Did you want to be a Wizard? (M/f)

[goodgulf]

Note: I've been playing around with stories set in World where the importance of magic is slowly fading. I say worldS because I can't decide on a single way that the magic works in them. Anyway I've got several fragments, but finally finished a few.

Did you want to be a Wizard?

For a high school senior most spring afternoon dragged on and on. Today Candace McCarty was sure that time was standing still. Maybe even moving backwards. Even her advance magic class, which was normally one of her favourite subjects, never seemed to end. It just seemed to excite her imagination.

Her mind kept going back to last night when her parents told her to hurry home today. That they wouldn't be home to meet her (they normally weren't; they rarely arrived home before five or six) but that her Uncle Ted would be there to greet her and have a little talk with her. Her Uncle Ted! And they wouldn't give her any more details, no matter how much she begged for them. That, more than anything they said, told her how important this was. She was sure it had to do with magic.

Magic was a bit less popular these days, now that technology had advanced so far. Mass produced airplanes had long ago replaced flying brooms and carpets. Mass produced everything had replaced that could be mass produced, using leaving enchanted items (that had to be produced by carefully trained craftsmen) out in the cold. The only things that magic was still used for was, well, the things that only magic could do. With most of the everyday things done with technology now that left only the really impressive stuff that you needed powerful magic to do. Everyday magic was good for party tricks, but if you wanted to make a living at it then you needed the impressive stuff.

Which means if you wanted to build your life around magic you couldn't stop until you got access to the impressive stuff, and to learn the impressive stuff you needed a sponsor. Someone who already had the power who could vouch for you and maybe tutor you or something. Like the rest of her class (at least all of those interested in pursuing magic as a career) Candace had sent applications to dozens of groups who might sponsor her, but unlike the rest of her class Candace had an in: her Uncle Ted.

Technically he was her great uncle but he didn't look older than her parents (the extended life span of a wizard was one of the reasons Candace wanted to build her life around magic) and everyone called him Uncle Ted. When it came to pursuing magical studies Uncle Ted could be an in, but the problem was that Candace had cousins, too many cousins, and some of them wanted to study magic too. Uncle Ted could only give so many ins and Candace really wanted one of them to go to her.

So it was important that today go right. If everything worked out then Candace might join the ranks of the powerful. If it didn't then she might as well give up on her dreams of magic and look for another career to go into.


When the last bell rang Candace rushed home, taking a cab to make better time. She had never cabbed it home from school before but this time it was important to get home fast so she thought that it was worth the extra cost.

Once home she let herself in.

"Hello?" Candace asked as she entered her house and took off her shoes. "Is there anyone here?"

"In the living room." Ted called. "Could you come in here?"

Candace practically danced into the living room. Not only was her uncle there but he had package, a small, flat box. Candace was grinning for joy, trying to guess what could be in it. A letter of recommendation? A certificate that would allow her to go to the college of her choice? It could be almost anything.

"This is for you." Ted said, holding it out to her. "Go on, open it."

Candace opened the small box, then her face dropped. Of all the possible things she expected might be in that package this wasn't one of them. The box contained...

Candace made an embarrassed sound as she looked down at the thong panties in the box.

"Um, what... why...?"

A thousand things flashed through her mind. Well really only one thing, but that was impossible, wasn't it? He was her uncle so it couldn't be that, could it? Candace decided that magic wasn't worth that price.

"Why is a better question than what." Ted told her, nodding. "What is obvious. Any fool can see what they are. But the why? That's the important question, and it's good that you asked it."

"Um, thanks." Candace replied, still feeling uncomfortable. "So, um, why?"

"Those underwear are designed to, well, cover what they should while leaving most of your bottom cheeks uncovered." Ted said, nodding again.

"Um, yeah?" Candace asked. "Um, so..."

"So I'm about to give you a spanking and it's going to be on your bare cheeks." Ted revealed nonchalantly.

"What?" Candace asked, not sure what her great uncle was saying. That wasn't what she had been thinking. It wasn't even close.

"Do I have to repeat myself?" Ted said with a shake of his head. "Well then, I'll expand on what I've already said. I am going to spank your bare bum cheeks so you might want to change into those so that it will only be your bum cheeks that show. Now if I have to take down your slacks I might end up taking down more than just your slacks so you probably want to change into a loose fitting skirt. This spanking will start in five minutes whether you have changed or haven't changed. If you aren't back by then I will use magic to pull you back into this room and if I have to do that then it won't matter if you've changed."

