~ CHAPTER 2 ~ by Van © 1998

DISCLAIMER:  All characters from the motion picture Practical Magic and the television series Charmed are the property of Warner Bros. , which has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with this fictional parody.  This story is set in the First Season of  Charmed.

Piper pushed the front door closed behind her and dropped her car keys and purse on the entry hall sideboard.  "Phoebe?" she called.  "Phoebe, are you home?"  She heard her sister's voice answering from upstairs, but couldn't quite understand her.  "What?"

There was movement at the top of the stairs.  "I said, come up to your room," Phoebe's voice answered from above.  "There's something really cool ya gotta see!"

Piper bounced up the stairs and headed for her room.  "You haven't been fooling around with The Book again, have you?  Remember the last time when you tried that stupid love spell, and..." 

There was a strange woman, a brunette, sitting on Piper's bed. Another strange woman, a redhead, was standing by her closet.  Both were dressed in dark, silk robes of some sort.

"Hello, Piper," said the brunette with a pleasant smile.  "I'm Sally Owens and this is my sister Gillian."

"We're so pleased to meet you," said the redhead.  "Phoebe's told us so much about you."

"What are you doing here?" Piper asked, taking a step back.  The brunette, Sally she had called herself, made a small gesture and Piper's bedroom door slammed shut behind her.  The redhead, Gillian, made a gesture of her own and Piper heard the bolt of the lock slide closed with a loud click.

"Where's Phoebe?" Piper demanded.  "Phoebe?" she called, her eyes darting around the room.

"Sorry," the redhead giggled, "she's tied up at the moment."

"Oh please," Sally groaned.  "At least try to be original."

Piper took another step back and found herself hard against the locked door.  "You better tell me what you're doing here, and what you've done with Phoebe, or I'll..."

Gillian's smile broadened.  "Or you'll what?" she asked pleasantly.

Piper didn't know what was going on here, but it looked like it might be a good time to get out and find some help.  She gathered her strength to use her Power, her ability to freeze time.  She raised her hands ...and found herself frozen in place!

"Wow," said Sally.  "She's strong!"

"Not as strong as you, but she certainly has Power," Gillian agreed.  "The charm barely turned her casting.  I'm tingling all over."  The redhead shuddered and gracefully stretched her arms overhead.  "It feels kinda gooood, actually," she remarked.

"Everything feels good to you," Sally said, then walked up to Piper and smiled.  Piper found she couldn't move, she couldn't even twitch—she was paralyzed!  Her eyes, wide with panic and the only things she could move, darted from Sally to Gillian and back.  "We won't hurt you, or your sisters," Sally gently promised.  "Try to remain calm.  You'll be able to move again soon.  All we've done is reflect your casting back onto you.  Relax, and we'll make you ...more comfortable."

Gillian chuckled.  "Now who's talking like a cliché?"

Sally smiled and gently pulled Piper's arms down to her side.  Gillian joined her sister, and they began undressing their frightened, worried, living mannequin.  Shoes, sweater, skirt, blouse, half-slip, bra, panties, soon Piper was standing before her "visitors," paralyzed, frightened, embarrassed, and completely nude.  Gillian stepped out of Piper's limited field of vision, then returned to drop several fat coils of thin hemp rope on the bed.  Piper's eyes grew even wider.

flutter-flutter-flutter-flutter-flutter-flutter-flutter-flutter-flutter-flutter...

Down in the cellar Phoebe hardly flinched as the feather brushed her left nipple.  She had long since lost count of the number of near-orgasmic kisses the twirling white demon had inflicted on almost every part of her tightly bound body.  She was beyond mere physical reaction.  Her entire being felt like one pulsing, glowing cloud of unfulfilled lust. 

Phlutter-Phlutter-Phlutter-Phlutter-Phlutter-Phlutter-Phlutter...

The tight ropes binding her wrists, arms, and ankles; the rope binding her to the steel column; the tight gag; all were ... nothing ;  no more the cause of her true captivity than gravity or the limits of her physical body.  She could see that what was really holding her, her true bondage , was the spell ..the spell that wouldn't let her cum ...the spell that teased and caressed and pleasured her ...the spell that denied her the blessed climax that was ...so ...close.   It held her.  It held her.

