That Voodoo You Do so Well

My first incest story! Inspired by a reader. Another long-read: includes femdom, incest, mind control, and magic.. Read at own risk.

*****

"Barb, he's got to grow up sometime."

"Jesus Christ, Philip. I'm not an idiot. Of course he's got to grow up." Barbara de Wynter sat at her vanity, scrubbing away the day's makeup with a moist wipe. Tossing the used towelette into a nearby garbage bin, she scowled at her reflection. Twenty-two years of parenthood had taken their toll, no matter how good the material she'd started with had been. She smoothed out the crow's feet around her eyes with irritated fingers, and made a face. "But that doesn't mean he has to get *married*. He's not even finished college yet."

"Barb, he says he loves her." Phillip closed his book, and laid it on the nightstand on his side of the bed. "What am I supposed to do? Snap my fingers and magically change his feelings?"

His wife snapped her hair back into a loose bun atop her head. Leaning close to the mirror, she inspected her scalp. The grey in her roots was beginning to show; it'd soon be time to visit the salon again to get her honeyed blonde back.

"You're a lawyer, aren't you?" She pushed her chair back from the vanity and stood up. Phillip eyed his wife in her floor-length silk nightie as it skimmed over the slight pooch in her belly and the distended droop of her breasts. "Convince him."

"Convince me," he said with a leer, and pulled back the bedcovers, revealing the stiff tent in his pajamas.

"Don't be gross, Philip." Barbara closed her dressing gown and tied it. "We're talking about his *future*. He'll marry this wo-, this *girl*, and at best, he'll be divorced by 25, or at worst, he'll be trapped with her for the rest of his life after she tricks him into knocking her up."

"Or," said her husband with a sigh. "They live happily ever after and we have some beautiful grandkids before we're too old to appreciate them." He pulled the covers back over, and picked up his book.

"You are being *so* naive right now, I can't even-"

"Honey, I'm a defense lawyer. I get paid disgustingly large sums of money to be hopelessly optimistic about people's futures, but I am definitely not naive." Finding his page again, he started reading. "I'm sorry, hon. I love you, but I don't think this is a fight you can win. He's an adult. James gets to make his own decisions now. If he wants to marry her that badly, nothing I say is going to stop him, and it'll only drive him to fly to Vegas or some damn thing to elope. He's stubborn. Like his mother."

Barbara made a dissatisfied noise as she climbed into the bed.

Her husband kept his eyes squarely on the page, then asked, "did you want me to set the alarm?"

"Alarm?"

"You told James you'd go with them to that craft thing in the park tomorrow morning." Phillip covered the smile creeping across his face with this book.

"Ugh. What was I thinking? I suppose it's too late now to gin up an excuse?" He couldn't see his wife's pained look, but he could hear it in her voice and knew it well.

"You had a brief moment of clarity, I guess? Anyway, it's never too late for excuses" he said, mildly. "But as your counsel I'd advise against it."

"Oh really?"

"He's not dumb," Phillip explained. "He knows you don't like her. And even if it's *iron clad*, James will suspect you made up an excuse anyway and you'll have wasted all that effort only to make him resent you."

"So you think I should just *go*, then?"

"Of course." He said. "Who knows? Maybe you'll like it. Either way, it wouldn't hurt to show our son that you can spend an hour with his fiancee without trying to murder the girl. It'll create some plausible deniability down the line when her body shows up in a ditch."

Barbara hit him with a pillow, laughing despite herself. "Fine, *fine*. I know when I'm beaten. Set the alarm for nine, I guess."

"Disgusting." It was Phillip's turn to make a face. "Who wants to be up at that hour? I can see why you hate her so much."

"Shut up and set your alarm, counsellor." she threw an arm over his chest and pressed close into him. "It's time for bed."

--

"That Craft Thing" turned out to be a concatenation of every stripe of hippie, New Age aficionado and so-called spiritualist in town, gathered under a number of repurposed buffet tents in the park to hawk wares, services and food. Throngs of young people wandered from table to table, chatting and buying and eating and generally having a good time.

Barbara tugged the wide brim of her floppy straw hat as she surveyed the crowd through oversized sunglasses.. She wasn't *likely* to see anybody she knew here, but you never knew. Her wide-legged linen trousers swished through the grass as they approached; a long, loose cardigan over a muted grey t-shirt, and a pair of black Toms completed her ensemble.

