Another Secret of Witchcraft [Part 9]
Wielding a Wet Wand
By A_Little_Show
Edited by A_Little_Show's spouse
Please start with Parts 1 through 8. Many events in this chapter won't make any sense unless you know how the characters got here.
Summary so far: Andrea is a witch. She casts her spells by wiggling her clitoris instead of her nose. She doesn't always like the consequences of her craft. She has given everything she has to make amends.
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Andrea rolled out from under Elfman's arm. He didn't stir. She walked the few steps to her bathroom wearing only her panties. When some long overdue necessities were accomplished, she returned and shook Elfman.
"Wake up!" She jostled him more vigorously.
"Wah, What?" He rubbed his eyes.
"How did I get home?"
"I called an Uber. He didn't charge me when I scooped you into the backseat like that." He looked up and down her body appreciatively.
"Really?"
"No." Elfman sighed. "I put you in my shirt. It was like a dress on you."
"And our bikes?'
"In the rack outside. Uber man but them in his hatchback. Anything else?" He yawned.
"Where's that shirt?"
Elfman took a minute to process. "Oh? He waved his arm under the covers a few times before catching his prey. With triumph, he hauled the red button down shirt into view. "You took it off. You said you sleep nude. I didn't argue." He shrugged.
"Ugh. Red. I suppose it can't be helped. Even worse, it this light it looks pink." She made a sourpuss face. She slipped her arms into his shirt and started buttoning it at the bottom just above her knees. It was like a baggy dress on her. Even with the top button fastened, Elfman's neck hole was big enough to reveal some of Andrea's cleavage. She pressed her breasts together to verify.
"Where are you going?"
"I don't want to miss my favorite class."
"Did it work? Did you cast the spell?"
"I'll tell you about it later. I'm going to be late!" She paused in the open doorway and wriggled yesterday's panties down and out. She tossed the soiled garment and its shiny silver passenger at Elfman. "Not again!" She smirked. She called back over her shoulder from down the hall. "At least not in this class."
----- ~ -----
The lecture was entitled, "Secret Societies."
"There have been secret societies of women throughout history," the professor asserted. "They have taken many forms. Some have theorized that many women form family groups with whoever they think they can trust. Women who were isolated from other groups may have sought each other to find strength in numbers. Solidarity."
Andrea took notes on a small pad of lined paper. She seldom took notes, but the professor was old-school and didn't post her slides online.
The professor continued, "Childbirth and events surrounding it have spawned countless secret societies. It's not so much that the societies were secret. It was the activities that were secret. Men could not be trusted with topics of menstruation let alone childbirth. Tying into last week's lecture, the village witch was often also the village midwife. Since witches didn't or couldn't marry, one way of supporting themselves included birthing services."
"Is a doula like a midwife?" Andrea asked.
"Yes." The professor waited for anyone else to interrupt. "Women's sexuality in general has been the organizing principle of secret societies. A woman's pleasure is unnecessary for procreation. Her pleasure may not even be desired by her partner. Some women and many men throughout history likely believed women were incapable of pleasure from activities related to procreation."
Andrea raised her hand but spoke without waiting to be acknowledged. "So, ejaculation is necessary or certainly helpful for procreation, and ejaculation is accompanied by orgasm. But, the woman may become pregnant with or without any pleasure in the process."
"Exactly," the professor agreed. "So, women found other women to educate and provide comforts lacking at home. Some were likely lesbians. Others were only walking wombs to their husbands. The company of other women offered hope for fulfillment."
"Didn't they just have affairs or something?" another student interrupted.
"Perhaps in some cases, but what chance was there for a lover to understand or care about her pleasure?"
"Weren't there like, famous lovers? Don Juan? Marquis de Sade?" Andrea interjected.
"Yes, Andrea. They were evidentially so rare that Western history remembers the few by name. How many women could count on finding a Don Juan? It was a high stakes, low reward proposition. She would take immence risk trying."
"What do you mean?" another student asked.
"Low status women caught in fornication or adultery might be stoned to death or driven from their villages and forced into prostitution to survive. Some likely became known as witches." The professor smiled at her success tying another aspect of the previous lecture to the current one. "Of course, rules have never applied to women of high social rank. There is evidence that women Pharohs kept harems of other women and men or possibly eunuchs."
"Must be nice," a pretty redhead exclaimed.
"Ewww. What good are eunuchs?" a student complained.
"I've read that Italian castrati, men who were castrated in youth to preserve their beautiful high voices, were like rock stars with women fawning over them. They were extremely popular as lovers."
"Yah! Who needs cock anyway?" someone observed.
The bookworm student scolded the student who didn't appreciate cocks. "Castrati probably retained their penises. They only sacrificed the testicles."
"Just so. That wasn't always the case." The professor frowned and resumed. "High status women did not need a male to support them. In fact, the men sought THEM for their wealth and family connections. Others dispensed with men entirely."
"Oh! Like Jane Austen." The students were more engaged than usual in the lecture.
"Right, ah, Lucy," The professor nodded. "Jane Austen never married. Her works suggest she was not a lesbian, but we'll probably never know. She was from a rank of untitled landed gentry. She had an income from her writing. She didn't need a man. A low born man would only have diminished her status, and high born men were likely uninterested in a woman so liberated for her time."
"Did she have lovers?" Andrea asked.
"I don't know. Jane Austen is neither my topic of research, nor even my time period. Moving on," the professor dismissed further questions. "High status women always had options. There was really only one constraint on them."
"What was that?" Andrea asked.
The professor glanced at her peculiar student and elaborated. "Hereditary succession has been important in almost all societies. Paternity was always in doubt. Was the fourth Earl really the son of the Third Earl? Was Henry VI really the son of Henry V? There is seldom doubt who the mother was."