Phetter-Phetter-Phe tter-Phetter-Phetter-Phetter-Phetter-Phe tter-Phetter-Phetter...

  There was something there.  Something... else... was with her in the dim, candlelit cellar.  (Phoebe was glad.  She wasn't afraid.  Whatever it was, it was good to know there was more to her universe than this torture of near-pleasure.  She wasn't alone.)

"Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe ..."

"Yes?  What... what do you want?" Phoebe asked.  (Was she talking, or thinking?  How could she be talking if she was gagged?  She decided it didn't matter.)  "Hello?"  The strange little voice was all around her.  No!  It was over by the strange little light, but the light was all around her.  No, the was right in front of her, right before her eyes... but it wasn't a light at all,  it was...

"Hellooooo, Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe!"

"Oh!" Phoebe said, "you're ...beautiful!"

 Piper had surmised that her captors were fellow witches, but this had done little to calm her fears.  She had found her ability to move slowly returning, but in her present circumstances this small victory was quite moot.  Several minutes before, Sally had held Piper's shoulders while her sister had gathered Piper's useless arms behind her back and bound then together with one of the coils of rope.

The process had begun at Piper's wrists, and she had felt turn after turn of the thin rope being pulled around and between, around and between, working upwards until her arms were completely encased from her wrists to her upper arms.  More turns were taken at her wrists, and she felt her hands and fingers disappearing under the wrappings of tight hemp.   Gillian then returned to her still paralyzed subject's upper arms and anchored Piper's bonds with a figure eight loop encircling her shoulders and armpits and criss-crossing above her breasts.  Next, the sisters had laid Piper face down on her bed,  spread her ankles, and bound them to the lower bedframe on either side.  Finally, a thick, knotted silk scarf had been thrust in her mouth, cinched tight , and knotted at the nape of her neck under her tousled hair.

"I'll watch her," Gillian had told her sister. 

Watch me do what? Piper had thought, ...age gracefully?   Although still paralyzed and unable to test her bonds, Piper could tell she was completely helpless, her arms not simply bound together, but virtually mummified in a cocoon-like sleeve of hemp.  From her position on the bed with her head turned to one side, she could just see herself reflected in her dresser mirror, and the rope didn't simply encircle her arms, it entwined, enlaced, and enwrapped her arms.  Piper couldn't see an actual knot.  The whole ordered, elaborate, tight thing was one big knot.

Sally left the bedroom and Gillian inspected Piper's bonds, running her hands over the rope sleeve, down each leg to tug at the ankle knots, and lastly up to Piper's face to trace the outline of her gag-separated lips.  She leaned forward and whispered in Piper's ear, her red curls intermingling with her captive's straight, dark locks.  "I do good work, don't I Piper?" she purred.  Piper knew the question was rhetorical, even if she hadn't been catatonic and tightly gagged.  Suddenly, Piper felt a sharp slap on her right buttock.  The prisoner, of course, could neither flinch nor protest.  "You will let me know when you can move again, won't you?"

Another rhetorical question.  Piper heard Gillian move away and sit in the window seat.  She couldn't see her captor, but had seen her shadow pass in the mirror.  That had been several minutes ago.  Since then, movement, if you could call it that, had returned to Piper's enclosed arms, individually rope-wrapped fingers, splayed legs, bound ankles, and the rest of her naked, slightly trembling body.

The bedroom door opened and Sally returned.  Piper had decided to "play possum" and not let her captors know she was unfrozen (although she wasn't sure exactly what "advantage" this incurred, bound as she was); however, despite herself, she started when the door opened and moaned into her gag.

Brow furrowed in concentration, Sally was mumbling a chant under her breath and holding something before her in both hands, something that was apparently either very fragile or threatened to spill onto the floor.  Gillian unceremoniously grabbed Piper by the shoulders and pulled her up onto her knees, then climbed onto the foot of the bed, put one arm around Piper's waist and the other across her shoulder, and held the naked prisoner close.  Sally also climbed onto the bed and knelt before them both, her back to the headboard.