"See Mrs. de Wynter? It's just, like, a market. It'll be great!" Beside her, James' fiancee grabbed Barbara by the elbow and began to pull her into the crowd. A full head shorter than Barbara's own 5'8, Janie Graves was a plump, energetic little squab of a girl. Although she was pleasant enough to look at - regular features, easy smile, tanned a deep nut-brown - Mrs. de Wynter was sure that her son would never have given her a second glance had it not been for the girl's propensity towards garish prints, embarrassingly short skirts and deep-cut tops. Even now, Janie's young breasts threatened to wobble free of the abbreviated sundress whose hem swirled around her thick thighs, and not a few young men glanced her way as they threaded through the crowd, James trailing a few steps behind them.

"Easy now babe, we don't want to culture shock my mom." He said with a chuckle. A tall, reedy man with dirty blonde dreadlocks veered towards them, juggling a trio of battered bowling pins. Janie ooh'ed like a child, waved, then wound around him to approach a table where three Native Americans were assembling dreamcatchers while a handful of college girls watched. Another young man came up from behind, and asked Janie if she wanted her palm read; shortly after James stepped in to ward him off, an older man carrying a tray full of crystals around his neck inquired as to the girl's astrological sign.

For the first time in her life, Barbara felt not only unimportant, but unregarded. Invisible. For a moment, she wondered if she should have dressed differently, worn shorts or a dress or something to show off the gams that had captured Phillip in the first place.

"Ha," she laughed under her breath at her own foolishness, wandering away from the couple. Let the girl enjoy her moment in the sun before that taut skin began to sag under the weight of the tightly-held puppy fat beneath it. It would be over soon enough, she knew, thinking of the cellulite on the backs of her thighs, the purplish veins that were beginning to show through her skin.

She drifted through the crowd, moving outward, towards the periphery of the market where the hucksters were thinner, quieter, less obnoxious. If James and Janie (ugh) noticed, they didn't immediately follow. Out here, the tables appeared to be more crafts than services or food; rickety banquet tables, the odd card-table shimmed up on a two-by-four, and a few quilts, were laid out with an assortment of knick knacks, gewgaws, and bricabrac with little immediately obvious purpose, though they all undoubtedly had some spiritual significance to somebody.

Barbara let her hand skim over the wares as she passed, brushing past grotesqueries, gliding over crystals, ruffling ceremonial flags, various statuary and-

"Ow! Damn, what?" She snatched her hand back and stuck her index finger in her mouth; sucking on it a moment, she pulled it out and inspected the tip, where a single pinhead of blood welled out, then dropped. Barbara watched it fall, then splatter across the silvered, splintery surface of the vaguely feminine figure that had poked her finger in the first place. The liquid quickly vanished into the thirsty wood, leaving scarcely a stain.

"Oooh she picked you!" Barbara looked up into the mismatched eyes of the woman on the other side of the table. Buried under a collection of wildly-clashing prints, the proprietress excitedly waved her wizened hands at Mrs. de Wynter. "The weir-momma picked you!"

"She bit me, you mean." Barbara held up her index finger accusingly.

"Of course she bit you! How else she gonna bond with you?" A nest of unkempt grey curls shivered as the other woman shook her head.

"I'm not sure what you're trying to run here, but I am *not* paying for-"

"Pay?" The woman raised her palm. "Who said anything about paying? Very bad luck, making you pay after you been picked! She thinks you need her and I ain't dumb enough to argue with her." Before Barbara could protest further, the old crone scooped the figurine up off the table and pressed it into her palm. It was small, only four or five inches long, rough-hewn from some ancient piece of wood that had long since weathered to a silvery grey. Stubby arms and legs extended from a trunk that acknowledged femininity only in the slight sinuous curve from shoulder to hip and a prominent bulge at the front which Barbara supposed were breasts. It reminded her of a less-exaggerated Willendorf Venus. The wood was warm against her skin; probably from sitting in the sun.

She gingerly ran a finger across the surface of the figurine, following the woodgrain; tiny grey curls came away under the friction, revealing a smoother layer of wood underneath. Despite herself, Barbara smiled.

"I guess I'll take it," she said, looking up into the older woman's smiling, heterochromatic gaze. Barbara turned her head. James was shouting for her somewhere.