"What?" Candace asked, her uncle's words making no sense.

"That's five minutes, starting now." Ted said, consulting his watch. "I would suggest you get going."

Candace stood there, mouth agape. Then her feet started moving, almost of their own accord, as she ran up to her room and slammed the door after herself.

"He's got to be joking." Candace muttered breathlessly. "He has to be. He just had to be."

But he hadn't sounded like he was. Candace looked down at her hand, which for some unknown reason was still clutching the box with the thong in it. Looking at it, somehow it how it didn't seem as if her uncle was joking.

'This can't be happening.' Candace told herself. 'This can't be happening.'

But it was.

Candace looked at her bedside clock. It was slowly counting the time. Her heart in her throat, Candace lowered her slacks, stepped out of them, took a deep breath, and then changed into the thong. Then it was just a matter of finding into her loosest skirt. While changing into it she couldn't help look at herself in the mirror. Front the front they almost looked normal bikini briefs, but they were string on the sides and the back... Candace could see the pale skin where her bathing suit normally covered her. Not that she had had much chance to tan, not this early in the spring, but a girl's complexion was a serious thing and you had to build a solid base for your summer tan.

Then the tan lines, such as they were, were covered by her skirt. Candace couldn't help lifting the rear hem of her skirt, watching in the mirror how easily it would be to expose that new thong (and most of her nether region) while wearing this skirt. How much thought her uncle must have put into today, buying something that fit her to a T (especially in the back where it looked almost like a T).

"Candace?" Ted called up. "There are two minutes left. Don't make me go up there."

Candace swallowed hard, opened her bedroom door, and made her way downstairs as slowly as she dared.


She found her uncle waiting for her where she had left him.

"Ah, I see you chose to wear a skirt." Ted said with a nod as he moved to the couch. "Come over here. It's time for your spanking."

"But why?" Candace asked. "Why do you want to spank me?"

"Oh I don't want to, but it's going to happen." Ted told her. "Now come over here so we can get started."

Candace's feet felt like lead as she made the familiar journey the couch. She had spent countless hours on that couch but had never seen it in this light. As she arrived at her uncle's side Candace caught her first sign of magic since she arrived; her skirt rolled itself up, ending well above her waist. Candace blushed, but remembered how the thong covered her front better than her new bikini did. As her uncle positioned her over his lap Candace couldn't thinking about how her little the thong concealed her backside.

"Just as I thought." Ted said. "It covers you where it needs to while leaving your buns visible and spankable."

"Do you have to this?" Candace asked, trembling as she waited for him to start.

"I do." Ted said.

Then he brought his palm down hard on her left cheek and she had a new reason to tremble.

"Oh!"

He brought it down again.

"Ah!"

And again.

"Oh!"

Then he launched a flurry of spanks that had Candace squirming and kicking.

"Please! OH! Please stop!" Candace pleaded.

"Stop? I've barely started." Ted chided as he slowed the spanking. "I take it you don't find yourself in this position often."

"No not OH for years." Candace answered.

If she had been more honest she would have said it was never very often even back when it happened. No more than one to three times a year with those days ending some years ago. Her parents had never seen spanking as anything but the last resort and long ago agreed that she had outgrown it. The last time something like this had happened had been when she and a couple of girlfriends had snuck a bottle into one the friend's room and the friend's outraged mom had swatted three tails over it. Even that had been years ago, and years after her last parental spanking, and it had been on the seat of her jeans and not her bare cheeks, and thinking about how she hadn't been all that truthful in answering her uncle's question served as a poor distraction of what his hand was doing to her backside.

It hurt! Already there was a sting to it and a throbbing was almost starting and her uncle (Candace couldn't think about anything great about him) wasn't stopping. Nor was he lecturing! The worst part (other than the building heat) was that she still didn't know why. Why had he decided she needed spanking? Had she done something? Had she offended him? Had her parents offended him? Nothing made sense. Nothing at all.

"This is beginning to sting my hand." Ted remarked, bringing it down again.

Candace said nothing, but inwardly she couldn't see how her uncle could be worried about his hand when her bum was burning. His hand? Whatever was happening to his hand was nothing compared to what was happening to her bum.

