Rawlins
Of course, getting out of prison was another matter entirely, and no amount of knowing what to tell people would improve the boy’s prospects for release.
But Ellsbeth was a graduate student. An adult, more than capable of making her own decisions.
To his surprise, he had not been stricken with guilt after they slept together in his office.
Perhaps it was because he regarded Ellsbeth as a colleague, despite the power imbalance inherent to their roles.
She was an intellectual force to be reckoned with; he was impressed, even intimidated, by her talent.
At least, that’s what he told himself, in an effort to make it all feel okay. And it had to feel okay. Because the way he wanted her, he could not possibly stop.
Her fantasies of submission struck a chord deep inside him, touching something he had been embarrassed and even frightened by.
He had certainly never participated in any fetish subculture, and cringed at the thought of leather outfits and seedy sex dungeons.
But he had occasionally, in past relationships, had experiences that revealed his own proclivities.
An impulsive smack on the ass, a command obeyed that brought a rush of pleasure.
But he had always been frightened by himself in those moments, fearful they would unleash some darkness that he could not contain.
With Ellsbeth, however, the desire for domination was more than an idle impulse.
It was becoming an obsession. It had crept in gradually, starting as irritation with her claim on his thoughts; then admiration, respect, and affection all slowly took root, and colored his want, so his desire for her was strangely sharp and soft at the same time.
He wanted to both punish and pleasure her, to hold her close and pin her down; the contradictions swirled in his mind and left him dizzy.
At times it was almost amusing, to want with such intensity at his age, and pine for her like he was a lovesick adolescent.
But other times, he was more frightened than amused.
His impulses felt wild and dangerously out of control, and he was not sure where they came from.
He would replay the whole course of events in his mind—the headstrong girl marching into his life, conquering more and more of his mind every day—and sometimes it felt like a tale of kismet for two well-matched lovers.
But other times, it played as the story of a girl who knew exactly how to get what she wanted.
And she was getting it. Whether “it” was him, or his indulgence in her illicit project, or both.
That interpretation of events was ungenerous, to say the least. What was certain was that she had more and more power over him every day.
It made him wonder if he should call the whole thing off…
but even as he wondered, he knew with certainty that he wouldn’t.
Not with the twin pulls of curiosity and desire dragging him forward with more force than he could possibly resist.
Maybe another writ magic ritual was exactly what he needed.
A remedy for his own sense of powerlessness.
A way to indulge the passion he felt while clawing back the control he needed.
If he could just get it out of his system, then he could take a step back and view the entire situation rationally once again, viewing himself and Ellsbeth with the logic and clarity he had once prided himself on.
Ellsbeth arrived at his house at six o’clock, punctual as ever, carrying a bottle of wine and, as always, a backpack slung over one shoulder, heavy with books.
She wore, to his surprise, a cottony dress, loose and flowy but complementary to her figure, with three buttons at the top and a hem that brushed her knees.
He understood the intention of her fashion choice, which was less uptight and professional than she tended to favor, leaning into the growing familiarity of their relationship.
The dress promised a more fun, carefree Ellsbeth; seeing him appraise her outfit, she swished the bottom of it at him. “You like it?”
“It’s cute,” he said, stepping back to let her inside. The dress flattered her, but it also accentuated her youth in a way that stirred at his guilt.
He took her bag and hung it on the coatrack, beckoning her back to the kitchen. “I was thinking, since we’re able to start earlier this time, we could get right to work and wait until later to make dinner.”
“Dinner later would be lovely,” she said. “And I’m happy to wait. We need to work up an appetite, right?”
Rawlins had feared sleeping together would create tension between them, but it seemed to put Ellsbeth more at ease, as though they had simply found the norm that should’ve existed between them all along.
“Sounds good,” he said. “I planned to cook for two, but I didn’t want to presume, in case you had other plans to scamper off to.”
“You’ve got me all night,” she told him, leaning across the kitchen counter.