Piper watched as Sally slowly spread her hands.  Three, ribbon-like, red silk bands fluttered to the bedsheets.  Sally retrieved one band, and as Gillian tightened her grip, tied it around Piper's narrow waist, reached behind the squirming captive and pulled the free end of the ribbon behind to the small of Piper's back, up between her clenched buttocks, through her sex, over her pubic bush, and knotted it in the front below Piper's navel.

"Mmmpf?" Piper mewed in question.

"It's the latest thing," Gillian teased.  "All the chic sun-worshippers in Nice are wearing 'ribbon-thongs' this season."

"I think you're having entirely too much fun being a villainess, Gilly-bean," Sally said to her sister.

Gillian laughed.  "Puritanical prudishness is a rather misplaced quality in a witch, don't you think?" she remarked, "but then you always were a bit of a spoilsport, even as a kid."

"Just hold her still and remember what we're here for," Sally admonished with a long-suffering grin.

"Wmmf?" Piper mewed.

Gillian grinned.  "It's a secret," she whispered in the confused prisoner's ear.

Sally picked up the second ribbon, and passed in under, between, over, and even around Piper's heaving breasts, imparting the frame of a secure but rather immodest bandeau brasserie.  As a final touch, the final free ends were pulled directly across her breasts from either side, carefully positioned over her nipples (where they almost, but not quite, hid her areoles), pulled tight until they dimpled the flesh, and tied together in front.

Piper watched Sally pick up the third and final ribbon.  Sally held the ribbon before her eyes, whispered a few words, and gave the ribbon a single, quick shake.  It seemed to unfold into a long gauzy band, about four inches in width.  Piper flinched and tried to duck her head when Sally brought the band towards the captive's eyes, but Gillian shifted behind her and held Piper's head steady while Sally bound the band over Piper's eyes and hair, a nearly transparent blindfold.   Piper blinked, her lashes brushing the gauzy silk.

Piper twisted her body and tossed her head as Gillian and Sally released their holds and climbed off the bed, but her ribbon thong, bandeau, and "blindfold," were as secure and inescapable as her single-sleeve of hemp and her ankle bindings.  She mewed in impotent anger as Sally gently forced her back down onto her stomach.  Piper could feel Gillian fiddling with the end of her arm bindings, and half-lifting herself off the bed, craned her neck to watch Gillian pulling a long, single strand, trailing end of the hemp sleeve down to the foot of the bed and lashing it to the bedframe.

"Lie back down, Piper," Sally scolded, gently patting the indignant prisoner's rump.  Next, she fluffed a pillow, gently lifted Piper's head, and lowered it onto the crisp pillowcase.  Meanwhile, Gillian took another coil of hemp, tied one end to the left bedframe even with Piper's shoulders, stretched it across and through the top of Piper's arm binding, down to the right bedframe, pulled it taut , and tied it off.  Piper found herself tied face down on her bed, legs splayed, arms bound tightly together, shoulders pinned in place, breasts crushed into the mattress.  She was helpless and virtually immobile, but almost comfortable ...at least she might have been comfortable if she hadn't been confused, embarrassed at the way she had been stripped and handled, and fearful that, appearances aside, she was the prisoner of dark forces, and not two fellow witches with a hidden agenda.

Piper didn't see when Gillian smiled and pointed to the nearby bookcase, overflowing with paperbacks and hardcovers, many with purple and lavender hued covers or dustjackets.  She leaned close to her sister's ear and whispered, "This is going to be very easy. "

"I know," Sally mouthed silently.

Gillian leaned over and kissed Piper's forehead, then stood back and watched as her sister did the same.  Piper's eyes darted from captor to captor.  She was about to either throw a fit of frenzied struggling or break into desperate tears (she wasn't sure which) when Sally made a small gesture, and...

...Piper found herself asleep, ...asleep ... and dreaming!

Piper was tired, frightened (although she wasn't about to let her captors know she was frightened), and increasingly angry!  How dare they treat her this way!  Wrists tied behind her back, filthy rag stuffed in her mouth and bound there with her own scarf?  It was an outrage!  Her father had warned her time and again not to go riding alone, but what rotten luck to stumble right into a raiding party of these ...bandits! 