"Wait!" Another figure was pressed into her hand. "If you take the momma, you gotta take the weir-boy too. They gotta stay together."

"What?" The weir-boy was clearly masculine, another crude figure with a straightline trunk that appeared to be chopped directly out of the tree, the thick brown bark that covered it was broken by a couple of knots where branches had been cut away, revealing bright gold underneath. It felt colder than the other.

"Mom!" James pushed through the crowd, Janie in tow. His mother clenched her fist around both figures, and stuffed it in the deep pocket of her pants.

"Jeez mom," he said, as he approached. "I thought we lost you."

"I'm fine," Barbara laughed. "Just wandered away to have a look around."

"Did you see anything cool, Mrs. de Wynter?" Janie piped up, gawking at the table and its wares.

"No no. It's not really my, um, thing I guess." She said, fingering the wooden dolls in her pocket. Looking up the old woman on the other side of the table gave her a wink.

"Well, let's get some breakfast or something. I think I saw a guy selling waffles over there," James pointed.

Barbara toyed with the figurines in her pocket for the rest of the morning, all through their visit to the park and lunch afterwards, barely hearing Janie's inanities or even her son's professions of love. She followed along a step or two behind them, a gentle warmth suffusing through her limbs as her fingertips worked, fascinated by the persistent difference in temperatures. No matter what she did, how she worked it, the male doll remained cool to the touch, even if she agitated it with her fist for ten full minutes.

Distracted and perhaps a little too warm in the sunshine, Barbara drifted along with her son and his girlfriend 'til they dropped her off again at the house before going on to do whatever it was that young people do on a sunny weekend afternoon. Humming tunelessly to herself, she wandered down the stairs to the little studio space she kept in the basement, and among the scattered paints and half-started pottery projects, she pulled the figurines out of her pocket.

A scattering of tiny grey curls came tumbling down to the dark parquet floors. Curious, she laid the male figure down on a side table and inspected the "weir-momma"; apparently, in her distraction, she'd worn the legs of the female figure completely, utterly smooth. They were silky grey and touchable like old driftwood, and a smile crept over her features as she let her fingertips drift over them before laying the figure down on the lip of an easel, among some long-forgotten pastels.

As she climbed the stairs again, Barbara noted a tingle and an ache and a low heat in her calves, as if they were waking up from numbness.

"We must have walked more than I thought," she said, to nobody in particular. "I really ought to start working out if my legs are tired already." Reaching the top of the stairs, she slid out of her Toms, and relished the relative coolness of the kitchen tiling on her bare feet, which felt warmer still now that she was upstairs.

Barbara puttered around the kitchen for a while, adjusting this, getting that out, putting the dishes away, and soon found herself sweating; her wide-legged pants, especially, felt far too warm. She could feel the sweat trickling down the back of her leg as she strode over to the AC control, which read a steady 68 degrees.

"This had better not be 'the change,'" Barbara muttered as she headed into her bedroom to change into something cooler.

Pulling a pair of fairly sedate shorts out of her dresser, she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her linen pants and yanked them down.

"Helllloooo, Legs." In the doorway, Philip whistled. "Looking good, honey."

"Very funny," she said, shooting him a look.

"I'm not being funny." He walked into the room and ran a hand up the back of her thigh. She was suddenly very aware of the granny panties she'd put on that morning. "They look really good today. Better than usual. Have you been hitting the gym while I wasn't looking?"

Barbara glanced at the full-length mirror in the corner. Her legs, bare and pale, *did* look particularly good today, better than they had in years. She turned one ankle, watching her calf bunch and stand out, as her thigh did likewise; there was no sign of the nascent varicose veins that she'd spotted yesterday in the shower, or the cellulite that had been slowly developing for years. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd properly shaved them, but there wasn't even any sign of stubble; in fact, they appeared freshly waxed and silky smooth. Her fingers slid down the taut skin, marvelling at how they felt. Even her feet looked better than before, she noted, as her squatty little toes pressed into the bedroom carpet.

"It's just..." she couldn't come up with a reason for the transformation. "A good leg day?"

"You always have good leg days," Phil murmured, behind her. "Let's celebrate." His hand slid around between her thighs, where she was surprisingly damp.

"Sure," Barbara said, somewhat dazed.

