The wind sang over the hills behind the cottage and through the trees in the garden. Then it danced its way down the chimney until it blew like an organ chime summoning something unnamed to a gathering.

Amid this seasonal serenade Tess lay back on the rug so that her long red tresses extended like supernova around her head and from under her woollen dress stretched out her indolent limbs like some exotic cat. As the gale still purred in the grate she turned her face to consider the flickering fire that set shadows weaving shapes in the orange-black of the room.

Night fell so soon at this time of year but Tess knew this to be winter’s last gasp and she could already feel the onset of spring. It called to her blood like something ancient invoking the Earth power and in the gathering dark she pictured dark lords and mischief-making elves lurking in the corners.

At a thought from the young witch it would be so and for a moment she considered making this sinister parade real and let the devil take her. What evils would befall her at such creatures hands, what dark tasks would she be enslaved to as she was whisked away to any alien landscape of her choosing?

But the last time she had indulged such fantasies she had been bound and naked for months to be ravaged by the hound lord before she had found the will to set her world right again. Nevertheless nasty temptations still cooed to her in the howl of the wind, caressing her in places mother never spoke of.

A man came to her then, green of raiment like a summer oak and twice as strong. In her mind’s eye she could not see his face, only his hands, huge like shovels carved boldly from his tree trunk arms.

She wanted him cruel yet just, crafty yet unrelenting; his lust a match for hers with a third limb like an arm ready to rise at its need. In decades past her teachers would have punished in her in earnest for such abuse of the craft and unbidden the thought thrilled her.

Tess let her mind go to the half world of daydream where she was naked but alone. She was face down on the bed with arms and legs somehow secured. Under her hips was a firm pillow like a bolster. This served to elevate her bare bottom in an exaggerated pose, a tight split sphere exposed to their gaze.

She had no idea who they were, but there might have been a dozen. Faces obscured in shadow with fierce burning eyes. The one in charge had large strong hands that caressed warm oils into her flesh, every nook of her now slick and tender.

The master now leaned in close and whispered, “You are mine.”

“Yes Sir,” she sighed.

“This is for my pleasure not yours,” he continued in a voice like rusty steel, “I am going to switch you raw long beyond the point of begging,” he told her. “This doesn’t even really begin until you are defeated.”

“Oh the gods,” she groaned.

Beyond him in the shadows she pictured the other men taking up canes whips and paddles in readiness for their turn. Would she pleasure them all?

The wind song in the chimney urged her on but a blast of fresh rain on the glass pulled her back to the real world. The window was wet and shaking as she was and Tess allowed an arm to steal low to her belly.

“I should be naked,” she murmured to herself but in her fantasy she was.

The thin line of pain across her bare bottom was acute and she gasped in this world and the other.  The oil guarded her flesh but aided the sting and she feared for her resolve. Then another slow hiss criss-crossed her behind and she shook. There were many, many more setting a pace that was at once fast and oh so slow. Her backside was seared with an agony now reality could not sustain, but her courage held and she sensuously bit upon her lip and moaned.

“You two at once,” the master commanded to some hidden hunks.

The first paddle blast made her gasp, but not as much as the second swat from her left. In a minute they had two-teamed her with a dozen swats a piece and tears boiled behind her eyes. I won’t beg, she pledged, not for them; only for him.

A minute more and the paddles held back for another round of the master’s switch. He could best her alone, she knew, but her shame was greater this way.

“I told you not to read that book,” Peter rasped, his disappointment heavy on his brow.

Unbidden and sudden the memory of her first painful college paddling broke into her chastisement on the bed. She hated it when that happened. It was so much better when she could focus on one scenario and not let her mind dance around greedily in the library of her fantasies.

On that occasion he had shut the door, but the shorts and cotton briefs at her ankles had been true enough. In truth it had been excruciatingly mortifying. The pain of it had been short and sharp and afterwards she had felt processed and not lovingly corrected.

But as the events played out in her mind later it had happened differently.

The door had not been closed and crowds of giggling students had passed the door. Also she had been sent to the corner first, her shorts and underwear puddled over her trainers. Peter had admired her bare bottom even as he pretended to work and she had been kept in that penitent vigil for an hour.

For the paddling she was bent over a padded chair and not merely touching toes. Her bottom faced the open door until she had died from the shame of it. But the paddling had been worse. Not quick and stingy that afterwards scratched as cotton was pulled over flesh. Instead the wood had lingered on her exposed bottom, burning as it bruised for swat after biting swat.

Eight swats became 18, 28 or 500 and moist-eyed grunts had become howls of pain until she had sobbed uncontrollably while outside her fellows had laughed.

“Perhaps the bullwhip,” Peter said incongruously.