"I should fix that." Ted commented, his arm descending again.

Candace screamed. She had expected the SMACK of his hand, not the SPLAT of leather. Jerking her head around Candace saw that her uncle now held a strip of leather (maybe a belt? she couldn't get a good look) and it was coming down again.

Which just plan wasn't fair. Her uncle's hand had a little sting in it and suddenly it was protected, while her bum was now getting smacked worse. Much worse.

The shift in the spanking, the fact that her uncle was no longer feeling it in his hand and still hadn't explained why any of this was happening, seemed to Candace to be the most unfair thing in the world. Tears began to leak from her eyes.

'I'm not crying because my bum hurts.' Candace though to herself. 'I'm not a little girl crying over a sore bum. It's because this all so unfair! What did I do? I didn't do anything! I know I didn't! Why is Uncle Ted doing this? Why are mom and dad letting him do it? Nothing makes sense and it's so unfair!'

Not that her tears slowed her uncle in the least bit. Candace was sobbing openly, practically weeping, before the leather stopped falling.

"Now that's that, but don't think that you're off the hook now." Ted told her niece. "No, this is just the beginning."

"What?" Candace wailed, shocked to the point where her tears paused their flow.

Ted ignored her question. He helped his niece off of his lap, then rose to guide her towards the corner opposite the living room door. Candace didn't try to resist, but that co-operation didn't deter her uncle's firm hand on her neck as he steered her in place.

"This is called corner time." Ted announced. "I don't know if your parents used it and I don't really care. I want to see your nose pressed against that corner and I want you to keep it there. You might find corner time embarrassing and that's the point. You're showing your bare behind, well practically bare behind, to the room and anyone who might be in it. Or even just passing. The front door is there, the stairs are there, which means anyone entering the house and going upstairs will see you. Or going from the front door to the kitchen. And if you so much as move... What will I do? I've already spanked you and I don't want to tire out my arm. Hmmm."

Candace couldn't believe it! Her uncle had spanked her and now he was making it sounds like an inconvenience to him. Her butt was throbbing and he was treating this like an inconvenience?

"Well if you leave the corner I guess there will have to be another spanking. At least one." Ted informed her.

"Sniff. You mean sob you'd spank me sniff twice?" Candace asked in disbelief. "Twice more? Three spankings!?!?"

"No, I'd just add some more heat to your backside." Ted informed her. "But I don't like bullies. If might be a flaw in my character but I can't stand them."

Candace couldn't believe that. Not after how he had treated her for no reason.

"And you are a sensible girl who doesn't want any more spanking, so the only reason you would leave that corner would be if someone was bullying you. That means if I come back and find you out of that corner arguing with someone then I'll spank both of you. Then there will be two bare bums staring out at the room. Yes, that's what I'll do. I don't want to have to do that, but if I must then I must. Now if you will me excuse I believe your father keeps a bottle of single malt in the kitchen and I for one could use a drink. You could probably use one too but that's too bad for you."

He left her standing there, still crying and rubbing at her throbbing bum.


After he left, Candace slowly calmed down.

Then something her uncle said struck her - two bare bottoms would be facing the room. Hers wasn't bare, at least not totally. If she left the corner would he really take down her thong when he spanked her again?

'Not that it would make much of a difference.' Candace thought to herself. 'It barely covers anything. You'd never see me on the beach with anything that skimpy.'

Candace tried to picture someone seeing her on the beach, dressed like this, and blushed. No, she wouldn't ever wear something like that to the beach even if her bum hadn't been smacked. If it was just a normal suntan on her backside and not this throbbing pain she wouldn't want anyone to see this much of her.

Then the front door opened. Candace shrank against the wall as she heard feet entering through the front door. Many feet. Too many feet. And voices.

'Oh god it's John!' Candace thought, thinking about the time.

She had taken the cab from school, rushing home. The spanking may have seemed to last forever but she hadn't been over her uncle's lap for all that long. Now must be the time when the bus would have gotten her home. Now was the time that the bus brought her little brother home.

And it wasn't alone. He was home with his friends. There had to be three or four people coming into the house. John often had friends over and this was one of the days that he came home with company. Candace tried to meld into the wall but she couldn't. She didn't know the spells for that yet.

"Holy shit! Is that your sister?"