"Hurry her along," the leader growled.  "He won't be happy if we keep him waiting."

"No man likes to be kept waiting on his wedding night," the warrior holding her left arm barked.  All members of the party (excepting Piper, of course) found this quite amusing.

They finally came to a clearing in the forest, a small fire burning in the center, several more warriors lounging about, a pair of sentries leaning on boar spears on either side of the entry to a crude hunting shelter of notched logs, mud, and thatch.

As Piper and her captors approached, the door opened and out came ... Mel Gibson ???

(What a hunk! Piper mused.  She knew she was dreaming, but she felt... detached, like a spectator watching a story unfold.  She could more or less feel what was happening to... her, the other Piper, but it was more empathy than sensation. )

"Bring her forward, my lads," the chieftain ordered.  Piper recognized him.  There had been blood between their clans for time out of mind.  She knew it was her duty to hate him, but she also knew his reputation as an honorable Thane and a mighty warrior. 

It's a hard thing to hate a good man, Piper mused, especially one built like a Hero with a face so handsome only a bard could describe it with justice.

His men laughed and made crude gestures as the chieftain pulled her inside the lamplit cabin and closed the door.  He threw her onto a makeshift pallet of fresh pine boughs.  Piper rolled over to face him, her eyes defiant above her tight gag.  She twisted her wrists, finding their bindings still tight and inescapable.

"You're not as beautiful as I was told," The chieftain remarked.  Piper's cheeks burned at the insult.  The chieftain came forward and leaned close.  "You're even more beautiful."  He kissed her throat, under her left ear.

( Whoa! Piper thought, I sure felt that!   Apparently being tied up and dragged through the Highland Moors... (That was it!  She was in the Scottish Pavilion of her own private Fantasyland! ) ...apparently she could more or less watch the bad stuff, but would fully experience the good stuff.  Wow! )

Piper's heart was beating rapidly.  The chieftain's manly aroma mixed with the scent of crushed pine needles filled her flaring nostrils.

"There has been enough blood between our clans," the chieftain said.  "Our peoples will have peace at last when it's known you are my abducted bride."

Piper mewed into her gag and fought her bonds.  The chieftain grasped the bodice of her riding gown and ripped it asunder!  His hands cupped her heaving breasts, caressed her flat stomach and white shoulders.  Piper writhed under his gentle yet manly touch.

( Oh, Mel!!! Piper gasped.  That felt gooood!!! )

His hand reached up and pulled down her gag.  Piper spit the hated cloth from her mouth and croaked through dry lips, "my father will kill you."

"He may at that," the chieftain said with a laugh.  He plucked the stopper from a wineskin with his white, even teeth and poured a small draught into Piper's thirsty mouth.  She coughed and the sweet dark wine splashed onto her throat and naked bosom.  The chieftain licked the wine from her neck, her breasts, her lips.

"What say you Lady," he whispered.  "Peace or war?  Wife or enemy?"  His hands were everywhere; his scent, everywhere.  Piper felt an excitement and desire she had never known.

"Take me, My Lord," she whispered.

(She was on fire!   She knew he was going to take her, and she wanted it!  She felt it coming!  All he was going to have to do was touch her!)

The chieftain stripped off his tunic and kilt.  His gleaming muscles rippled as he moved atop her shuddering body.  Piper gasped as he took her breasts in his hands and... ... ....

( ...Hello?  ...Mel?   ...Where'd you go?  Come back!   What kind of a dream is this? Piper demanded.  She was on the very edge, vibrating with anticipation!   What the hell is.. .)

The king's son had come through the window of her bedroom shortly after midnight.  He had watched her sleep in her lacy nightgown, on her crisp white sheets, protected by her gauzy curtain of mosquito netting, then had thrust the netting aside and taken her.  Piper had awoken to find him atop her, pushing a wad of soft linen into her mouth and binding it tightly in place with a strip ripped from her gown.  More strips had been used to bind her.  She had fought, her clenched fists pounding his manly chest until her wrists had been gently but firmly pulled behind her back and bound, her legs kicking until he had crossed her ankles and lashed them together, but it had been too sudden, too unexpected; he had been too strong .

