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A Master of the Tenth Order, Chapter 3 By ThePhallocrat - thephallocrat@gmail.com
"To understand the nature of desire, to pierce to the core of sex magick, you must understand biology and how your body works," Instructor Benedict said.
Claudio squirmed in his seat. He'd been terrified all night thinking of his first lesson in sex magick and had envisioned all sorts of awkward or overwhelming ways it could play out. What he had not expected was yet another lecture, and an especially dry one at that. He found himself vaguely disappointed, even though he had been quivering with nerves about anything more. Benedict had pinned a diagram of the male anatomy in cross-section to the wall of his quarters and was carefully talking through how it all functioned with clinical, detached objectivity. There was some new information in it that Claudio did not already know, but not much, and he found himself more and more impatient as the lecture droned on.
"The seminal fluid is thus discharged from the penis in a series of convulsions known as an ejaculation," Benedict said in a drone, using a small rod to point at the relevant parts of the anatomy on the diagram.
"Master!" Claudio blurted out suddenly.
His teacher paused at the interruption, turning to arch an eyebrow at the student. "Yes?"
"Is this really how instruction in sex magick begins?" he mumbled, mystified.
"You do not think the anatomy and biology of the body's sexual response is important?"
Something about the way the question was phrased made Claudio feel like a fool. But still he decided he could not leave it be. "I'm sure it is. But it's not magick."
"Is it not?" Benedict still had the skeptical eyebrow raised, but his tone seemed to invite his pupil to elaborate.
"You could explain in great detail about it all in this way," Claudio said, "Medically. Like a doctor or something. But that explains nothing, not really."
Benedict folded his arms, nodding. "Go on."
"Sex is surely more than just... anatomy. Where's the mystery in this? Where's the magick?" He found he could say no more. He clamped his mouth shut, certain he'd just proved himself a total idiot.
But his teacher smiled. "You are very quick, my pupil," and with that he turned and ripped the diagram off the wall, then tore it two before Claudio's wide-eyed shock. "Most students endure these lectures for weeks before raising this objection. You have spotted the ruse at once. As fascinating as the biology may be, one does not experience the sexual act with clinical curiosity. It does not capture the imagination purely because of some evolutionary compulsion to procreate. And it does not form the basis of the highest orders of magick because of its physical properties."
Claudio smiled in relief. "So this was a test?"
"Think of it more as an initiation. A little joke passed down from teacher to pupil," Benedict laughed again, then impulsively ran hand through Claudio's hair, messing it up in affectionate approval. "You caught on far, far quicker than most. Faster than I did, to be sure. I took detailed notes and memorized facts for weeks before Master Paleamon finally burned my notes before my eyes." At the memory, the man roared in laughter.
Claudio laughed with him. It was easy to do so, with Benedict. "So when do we actually begin the lesson?"
"We already have, that much is not a lie," Benedict said, "The first lesson is this, and it is something you no doubt already know in your heart from your other lessons: sex, like all magick, cannot be accurately described in words. If it could be reduced so easily to explanation, it would not be magick. The wonder of it lies between, behind, and under our words, defying our ability to capture it, and that is precisely what gives it power. Our feelings, our desires, our needs can all form the basis of magick, but not any such that we can easily explain. Let us demonstrate."
The instructor went to his desk and took up an unlit candle. He brought it over to his pupil and set it on a small table in front of him, the same table in fact where their tea normally sat during Claudio's many visits.
"Can you light this candle by use of magick?" Benedict asked.
"Of course, master," Claudio replied, curling his fingers into the proper inclination and preparing the incantation.
"A moment!" Benedict said, holding up a finger, "Do not yet perform the rite. Describe to me how you are going to do it."
"Oh," Claudio said, feeling the magick well up in him only to be stopped at the last moment, "Well, I will use the Third Inclination in the right hand. Then my left hand will reach towards the candle -- I know it isn't necessary, but it's always felt right to me. Then I'll speak words of conjuration, specifically Daramond's Fifth conjuration in this case I think, and focus my attention and will on the candle and then..."
"Yes, and then?"
"Then I'll... do the magick. And light the candle."
