed my ability to trust other men, my only booty call. I wasn't proud of it, but we hooked up almost every time he rolled through town. Unfortunately, I wasn't nearly drunk enough-yet-for my libido to call the shots.
"Up and off, buddy, up and off," I said.
I pushed hard against his shoulders and he didn't resist, just rolled over to lie on his back next to me in the tall grass. He was close enough that our shoulders were still touching, and he tried to take my hand. I slapped his hand away, then sat up to put on my clothes. Even if we would probably sleep together before he left town, I had no interest in feigning actual affection for him.
"I'm sorry, Ruby. I know I'm not good enough for you," he said. "But I just can't help myself. I swear, you get more beautiful every time I see you."
Even knowing him as well as I did, I almost believed he was sincere. He was that good. The sad part was that he did care for me as much as he was capable of caring for anyone. He was just so self-centered that his throbbing sausage was the only thing he had to offer.
"Down boy. I'm not nearly drunk enough to buy what you're selling."
I could hear the smile in his voice. "That's easy to fix. If you have glasses and ice, I have some top shelf whiskey and quality greenery in my camper."
By the time we reached the yard my decision had been made. Hormones had won out, and I was set on drinking until rocking his run-down tour bus seemed like a good idea. He went to grab his supplies while I headed into the house.
I ended up needing three glasses. While we were seeing Chloe off, Gertie had been driving the drunk distant cousin home, and it hadn't gone well. She was using the hose to wash vomit off the side of my car, her dress was wet from either the water, the vomit, or both, and her gray hair was half falling-down in the back with random pieces sticking up at odd angles in the front. She needed a drink stat.
Even if Gertie hadn't needed a drink she would have done her best to cock block. Not surprisingly, Rob and Gertie had intensely disliked each other from the start. True, Gertie had prevented me from casting spells to punish him, including one that would have made his man parts turn black and fall off, but that had been solely for my benefit. Curses were tricky to cast, so I could have easily ended up with a cursing falling on me instead.
For the time being Rob and I gave up on getting it on, and the three of us settled into lawn chairs around the dying bonfire. If he and I hadn't stopped flirting after one of her famous glares, she probably would have used the garden hose to give both of us a cold shower, and if that didn't work... I still remembered the time she made Rob and I itch like we had been dipped in poison ivy every time we got close to each other.
"I'm not kidding, Ruby. You raised an amazing girl," Rob said after a long silence. "I always knew she was special—but even combining the very best parts of us both, she's ten times more than anyone would expect. That has to be you." He looked over at Gertie. "And you too."
He offered Gertie his joint, and she just nodded curtly to acknowledge the compliment and waved away the weed. He sounded almost sober, and for once I didn't get the impression he was trying to charm my pants off.
"I knew Chloe would be something special from the moment she was born," I said. "Since then I've delivered more babies than I can count and she's still the most enchanting one I've ever seen-and not just because she's mine."
