Object of Your Desire

Story by Isengrim on SoFurry

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The Object of Your Desire is a source of magic that provides the spellcaster with the love of their dreams. But can those dreams be controlled?


Randy dusted the blinds in the sitting room, and thought to himself, "Another day, another dollar." He thought about what an average weekend it was going to be at Greenvale College, the school where he was going for his doctorate in history. The sleepy alma mater had something of a reputation as a "suitcase school," the students that had the money to get out during the weekends did. By Thursday afternoon, the walkways lining the campus were down to a few unenthusiastic students. By the weekend, it was practically a ghost town, except for an unwelcome teenage skateboarder or two.

Randy of course, didn't have the luxury of skipping town. Most of his money went into living expenses as a penniless grad student, and consequentially, most of his weekends were spent at home, either playing video games or writing his next paper. Sometimes it didn't matter much to him, but this particular Friday in late October, the "last man on Earth" feeling was very real within him.

He had just finished his shift as a student worker/caretaker of Windhurst Manor, the vast mansion nestled on a forested hilltop on the edge of town. The home had once been owned by a wealthy family of 19th century robber barons who might have given the Vanderbilts and the Astors a run for their money, had they not been taken along with most of the town by a rash of consumption that swept through in the 1850's. The last heir of the family, in one of those bouts of philanthropy that occur to magnates that are slowly dying, had willed the house (and a sizable trust for its upkeep) to the university in perpetuity.

The school for its part didn't exactly know what to do with the place. Its location and stately quality made it impractical for campus use. Aside from a few honorary functions and receptions it was rarely used. There had been talk about turning it into a museum, but the college chancellors had killed that quietly rather than turning it loose to the public.

Randy had lucked into student work at the estate. Picking up his bag from where he had sat it down, he walked through the elegant marble and vaunted ceilings of the main hall, past the arches and glass of the conservatory. He turned a corner, pulling the brass handle on the immense door that led to the reading room.

The reading room was filled with ornate 15-foot teak shelves, a grand table of burnished mahogany, and the polished bronze library ladders that Randy had only ever seen before in films. The real treasure though for him though was the wealth of books on the walls, which had been drawn in from numerous booksellers and antiquities dealers. One of the heirs was something of a book nut, and amassed this vast literary horde as though he were some kind of Renaissance prince. These were the sort of books that Google couldn't even begin to fathom how to deal with, ancient bound texts that predated any form of set type. For Randy though, someone who had chosen Greenvale to build on the foundation of his otherwise useless undergrad studies in dead languages, these sources were invaluable. Sweeping hardwood floors and wiping windows seemed a small price to pay. He wasn't completely alone in this interest, but the library wasn't thoroughly well-known and the school kept a fairly strict policy of not allowing the books to be photocopied or taken from the grounds without overt supervision. He rarely saw anyone around, and it was only once every few weeks that he might run into some traveling scholar allowed on the grounds to glean a few handwritten scraps from a piece before contending to the resignation of a long drive back home.

Randy rested his backpack on the surface of the table, walked over to the piping of the scaffold-like wheeled ladder, and rolled it along its track down to the second-to-last shelf. A particular volume had caught his eye this time, third from the end on the top row. Randy was fascinated by its plainness, honestly, the thick book had no leafed or etched indication of a title on its scuffed and worn leather cover, which was black as the night. Randy pulled it from the shelf, carefully cradling it as he stepped down, as the binding was quite worn and loose. He hoped his intuition wasn't leading him wrong as he set his subject down on the table, he had run into a real sleeper the other week about some tax collector writing about grain harvests in Thuringia...

Randy discovered the black codex was brimming with patterings of notes in several inks. The most readable Randy thought looked like some kind of High German, possibly Franconian, which he would guess would put it sometime in the 13th century, but he would have a hard time confirming it without doing some cross-reference. The faded texts though, suggested the tome itself was a palimpsest, and probably much older. The deliberate and almost rune-like glyphs suggested to him someone with a lot of careful time and patience, like a monk or a scribe. From the early pages he could find no source of authorship though. There was a heading though on one of the early pages, from Randy's somewhat broken interpreting skills, it seemed to involve something along the lines of "The Application of Practical Magicks." Randy pored over this detail in awe, European books of superstition and folklore this old were basically unheard of, most of them were fuel for the fires of later Inquisitions. Or occasionally just fuel for empty fireplaces. A find like this could be possibly be the wellspring of material for a thesis paper, or better yet -- publication and his ticket to academia. Randy pulled out his notebook and started copying through the work meticulously.

He was still following through three and a half hours later when Mr. Tucker, the old salt of a night watchman, interrupted him. Like Randy, he too was here with an ulterior motive, simple employment in his later years. Though the college had entrusted him with a uniform, a cellphone, and a taser, Randy couldn't see the grey-stubbled face of Mr. Tucker bearing down in pursuit of intruders. In actuality, the interior of the mansion was guarded by a wired security system and extensive smoke alarms -- Mr. Tucker wasn't the last line of defense, but the grounds of the estate were large enough that it made some sense to have a human standing in just in case.

