Back to Other Stories

“What other ingredients do we need?”

“Um, let me see… essence of a giant earthworm, bark from a maidenhair tree, scales of an old sea serpent, and tree fairy dust.”

“Fairy dust?”

Tatiana looked up from the ancient spellbook at the dismayed look on her fellow apprentice’s face. “Yes,” she replied, “Tree fairy dust. Why? Something wrong Zethus?”

The dismayed look disappeared, replaced by one that looked a bit like surprise and embarrassment, and the young man turned back towards the potion he and Tatiana were working on.

“Oh no,” he said to her, “I just hate working with it; it gets all over the place, and you have a hell of a time getting it off your skin; it’s like glitter.”

Tatiana nodded. “Yes, it is a pain, but we need it if we’re going to get this spell right. If we don’t put it in, who knows what the consequences could be? The potion could end up being toxic or explode for all we know.”

“I know, I know,” Zethus grumbled, holding his hands up before him, “I wasn’t suggesting we not use it; I just don’t like it is all.”

“I understand,” Tatiana said, trying to sound reassuring.

Zethus sighed and brushed an errant strand of peacock blue hair from his steely grey eyes. He couldn’t understand why, but he didn’t want to admit to Tatiana that he was very allergic to fairy dust. If he sneezed in front of her…

He mentally shook himself. So what if he sneezed in front of her? What was wrong with that? It was a natural reaction, not something to be ashamed of, right? “Let’s get this thing going,” he said aloud.

“Right,” Tatiana agreed, “I’ll get the ingredients.”

Zethus looked sharply at her. “I can do it,” he protested.

“No, no,” Tatiana purred in her most soothing voice, “I’ll do it. Besides, someone needs to draw the water.” She pointed to what looked like a tall, circular platform near the back wall of the room. On closer inspection one could see it was actually a covered well that extended far below the room into an underground water supply.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” the young sorceress chirped. Then she smiled, turned, and walked out of the room, her sheer silk robes flowing behind her like rippling water. Zethus watched appreciatively as she walked towards the store room.

“She’s cute,” he thought, “and damn has she got a great body.”

They had just met that morning when they were paired to work together. At the age of 18 all of the apprentices were paired magically based on compatibility. It was uncommon to see a mixed gender pair, but Zethus was rather delighted when he saw Tatiana’s image floating in the crystal ball that the older sorcerer had been holding up for the selection spell. She had long brown hair, big blue eyes, fine skin and the habit of wearing as little clothing as possible. Even now she was wearing a short black skirt and a black tube top underneath her black see-thru robes. If that wasn’t begging for guys to ogle at her, Zethus didn’t know what was.

Zethus snapped out of his reverie and turned his gaze towards the well. He sighed. Why couldn’t they just have a pump? This question continued to plague his mind with growing frustration as he hauled up several heavy buckets of water.

Tatiana grabbed a basket from a stack just inside the door of the storage room and began hunting through the rows of shelves that were filled top to bottom with bottles, jars, packets, bowls and raw items for use in potions. She paused a moment to glance up at a huge dragon’s skull perched high atop one of the shelves, wondering how such a thing could even be used in a potion. After allowing a moment’s thought she pressed on, grabbing the needed items as she found them in their allocated locations (the four items mentioned earlier weren’t the only ones they needed) and eventually came to where the tree fairy dust was stored. As she placed it in the basket she thought about her partner apprentice, the grey-eyed and blue-haired young sorcerer called Zethus. He had seemed so agitated when she said they needed fairy dust. The explanation he had given was plausible, but it wasn’t nearly satisfactory for her. There had to be a better explanation.

“Let’s see,” she said to herself, “What would a hottie like him have against fairy dust? Ah, but perhaps that’s it; he thinks he’s too much of a man for something as girly as fairy dust. He is rather handsome, now that I think about it. Well, since I like him, I’ll do him a favor and see if there isn’t a different way to make this potion, but if we absolutely need the fairy dust, Mr. Manly over there is going to be the one to use it!”

A playful grin unfolded across Tatiana’s features as she continued gathering the needed supplies.

The sound of footsteps alerted Zethus to Tatiana’s return. “I got the stuff!” she announced happily as she set a basket full of jars and bottles on the counter next to their now-full black cauldron. She began to remove the containers and lay them out on the counter, arranging them in the order they would be needed. The last item she pulled from the basket was a long and slim glass bottle filled with a shimmering pink powder that Zethus had a very bad feeling about.

“Ooo, the dreaded fairy dust!” Tatiana teased as she waved the bottle in his direction. Zethus was thankful that it was tightly sealed.

