Chapter 2 Sage
Sage
Reclining on his futon up in the attic, Sage felt accomplished.
He’d had the idea a few days ago, had tinkered with the magic, and now, finally, he had a prototype all magicked up and working.
The prototype, strictly speaking, was only a rubber glove, warm water, and his finest magic, but Sage had put all his effort into the spell.
For research purposes, Sage’s board shorts were around his ankles, the rubber glove between his legs, wiggling around the…test area with slightly lubed strokes.
“Oh fuck that’s good.” He let his head fall back against the throw pillows that covered one half of his futon. “Yeah, keep that up. Fuck. Good glove.”
The Magic Glove—TM!—was dexterous and just the right kind of firm where it needed to be.
“Focus more on the tip. Yeah, that’s it. Oh my fucking gods. How did I live without this?”
The glove went to Sage’s balls of its own accord, and Sage moaned, grabbing one of the approximately two dozen pillows surrounding him and shoving it over his head to muffle his scream; not that anyone was there to hear him.
The glove was as eager as a water-filled glove juiced up with magic could be, and one lubed-up finger even went farther south, which resulted in the glove just dropping to the mattress and away from the hard task at hand—pun fully intended.
Sage groaned in frustration and snatched the glove back up to put it in place around the test area. “Now, stay there. Stay focused. This is for…science.”
The glove obeyed, firmly taking hold of Sage and focusing all its watery enthusiasm on the flushed tip.
“Yes. Fuck, yes,” Sage said.
With another glove stroke, the rubber broke.
As R how have you been? Good? Oh, splendid, splendid.”
Sage made a face. “Right, sorry. In my defense, you’re the one who’s always, ‘be concise, Sage, get to the point, Sage.’”
“Never did I tell you to leave common courtesy at the door, Sage. Regardless, since this is starting to turn circuitous, I can help with that.”
“With what? Courtesy?”
Peter made a sharp noise. “Absolutely not. With your state?”
“My…state?” Sage turned in his beanbag to make sure Peter hadn’t broken in somehow, or climbed the house to stare in through the round attic window, but he was fine. Peter wasn’t here.
“You said you were busy.”
Sage relaxed. “Right. I am.”
“Well, I can help with that.”
Sage froze. This was not Peter’s I-have-a-job-for-you voice.
This was his nice people voice, the kind he used on nice people.
Which was when Peter wanted other people to think he thought they were nice.
In other words, when he wanted something and wanted you to think doing whatever he wanted had been your idea to begin with.
Sage realized he was being fucked with by none other than Peter Collins, and that was a problem. There was painfully little Sage could think to do to get himself un-fucked. In fact, he couldn’t think of anything at all.
“You know, I think I’m okay actually.”
“I told you not to be circuitous. What would you say to an apprentice?”
Sage snorted. “I would tell them to go and fuck off, maybe point them to someone who has their shit together and does all this adulting bullshit better than me.”
“Ah, don’t be so quick to sell yourself short, Sage. You are the most competent and least judgy witch in all of New Elvenswood.”
The compliment made Sage uneasy. He shivered and lifted his left leg. The piece of magically animated rubber was cozying up to his big toe. He peeled it off. The rubber took that as invitation to make rubbery love to Sage’s big thumb.
“You’re not calling about a job, are you?”
“Sage, I’m calling to make all your jobs easier. I found you an apprentice.”
“But what if I don’t want an apprentice?”
Peter was silent for a long moment. “Sage, be reasonable. Why wouldn’t you want an apprentice?”
Uh-oh. Sage couldn’t be sure, but Peter sounded just a tad hangry. No one liked Peter when he got hangry.
“Look, they’d have to move in with me, and it’s still mostly Grandma’s old furniture.”
Yes, that was a good reason, one Peter had to accept. Old lady furniture and young apprentices did not go together. What apprentice would want floral print and lace trimming on half the cushions?
“Abigail’s taste was decent. I don’t see why it would be an issue.” Peter sounded like he might eat his secretary.
“I couldn’t pay them much either. And I’ve never taught anyone this stuff. Plus I work all those odd hours.”
Sage wanted to add that he also only did laundry pretty much whenever, and half the time when he went grocery shopping, he only got a quarter of the things he’d set out to get, and all the cats he adopted from the shelter just left of their own accord after about a week.
Sage really wasn’t good at all the adulting shit.
At all. Peter couldn’t possibly expect him to take care of anything as complicated as another witch?
A real person? He couldn’t even keep a fucking bewitched rubber glove alive—although the remaining piece of it was still pretty eager to please.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll pay this one a stipend. I’ll drop him by soon, but there are a few things I need to take care of first. I just thought I should give you a heads-up,” Peter said.
“But, Peter, I don’t think that’s a good idea?”
Sage heard Peter breathe in and out slowly, as if he was trying to keep calm.
“Sage, how would you know that without trying it? I’m sure you’ll do an excellent job.”
That sounded like an order, and a second later they were ending the call, and Sage wasn’t totally sure what had happened.
Apparently he’d been made teacher to a young witch.
Then again, if young witches were anything like all the cats, they’d be gone after a week or so, which would be for the best. Sage looked over at the box of rubber gloves he’d bought specifically for his experiment.
“I should probably give this another try before Peter drops some kid at my door.” Sage peeled the eager rubber off his toe and went downstairs to the kitchen to warm up some water for the next glove, hoping there wouldn’t be any interruptions this time around.