*This is a story that follows on from an audio porn performance of mine. Please feel free to enjoy it on it’s own, but if you would like to hear that performance, you can find it* [here](https://soundgasm.net/u/katherinesummers/I-Cant-Help-Myself)*. Alternatively, if you would rather read it, the script can be found* [here](https://pastebin.com/Nw1rUh6s)*. Both this and the audio are prequels to another story, so if you would like to read more about these characters, you can find their stories in parts* [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/bpqrk6/the_witchs_apprentice_part_1_magic_ffm_femdom/)*,* [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/bprqmh/the_witchs_apprentice_part_2_femdom_fantasy_magic/)*, and* [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/bq1086/the_witchs_apprentice_part_3_magic_mf_femdom/)*. This is all optional of course!*
*So without any more ado, please enjoy my story :)*
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**The Bargain**
—
The day dawned and she belonged to no one.
True to her word, they had fled the village in the darkness of early morning when the air was still delicately cold, dew kissing her shins as she crossed the tall grasses that made up the outskirts. She turned to look for the building that had been her home for her entire life, still backing up the hill.
“Second thoughts?” Cipher asked her, also pausing, his eyes were on her.
It looked so sleepy, only a collection of shadows huddled in the centre of the valley, so idealic. A stranger would never guess how many nights she had wept for loneliness, how many times she had smiled despite real fear, how many times she had wanted to disappear from shame. Looking down at it now, she thought of the other girls her age, her friends – though she had never once showed any of them her true self – and wondered how many of them had suffered just the same. All of them? None of them? Her heart almost strained for them except, she reminded herself, they would not have greeted her confessions of desire with anything other than fear and revulsion, even if (especially if) they, too, writhed in their sleep amid painfully erotic dreams.
She had tasted freedom. Real reciprocal pleasure. There was no going back.
“No,” she said, and turned back up the hill, taking the winding path to the foot of the mountains.
They moved quickly. At first, she had forged ahead, driven both by the promise of freedom and the endless possibility that implied, and the residual fear of discovery that followed her. Well after sunrise, she looked behind her, her ears pricked for the sounds of pursuit, certain that they would not let her go, that she would have to resist their attempts to drag her back. Over and over, she wondered if Cipher would conveniently disappear when that happened.
As the morning wore on, however, no one seemed to be following her, and Cipher had yet to leave her. It was surreal to see him walking ahead of her, bare-chested, clothed only in a loose pair of trousers that flowed like silk or water or wind, only ever a breath away from pure illusion. The sunlight bathed his perfect shoulders, adding definition to the muscles of his back. She had always thought of incubi as slippery creatures that lived only in darkness, burned by sunlight, but he strode with brazen confidence, as if he had walked this road every day of his life. Indeed, his beauty was only enhanced by the day, now that she could see more than a pair of golden eyes close to hers. His ashy skin, his sculpted form, was like that of a stone statue, though stone could never hold the heat that he did, or move like quicksilver. Red hair, thick and messy in a casual, artful way was teased by the breeze and made her think of flickering flame.
When they travelled far enough that she became unsure of the way, he took the lead. It was only then that she realised she had no idea where they were going.
“Cipher…?” she asked, but he pre-empted her.
“There is a keep some days north from here. I think we might find a home there.” He turned, walking backwards so he could take to her. “I have friends there. But if it does not suit you, there are other places.” He grinned and the effect was dazzling. “There’s a whole wide world out there.”
She smiled back helplessly. “And you’ll stay with me all the way there.”
“And beyond, if you’ll have me. I can hardly leave you here on the road.”
“No, but… why?”
She had reached him and he offered his hand, which she took. It was broad, warm and firm, and it had the effect of both steadying her and making her heart flutter at the same time. She thought again of how it had felt when he had kissed her, how his hands had glided over her skin in a way that felt like lightening. Almost immediately, a flush rose to her cheeks and she was forced to look away from him, though she didn’t take her hand back.