( I know you, Piper mused through a haze of lust.  You're that Samoan delivery boy the waitresses at Quake are always flirting with.  God, you look good in a loincloth!   She was still quivering on the brink from her dream with Mel.  Get over here and do it! she shouted.)

He had carried her from her father's trading post to his father's village and had placed her gently in the hollow of his outrigger canoe.  None had marked their passing as he turned the canoe into the lagoon and headed for the outer reef.  He skillfully guided the craft over the reef and out into the cresting swells of the open sea.  Piper gasped when a wave broke over the bow and wet her nightgown.  Already ripped immodestly short, the wet fabric clung to her skin, virtually transparent.  She blushed and glowered at her captor as he laughed and shook the spray from his long, black hair. 

( Yeah, yeah, ain't the South Seas romantic — now get on with it!!! )

The moon rose and a playful dolphin gave them an informal escort as he stroked towards one of the outer islands.  Piper recognized the outline of the shore.  This was the spirit island, the forbidden island, the island that was taboo for all, European and native alike!  He beached the canoe, and pulled it up onto the sand and into the shelter of the palms.  Piper watched as he used a fallen frond to brush all tracks from the sand.  He eased her out of the canoe and sat her on a fallen log as he used more fronds to cover and hide his canoe.

"It is death to come to the spirit island," he told her, "but we are not dead.  We are not dead because the spirits welcome us."

Piper mewed into her gag as he lifted her into his arms and strode into the forest.  After several yards, palms gave way to tangled brush, then brush to trees, then trees to forest giants.  He continued with his captive burden deep into the ancient grove 'til he came to one particularly huge, buttressed tree.  Piper squealed when he slung her over one shoulder, grabbed a thick vine, and climbed high into the canopy.

Minutes later, he had made them a soft bed of branches, leaves, and countless orchids.  Piper writhed beneath him as he clutched her gown and tore it from her body.  It fluttered to the forest floor below like a pale dying bird.

(She wanted it!  She needed it!  Just DO ME! Piper shouted.)

"We shall live here forever," he told her, "pleasing this island and its spirits with our love.  We shall know passion and delight such as only those blessed by heaven and sea can know."

As the colored dawn lit the clouds and branches afire, as countless exotic birds chattered and called, as the warm breeze caused her gentle bed to rock and sway, he stripped off his loincloth, lay beside her, and... ... ...

( ...and?  ...and?  Aaaargh! Piper screamed.  NOOO!!!   She was back in limbo, hot, sweaty, on that damn edge , even more excited than before, and still not fulfilled!  Help! she cried to an uncaring dreamworld.  I'm wet dreaming and I can't wake up!

"Good goddess!" Sally exclaimed.  "Look at her go!"  Sally and Gillian were standing over the bed, "watching" between planes as Piper's dreams unfolded.  "She's building higher and faster than I've ever seen before."

Gillian was equally impressed.  "Mel Gibson as 'Bravehunk,' that Samoan dude, George Clooney as a pirate captain, hot Klingon love with Worf on the holodeck— you go girl!  If she keeps this up she'll melt the sheets by the time she's fully charged for the ceremony."

Sally reached out and gently placed her hand on Piper's left buttock.  The prisoner's flesh was hot and damp, and quivered slightly under her touch.  "Poor thing," Sally whispered. 

"Don't go all soft on me," Gillian chuckled.  "You know there's no other way to do this, and it's for their own protection. "

"I know," Sally sighed.  "I was sorta surprised by that Xena bit," she remarked.  "Piper doesn't seem the type."

"' The type '—Listen to yourself!" Gillian admonished.  "It was just a little slippery fun in the hot tub between a warrior princess and her captured witch-priestess.  You mean you've never fantasized about doing it with a woman?"

"None of your damn business," Sally answered, blushing.  "It was a nice touch to have Gabrielle naked, hogtied, gagged, covered with mud, and forced to watch while her friend made wet-whoopie with Piper.  Remind me not to get on Piper's bad side after all this is over."  She reached down and removed Piper's gag.  Through the gauzy blindfold, the bound dreamer's eyes could be seen in rapid motion under her closed eyelids.  Her face, her entire body was now glistening with sweat.  She twisted in her bonds,  moaning wordlessly.  The sisters watched the writhing, erotic spectacle, Sally with sympathy, Gillian with sympathy ...and delight.

