{"id":2453,"date":"2022-12-10T13:13:26","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T20:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/?p=2453"},"modified":"2022-12-10T13:24:40","modified_gmt":"2022-12-10T20:24:40","slug":"the-hanging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/10\/the-hanging\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hanging"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

prompt: Cast a magician (a real one, or a party entertainer) as your story\u2019s protagonist. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

available at Reedsy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve heard that, given enough time, one can get accustomed to anything; to see it as normal. After ten years of this, I can say that\u2019s a load of hogwash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The oohs and aahs of the audience over what amounted to basic sleight of hand annoyed me. Still, I smiled and performed as if for a classroom of five-year-olds. It shouldn\u2019t have surprised me how easily the dupes were fooled, I guess, since they grew up in a world where they knew<\/em> magic isn\u2019t real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were wrong, of course, but I didn\u2019t dare show them the real stuff. Instead, I practiced all the exercises that a budding mage learns beginning at five. Real magic isn\u2019t possible until the complex movements and manipulations of the hands is a matter of muscle memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a couple in the audience that reminded me of Barbie and Ken. She was staring daggers at me. He\u2019d been undressing me with his eyes since I took off my jacket. I briefly considered making it rain on her table to cool them both off. Bad idea<\/em>, I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I always ended my show with the tiniest bit of real magic. It started by showing my hands, front and back, fingers spread. None of the awkward hand poses used to palm something or hide it behind the fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My arms were bare, and my hands stayed visible and away from my body for the duration. After turning my hands palms up, I closed my right hand, raised it over the left, and then dropped a dollar coin into my open palm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I again showed that my right hand was empty, and that my left was holding the coin. My left hand closed around the coin and immediately opened to show it was empty again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would go through several iterations of this, with up to twenty coins. They weren\u2019t appearing out of thin air, of course. It was a simple minor teleportation spell, moving the coins from my pocket to my hand and back again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lech was damn near salivating and the woman at his side was fuming. I pointed at her, and he immediately assumed I was pointing at him. When he pointed at himself with an excited, hungry grin, I shook my head with a look of disgust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had gotten her attention. Using motions, I got her to place her hands flat on the table, which turned her attention to curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ran through a quick routine, making all twenty coins \u201cappear\u201d one by one, then made them disappear in one grand movement. The surprise on her face was all I needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019d felt the coins teleporting to the table under her hands. She lifted her hands and expressed surprise at the twenty one-dollar coins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKeep those,\u201d I said. \u201cMaybe you can afford a babysitter and have a fun night out without\u2014\u201d I nodded towards the man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She laughed, and he was the one fuming. Good for him<\/em>, I thought. If he was my date, he\u2019 d find himself impotent and\/or incontinent. Maybe I should anyway.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I closed out the show and retreated to the dressing room where I could let the phony smile drop. The face in the mirror was me, but it wasn\u2019t. It was my strawberry blonde hair, freckles arguing my age with the fine lines around my eyes, my tight tee-shirt showing my underweight body and small breasts that stopped growing around the time they started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind my brown eyes, though, was something that was not me. It was accusation and shame. I felt dirty and used\u2026as if I\u2019d been selling my body. No, that\u2019s not right; sex work is at least honest. It was more like I was forced<\/em> to sell my body to any and all comers, and the pimp forcing me was myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I covered the mirror to avoid my own accusatory glare and dressed in my street clothes. As I reached for the door, it swung open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you hate it so much, why don\u2019t you quit and do something different?\u201d The Council\u2019s Sergeant-at-Arms stood in the doorway. He looked like a spry septuagenarian at first glance. A closer look, however, revealed that his six-foot frame moved with the easy grace of a young man, and his ice-blue eyes had an unnerving intensity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMagus Andronicus. What are you doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlease, Kath, call me Andy.\u201d His smile, broad and warm, never reached his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFine, Andy<\/em>. I know this isn\u2019t a social call, so out with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot here,\u201d he said. \u201cYou look starved. Let me buy you dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI look starved because I am,\u201d I said. \u201cThis job doesn\u2019t pay well at all. And before you say, \u2018Do something else,\u2019 you know I don\u2019t have any other marketable skills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re saying that sex work might be a better choice? Even though you\u2019re flat as a board?