"Explain in detail this part which you have summed up as `do the magick'," Benedict prodded.
"I..." the boy's brow wrinkled, "I don't know that I can. I'll just... do it. I don't know how to describe it. I'm sorry."
"Do not be sorry, my boy!" Benedict assured him, "No magicker can explain this. Has any teacher ever put such a thing into words for you?"
"Well, no. They usually demonstrate."
"Precisely. It cannot be described. If it could be, it would not be magick. It must be experienced, witnessed, felt. It must be intuited. It must be discovered. Now, light the candle."
Claudio did so. The magick welled up in him, focused into a point, and the candle's wick was suddenly aflame.
"Excellently done," said his teacher, who reached out with magick of his own and snuffed the candle again. "Sex is like that, too. I can explain the physical act to you in great detail, just as I can explain the exact inclinations of the fingers and the precise words that must be used to light the candle. But I cannot explain to you the magick and wonder of it any more than I can explain the magick of actually lighting the candle. Do you understand?"
"I.. think so," said Claudio. It was overwhelming, but felt right. And it explained in some way why he had never been able to put into words very well what felt so frightening about all this.
"It must be learned through action," Benedict said, picking up the candle and pressing it into Claudio's hands. "Your first test is to light this candle again, but not with any incantation you have previously learned. You must light it with sex magick only, achieved through self-pleasure."
Claudio looked back and forth between the candle and his teacher in surprise. He suddenly remembered how Johan had been staring intently at a candle on his desk when Claudio had stumbled in upon him touching himself. So this was the first test - the one that poor Johan had not yet successfully mastered after three years of trying.
"How do I do that?" he asked aloud, after mulling the problem over in his mind.
"I doubt I need to describe to you the mechanics of bringing yourself sexual pleasure, young man," Benedict was grinning widely, "By your age I was already an expert in that."
Claudio blushed and nodded. "Yes, I know how to do that perfectly well."
"Well, that is the form of it. The analog to the inclination and incantation. The magick is for you to discover."
"You can give me no further guidance than that?"
"Of course I can! What kind of teacher would I be if I could not? Eventually, our lessons will involve demonstration on my part, and then in time you will attempt to achieve this goal in my presence so I can offer further instruction, but it is not required that we do this today or any time soon. Many pupils wish to attempt it on their own first."
Claudio found he could not speak.
"The shade of red that your face has achieved suggests you would also prefer to start on your own," Benedict said with a kindly laugh, "Did you not think that we would have to perform sex magick in each other's presence as part of the training?"
"Of course I knew that we would!" Claudio insisted, for indeed he had. If he were to be truly honest, that was part of the appeal (and terror) of beginning the lessons. He longed for his teacher's approval and intimacy with an intensity that embarrassed him.
He thought about the test, and about attempting to pass it in Benedict's presence, more or less constantly for the next several days. Eventually he could keep his anxieties to himself no longer. While studying quietly in their quarters, Claudio suddenly blurted out to Johan, "Have you tried to accomplish your sex magick test in Master Paelamon's presence?"
Johan was shocked by this outburst from his typically quiet roommate. He looked up from the tome he'd been reading and blinked at him for some moments before responding. "Yes, of course," he said at last. "Why, have you at last begun your training?"
"I have," Claudio replied in a quiet voice, "But I haven't even tried the test yet."
"Good luck to you," Johan said with some bitterness, "I have all but given up on ever accomplishing it."
"Master Paelamon can offer no... guidance? When you do it in his presence?"
Johan grimaced in shame. "He does his best, I'm sure. And what he says and does makes a kind of sense. When he demonstrates, I feel as though some insight is right there just out of my grasp, but I cannot seem to manage it. He has offered to let me switch instructors, but I don't think it will make any difference. I don't think he is the problem, I am."
"What's it... what's it like? To do it in front of a Master?"
"It was awkward at first, for sure," Johan said, looking at the wall as he summoned up the memories. "I was so young. But before long it was like... well, any other class. Like doing any magick for a teacher. Or trying to anyway."
Claudio considered this for a while. "Maybe that's the problem," he said.
"What?"
"Should it be like any other class? Feels like it should... I don't know. Be something more."