"Pru should be home in about an hour," Sally observed, shaking off her reverie.  "We better check on Phoebe and then get ready to greet her."

The Owens sisters left the twisting, struggling, increasingly aroused dreamer to her melodramatic, un-fulfilling erotic escapades, and started downstairs.

From the spells being used and the way the forces were aligning, the cat could see exactly what the Owens-witches were trying to accomplish.  All they needed was the presence of the Pru-witch to begin the completion of their scheme, and the Pru-witch would almost certainly walk right into any trap they set for her. 

As the guardian of the Halliwell-witches and the superior life form ultimately in charge of the house, the cat did the only appropriate, correct, responsible thing she could do under the circumstances—she took a nap.

Phoebe's small, winged visitor snatched the magickal feather that had been teasing the captive witch from midair and tossed it aside.  It fluttered to the ground, a mundane white plume once again.  "What are you?" Phoebe asked in this new, magickal way of speaking between worlds she had discovered.

"Færie–Pixie–Windsinger–Elf!  Many names but always myself!"

The tiny being hovered in the candle light, giggling and laughing.  Fair skin, boyishly short red hair, butterfly wings fluttering almost too fast to see, nude and unmistakably a she ... she was smaller than Phoebe's first Barbie doll, and she was ... beautiful!

"Oh–Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe!  We've been friends since youuuu were a weeeeee babeee.   I could see youuu, but you could ne'errr see meee!"

Phoebe did seem to know the little fey.  "Flit!  You're Flit , aren't you?  My friend!"  The little one did a somersault in midair and laughed in delight.

"You-Remember-You-Remember-You-Rememburrr!  Oh Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe!"

"My invisible friend ...my little invisible friend!" Phoebe laughed.  Like many small children, Phoebe had had an invisible friend, one who got her in and out of mischief (mostly in) and whose very existance was denied by her parents and sisters (mostly Pru.)  "I... I haven't even thought about you since... since I was four.  I... I think I'm gonna cry !"  A tear rolled down her cheek.  Phoebe felt a fluttering breeze stir her hair as Flit darted forward and wiped away the tear as best she could with her tiny hand.

"Don't be sad Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe.   Be Happy-Happy-Happyyy!"

"Oh Flit, I'm sorry I forgot you, it's just that... that..."

"Silly Silly Phoebe!   Be Happyyy!!!"

Phoebe and Flit became aware that the Owens sisters had joined them.

"Blessings be, Gwynona," Gillian said, half-bowing towards the hovering fairy.

"Flit-Flit-Flit!   My name is Flit!"

"Flit?"  Gillian asked.  "Where did that come from?"

Sally hid a smile behind one hand and leaned close to her sister's ear.  "I do believe Phoebe has made a conquest ," she whispered.

"Conquest, conquest, that was done. When she was a babe, my heart was wonnn."

Phoebe and the Owens sisters laughed as Flit trilled and flew in a series of graceful, acrobatic spirals.

"I wish I'd had a fairy friend when I was growing up," sighed Sally.

"Me too," said Gillian.

"I wish I'd had a fairie friend I could see." Phoebe sighed.  Flit flew to Phoebe's right shoulder and gracefully alighted, nestling her tiny naked buttocks between two strands of rope crisscrossing Phoebe's shoulder and arms.

"You see me nowww, Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe... and you always willllll. Forever-Forever-Foreverrr!"

"That's sweet," whispered Gillian, wiping away a tear.  The tiny fey blew a kiss in the redhead's direction.

"Gillybean-Gillybean-Gillybean!"

Sally smiled and addressed herself to Phoebe.  "Just so you won't be confused," she said, "'Flit' here dances in Moon Circles under the name Gwynona.  I wouldn't want you to be confused if another fey comes to visit and starts gossiping."  Sally winked at her sister.  Flit/Gwynona grimaced and stuck her tiny tongue out at Sally, but with good humor, accepting the gentle jibe.

"Gwynona is a beautiful name," Phoebe gushed.  The tiny fairie blushed prettily.