Candace recognised the voice - it was Eric Gants! One of John's friends. Someone she often suspected playing around whenever he had his right hand in his pocket. She didn't like some of the ways he looked at her, and that was when she was mostly dressed. For him to see her like this, practically half naked, showing off her red bum... She thought of him as a just a kid but now she knew what he'd spend the next few weeks dreaming about. This sight would be haunting his dreams - she just knew it would.

"Um, it must be." John answered. "Yeah, that's her. Wow. Um, maybe we should go upstairs?"

"Can't we stay and look?" Eric asked.

Candace wanted to scream. She knew, just knew, that if she turned around and charged them that it would be Eric crying in the corner. Sure, she'd be crying again too, but that brat would be crying too. It would even things up, give Eric something else to hold in his head other than the sight of her red bum.

But she didn't. She held her place until the boys went upstairs. They were snickering and whispering and Candace knew what they were talking about. They were talking about her. How could they not be? After seeing her this way how could they do anything but talk about her? And she didn't even know who they were, which of her brother's friends had seen her. She guessed that one of them was Denise


Candace wanted to die. That was before she heard the backdoor open.

"Hello? Hello? Anyone home?"

Candace recognised the voice - it was the biddy who lived next door. Mrs. Carter was always popping over. She never knocked, she knew where the spare key was, and the McCarty family never minded. Now she was here and there was nothing that Candace do except hope that her Uncle Ted took a break from drinking to deal with it. Or maybe John would come downstairs and deal with it. That would mean that he (and maybe some of his friends) might see her again, but that was better than someone else seeing her this way.

'I can't believe I'm hoping that my brother sees me like this again.' Candace thought to herself.

"Hello?"

The voice was closer.

"Hello? Hel- oh! Well I see someone finally saw to your manners."

Candace couldn't believe her ears. Finally saw? What, did Mrs. Carter think she was running wild or something? Had Mrs. Carter been talking to Candace's parents? Was this entire day her fault?

"I've told your mom that you been needing something like that. Something to settle you down. I see someone gave what you need."

Candace couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"I would have done it myself. I should have done it years ago." Mrs. Carter continued. "I should probably talk to your mom and see if she minds now that she's started you on it again."

Candace had a crazy idea. Her uncle said, had practically promised that if she left the corner and got into it with someone then that would be two bare and sore bottoms. Obviously he had meant someone her age or younger, but maybe, just maybe. It was a wild idea, but Candace was more or less sure that if she went over and confronted Mrs. Carter then her Uncle Ted would storm in and spank them both. Then that wretched woman would have to go through just what Candace had.

Candace thought about it, then discarded that thought. That was a nice idea, but Candace would see Mrs. Carter tomorrow and the next day and every day after that. No, it just wasn't worth it.

"Well I'll be going then. Tell your mother that I dropped by."

Candace couldn't imagine a sweeter sound than those footsteps heading away. Then the backdoor was opening again.

"Just tell your mom that I'll stop by later. It wasn't anything important. And that colour looks natural on you. It really fits you."


Alone again, Candace wondered what she had done to deserve this. Any of this. The spanking, the neighbour coming over, any of this. Had someone cursed her or something?


Then the front door opened again. Candace had a brief moment of hope, that her parents home and the insanity was over.

Then she heard the voices. Familiar voices.

Candace had thought that having John's little friends seeing her was the worst thing that could ever happen, but now she knew better. Those voices were worse, much worse. They were the voices of her friends.

What the hell were they doing here?

"Candace? Are you here? Your uncle called us. Are you here? He said he wanted us to see something."

'Maybe if I don't say anything they'll leave.' Candace thought, then she hoped it.

Then she prayed it.

But today wasn't a day for prayers to be answered. At least not her prayers.

"My god, that's Candace."

"Is she..."

"Her bum!"

"When did Candace start wearing thongs? I've never seen her in a thong."

Candace winced at that last voice. The others were friends of hers, but that last one was Jenna Kaplan. Jenna wasn't Candace's friend. Candace didn't think she was anyone's friend; the girl was always scheming. She acted like your best friend until she got all of your secrets then she'd hold them over you. Candace knew, just knew, that Jenna would spread what she saw all over school. That everyone would know about this, with all the details that happened and some that hadn't.

"Um, maybe we should go?"

"Maybe we should." Jenna agreed.