“There’s something in you, Katherine. I think you know it. Some spark… I don’t know what it is yet. It might not have a form. But if I had left you in that village, it would have sputtered and died under the hand of your fiancĂ©, of your parents, of forced wife- and motherhood.” He stopped knelt so that he could look up at her, his eyes soft. “When an incubus lies with a human, we draw out a kind of vital energy from them, that lies in their pleasure, their freedom, that forms some essential part of their spirit. That is what feeds us, sustains us and keeps our hearts beating. The energy that you gave me wasn’t just the young, hummingbird energy of a virgin girl – though that is as sweet as ambrosia – but a flicker of potential.”
“Potential for what…?” she asked, her eyes wide. His voice was mesmerising, his eyes arresting her, his undivided attention both rooting her to the spot and intensifying the growing heat in her body. If he hadn’t been holding her hands, they might have been shaking.
“We don’t know yet,” he said, and then lifted one hand to cup her chin. “But wouldn’t it be a damned shame to leave it to suffocate back there?”
Even with his charm and his soft, pleasant words, something about his answer troubled her. “So, I’m special? Truly? Out of all the women that live in that village, I’m the only one with this… *spark*?”
He stood, surveying her, as if trying to find the right words. “It is a complex set of circumstances,” he began. “It is a cocktail of multiple chance factors; your environment, creativity, curiosity, sexual awakening, timing and happenstance. You and I so happened to be in the right place at the right time. It is possible that other women – and men – from the village might come into that same power, just as a rose might bloom in late winter. But the odds, some of which are of their own making, are against them.”
“What power?”
His smile returned, and with a glint in his eyes, he said; “magic.”
Something caught his attention a little down the road. Letting go of Katherine’s hand, he made a gesture as if wrapping himself in a shawl, and just like that, he wrapped himself in a long, forest green travelling cloak. When he once again took her hand and smiled at her, it was with the face of an old man, with a thick, iron grey beard, a large, bent nose that looked as if it had been broken once, and sharp emerald eyes. Katherine started, her own eyes going wide.
“Only a glamour, my dear,” the old man explained, and he sounded like Cipher. “We are not the only travellers afoot today.”
Sure enough, she now heard the soft chop-chop sound of trotting horses ahead of them. Tucking close to Cipher, he put an arm around her shoulder than they walked side by side, for all the world a weathered traveller and his granddaughter. The horsemen didn’t give them a glance.
“Why did you hide from them?” she asked, after they had passed.
“Rare are the places where I can walk as myself. I am not human. It is best not to make others uncomfortable for no reason.” He squeezed her hand. “I am the invader, remember? Creeping into the bedrooms of young ladies in the dead of night and making them do… what did you say? ‘Terrible things’?”
She let out a snort of laughter and that seemed to light him up. His hand went to her hair as they walked, and she shivered happily, turning her face into his arm and hugging it. She felt light as air, her heart thrilling in this new adventure. They passed high into the hills, the road a steady trail through wooded valleys. They drank at streams and raided wild raspberry bushes and enjoyed the glorious sunshine of a new spring day. More than once, Katherine wondered if he was using his magic to keep her spirits high, for it seemed too good to be true that she should be this content for so long. So it was with a little relief that as the sun began to sink over the horizon, she began to flag, her feet now aching fiercely, the pack she had brought with her sagging on her shoulders, gradually growing heavier with every step. She was hungry, she realised suddenly, and painfully so.
Seeming to sense this, Cipher led her away from the path into a shaded clearing. The mossy ground was soft and dry, and she sank down with her back against a fallen tree. To her surprise, she watched him build a small fire and light it by rapidly rolling a stick between his palms, pressing hard on the kindling, having expected him to produce flames by magic. When she asked about it, he only gave her a mischievous look and a wink. “I’m not that kind of demon, I’m afraid,” he said. Once he had a small, crackling fire, he showed her how to feed it and then instructed her to wait, to shout out his name if anyone came, and to trust that he would return soon, before disappearing into the trees.