Sex with Phillip was okay for everybody involved, if a little perfunctory. After a couple of decades together, there were certainly no new tricks left in his particular bag, and the ones he had she'd taught him in the first place. If anything, it was nice and comfortable and didn't require a heck of a lot of effort on anybody's part.

Afterwards, Barbara lay in the bed, slowly cycling her legs through the sheets, relishing the sensation of her skin on the high-threadcount cotton while he dozed in a post-coital half-sleep. Though her legs and feet felt extra-sensitive, everything from her butt upwards appeared to be unchanged, she noted as she slid her left sole up the shin of the other leg. She felt delicious, like she hadn't in *years*, though she couldn't for the life of her sort out why. It was almost enough to make her want to touch herself and-

"What was that, dear?" Phillip was saying something.

"I said, 'how was the craft fair? Did you buy anything?'"

"Oh, that. It was about what one would expect." She shrugged, slightly annoyed at being pulled out of her reverie. "I didn't really pick up anything just-" her mouth opened, then shut, then opened again. "Just some waffles with James."

"...and Janie." Phillip prompted.

"Yes, yes. Her too." Barbara rolled her eyes, annoyed again. "Phillip, I'm going to head down to the kitchen to start supper." She sat up, and picked her loose shirt up off the floor where he'd thrown it.

"Sure thing, Legs," he leered as she pulled another pair of shorts out of the dresser; these were considerably shorter than the previous pair, having been retired some years before due to the way they cut uncomfortably into her waist.

They still did, but she wanted to leave her legs as bare as possible.

Padding along the hall, she pretended not to notice that James' door was closed, or hear the muffled sounds coming from the other side of it. Heading downstairs, she passed through the kitchen (the steaks were still thawing in a bowl of water in the sink), quietly slipped down into the basement, and into the studio. Flicking the light on, she closed the door and locked it.

"Now, where did I-" Barbara cast about her. Wherever the figures were, they weren't immediately obvious, or where she'd thought she'd left them. She rifled through the gessoed canvasses on the side table: nothing. She poked through the box of pastels next to the big easel: nothing. Frowning, she began turning over and generally tossing the place, growing increasingly frustrated.

"What the fuck is going on here?" She said to herself. She knew she'd taken them home, brought them down, had hardly kept from touching them all damn morning long and now they'd what? Walked away?

Forehead furrowed, she yanked a drawer open in the desk and crowed in triumph. Both figurines were tucked away in the back, behind a set of watercolours, the female atop the male. Barbara scratched her head, confused. She didn't remember tucking them back there, but it's not like James would have come down here, *or* Philip. Maybe that chubby little bitch had invaded her *personal space* and gone through her things. Barbara's fingers curled tightly around the figures as she drew them out, knuckles white with repressed anger.

She took a deep, calming breath, then unclenched her fist and more closely inspected the "weir-momma" doll. Its legs were slender and silky smooth, just as she'd remembered them, though the rest of the body was rough and slightly flaky and had only the vaguest concessions to feminine features.

Barbara slid her thumb up one of the figure's legs. Was this what being crazy was like? Was she seriously considering the possibility that a piece of wood had somehow melted away a decade's worth of curdled cellulite? A grey curl parted from the weir-momma's behind and tumbled to the floor.

"Am I really going to do this?" She rubbed her thighs together, skin sliding on skin. Glancing at the door to make sure it was locked, Barbara turned to the weir-momma. "I guess there's not much to lose. Either I'm crazy and it won't work, or I'm not crazy and it will." She laughed, and if it sounded slightly hysterical, at least there was nobody else there to hear.

Gingerly, she slid her thumb across the back of the figure, starting where the legs joined the trunk and up towards the shoulders. Several grey curls fell to the floor, and Barbara held her breath, waiting.

Nothing happened.

She did it again, thumb circling around one small patch for a couple of minutes, inviting a rain of curls.

Nothing happened.

With a somewhat relieved sigh, Barbara put the weir-momma back on the easel and stood. As she did, her left buttock began to tingle, as though the nerve endings there were beginning to wake up. She froze for a moment, waiting for the sensation to either subside or intensify, as a patch of sleeping skin should. It did neither, but it persisted for five full minutes.

Barbara picked up the figurine. It was warm, almost body temperature, against all reason in the coolness of the basement.