Candace knew that Jenna couldn't wait to get out of here. To start calling around and spreading the news. To get the rumours going.

'She couldn't call anyone if her backside was burning.' Candace thought. 'All it would take is me to turn around and lay into her and then she'd be standing bare bum in a corner like. Then she couldn't tell about me without it getting out about her being spanked too.'

It was tempting, so tempting. If she didn't then her social life would be over. Jenna wouldn't rest until every freshman, every teacher, and even the janitors knew. Everyone who had a cousin that went to her school would know what happened. All it would take was turning around and her rep would be safe.

'It probably wouldn't work anyway.' Candace told herself. 'Even if it did then everyone would know that I targeted her. And I probably couldn't stand another spanking. And it might not be worth it, seeing her like that.'

"Um, sorry to see you this way."

"Bye."

"See you soon." Jenna said with a smugness in her voice.

Candace stayed facing the wall until they left, then she started crying again.


Candace had control of her tears when she heard the front door open again. Once more she hoped that it was her parents getting home. Once more she was disappointed.

"Oh wow." Laura said.

Candace winced at the sound of her cousin's voice. They were around the same age and had been on and off rivals for years. Most recently over magic; both of them wanted to study magic big time and both wanted their Uncle Ted's blessing and support. Maybe Uncle Ted could help both of them, or maybe just one and they both wanted to be that one. Standing there with her nose pressed against the corner, Candace thought she now knew who had won that endorsement. Laura clearly thought she knew who had won as well.

"So this is it!" Laura squealed. "This is what Uncle Ted wanted me to see. I win! I win!"

Candace began to cry again, knowing that her cousin was right. That Laura had to be right.

"I mean, I have to win, don't I?" Laura crowed. "A wizard has to have dignity, doesn't she? And who could have dignity after something like that? If you were a kid then it wouldn't matter but you're not a kid are you? If it wasn't for that stripe of buttfloss you'd be showing off everything. Everything. There's no way you can be a wizard now."

Candace sobbed as the truth sank in. Laura was right. There was no way that Candace would be a wizard now.

Then something else sank in.

All Candace had to do was turn around and tear into Laura and both girls would have bare red bottoms. Neither of them would be wizards. Maybe someone else in the family would get the spot or maybe several others would get it, if there were more than one spots to go, but Laura wouldn't get it. The girl gloating wouldn't get it. The smug bitch smirking at her would be crying in the other corner, her shot of magic lost too.

She could say that Laura had bullied her over the spanking. Uncle Ted would believe it. It made a lot of sense. More sense than one of her brother's friends bullying her or the woman from next door. And it would be poetic justice, both of the rivals going out together. Whatever Candace had done she was sure that Laura must have done something at least as bad. Maybe worse. Probably much worse.

It took every once of willpower Candace had not to turn around and rush her cousin. Candace wanted to do it. Doing it made all the sense in the world, but somehow Candace couldn't be that mean.

"Well I've got to get going." Laura said gleefully. "I need to tell my parents the good news."

That last dig almost got Candace to turn, but somehow she kept her nose pressed against the corner until after she heard Laura slamming the front door behind her. Then the tears came again. This time Candace knew that it wasn't the pain but the unfairness of the situation. Her dreams were gone and everyone and the world knew that she had gotten spanked. Heck, half of them had seen her almost bare butt after her spanking.

And she still didn't know what she had done!


Then the sounds she had feared most - the sounds of her uncle returning from the kitchen. She had expected to hear his footsteps when some of the endless train of people had tramped through had been mocking her, but she hadn't heard them until now.

"Well, well, well." Ted said. "It's been an hour and you're still in the corner. Congratulations!"

Ted waved his hand and Candace's skirt flew back down. Candace winced at the unexpected contact of the skirt on her sore bum.

"You can turn around now." Ted said magnanimously. "I'm sure you have something to ask me. Just make sure it's the right question. Like it was before when you asked what and not just why."

Candace paused in mid breath. She rubbed at her backside, pausing long enough to give her a chance to think. Was all this some sort of a test? Could she still have a shot at magical powers? After all this? Searching her mind she tried to think of an intelligent question.

"Why did you wait?" Candace asked.

"Because I scheduled an hour of corner time and your father has an excellent single malt." Ted answered with a smile. "As you sure that's the question you wanted to ask? That you didn't want to phrase it differently?"