He forced a laugh and took a step closer to examine all else she had brought, assuring himself that he had nothing to worry about so long as the fairy dust remained closed. Maybe he could get Tatiana to put it in the potion when the time came.

“So, are we set to go?” he asked as Tatiana finished arranging the ingredients.

“I think so,” she replied, “Although I would like to check one last thing…”

As she finished this statement she crossed the room and approached a bookshelf on the wall filled with ancient magical tomes. She pulled down a particularly aged book, one that had probably only survived this long because of magical charms against deterioration placed on it.

“What’s up?” Zethus asked.

“I want to see if the directions for the same potion in this book are any different than the directions from the book we’re using. Maybe we won’t have to use the fairy dust after all.”

Zethus felt a twinge of embarrassment. “You don’t have to do that on my account,” he protested, “I mean, just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean we need to-”

“No, no, it’s okay,” she interrupted as she placed the book down on the far side of the cauldron, “I don’t really like using it either, and I’d be happy not to need it.”

“Well… alright,” Zethus conceded.

Tatiana opened the ancient volume to the table of contents, found the correct page, and started flipping through. The blurring pages sent forth a small breeze that set her silky hair to dancing. On the other side of the cauldron Zethus turned a wary eye towards the slim, glittering bottle that sat all-too-close to his right hand like a venomous serpent ready to strike.

“Oh my…” he heard Tatiana murmur from just past his field of vision. Immediately he turned his eyes back towards his partner. She had taken a step backwards from the book, one of her hands placed delicately on her breast.

“What? What is it?” Zethus inquired, alarmed, “What’s wrong Tatiana? Are you alright?”

“The book… so d-dusty!” she breathed as her eyes squeezed shut.

Zethus’ eyes widened slightly as he realized what was happening. Tatiana’s chest began to heave up and down as she took several heavy breaths, her hand now hovering just above her breasts. Zethus suddenly felt like there was an electric current running through him – especially between his legs.

“I h-have to s-snee...” Tatiana stammered, but couldn’t manage to say anything more before: “Ah … huh… ah-aah … Atchoo! Atchoo!” The sneezes threw her upper body forward and gave Zethus the briefest glimpses of Tatiana’s lovely cleavage before she straightened up again. He couldn’t help that his gaze lingered there for an instant.

“Gesundheit,” Zethus pronounced after a moment to recover his composure.

“Thank you,” Tatiana replied, sniffling, “You wouldn’t happen to have a tissue, would you?”

“Oh, um, let me see,” he mumbled as he searched through the pockets of his jeans beneath his own black (although not see-thru) robes. He fished out a dark grey handkerchief that he offered to her, saying, “Will this work? It’s clean.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” she replied, taking the cloth from his outstretched hand, “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

But Zethus wasn’t really paying attention to Tatiana blowing her nose. (Although she did so quite daintily with just a few soft blows.) He was moderately confused over what had just happened. Not with Tatiana’s sneezing per se, that was obvious enough, but with what he had felt as he had watched it happen. Why had he suddenly felt so excited, so desirous, so aroused? True, he had sometimes felt stirrings of similar feelings before when he thought about sneezing or when people had sneezed around him, but why was it now so incredibly intense? It was as though he had very suddenly become turned on, to a certain extent. He wasn’t ragingly randy, but definitely excited sexually. He knew he was attracted to Tatiana, probably more than he had ever been attracted to anyone else, and there didn’t seem to be any way he could find her to be unattractive, but why had the moment Tatiana had started sneezing seemed to his body to be a good time to get turned on? His eyes widened for the second time as realization struck home. Could it be? Was he turned on… by sneezing?

His musings were interrupted as Tatiana held the handkerchief out to one side and gave him a look of inquiry. He realized she was unsure about whether or not to give it back to him as she had now made it slightly… soiled.

“You can hang onto it,” he assured her, “For now.”

“Ok,” she agreed, “I’ll wash it and give it back to you tomorrow.”

“Ok.”

There followed a moment of awkward silence. Tatiana busied herself with trying to fit Zethus’ handkerchief into one of the tiny pockets of her tiny skirt. Eventually she just folded it up and tucked it in her waistband. Zethus looked around for something to talk about, his eyes eventually falling on the cauldron and ingredients they were supposed to be working with.

“Let’s get started, shall we?”

“Yeah, ok… Oh! The book! I never finished looking up that spell!” Tatiana exclaimed. She looked at the old tome with some hesitance before she decided to take the risk of sneezing again and finish what she had started. Zethus watched as she more carefully paged through the book until she found what she was looking for.