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I huffed and at the same moment felt embarrassed that I\u2019d let him get to me and had reacted like a moody teen. He chuckled and led me across the street to the diner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was busy, so I thought it odd that he felt it was a better place to talk. I didn\u2019t have a choice, though, so I followed him to a table and let him order a bacon cheeseburger with an egg on it and large fries for each of us. It was more calories than I\u2019d eaten in a single sitting in months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I stuffed my face, I saw the subtle movements of his left hand and felt the magic swirl around us. I recognized the privacy spell. Any person overhearing our conversation would hear only the most trivial thing that they\u2019d prefer to actively ignore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It worked well for people, but not for recording devices. I wondered if that was why he chose to talk here rather than at the theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll begin while your mouth is too busy to talk back,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve let you get away with the minor teleportation, illusion, and levitation spells, as long as they can\u2019t be differentiated from parlor tricks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I nodded and continued savoring the juicy, fatty burger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTonight, though, you went too far.\u201d He took a drink of his water. \u201cYou let your magic touch a normie; she felt<\/em> it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I swallowed hard. \u201cWait, that\u2019s<\/em> what this is about?\u201d I rolled my eyes. \u201cAnd what do you call what you\u2019re doing now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInterrogating a criminal,\u201d he said. The false smile was gone, and his mouth was set as hard as his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy doing the very thing you accuse me of?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you have the kind of control I have,\u201d he said, \u201cyou\u2019ll learn how to directly influence the normies without them feeling<\/em> it. It only took me a hundred years to learn it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, what\u2019s the verdict?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe know you\u2019re guilty,\u201d he said, \u201cthere\u2019s no verdict to reach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou really need to keep up with changes in language usage. What happens now?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou will be forbidden to do any magic among outside the collegium for a period of fifty years. Punishable by death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt myself deflate. My whole body felt heavy, and the greasy food sat in my belly like a lump. I was screwed. \u201cIf I don\u2019t use magic for fifty years, I\u2019ll age so rapidly that I\u2019ll be dead of old age before the end of the sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an unfortunate side-effect of the sentence,\u201d he said with the first smile I\u2019d ever seen reach his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a sick bastard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard that, yes.\u201d He took a bite of his burger and chewed it thoroughly while staring at me. He swallowed with a satisfied sigh. \u201cIf you want to continue to use magic, I guess you\u2019ll need to move back to the collegium.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat am I supposed to do there?\u201d I asked. I knew that no one stayed at the collegium for free after graduating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an opening for a primary teacher for the five-year-olds. I\u2019m sure they would appreciate your help.\u201d If he was expecting a reaction, he didn\u2019t show it. \u201cYou\u2019ve had ten years of practice with what, five shows a week?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen does this start?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs soon as we leave; you only have one shot at this. You can either come with me to the collegium or make your own way without magic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI suppose the Council has already sealed and bound it? It\u2019s done?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bond is sealed the moment I step out that door.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I smirked. Since I\u2019m already in trouble<\/em>, I thought, I might as well make it worth it<\/em>. I remembered his leering gaze, his raw, unfiltered lust. I reached out until I found him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His thoughts were open to me. He was fantasizing about me begging him for sex; calling him \u201cDaddy.\u201d I fought back the urge to vomit. A movement of my right hand within my left and it was done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat did you do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou said it\u2019s binding once you step out that door,\u201d I said, \u201cso I just took care of a minor annoyance before it goes into effect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He reached out with his mind, following the tendrils of my spell. \u201cI\u2019m still not sure what you did, but it was the man with the woman who felt your magic earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight. They reminded me of Barbie and Ken, but only if Ken was a perverted creep who ignored Barbie on a date to drool over a random woman on a stage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sighed. \u201cI was<\/em> going to just give him a minor case of erectile dysfunction until I saw his fantasies. So\u2026the Ken doll is now hung<\/em> like a Ken doll.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHung like a\u2026you mean\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExactly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou say I\u2019m<\/em> sick?\u201d His eyes betrayed a moment of humor, as though only an act of cruelty could reach his centuries-buried emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shrugged. \u201cWhat? It\u2019ll wear off in a couple months. In the meantime, he might learn that not every woman is a porn actress there for his amusement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andy shook his head. He rose and started for the door. \u201cThis will probably add another fifty years to your sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I followed him, laughing. \u201cWorth it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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