Candace thought, rubbing at her left cheek (which for some reason seemed to sting more than her right cheek) as she did so.

"Um, what I really meant is why didn't you come out when the other people came? Why did you wait in the kitchen when they were here?"

"Other people were here?" Ted asked, raising an eyebrow. "Really? Who?"

"Who?"

"Now, now, you don't answer a question with a question." Ted chided. "Tell me who was here."

"Um, well, first there was my brother and his friends." Candace began. "One of them wanted to stare at me. If John hadn't of insisted on it then that little creep would still be standing there gawking at me."

"And you didn't want to see that, what did you call him? That little creep spanked?" Ted probed.

"No, well, yeah." Candace admitted, wondering why she was bothering to be truthful. Maybe it was the habit of a lifetime, of always wanting to impress her great-uncle while half suspecting that he would know if she lied. "But it didn't seem worth it. I meant, he was just a creepy kid."

"I see." Ted said, his eye twinkling. "And who was next?"

"Mrs. Carter, the next door neighbour." Candace told him. "You would have liked her; she thought the spanking was long overdue."

"A condescending neighbour? Did you really think that I would spank her?" Ted asked.

"Um, well, you did say it so and you usually do what you say so, um..."

"Exactly." Ted smiled. "And I would have. You caught me in a paradox. Good call."

"Um, then some of my friends came over. I can't believe you called them!" Candace said accusingly.

"It does sound unbelievable, doesn't it?" Ted said with a smile. "And I take it that one of them wasn't really your friend."

"No, you called Jenna Kaplan too! Now everything will be all over school."

"But not if Genie had gone over my lap."

"It's Jenna, and I didn't think it was worth it. But why did you invite Laura? That just wasn't fair. I knew that she was in the running so with me out of the way she gets it but why did you invite her over? I can't believe you invited her over just to see me like that?"

"Interesting." Ted observed. "That's two things you didn't believe. Do you think it means anything?"

Candace opened her mouth, then closed it. Her uncle had said something but what?

"Um, does it mean that I shouldn't believe it?" Candace asked.

"Bingo!" Ted said.

"Um, bingo?" Candace asked.

"That means you're bright enough to listen when I speak." Ted informed her. "Which is another plus."

"Another plus?"

"First you made the best of a bad situation. You changed into the thong and skirt." Ted elaborated. "You accepted that I was going to spank you and made the best of it. That's a plus because a wizard has to be able to make the best of any situation. An important plus for you because that meant that kept your panties on. Otherwise they would have come down."

"Then you had the chance to use overwhelming power on various people, overwhelming power represented by the threat of me spanking them." Ted continued. "You had that power and you didn't abuse it. That's important. Wizards have the power to do things and for a brief moment you had a similar power and you didn't abuse it. There are various reasons why you might not have abused it, but the plus was that you didn't do it. That's two pluses. Two pluses is good. It justifies the illusion."

"Illusion?" Candace asked in disbelief, rubbing at her bum. "You mean this is all an illusion?"

"Oh the spanking was real." Ted assured her. "I wasn't joking about my hand hurting. The illusion was what happened afterwards; I left the 'who' to your subconscious because I was sure that there would be some people you could picture as witnesses. All those people were illusions, not the spanking. The spanking, that was an important part of the lesson, so it had to be real."

"It was? Then what was the lesson?" Candace asked, hoping it was a good reason.

"To teach you that life isn't fair." Ted said candidly.

"What?"

"You hadn't done anything wrong. I was spanking you for no reason. It wasn't fair. The entire point of the spanking was to teach you that life's not fair. Do you think you learned that lesson?" Ted asked.

"Lesson?" Candace asked in disbelief.

"Do you think life is fair?" Ted asked. "Do you think what I did was fair?"

"No! Of course not!"

"That's a third plus, and the most important plus there is." Ted said. "The problem with life is that too many wizards think life is fair. That's where all the trouble comes from."

"What?" Candace asked, not understanding her uncle's words.

"If you think life is fair then you think that if you can just explain things out that the other side will listen to you. So when the ecologists talk about old growth forests to loggers and get nowhere they slowly become eco-terrorists. They think that since the world should be fair they have to make it fair. That whatever they do is okay because they are making the world fair. People who think that the world is fair are the greatest threat to the world. Give them the slightest power and they kill thousands in a doomed attempt to create what they think is a fair world. If spanking you accomplished nothing else it taught you that life isn't fair. Right?"