Yes, she thought, a whipping and then he could… but it wasn’t Peter was it, it was the master or one of his men. She wanted Peter’s knee then, but it wasn’t up to her. If they wanted her whipped then she would be…

The razor birch felt like fire on her bottom and someone giggled. She knew the woman’s voice from her laugh and the shame intensified. This was getting out of hand and fantasies were merging; she was close.

Then amid it all, hard and sharp, she thought of the man in green like a summer oak and she climaxed as she gave him voice.

“This is unseemly behaviour for a witch of Fair Haven,” he said in a rich strong baritone.

Tess jumped up and scrabbled to cover her naked thighs. This was no dream and the stern giant was really there. Her heart pumped like the devil’s anvil.

“Who the hell…?” she gasped, but she loved this part.

He was real now, conjured by her will so that she might surrender. Might…? She loved the denial of it, it spoke of desired loss control, no that choice was gone now, she had given herself over to another erotic dreamscape and she must see it through.

“I am Sebastian Glade,” the man told her in a way that suggested a lack of emphasis born of supreme confidence.

Sometimes she wanted to tell these characters to get to the point, that it was all a game anyway. But only she would consider it so. What was her fate this time? In times past she had lived a life time as a slave wife or abject thrall before waking up in the cottage only hours later. Some of these lives she mourned for weeks while others felt like a prison release. But the choices she made were from the id and the danger was part of the thrill. Not that any real harm could befall her, not unless the coven found out anyway, and that was unlikely.

“It is not often that a witch pledges bond service to a Forest Lord,” Sebastian said, his voice carried a hint of supressed curiosity.

He was indeed a big man and handsome. He had the kind of chiselled features she liked, but with a firm round jaw and deep-set bright brown eyes that matched his hair.

“No well I…” Tess began.

She had been about to offer him tea as a distraction then she realised that they were no longer in the cottage. There was a clearing with close dark trees cocooning them in a green tinted light where sunshine burned through overhanging branches. It was beautiful and her eyes wandered among the silver white and brown tree trunks.

“You will not speak without permission,” Sebastian growled, “And look at me when I’m talking.”

Tess whirled around to face him and made to get up.

“Yes that’s another thing,” he barked, “On your feet.”

Tess obeyed and some instinct made her add a curtsey.

“Yes my lord,” she spluttered. ‘Cruel yet just, crafty yet unrelenting,” she remembered.

“What was the meaning of your earlier…” his face screwed up in a frown that made him look sexy, “…display? And in public too.”

Tess blushed and straightened her skirt.

“It is hardly in pub…” she began flicking a glance to the dense wood that surrounded them.

Sebastian gasped incredulously and took a step forward.

“Really?” he asked in stern disbelief. “You’re going to answer me back are you, and without as much as a by your leave my lord?”

“I’m sorry… I-I…” the gods he was good, Tess thought, the trembling came unbidden.

“We have nine long years together and I think we need to start as we mean to go on,” he sighed.

Nine… Tess gaped, she had been hoping for a few days this time, her power must be growing.

She was still considering this and whether there was a short cut out for later when Sebastian seized her and tumbled her easily across one firm knee. Her skirts were bunched up quickly in the small of her back and her bottom was bared. Still a shock no matter how many times one engineers it.

His hand was hard and unrelenting like a maple paddle and there was no question of a dignified gradual surrender to it. In half a dozen sharp swats she was burning behind and bawling like a kid. Not that the spanking ended there, Sebastian was an expert and had stamina to match. It was impossible to tell but a year-long quarter of an hour seemed to go by before she was set sobbing and broken onto her feet.

“That was for answering back,” he scolded her, “but before I send you to cut a switch for that indecent exhibition of yours, I need to tell you your duties…”

Tess sniffed miserably and rubbed at her bottom with her head bowed. It had been a while since it had been this intense.

“I have your true blood oath,” Sebastian continued, “and you will grant me full service as I demand…”

Tess glanced at the epic bulge in his tight breeks and gulped. Full service left no avenue unopened to him, she knew and a true blood oath… that transcended any spell of hers, oh the gods I am good… she thought grimly… Tess Fairhaven, maker of worlds…

“What are you smirking at? he bellowed, “You can cut me three switches you little hoyden… I am going to make sure you don’t sit down for a week…”

Nine years, she thought ruefully, concubine, clerk and personal spell caster to a forest lord, this was going to be a wild one… not for the first time she wondered if he hadn’t always been real and that she had merely moved in time and space to another world. But then again she supposed it didn’t really matter.

Not knowing the woods the switches took her too long to find and Sebastian expressed his displeasure while she was draped bottom-up over a log. From somewhere he produced salted pepper oil to ease any damage, but the enhanced sting turned her into a screamer.

To him this was his first experience of her, but she knew the mettle of the man she had summoned. He would thrash her long past being sated and then he would begin over just as she had arranged. The gods, this was dangerous magic and it had been a long time since a spell summoning had been as intense as this. If it wasn’t just what she needed then she was going to have a very long time to regret it.