"You know, I prefer the crossword puzzle," he mused as he eavesdropped on Randy's scribblings. "Easier on the eyes too." Randy looked up from the task that had preoccupied him and realized it was already sunset. "Sorry Mr. Tucker, I got wrapped up in my work." Mr. Tucker nodded, stroked his chin, and muttered a "hmm," the sort that older gents do when they're trying to be polite but don't have any sort of anecdote for the subject matter. The lines of his face broadened into a grin, and he added, "You're lucky I caught you, I almost had you locked in for the night."

Randy closed the book, and dutifully stepped up the ladder to reshelve it. Mr. Tucker was taking a second look at his papers when he returned. "Anything interesting in there?" the oldtimer asked him. "Not sure just yet," Randy responded, shoveling the spiral-bound sheets back into the depths of his backpack and zipping it up. Mr. Tucker chuckled and added, "Well, I hope you don't spend all weekend on it. Life's too short. I'll see you Monday."

Randy opened the door to his apartment, and trudged into the front room. A jangling of a tiny bell signaled the entry of his pet cat, Emerald, to meet him. She circled around his feet, namesake green eyes expectantly looking to him to feed her. Randy considered himself a cat-person, he loved their inquisitive ways, and didn't mind the expense of keeping a friend to make up for living off campus.

Randy poured some kibble for Emerald, running a hand along the feather-soft frame of his cat. Emerald nuzzled delicately before wandering off to another room to doze off to sleep. Randy heated up a Totino's party pizza in the oven, opened his backpack, and got to the work of trying to decipher the jottings he had taken down from the mysterious book from that afternoon.

The thing that stood out the most to Randy that he had copied from his study was something called "The Object of Your Desire." His vague interpretation was it seemed to be some kind of spell that granted the spellcaster their ideal partner. Eating the slab of cheap pizza, Randy had to admit, he didn't have the best opportunities with women. He was an average guy, but there weren't a lot of girls at bars into someone excited about research with no money and even less free time. As silly as it seemed to him, Randy wanted to speak the incantation, to see what would happen. The words poured out of his mouth simply, effortlessly. Because why not?

As Randy finished the last words of the enchantment, he heard a scuffling sound from his bedroom, as though someone else was in his apartment. "This can't have possibly have worked, can it?" he asked himself, with equal parts nervousness and excitement. He turned the corner and came face to face with Emerald. Except not.

Her face was human-like in proportion, framed with pirouettes of raven hair, and yet she retained her cattish ears and slit-like pupils. Her velvet nose and parted mouth also looked the same but larger, almost leonine in character. Her collar was impossibly larger to fit her, its bell hanging jauntily over her throat.

A confused glance at her revealed sleek fur highlighting full thighs, ample breasts, and a fit tummy. Randy realized her lithe figure looked like something that had fallen out of a swimsuit, but only if Playboy took a serious turn for the bizarre. On second thought, he didn't like the twisted direction that this train of thought was headed. He stared at the thing for what seemed like an infinite moment, until he regained enough composure to speak.

"Em-Emerald?" he queried, not sure if there would be any mote of familiarity from this amalgam that he'd somehow created. But her eyes stirred with a newfound intellect, and what we got was vastly more that a simple turn of the head.

"I'm Emerald, your housecat, but also so much more now," she demured in a lush feminine tone.

"You... can talk?!" he blurted out, he felt the grasp of his own reality slipping from him in a way that made his own speech doubtful for much longer.

"Randy, you have no idea what you did, do you?" she mock pouted, placing her hands on the gentle crest of her voluptuous hips. "The Object of Your Desire requires a vessel, a host, to be cast. I happened to be the closest living thing to you so it found me, changed me, adapted me to fulfill your wish." She smiled, baring the ivory glint of feline fangs, sauntering over to him, her coquettish eyes drinking him in.

"Randy, I'm bound to you, body and mind. You don't know all the pleasure that I have to show you."

Randy didn't want to begin to find out to know what that meant. He darted for the notes. There had to be something in there. Or maybe he could leave, go back to the manor, anything to do undo this fantasy gone wrong.

Of course, Randy should have anticipated that his slightly out-of-shape grad student body would be overtaken by Emerald's frankly Amazonian frame, but he hadn't counted on her to leap on top of him. All at once, he felt the weight of her behind him, and the carpeted floor rushing to meet his face.

"Oh Master, I love this game," she cheerfully exclaimed, her viridescent eyes beaming with delight. She turned him over, keeping her hold on him as she shifted to let his waist meet hers. Randy discovered she still had retractable claws, her slender fingers digging in just under his shirt as she held him in place.

"Let's see if you like this one," she leaned in to caress her impeccable chest close to him, the indelible impression something he immediately wanted to erase. Her bubble butt rubbed intently over the crease of his inner thigh, her hands kneading along his chest methodically as she toyed him along. Randy could feel the warmth of her fold as she purred deeply, the friction of her motions serving its purpose as she felt his arousal through his pants. This segued into slight girlish moans that Randy would have found profoundly erotic were they coming from someone other than his cat. Instead, he gritted his teeth, and tried to think about anything else. Emerald grinded against him deliberately with her lower body at the bulge underneath her, flaring her hips as she rhythmically moved over him.

"Nyowl, that's more like it," she kittenishly giggled. She unbuckled his jeans, and to Randy's shock, reached into his underwear and pulled out his aching boner, guiding it expertly with her hand into her fuzzy mons.

It was not going to be an average weekend at all.