"I think you put it too much on a pedestal," Johan said, shrugging, "It's magick, like any other. You make too much of it, and that is why you fear."
He wasn't even looking at his friend when he said it, so he did not at first see the effect his words had on the other young man. When he finally did, he rushed to add, "I mean no disrespect. It's perfectly clear to me the whole subject makes you uncomfortable. And it is understandable. I am not calling you a coward."
"No, you are correct, I do feel fear," Claudio said, sighing, "and maybe I do make too much of it."
"You should ask your instructor about it. Who has taken you on?"
Claudio avoided his friend's eyes when he said, "Instructor Benedict."
"Ah, I should have guessed. You've always been partial to him."
The rush of hot blood to his face. Claudio despised the way he was so quick to blush, the way it meant everybody could clearly read his emotions and private thoughts. He said nothing and tried in vain to focus on the text he was studying, hoping his friend would not notice. But there was little chance of that.
"Claudio, may I ask..." Johan began, then stopped. "No, never mind."
Curiosity out-weighed fear and Claudio said, "No, what were you going to say?"
"Are you... a child of the Sun? I have long assumed so, but I felt I should just ask before presuming further." A male-identifying magicker who was attracted to other males was known in the mysteries as a child of the Sun. A female-identifying practitioner who was drawn to other women was of the Earth. Those who preferred another gender than their own, the Moon. Those who were drawn to both or all genders were of the Stars.
It was a question Claudio had long avoided answering, at least to his best friend. He was eager for this information not to change anything about the relaxed intimacy they shared together. However, now that it had been so frankly and directly asked, he felt he could not avoid answering; and certainly lying about it was not remotely an option.
"Yes," he said at last, "I think so. Pretty sure."
Johan merely nodded. "Yes, I knew it. Don't look surprised, who knows you better than me? Your instruction may be different than mine, then."
"Really?"
"Not in content," Johan hastily added, "Though, I mean... I guess probably at some point even that. But mostly in... tone? I can't imagine what my lessons would be like if I fancied Master Paleomon in the same way that you clearly fancy Benedict."
"What?" Claudio actually sat up in his bed and almost got to his feet.
"Don't act shocked!" Johan laughed, "I've seen you staring at him in class. You're absolutely smitten with the man."
"I will not stand for this slander," Claudio joked weakly, making Johan howl with laughter. Claudio threw his pillow at his friend, and soon a full wrestling match ensued, one which Johan would have won easily if he had not been laughing so hard. Claudio was mortified, but found himself laughing as well. It was horrifying to know another person could read your most intimate secrets, but also... nice. Nice to be so known and and understood by a friend, with no trace of judgment.
In the end, he did ask Benedict if he put sex too much on a pedestal, made too big a deal out of it all, like his friend suggested.
"You are both correct," his teacher said. Claudio found this response overly cryptic and annoying, and must have shown as much on his face, for Benedict laughed and elaborated further: "Johan thinks too little of these higher mysteries if he says they are just like any other class or any other magick. But at the same time you think of them as much more than they are, and that is why you fear it. Sex, like life itself, is precious and rare and magickal but also normal, innate, and natural. It is both more and less than you two make of it. One day I promise you will understand."
Claudio pondered that for a while in silence. It felt like a great deal of the higher mysteries involved saying contradictory things with a smug smile on your face.
"Have you attempted the test?" Benedict prompted, with a tone of light curiosity.
"No," Claudio admitted, "I haven't had the first clue where to begin. To just... begin as if I were pleasing myself on any other day feels wrong. And I just can't get into it, if you know what I mean. I'm thinking too much about what I'm supposed to be doing."
His teacher nodded, as though he expected this response. "This is the first great obstacle. This is, in fact, the whole purpose of this trial. How to overcome this urge to think about what you are doing while you are doing it, observing yourself, criticizing yourself. It is as though you have split yourself into two, one doing the act and the other standing outside of it. True magick cannot be achieved in such a state."
"But how do I stop doing that?"
"Practice. Breathe. Simply be." Benedict pursed his lips thoughtfully, fingers crossed in contemplation, for several long breaths. At last he nodded. "If you think it would be helpful, I will demonstrate."