Katherine obeyed, keeping herself warm by the fire and removing her boots to massage her smarting feet, but despite her weariness, she was unable to rest. She had been in near constant contact with him all day, her senses flaring with every casual brush of his fingertips. Did he know that his voice thrummed within her and made her long for his hurried breath in her ear? Did he realise that she had been perpetually on the verge of begging him to drag her into the trees, crush her between his body and the dirt and take her again and again? Stretching out against the fallen trunk, she squirmed against the heat between her legs. His charm had been so much that she could almost have forgotten her urgent arousal while he commanded her attention, like how she hadn’t felt the real ache in the soles of her feet until she had taken her weight off them, but now that he was gone, she had nothing to think about except the relentless throbbing need.
Finding a spot to lay comfortably on her back, the fire to her right, she tried and failed to relax. It was no use. She forced herself to lay still and listen to the woods. She heard the small sounds of life, the scurrying of mice, the soft song of dusk birds, the low, baleful sound of an owl. No people. Just her, and her need and the fire. Letting out a sigh, she finally let her hand move down her hips, shifting so that she could pull her skirts up to her waist, parting her stockinged legs. Breathing deep and closing her eyes, she slipped her hand into her panties and around the curve of her sex, feeling herself swollen and hot. Even just this gentle touch was enough to make her whimper as her fingers dipped into the burning wetness there.
Using her two middle fingers, she found her sensitive clit and stroked it in slow circles with the pads of her fingertips, causing her back to arch and a little huff of pleasure escape her. Even now, she was telling herself it was only for the sake of a little relief. She wasn’t *masturbating* so much as exploring the extent of Cipher’s effect on her. It was late enough that other travellers wouldn’t still be on the road, and aside from the horsemen they had seen only one other that day, but even so, she grit her teeth hard and bit down any errant breath or moan that threatened to escape, conditioned by years of secretly touching herself in her room late at night. So, almost silently, she strained and gasped as she continued to stroke and rub, the pleasure deeply enhanced by the feel of the ground beneath her, the warmth and protective glow of the fire. Her toes curled and her feet slipped against the moss, seeking purchase as she moved her hips, tilting them up as she built up a rhythm. Her mind was fuzzing over and she was losing her sense of time and place. All there was for an unknowable time was her struggling breath, the vivid memories of the night before, and the rising, burning pleasure of her fingers on her sex.
A rustle. The sound of footsteps through the undergrowth. A sudden, powerful wave of panic flooded her and she sucked in a sharp breath, snapping her hand away and frantically tugging her skirts back into place, breathing hard as if she had been running. Her heart hammering hard in her ears, she wheeled about, trying to see who was approaching.
“Cipher?” she called, her voice coming out cracked.
“That’s right,” he said, stepping into the firelight as if he had been gone only moments. In his hands was a package wrapped in brown paper. He had returned to his true form, his broad muscled body breathtakingly beautiful as he crouched over the fire to add a little more fuel. Though he must have been aware of how out of breath she was, and though her face burned red-hot, he made no comment, and simply handed her the package. It was warm.
With shaking fingers – she had hurriedly cleaned off the slick fingers of her right hand on the hem of her petticoat – she unfolded the brown paper. A round little short-crust pie sat steaming in her hands. Stunned, she looked up at him.
“How did you…? Where did you -?”
“I can travel long distances very swiftly over roads that are not accessible to humans,” he explained. “It came from a market in a distant city, on an island kingdom to the west. I think you’ll enjoy it.” By the look on his face, he rather enjoyed her shock and awe as he passed her a glass bottle. “Elderberry mead. Sweet as honey. Please, eat. Drink.”
Her hunger, forgotten in her self-indulgence, returned with a vengeance the second she bit into the meat pie. It was rich and, after a long day’s trek, profoundly satisfying. The mead was just as delicious, like nothing she had ever tasted before, and she drank it in small sips, savouring it on her tongue. Cipher didn’t eat, but watched the fire, his face relaxed in a small, gentle smile.