“What is this potion supposed to do anyway?” he asked.

“It’s a Lust Potion. It’s supposed to make you incredibly horny.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Yeah, I am. It’s for plant growth.”

“Oh… So, what, do you pour some on a seed and bam! you’ve got a plant?”

“More or less.”

“Oh… I see. Rather boring.”

“Like they’d trust us ‘naughty teens’ with anything else.”

Tatiana walked over towards where Zethus was standing and retrieved the book they had previously been using. Zethus said nothing for a few minutes as she placed the two books side by side and compared them.

“The gods!” she eventually murmured, “Almost word for word…”

Zethus felt his stomach sink a few inches lower. “So they’re the same?” he asked.

“Almost exactly the same,” the sorceress replied, “The authors must have used this older one for reference.”

“Great,” Zethus muttered under his breath.

“Pardon?”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “Nothing.”

Tatiana carefully closed the extremely old book and brought the other, slightly newer (although still very old) one back to where they had been using it. She laid it out on the counter and was about to turn to put the other book away when she suddenly froze, her shoulder inches away from Zethus’ chest. He placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

“Tatiana?”

“I’ve got a… another tickle…” she murmured as her hand strayed towards her waistband and Zethus’ handkerchief.

Her eyelids fluttered closed as her breath hitched once… and again… and once more. At such a close range Zethus could see her nostrils flare slightly as she took a sudden deep breath.

“Ah-choo!” She brought the handkerchief up just in time as she sneezed. “Oh, excuse m-m- … ah! … Achoo!”

Zethus felt tingles in his fingertips.

“I’m so sorry,” Tatiana was saying, “I’m sort of allergic to dust. I should’ve known this would happen. Oh, I’m so embarrassed…”

Zethus’ mouth opened and, to his utter horror, he heard the words “Why? I think it’s cute.” issue from therein without his consultation whatsoever.

“You really think so?” the young woman standing so close to him asked as she looked up at him with those beautiful sapphire eyes.

Zethus’ face felt hot. For a moment he could think of nothing to say, but he had to think of some kind of cover, and quickly at that.

“I mean, uh, y’know, uh… your sneezes are cute in the way that, um… like they’re not loud or nasty sounding… they’re kind of dainty and you’re so proper about it… uh… it’s not offensive, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No? Ok… Well, I’m glad you’re not offended.”

Zethus sighed inwardly of relief, pleased he had made the right cover.

“I don’t know why I thought you might be,” she continued, “I guess I was always taught that sneezes were disgusting…”

Zethus gave this some consideration. “Well,” he began, “If you were sick with a cold or something else easily spread by sneezing and you were sneezing in a disgusting manner without covering your mouth I guess I would find that a bit repulsive.

“But,” he added, “You’re not sick, you don’t sneeze in a disgusting manner (in fact your sneezes are rather cute), and you always cover your mouth when you do sneeze. Therefore, I don’t find your sneezes repulsive.”

Zethus smiled, taking pride in his logical deduction and that he had delivered it in such a cool, confident manner without any hesitation or stammering at all. What’s more, Tatiana smiled in return, reassured by Zethus’ sensible reasoning. So when the master sorcerer entered the room to see how the two apprentices were getting along, he found two attractive young people of opposite sexes standing in very close quarters and smiling at each other.

“Might I be so presumptuous as to ask what in all the gods’ names is going on in here?” the aged sorcerer exclaimed in a low, booming voice that caused our young friends both to jump in a very startled manner and to take a step backward.

“Nothing! We weren’t doing anything!” Tatiana cried at the same time Zethus started stammering, “I-It’s not what it looks like!”

“It looks like you two are not doing the assignment I gave you, which means that you must be doing nothing, which is exactly what this young lady says you were doing, which means it is what it looks like!” the instructor barked at Zethus, who needed to consider this statement a moment in order to make sense of it.

“Now get to work,” the older man snapped, “Before I put you both on clean-up duty for the swamp beasts!”

With this he stormed out, muttering something about being a fool for having voted to allow mixed gender apprentice pairs.

“We’d better do as he says,” Tatiana stated, “I once knew a girl who got stuck on swamp beast clean-up because she got caught cheating on a quiz; she couldn’t get the stink off her robes or hair for weeks afterward.”

Zethus nodded. “Alright,” he agreed, “Let’s do this.”

Thus the two apprentices finally began working on the potion they had been charged with creating.

As time wore on and the spell appeared more and more to be shaping up, Zethus noticed that there were less and less steps until they would need to use the fairy dust. He was getting increasingly more nervous as he worried about his allergies acting up in front of Tatiana and increasingly more horny as his thoughts kept drifting back to Tatiana’s wonderful, sexy sneezing. He was glad for the loose fit of his robes.

