Mother of Magic

Cat Woman

Tasha spent the night curled up in front of the fireplace.

With Magic available, no trees were harmed creating the logs for the fire. The trees around their new version of their lodge were quite a bit thicker than they were on their Earth. No heavy equipment had ever made its way around here. All the clearings were natural. The position of the lodge on the mountain gave it a natural view, all without the need for any clear-cutting.

The logs burned the same and gave the same warmth, flickering light, and crackling sounds in the fireplace. For a part-time mountain lion, it was heaven itself.

Given the couple's relationship with Ava, neither Stephanie nor Le felt comfortable with the idea of having Tasha as a guest, sexual or otherwise, in their bed. Nothing against the young woman: She was very nice. Good and reasonable company. Clean as perhaps only a cat would be. Clean to the point of fastidious. As a human, Tasha also loved the human ways of hygiene. Tasha deeply enjoyed their shower, so water did not bother her, at least in human form. In summary, Tasha is sweet, young, attractive, and comfortable in her own skin. Tempting even, although she seemed to take no umbrage at having her offer of sexual congress turned down when she made it after dinner.

Three issues prevented them from accepting her offer. "I like you two. You are very nice Witches. As nice as Ava, and there are not many Witches I like. If you are interested, I would love to love you. You know. In bed. Beds are nice for sex, I have to say."

The first issue, not discussed between the couple but understood, is that Tasha is Ava's lover. Their relationship with Ava was complicated enough without adding in the fact they were all sleeping with the same third party. They did not know Ava well enough to know how she might feel about something like that. Might be like Vanessa and her husband's 'arrangement'. Undiscussed open marriage. Or a discussed and understood 'no commitments' relationship. Or casual. For Tasha, it was clearly not heavily committed, but there was no telling how much of that is Tasha, and how Ava might feel. Would not be the first time either Stephanie or Le came across relationships in imbalance. Vanessa's marriage was a hot mess as far as they were concerned. She'd be better off just dumping her husband. Not as if she would be without offers.

Or maybe that was the point? Being married gave her some cover from the millions of her fans that would hound her for sex if they thought she was free? Le and Stephanie were both famous, and they knew how many marriage offers they got every single week.

The second reason was that they had never had a guest in their bed. Not before and not since they were married. Vanessa had come up as an idea for a possible guest idea from time to time, but never seriously. Stephanie and Le, especially since being newlyweds, did not feel the need for the experiment. They found each other to be enough. If Vanessa asked to join them, Stephanie and Le would not turn her down. That is how they had left it. They assumed with all the options Vanessa had as a TV personality that she would not ever ask. But there was also the chance she would prefer to be with others who are as famous as her, and who would be with her for herself. Not her fame and beauty. Le also knew from their history that behind closed doors, Vanessa was as vulnerable and in need of a human connection as anyone else. She would not like to have to live up to some ultra-hyped-by-media standard.

Le did not understand completely why Vanessa had chosen him when she did. Stephanie understood it better in many ways. She had the same problem.

All three of them had fan sites, fan fiction, and drawing and pictures that were faked up to show many assumed that they were the same kinds of superstars in bed that they are on the field or as the 'face of the team' sportscaster. Vanessa had it the worst in some ways. There were a fair few fan cartoons of her where her breasts somehow magically grew to four times or more their real size. Vanessa called them her 'Bottle Baby' fans and tried to pass it off as a thing she did not care about, but she did.

The final reason for not taking Tasha into their bed was very practical: Stephanie still had her IUD from their original world. She was not sure how she could get it out short of asking Ava or a Doctor here for help with it. Tasha told them she depended on Ava's magical intervention to avoid pregnancy when the two of them had a male companion.

Ava once told Stephanie and Le that no trained Witch conceived a child unless they wanted to. No matter how much access to magic they had, not conceiving required very little power. Even the mildest of access to magic: one where a witch could barely move a feather, was enough to learn how to stop sperm from fertilizing an egg. Witches with little access to magical power turned out to be very good at medical things. Most medical interventions required fine detail. Unclogging an artery did not require being able to create lumber or move a wall. Repairing a torn ligament was small movements and tiny joinings. With enough training to be able to feel the problem, and low powered with was often a gifted literal Witch Doctor.

Even at the other end of the magical power access scale, in theory, that meant Stephanie and/or Le could also learn how to stop a pregnancy. Neither knew how to do it now, and that left Tasha vulnerable to having a perhaps unwanted child.

As young as Tasha looked, there is no doubt she is an adult woman. Part cat perhaps, and slender when in human form, but fully adult. Her hips and secondary sexual characteristics shouted to the world she is fully fertile.

Even if Tasha wanted a baby, and even wanted a baby with Le as the father, it opened up the question of Le and Stephanie's responsibilities to the baby. When the couple discussed this topic as it pertained to Vanessa and the possibility she might accidentally get pregnant if she joined them, it was couched as 'our responsibilities' not Le's sole responsibilities as the provider of sperm to the embryogenesis. That all came up when Stephanie asked Le what kind of protection he and Vanessa had used. The answer to that was Le had no idea if they were protected or not. That was his first time, and he was so consumed with trying to have it be good for Vanessa that he never really considered the possibility she might invite him as she did without having pregnancy risk known to herself. As it was Le's first time, Le assumed in retrospect she did not ask for a condom because there was no way he could have a sexually transmitted disease.

Stephanie thought that was funny. Typical Le: Condoms to him and in that situation were about STDs, not a barrier method for pregnancy. He knew they were also about pregnancy avoidance but Vanessa not asking for them (it would have been plural since Le was young, healthy, and wanting to please) was not about getting pregnant or not.

Also discussed, with no answer, is how a possible baby would turn out in terms of its magical heritage. It seemed like there were numerous possibilities: WereCat, Witch, Incap, and even a cub or cubs. There was probably a history on this that would inform how such matches worked here, but neither Stephanie nor Le felt up to asking Tasha as that opened up the possibility of her crawling into bed with them.

Tasha looked perfectly happy curled up by the fireplace ensconced in blankets and on top of a very large floor pillow. She remained in human form but there was something about the crescent body position that was very cat-like. It was easy to imagine her in their bed in a similar position, possibly post-coitally purring.

After breakfast, Tasha was ready to get out of the house and roam. Perhaps go see Ava. "Thank you for letting me sleep inside last night. It was so comfortable. I forget sometimes how nice it can be to be a human. Makes me want to go see Ava and enjoy some other human things."

"Have fun. Tell her we said 'hi'." Stephanie wished the cat-woman. Tasha lept from the top of the steps to the ground. She launched as a lithe, naked human and landed as a cat. Then she bounded happily away, tail swishing in the air.

"Unreal. I thought doing more magic was going to be the weirdest thing I saw today." Le commented as he watched Tasha's happy-looking bounds and the flicks of her long tail as she headed off and turned to the right and into a natural clearing where there was a road in their world to go up the slope and toward Ava's house.

"True. I am still not used to that either. I wonder what other kinds of Were-animals there are in this world."

"We create mass out of magic, so I imagine it can be anything. Were-Elephants even. Tasha's human and Lion forms are similar in weight, but I doubt they have to be. Not if they can access the same magic we do. Our house was entirely magic not all that long ago. E=MC squared has some sort of magical equivalent here it seems."

"A Were Whale would be possible. Now that would be something. A beached whale turns into a guy or girl and says 'Well, that riptide sucked' or 'Damn Cruise Ships'. No. Probably no Cruise Ships here. Maybe 'Fucking Orcas'." Stephanie mused.