Was he waiting for her to finish? Katherine felt her heart miss a beat. Swallowing, she bit her lip, wrestling with the question inside her.
“Do not be afraid to ask me,” he said, without prompting, and she jumped. The suggestive tone, the slight promise, the *implication*, it stoked the fire in her anew and she felt her breath coming short once more.
When she did manage to speak, it was in a whisper. “Will you have me again tonight?”
His look intensified. “Do you want me to?”
She froze, staring at him. Answering him was impossible. The words stuck in her throat firm enough that she struggled to breathe.
After a long pause, he sighed and turned back to the fire. “Such a shame. Nothing stirs my desire like a plaintive voice in the night, the desperate sighs, the strained gasps of need and pleasure.” His voice was sweeter than the elderberry mead, sweeter than clear water to a parched tongue, and she felt such a rush of blood and arousal that she was suddenly light headed. “Your silent, unspoken erotic agony was enough to draw me to you the first time, but there is nothing quite like -”
“Cipher please!” She begged. “Yes, alright! Yes! I want you to take me. I’ve been fighting this fever every second that you’ve been with me! I’m so wet I’m sure I’ve soaked through my dress! I can think of nothing else but your hands on me, your weight on me – I *need* it! I’ll burn up without it! Don’t tease me any longer, I can’t -”
He was kissing her, having crossed the distance between them faster than blinking. For a moment her entire body tensed, every hair on her body standing on end, a shiver racing down her spine, and then she melted into him, his heat and his breath on her lips somehow far more intoxicating than any alcohol. She reached up with her hands, trying to touch his hair, his neck, but he had already wrapped himself up in her, bearing her down to the ground, pressing himself flush against her as if his need was as potent as her own. His fingers were already pushing up her thigh, past her stockings and hooking into her underwear, pulling them roughly down to her knees. Those same strong hands took her by the shoulder and hip, turning her over and lifting her backside up. She felt his member, thick, hot and throbbing, trapped between her thighs and whimpered. It had happened in less than a few heartbeats, but she had been aching for it all day. It wouldn’t take much. In fact, she realised with a jolt of anxiety that she would meet her crisis with only a few short thrusts.
He drew back, his hands holding her hips steady, her shoulders pressed into the mossy earth, smelling due and the crackling wood fire. She felt him press into her, so slick and swollen, her arousal reaching such a fever pitch that all it took was one smooth motion for him to fill her completely. All thought of disappointing him fled. She groaned, a deep, guttural sound, her fingers flexing against the earth, pressing her hips back into his involuntarily. He bent over her, his hands planted on either side of her, and began to move in short, deep thrusts that made her arch her back and whine with pleasure. The rough, relentless friction, combined with his hard panting on the back of her neck stole any chance of coherent thought. For an unknowable, devastatingly brief time, there was only sensation, only the rapid, desperate rhythm. Then the flush of heat, the tell-tale tremor that rolled through her body like a wave of electricity, the unconscious, inevitable tensing, like a coiled spring in her core. She cried into the night as she came, writhing under him so that he was forced to pin her down with his forearm, whispering soothing words in her ear that she couldn’t understand.
When she returned to herself, she became aware once again of her breathing, her chest heaving as if she had been sprinting. She could feel his hands on her thighs again, stroking, smoothing down her skirts. He had turned her over onto her back, she realised. She blinked, looking up into his eyes, his charming smile. Her body was suddenly heavy.
“There,” he said, and he sounded pleased. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it? Brave girls that ask for what they want get what they ask for.” He leaned down and kissed her lips, her nose, her forehead and she giggled with delight.
“But you didn’t…” she trailed off, her already pink face going red. “You’re still…” She could feel his erection heavy between her legs, resting on her labia.