Time grew short, and Zethus could stall no longer; it was time to measure out a teaspoon of fairy dust and place it in the mixture. It was the final step of the ‘recipe’, the one that would make their plant growth potion complete and effective. Thus far Zethus and Tatiana had been alternating with adding ingredients. Tatiana was just now dropping several sea serpent scales into the boiling cauldron, and as luck would have it the fairy dust was his job. He could think of no viable excuse to try to convince Tatiana into putting the fairy dust in for him, preferably while he was not in the room.

“I’ll just hold my breath,” he told himself, “I’ll hold my breath and I’ll be extremely careful and everything will be fine.”

“Your turn!” Tatiana said brightly with no notion at all of the degree of Zethus’ inner turmoil, which had by now reached what felt like hurricane proportions.

Zethus turned his attention to the task at hand. He grabbed the measuring teaspoon, took a quiet, deep breath and held it. Ever so slowly and carefully he twisted the cork out of the bottle of fairy dust and placed it aside. He then grasped the bottle as far from the opening as possible without dropping it and proceeded to cautiously tap the sparkling pink granules into the measuring spoon. His lungs started to burn with stale air. Once the spoon was full, he dumped it into the cauldron and dipped the end in to wash the remaining grains off the spoon, and he wedged the cork tightly back into the bottle. He let the pent-up air in his lungs out in an open sigh of relief.

“Finally finished,” he said aloud, but in his mind he was thinking, “It’s over. Thank the gods it’s finally over. I did it. I’m ok.”

Then he felt a familiar itch.

Tatiana watched as Zethus stuck the cork back into the bottle of fairy dust. He sighed.

“Finally finished,” he explained.

“Yeah, finally,” she agreed, looking at the finished product in their cauldron, “It wasn’t that bad though, was it?”

Zethus didn’t answer.

Tatiana looked at him, wondering if he had simply not heard her, and saw that Zethus was standing very still. His nose twitched. He rubbed at it and sniffed. It twitched again.

“Zethus? You ok?” she asked.

“I j-just-”

He suddenly flung his arm in front of his face.

“Huh-ch!” The sneeze was stifled.

“Oh,” Tatiana said, comprehension dawning on her, “Bless you.”

“Th-thanks… Ah-ch!”

“Bless you again.”

“I’m not g-gonna s-st- Ah-ch! stop for a while… Hah-ch! I’m having a- ah! Ah-ch! a sneezing fit…”

Zethus was absolutely mortified. This was how his sneezing fits always played out: his sneezes would stifle themselves until a few could get all the way out. Without a word Tatiana offered him his handkerchief back. He took it, not caring that she had used it.

“Ah-ch!”

He blew his nose in an attempt to relieve the itching, but the tickle was a stubborn one and just wouldn’t go away. It prickled terribly, an extreme itching that stretched from the back of his sinuses down to the very edges of his nostrils. But on some inner level he was taking a sort of guilty pleasure in it. Every half-sneeze (for they weren’t really full sneezes) thrilled him as his body was thrown forward with each stifle. Knowing that he was enjoying it made him feel all the more embarrassed, and he could feel his face turning bright red.

“Ah-ch! ... Huh-ch! Ch! I’m so s-sor- Ah-ch! sorry. I c-can’t st-stop- Hah-ch! sneezing… huh… huh… Huh-ch! I’m r-really allergic to f-f- Ah-ch! Hah-ch! to fairy dust and I… I…”

Tatiana was watching when he had opened his steel grey eyes after the last stifle, and now continued to watch as they squeezed shut again. His breath hitched. He brought the handkerchief up in front of his face. He took a deep breath. His nostrils flared wide.

“HUHTISHHH! HETCHOO!  Ah! - ATCHOO!” Three violent sneezes finally forced their way out.

At last the itching subsided and Zethus blew his reddened, almost-dripping nose again. He gave his nose one last final wipe and chanced a look at Tatiana, ready with an attempt to laugh the whole thing off. The grin he had plastered on his face withered and died as he felt his stomach hit the floor. Tatiana was standing stock still and staring at him with an odd expression he could not interpret.

 “T-Tatiana?” he stammered aloud in a very small voice.

“My gods Zethus…” she murmured, her voice hardly above a whisper.

“Oh gods no, she thinks I’m a total freak,” he thought wretchedly, “Oh gods, what have I done?”

She walked slowly up to him, stopping so close that her gorgeous breasts were very nearly touching his chest. She looked up at him, beautiful pools of indigo blue so incredibly near to his of granite hue.

