"Like I said, beginner's luck," Sam insisted on the way back to Betsy's car.
"Yeah right Mrs. I-never-got-over-Green-Day, if you had seen what happened in the bathroom you would not be calling it beginner's luck," Brian retorted.
"Ok first of all I'm offended at your interpretation of my taste in music, second, that would not have worked if that girl wasn't a giant slut."
He'd left Stefanie to clean up, but not before she gave him his number. Images of her hair pulled taunt above her stuffed ass still lingered in his mind. He'd gone from watching porn in his room to that in a matter of days.
"Enough fighting you two," Betsy interjected. "Yes, I chose Stefanie because she was an easy target. But Sam, you should be proud of your brother-in-apprenticeship, that was a remarkable first performance." She led the way to her purple VW Beetle. "Impressive as hell. Your aura is more potent than I thought."
He felt renewed and energized in the wake of his adventure in sodomy, and more than a little proud at Betsy's words. Somehow he felt more powerful. He realized it was the aural energy he'd absorbed. When they reached the car he remembered that the passenger's seat was full of glass containers and bones wrapped up in newspapers. He climbed into the back seat with Sam again while Betsy pushed the ignition button.
"Check your spellbook Brian," she said as she adjusted the dashboard mirror.
He pulled the book out of the bag he'd left in the car and flipped it open to page one. It was no longer blank. "Deviance Assessment" was printed at the top in spidery font. Three boxes were underneath, labeled, "Preternatural Magnitude," "Entities Offered, and "Aural Capacity." They each held a number: "0," "1," and "340" respectively. The car pulled out of the parking garage and took to the evening city streets. Betsy spoke from the front.
"I used some of your cum to bind it to you, it'll magically update while you mature as a Warlock."
"What does this stuff mean?"
"PM is essentially shorthand for how powerful and experienced you are. 0 is a nooby, 10 is a grandmaster. There's only one 10 that I know of, my friend Phoebe."
"What are you guys?"
"I'm an 8, Sam is almost a 3."
Sam briefly glanced up from her phone at her name, then got back to it with a bit of a scowl. Her green hair dangled above the glowing screen as she scanned it. He was acutely aware of their knees almost touching in the cozy back of the Beetle.
"EO is just a count of how many you've sexually interacted with and drained energy from," Betsy continued.
"How many people?"
"Not necessarily."
"Why aren't, uh," he cleared his throat, "why isn't it counting two?"
He thought he saw Betsy's lips curl upwards from behind. "Other Lust Magi don't count. In that case it's more of a back and forth exchange of energy. Some other things to remember: virgins count as 5 and people too young or otherwise unable to feel sexual desire don't count at all. They don't have any Lust energy in the first place."
So maybe that had to do with why Betsy wanted him to save his technical virginity? There was one statistic left for her to explain.
"Aural Capacity is what it sounds like, the baseline amount of Lust your aura maintains. PM reflects what you can do with your aura, the spells you can cast and potions you can make. AC reflects how potent the effects will be. If you use enough magic in a short period of time and your reserves run dry, you'll need to renew them with rest, relaxation, and lots of fucking."
"And mine is above average?"
"Well above average for a beginner."
He flipped to the next page and saw that it had filled with technical information about auras. Another page detailed the Siren's Call. The car lurched as Betsy made a turn he wasn't expecting.