“What? Oh this?” He said with feigned innocence. “Don’t fear, my courageous Katherine. We are not done yet. I could sense that you had brought yourself to the edge before I interrupted. I knew that you would not stand my attention for long, that you craved release. I thought I’d give it to you first.” He was unlacing her dress, his warm, broad hands sliding it off her as he knelt between thighs. Her cool skin met the warmth of the firelit night with a shudder and she shifted under him, arching into his tender caresses like a cat. “Now we can take our time… Enjoy the sensations…” His fingertips trailed down her now bare chest, and she squirmed, whimpering as he rubbed a circle around her rising nipples. Arousal pooled between her legs again, and the sensitivity gained from her first orgasm allowed her to feel the same pulse echoed back to her in his cock.
His hands travelled all across her body, peeling away her clothes until she was utterly naked beneath him, gooseflesh rising on her arms and legs and chest. “Slow now,” he purred, and angled himself over so that the tip of his cock nestled into the little hollow where she began, just threatening penetration and no more. When he pressed into her a second time, it was just as easy, just as painless, but somehow far more satisfying. She spread her legs wide to accommodate him, feeling the ridge of his head drag through her, every detail of the sensation revealed to her. He let out a sweet sigh of pleasure and she felt herself squeeze and quiver around him as she yielded. He pulled back and she clung onto him, not wanting to lose that feeling of being full of him. He kissed her, laying fully on top of her, and began to roll his hips in slow, steady circular motions.
His hand was under her, on her buttocks, pressing her up to match his movements, to reach the deepest parts of her and make her groan and mewl, her eyes closed, her head falling back against the moss as she lost herself in the motions. There was nothing of the urgency of the animal rutting he had given her before. That had brought her down into her body, into some primal place of scorching heat and ragged breath. This… This was *transcendent*. This was what worship must feel like, she thought, before her thoughts were stolen again by his tongue on her lips. She opened herself up to the kiss, moaning into his mouth and hearing his honey sweet voice answer her. Waves of heat and pleasure washed through her, causing her body to alternate between coiling tension and blissful release while Cipher continued his long, steady push and pull. It was a dance that was as natural to him as breathing and she delighted in his confident ease and comfort, his movements as steady and inevitable as the wind between the trees.
He didn’t speed up, but something in his body changed. The muscles in his shoulders bunched up, his breath became heavy, his moans more like growls and she realised with a renewed surge of heat that he was coming to crisis. This very realisation brought the slow culmination of pleasure that they had patiently built in her to a head and she felt it threatening to tip over. “Please…” she murmured; her voice high as she tried to resist each new wave. “*Please…”*.
“I’m with you…” He whispered, and the words came out deep, strained. It was enough to make her whole body shake. “I’ll be with you all the way…”
It took three deep breaths for him to cum hard and strong inside her. He pressed tight to her, his hips grinding into her as if he longed to be somehow closer still. Feeling the sudden warmth, the deep pressure, and the pulsing of his member against some secret spot inside her, she fell into her own, shuddering orgasm, her cries muffled against his shoulder as he held her tight. For several perfect moments, they rocked together, pushing each other a little further into blinding pleasure.
When her eyes fluttered open again, he was planting little kisses on her neck and shoulders, stroking her hair. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. Each kiss and caress felt like a blessing. Entangled together like this, he smoothly slid out of her and rolled her over onto her side, settling behind her so that he could nestle into the back of her neck. “Sleep now, my girl… Tomorrow, I will carry you the distance to the keep.”
“No…” She said, though her protest lacked any strength. She was suddenly so tired.
“Yes,” he insisted, stroking her shoulder. “I am strong enough to do this.”
“But it’s not… it’s not fair… I should…” She trailed off. She wanted to argue that she should be able to carry herself, that she couldn’t just rely on him.
“Hush…” he told her. “I know how your body hurts from walking all day today. You will feel it in the morning. Let me carry you… But our bargain will be this. You may accept this from me, in condition that when you are one day strong enough, old enough, and wise enough, you will be there to carry someone who needs you. Is that fair?”
She thought about it through the fog of sleepiness. “Yes… That’s fair.”
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/c2ez53/the_bargain_mfincubusfantasygentle