“Zethus,” she said, still in that quiet, intimate tone of voice, “You have the most adorable sneezes I have ever heard in my entire life.”

She started kissing him then, pulling him towards her, and he was falling, falling towards the floor with a beautiful woman locked in his embrace and whose lips were pressed tightly against his own. Their tongues snaked together in a lustful dance as his hand found its way beneath her robes and her tube top, and he grasped one of her voluptuous breasts. It was warm and yielding beneath his hand; the sensation sent thrills throughout his entire body.

Tatiana broke their kiss with a turn of her head. “The door,” she explained.

Zethus looked up. Indeed, the door was open. “I’ll get it. Lights off too?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He got up off the floor and off Tatiana and crossed the room. Closing the door and placing his hand upon it, he mumbled a few words under his breath that every young apprentice who engaged in risky business knew, and this rendered the door effectively sealed. With one smooth motion he finished the spell and flicked off the light switch. Zethus then returned to the floor and Tatiana, and the two resumed their passionate activities without missing a beat.

He took her sheer robe off; she removed his black one. She ran her hands through his hair; he ran a hand up her smooth, supple thigh. He curled a finger around her lacy panties and began to pull them down; she hooked the edge of his jeans and undid the button and fly. Within minutes they were both perfectly naked. Zethus slid a finger inside of her. She was absolutely dripping wet.

“Hello there,” he purred, “May I come in?”

He jerked his finger; her entire body shuddered.

“Oh, gods, yes!” she breathed, “I want you so badly!”

He withdrew his finger and played with her clit. She squirmed and shivered as electricity ran from her abdomen out to her fingers and toes, pleasurable moans escaping her lips. After one final caress of Tatiana’s clit that to her felt like a bolt of lightning, Zethus placed his arms on either side of Tatiana and stared deeply into her eyes.

Her face suddenly got completely serious.

“Wait,” she began, “What about protection?”

“Oh. I’ve got some.”

Zethus fished a condom out of his wallet and slipped it on, then placed his warm body back on top of hers. They merely kissed passionately for a moment.

“Well now,” Tatiana purred into his ear, “Don’t just stand out on the porch all night. Why don’t you come inside for a while?”

Zethus made no argument, but merely kissed her again and slid inside.

The next few minutes passed in a whirlwind of pleasure. Every thrust was pure ecstasy for both Zethus and Tatiana as they made passionate love there on the floor, their clothes rumpled beneath them in a makeshift love nest. They embraced each other tightly, her breath hard and fast in his ear and interspersed with little moans of pleasure as she felt waves of bliss with each thrust of Zethus’ rock-hard penis. He could feel the tension building inside of him, welling up with every plunge he took into her, more and more and more intense, building and building and building, higher and higher and higher, until finally he exploded within her and she let out a cry of sheer elation.

They remained still then for a minute or two, hot and sweating and panting for breath. Then Zethus withdrew, eliciting a small moan from Tatiana.

“You alright?” he whispered.

She merely nodded, then, “You?”

He smiled. “Fantastic.”

She smiled then, and they simply embraced one another, lovers pleasantly exhausted.

After some few minutes Zethus frowned.

“Do you really like it when I sneeze?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” Tatiana replied, “You sneezes are absolutely wonderful! The little stifles are so cute, especially when they interrupt you when you’re talking. I get so turned on by sneeze-interrupted speech. Oh, and those powerful sneezes at the end of your fit just made me melt!”

Zethus fingered her soaked pussy.

“Quite literally,” he observed.

She laughed and then fell silent for a few moments. Finally she asked, “Do you get turned on by my sneezes too?”

Zethus hesitated, but finally admitted “Yes, I do.”

Tatiana nodded. “I thought you might when you said my sneezes were cute, but I didn’t want to ask if you were a fetishist too until maybe we got to know each other a bit better. But when you went into that sneezing fit, my gods! I just couldn’t control myself!”

“It is a fetish, then?”

“Oh, yeah. I learned a lot about it on the internet.”

“Ah. I see.”

Zethus thought that perhaps he understood now why, against all odds, they had been selected for each other. The partner selection spell had played a sort of matchmaker, and they had been placed together because they shared a common ‘interest’. From Zethus’ point of view, it looked to be the beginning of a beautiful partnership.

He rolled over and looked at the naked woman lying beside him. He could see himself falling in love with this girl. A sinful grin spread across his face as an idea sprang into his mind. He got up, grabbed a familiar shimmering bottle, and, returning to Tatiana’s side, uncorked it.