When he at last understood what his teacher was suggesting, Claudio, mute and red, nodded. Benedict smiled, stood from his chair, and began to remove his outer robes. "This, too, is something of a tradition. The teacher should be first to show vulnerability. The teacher must lead the way. But if at any point it becomes uncomfortable or overwhelming for you, please speak up or simply leave. I will not be offended. You may observe from there or from the chair in the corner, wherever you prefer."
Every inch of skin on Claudio's body was suddenly on fire, writhing and quivering, as he watched his teacher slowly disrobe completely, carefully folding each layer of his garments and setting them down in a neat pile. Finally, his last and most intimate remaining layer, a simple girdle, fell to the floor and Benedict stood totally nude before his pupil. This was not the first time, of course, that Claudio had seen his teacher nude. Not even close. And yet this time it was different -- the intimacy of just the two of them in the room and the proximity of where Claudio sat, just a stride or two away, from the man's nakedness had a powerful effect on the younger man's mind. Never before had the man been so open and available for close inspection.
Benedict's ruddy complexion gave way to paler skin across most of his body, dusted with a light coating of hair on his chest and belly -- nowhere near as thick as the bear-like Paleomon, but distinct and manly all the same -- that grew into a thick forest around his genitals, which hung low with a masculine swagger. He was not the most muscular of the magickers in the Commune, but his legs especially showed surprising thickness and strength, and gave his backside a very pleasing roundness. His body was beautiful, Claudio admitted, but somehow most attractive of all was the completely peaceful and carefree stance which showed how comfortable he was to be seen in this way, how at peace with himself from sole to crown. For a long moment the teacher stood and simply allowed himself to be seen, fully studied even, by his student, getting all the new and exciting thrill of it out of the way before moving on with the lesson.
The Instructor fetched an unlit candle to be used in the ritual and set it on the little tea table, then took a seat in front of it, closing his eyes and breathing deeply in what seemed like meditation. Claudio now had a direct on view of both the candle and the naked man, and he squirmed in his seat as he felt his own body react with arousal to the sight. He had to adjust himself suddenly to accommodate his own growing manhood, and even touching himself briefly to do so sent a rush of pleasure through his body. Benedict moaned softly at that same moment and suddenly opened his eyes to look at his pupil with a look of bemused surprise on his face.
"Ah, I see," he said, and Claudio could not help but notice his teacher's member was growing to its full size as he spoke, "I sense your desire, Claudio. Its intensity weighs heavily upon the magick in the room. Did I not tell you that you are more powerful than you know? I was not wrong. You have vast potential. And you've hidden the full depth of your attraction to me quite well -- from me, yes, and from yourself. No, don't be embarrassed. You've done nothing wrong."
The young man cleared his throat. Surprisingly, he did not feel fear. He was too aroused for fear. But he did have a question. "Johan thought maybe my instruction would be more complicated than his. Because of ... this." He didn't want to say it, but he knew Benedict would understand. Because of his attraction to his teacher.
"It is often such for a child of the Sun during this early phase," Benedict assured him, "Complicated, but manageable. Steps will be taken to adjust accordingly, as desire cannot but interfere in any sex magick. When it is your turn to attempt the test, I will take measures to ensure my desire for you does not unduly affect your efforts, as you have not the training to defend against it."
Claudio's mouth dropped open. "Your desire... for me??" His erection was suddenly throbbing, and he found himself grinning like a madman from ear to ear.
Benedict laughed again. "Of course! You are beautiful, more so every day -- and you know I care for you deeply." Claudio wanted to melt away into a puddle at that, but Benedict continued: "I am a magicker, yes, but I am only human. That is indeed all a magicker is - the most human of humans. But that is not the focus of our lesson for today. For now, rest assured that I am fully trained to be unaffected by the power of your lust, potent though it is. In fact, I will use it to begin. Sex is, after all, about accepting the current moment as it is." And with that, his teacher sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and began to masturbate. His fully aroused manhood was not, Claudio was shocked to see, much longer or thicker than his own. And yet it was clearly the organ of a man, not of a boy. There would be no mistaking whose unit belonged to who.