"Right." Candace agreed.

'He's right.' Candace thought. 'He spanked me for no reason. He made me think that a dozen people saw my bare bum. For no reason. Life isn't fair.'

"That's all three pluses, so how about it?" Ted asked.

"About what?"

"About becoming my apprentice." Ted said.

"What? After you spanked me you want me to..."

"To become my apprentice." Ted repeated. "What, did you think it was just going to be a letter of recommendation? If you want to have real power then you need to serve an apprenticeship. Basically, you'll have to move in with me when you graduate and spend the summer learning magic. Then you get private lessons from me as you go to college. All of that is non-negotiable."

"Well, if I have to..."

"And of course this won't be the last spanking you get from me." Ted told her.

"What? Why?"

"I could use magic to discipline you, but sooner or later you'll grow enough in power that you might be able to turn that into a struggle. If that happens I might have to cripple you and a sore bum is better than that, isn't it?"

"Well, I guess..."

"And sooner or later you might start thinking that life is fair so if that happens I'll spank the idea out of you again."

"But..."

"Yes, I'll be completely unfair and spank you for no reason." Ted told her. "You don't have to decide now. Tomorrow will be soon enough. Feel free to talk things over with your parents."

"My parents. Um, did you tell them..."

"That I planned to spank you?" Ted laughed. "No, I left that part out. They knew there would be a test but not what it was. And this was a test; you could have failed it."

"I could have? How?" Candace asked, wondering. All she had basically done was take a spanking.

"You could have decided not to change into the thong, or made me drag from your room for the spanking. That would have meant that you can't make the best of a bad situation. Or you could have been petty and seen the illusion of me spanking another illusion. The worse thing you could have done would have been to insist that life is, or should be, fair."

Candace's mind raced.

"So they don't know you spanked me?" Candace said, wondering what she should tell her parents. Maybe if she mentioned the spanking they wouldn't let her take the apprenticeship. Or maybe they would insist on it.

"I didn't say that." Ted said. "And you picked up on my wording. Smart. I like that."

"So do they know?" Candace asked, feeling a bit of whiplash.

"I'm older I look. You know that. You aren't the first family member who wanted to train under me or the first that I've tested. I've trained a few over the years and flunked out more, so they might have heard about how everyone I test has problems sitting afterwards. I'd say that it's fifty / fifty that they know you have sore bum. Those are the same odds that they know you're about to volunteer to spanked when you need it or not."

"Who said I was volunteering for that?" Candace asked.

Ted just laughed.

"Like I would have bothered spanking you if I didn't see the hunger in you." Ted laughed. "You want the magic and there's only one way to get it."

"Well I've got applications out and..."

"That won't help." Ted said, interrupting her for the umpteenth time. "You've got a possible in with me which means you won't make any of those lists. They don't put your name in the draw unless they're your only choice. Even then you don't get the same one on one quality of instruction in one of those programs. Anyway, you have until sometime tomorrow to decide - accept the price you'll have to pay or give up on your dreams."

Ted turned and strolled to the front door, pausing only to say:

"Oh, by the way, your parents and brother will be home in a couple hours. You might want to get cleaned up. Wash your face, change your clothes, that sort of thing. Or maybe not. Your choice."


Ten minutes after he was gone, Candace had changed and was washing the tearstains from her face, wishing that her confusion could be washed away as easily. She wanted magic but she didn't want another spanking, much less the regular supply of them that her great-uncle promised. Would the power of magic be worth it? Did she want magic that much?

The only thing that she was certain of was that she had a day to decide. An entire day to decide how her life would go.

Goodgulf

[marcy60a]

Please do continue this. i like Ted's style, and always like your work.

-Marcy

[goodgulf]

I've been too busy to add to this story. I've got two Christmas stories coming out this year (just need to proofread them a few more times) and I've finished 4 parts of a 5 part story - among other things. Alas, all of it needs proofing.

Goodgulf

[marcy60a]

well when you can, please put it on your list. Need a proofer?

_Marcy

[msfirmhand]

I hope you post more of this story!

Good writing!

[goodgulf]

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to comment.

I don't really see this story being extended, but anything could happen.

Goodgulf