Witch I discovered that Elizabeth was a witch many years ago, though she did her best to hide the fact. She told nobody. She was a young girl with a terrible secret, and so she kept to herself. Yet somehow I knew. She was different, and something in me understood why. It was her mysteriousness that made me suspicious. No, not suspicious, exactly. My parents, my ancestors, were foreigners. Our family migrated from country to country, never staying in one place for very long, and over the many generations, we had forgotten our origins. We were strangers, always and everywhere. We understood what it meant to be the victims of hatred, the fear and hatred that every society has for strangers. We knew what it felt like to hide in the cellar while villagers raided the house looking for someone to lynch, someone to blame for all the hunger and sickness and crime in their little world. After centuries of being feared and hated by everyone, we learned to pretend. We learned to blend in, to hide. It took a lifetime of practice. I adopted her after her parents died of tuberculosis. She was too new at the game. She was the first witch born to her family. She made mistakes. She didn't fit in. "There's something unnatural about her," the villages would whisper to each other. "She's far too clever. She knows things she shouldn't." And then the rumors started. We lived in a small town where everyone knew everyone else. A single unkind rumor could start a whole avalanche of them. It was the way a small town treated a stranger in their midst. It was vicious, stupid. "She's bad luck. She passed by my house yesterday, and my cake fell. That's the third time this happened to me." "She's immodest. Doesn't she know that she is a beautiful girl? You should have seen what she wore at the dance! How she flirted with the men! I had to practically drag my husband away from her before she seduced him." "She cursed her, I know it, that's why she's sick. Elizabeth has always been jealous of Cathy and how popular she is." In the end, it wasn't the little accidents and rumors that did her in. It was her compassion for the weak and the evil. She loved those whom others despised and she had no regard for those whom everyone respected. She had no regard for me. For that, I hated her. Earlier that night, I caught her touching herself. Every night for the past week, right after she took her bath, I could hear her soft moans as I walked by her room. Tonight I watched her. She knelt on her bed and closed her eyes. She breathed deeply for a minute. Almost casually, the fingers right hand brushed her left wrist and moved upwards along her arm. Her hand stopped at her shoulder to rub there, gently, then continued upwards to caress her neck and ears. Her head leaned towards her hand langorously as if touched by a lover. She was smiling. Who or what was she imagining? Her finger traced circles on her nightgown around where her nipples poked into the fabric. She came closer and closer to her nipples without quite touching them. She loved to tease herself. Slowly, her knees spread. The fingers of her left hand caressed her inner thigh and moved upwards under the hem of her nightgown. Two fingers disappeared inside her and she moaned. Her right hand reached under her nightgown and rubbed her hard nipples as if they hurt. She pinched her nipple hard. She whimpered in pain before she could bite down on her lip to stifle the cry. Her hips thrusted back and forth against her hand. "Hurt me," she whispered, trembling. I knew then that she was thinking of the devil. I couldn't stand it any longer. I dashed in the room and slapped her face just before she could come. "Witch!" I cried. She leapt out of bed, but I reached the door before her and locked it. Elizabeth stood in front of me with her arms at her sides. The tears that streaked her face so beautifully sparkled in the flickering candlelight. She was crying quietly. What right did she have to feel sorry for herself? Angrily, I tore the nightgown from her body. She stood naked, without pretense. Her body still steamed from the moist heat of the bath and the sweat from her sexual exertions made her body glisten. Please, she spoke in a raw whisper. At once, I wanted to protect her and ravish her, to hold her in my arms tenderly and feel her struggling as I entered her. I wanted to make her feel pleasure against her will and to open her and touch her and feel her vulnerability and humiliation as she came. It was delicious, the violence and tenderness I felt for her at that moment. Taking her left nipple between my fingers, I dragged her back to the bed and shoved her face down into the mattress. I tore her nightgown into strips and tied her wrists and ankles to the bedposts with them. Then I whipped her with my belt until she begged. I pushed myself into her anus, knowing the tension in her buttocks from the whipping would make the pain of penetration unbearable. She cried out several times as I struggled to enter her. I lay on top of her, not moving, for a moment. I could feel her wince, her muscles tightening around me involuntarily, every time my cock pulsed inside her. I stroked her hair softly as if to comfort her. It's alright, I said. I held her as gently and as lovingly as when she came to my room after a nightmare. My lips covered her neck with kisses and tenderly I kissed the tears from her face. I rubbed and kneaded her back until she finally relaxed. I whispered in her ear and told her that I loved her and that I would always love her, I would love her forever. Something inside her mind snapped, then. The fear and willfulness were all stripped away, and only the love and the pain remained. She was open and truly naked. Innocent. I began to move inside her. She was still deliciously tight, but it no longer hurt her. Her mound pressed into the bed in time with my thrusting. She began to pant and gasp. Her eyes were shut tightly but the tears still streamed down her face. I licked at them greedily, caressing her face and listening to her gasps slowly become moans, growing louder and louder. "Stop, it's too much. Please, I can't stand it, I..." All of a sudden she cried out and her hips shuddered powerfully against the mattress. Her fingers clenched and unclenched as her arms strained against her bonds. She contracted rhythmically against my cock and I came inside her with a shout. Afterwards, I untied her. She lay limp and unmoving, exhausted. Her face looked drained and surprisingly expressionless. I couldn't even begin to understand what she was thinking. I just held her quietly as she fell asleep. She ran away not long after. She knew she couldn't keep her secret forever in a small town like ours. I hope she fares well, wherever she is. I love you, you little witch.