As he continued to watch, a strange sensation filled Claudio, as though Benedict were slowly pulling some trickle of energy out of him. He could feel a thread of power slowly being teased out of the spot just below his belly button, the Second Center, through the room and into his teacher's core at the very same spot. In that thread pulsed what was unmistakably magick, of a kind that felt like pure lust and desire, the tumultuous feeling he'd had rumbling in him for his teacher ever since his sexuality had awakened. He realized with a shock that he was now connected to the older man via sex magick, and that with this bond he had taken the first tiny step into the higher mysteries.
The room pulsed with metaphysical potency that grew as Benedict's pleasure increased. As a magicker of the Fifth Order, Claudio was well attuned to the ebb and flow of magickal energy in any given space, and had felt intense waves of it as an observer and sometimes assistant in the higher rites, but this was a level of intensity all on its own and with an entirely distinct flavor. The magick in this room, thick, heavy, musky even, was all Benedict, as unique to him as his scent and his laugh. The student found it intoxicating, found he was breathing faster in time with his teacher as the older man neared his climax. His eyes drunk in the sight hungrily but at the same time he was filled with an almost uncontrollable urge for more, to touch and taste, to explore Benedict's body completely. The desire was so overwhelming and so charged with magickal potential that he had to fall back on years of magickal training to stay master of himself. Otherwise he might have lunged at the older man like some kind of mythical monster, hungry and insatiable. He could feel how that lustful longing poured out of himself through the thread of energy that connected him to his teacher, how Benedict took that power and wrapped it around himself, effortlessly redirecting it to fuel his own desire and stimulation.
The pleasure built and with it, the magick. At length, there arrived a moment of pure bliss, seconds before ejaculation, when time seemed to stop and vision blur. In this transcendent moment, Benedict's eyes fluttered open and he looked directly at his student. Claudio stared back, the eye contact an electric shock, feeling an echo of the man's apex of pleasure and unable to keep his own mouth from opening and his eyes from glazing over and rolling back in his head, mirroring his teacher's face as well as his pleasure. Claudio's young body quivered under waves of pleasure he had not known were possible, but it was pleasure held back from its full unveiling, the buildup of orgasm without the release. This moment, on the very cusp, seemed to Claudio later to have lasted at least an hour, at least experientially. Time had ceased to have all meaning so it was difficult to say. But he would long remember how Benedict appeared to be staring directly into his soul while his pleasure reached higher and higher peaks.
And then, right at the final summit of the building climax, his teacher smiled slightly and took a deep breath, releasing it in something like a soft sigh -- and then the candle flickered to life -- and then his ejaculation began and he groaned in deep, masculine satisfaction as several bursts of semen shot out and onto the floor. Claudio did not ejaculate, he later confirmed, but he definitely felt an orgasm, and a powerful one. Whether it was his own or only an echo of his teacher's he did not know. As soon as the teacher's manhood began to shoot out its firey liquid, the thick time-compressed moment began to dissipate, the magick recede, until by the the time Benedict had fired his last volley and shivered out the last of his orgasmic pleasure, the room once again felt normal.
Claudio had longed for a feeling of intimacy with his teacher, and now that he had it he felt as though a warm glow was filling his chest, a new kind of magickal feeling all on its own. His teacher smiled at him, and he smiled back, and the feeling grew into a blaze that was so intense it almost hurt. He held a hand to his chest suddenly in wonder, the burning growing in a space right between his nipples. Sensing this, Benedict rushed to his side and put his arms around his pupil in a comforting embrace.
"The Fourth Center," he said softly in his pupil's ear, and Claudio understood. The Fourth was the center of love and compassion, of social bonds, of intimacy, and of trust. It had blazed to life in response to this new-found deeper connection between teacher and student with a strength that seemed to surprise even the Instructor, and neither man could speak. For a long moment, instead, the two simply held each other, tears welling in Claudio's eyes but never quite dropping, as the fire blazed within them both.
"It's so..." the young man struggled for words, "Beautiful." It was an insufficient word. Lame and impotent. But he could think of no other.
"It is magick," Benedict said, stroking his hair softly, "True magick, of the highest orders. Welcome, my boy. Welcome."