"Gwynonaaa."

"Shall I call you Gwynona?" Phoebe asked.  "I want to call you by your true name."  Sally and Gillian gasped.  Phoebe noticed their alarm.  "What?  What did I say?"  Her fairie friend laughed and the Owens sisters visibly relaxed.

"I dance before The goddess as Gwynonaaa, I answer my friends as Gwynonaaa, but  when The goddess calls my truuue naaame ... I will leave this place foreverrr."

"Oh," said Phoebe, blushing behind her gag.  "Open mouth, insert foot!"  The fairie laughed in delight and leaned over to whisper in her friend's huge ear.

"You can call meee Gwynonaaa... but I'll alwaaays beee Flit-Flit-Flit!"

The Owens sisters laughed, and Sally reached over and untied Phoebe's gag.

"Thank you," Phoebe croaked, speaking in the mundane way.   Sally whispered a brief chant, made a small gesture, and Phoebe's mouth was no longer dry, but was filled with a pleasant wetness, as if she had just swallowed a sip of fine wine.  "Thank you again ," she said.

"You're welcome," Sally said.  "I know you have the Power to See, and you've gained the power to speak between planes ...but can you see what we are doing and why?"

Phoebe was still confused.  She could see something , but couldn't make sense of it.  Gwynona crossed her tiny legs and listened intently.  "I... I think I can see... a... sort of...," Phoebe began.

Sally put one finger to Phoebe's lips.  "Trick question," she admitted.  "You can see, but not see and understand... but you soon will."

"I can see that you and your sister are good, and mean us no harm."  Suddenly Phoebe started, hearing a distant cry, a cry not in what she had always thought of as the real world, but echoing between worlds.  "Is that... Piper?  She's screaming! "

"Only in her dreams, and only with frustrated pleasure," Gillian laughed.  "Speaking of frustrated pleasure," Gillian continued, with a mischevious grin, "you're about as charged as you can handle, aren't you?" 

Phoebe, was charged.  "Now that you mention it..." she mumbled.  She felt like she would cum at a single touch, cum like she had never cum before!  She twisted in her bonds and bit her lower lip.  Gillian slowly stretched out her right hand.  Phoebe whined piteously, at once dreading and desperately longing for the touch of that hand.  Deliberately, Gillian stroked Phoebe's glistening sex and trailed her fingers upwards, gently twisting a strand of pubic hair, and... Phoebe felt the touch, and a strangely detached thrill, but nothing more.  She shuddered with repressed delight.  "What have you done to me," she whispered through clenched teeth.

"You're charged, ready, and contained," Sally explained, with a sympathetic smile.  "Stop being a sadist," she scolded her sister.

"Sadist?" Gillian protested.  "Would a sadist do something nice,  like..."  Her hand slowly moved towards one of Phoebe's erect nipples, fingers poised to tweak and pull.  The bound captive whimpered and squirmed.

Sally swatted her sister's hand.  "Stop it."

"You can't just leave me like this," Phoebe begged.  "I'll go crazy !  I'll..."

Sally spoke a word of Power and touched Phoebe's forehead.  Phoebe's eyes glazed in mid sentence and her head drooped forward.  Immediately, soft, regular snoring droned through the cellar.

"Oh–Phoebe-Phoebe-Phoebe!"

  Sally kissed the top of Phoebe's head.  "Sweet dreams, Little One," she said.

Gillian kissed Phoebe's head as well.  "Sweet, wet, whatever!" she said with a chuckle.

As the sisters climbed the stairs, they looked back towards the sleeping captive, still tightly lashed to the steel column, softly lit and warmed by the magick candle.  Gwynona gave a graceful, feline stretch and yawn, pulled a portion of the discarded silk gag around herself as a cover, curled up on Phoebe's shoulder in a comfortable, fetal pose, and joined her bound friend in slumber.

Pru parked her newly serviced car behind Piper's and headed up the stairs towards the front entrance.  It had been a long, hard day at the auction house, and she was looking forward to a light supper, a long hot bath, and (for once) an early bed.  She opened the front door and...

Two strange women were standing at the end of the entry hall.