“Good to know.” Unable to help himself, he stepped toward her, closing the distance. Seeing her in his home filled him with an instinct to keep her there. Then he asked, despite himself, “So I get Friday, and the runner got Saturday?”
Ellsbeth cocked her head. “I’m sorry, was that…jealousy? Over me?” He shook his head at her teasing but she continued, clearly enjoying herself. “Out of all my academic achievements, I think that making Professor Thaddeus M. Rawlins jealous of a med student might just take the crown.”
“I’m not jealous,” he said. “Only curious about your life.”
“There’s no one else,” she said, sincere now, and they shared a look that caught his breath in his chest.
He broke from her gaze and let out an exhale, trying to keep his head clear. “Our best bet, for your ritual, is upstairs.”
As he led the way, Ellsbeth’s gaze lingered on every detail of his decor. “So now I get to see the forbidden second story, huh?”
“If we’re going to study forbidden rituals, we need to get you comfortable working outside of the Practicum,” he said as he climbed the stairs, showing her down the second-story hallway.
“Oh, really? Is that the reason we’re doing the ritual in your bedroom?”
He paused at the door and shot her a look. “It’s not my bedroom, it’s the guest room. Would you rather return to the Practicum? And for me to keep my conduct as professional as that would require?”
She shrugged. “You didn’t seem to have a problem in your office.”
“I’m the only one with a key to my office,” he replied.
He opened the door to the guest bedroom, which featured a four-poster mahogany bed with a carved headboard.
Ellsbeth studied the inlaid design. “It’s an antique, so try not to break it,” he told her.
“And I chose this space based on your ritual. You need four solid corners to secure the limbs of the subject. If you prefer, we can go outside and put down stakes in this configuration? Otherwise, give me a hand.”
He stepped to the opposite corner of the bed, and they pulled it a few feet away from the wall, which would make it easier to mark off a circle that held the four corners entirely within its circumference.
Ellsbeth assessed the space, looking at the foot-high clearance under the bed. “This is perfect, actually. It provides an elevated platform, so I can place the activated elementals underneath, right?”
Rawlins nodded. “You need low candles, which can limit your durations in some cases, but for what you’re doing tonight, this will be fine.”
He showed her over to the roll-top desk in the corner, opening it to reveal a printed copy of the ritual she had emailed him, along with all the elementals it called for: various metal ingots, beakers holding liquids, candles, and incense.
“Thank you,” she said. “For getting all of this. I mean, I know you said you would, but still…I appreciate it.” Her genuine gratitude took him aback.
Rawlins realized that Ellsbeth was not accustomed to feeling like she could count on anyone.
It made sense, in a way; she was a smart, self-sufficient girl who had experienced tragic loss.
She had moved mountains by the force of her will, and had been let down by life again and again in a thousand ways that made her feel small.
Rawlins’s heart tightened in his chest, and the temperature of his feelings toward Ellsbeth somehow rose by yet another degree.
He wanted to earn her trust as no one ever had.
To show her that she could be supported and taken care of in a way she had never dared to ask for.
But he feared the day would come, inevitably, when he disappointed her, and it would be very painful for them both.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Shall we?”
Working off the instructions Ellsbeth had typed up, they began preparing the ritual space.
It was a double binding, or in a sense, quadruple.
The previous writ magic ritual she crafted pulled the subject’s wrists together, but that was a single effect, while this one would act on each of the limbs in a different direction.
Ellsbeth had crafted a neat solution, so the new ritual was only slightly longer than the last.
“I was thinking: If this works, it will open up a range of possibilities,” she said. “You could combine multiple effects and sequence them. Make someone do…whatever you want.”
“In theory, yes,” said Rawlins. “The limiting factor is complexity. The more specific the behavior, the more involved the instructions and the magic. Try actually writing the ritual—it’ll make you appreciate how involved it is to do something as simple as make a sandwich.”
“I don’t want a sandwich,” she said, brushing past him as she returned to the desk to check her calculations. The brief contact filled his nose with her scent, and he could not help but follow her to the desk.