The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute

A short story by

Jeannie Labelle-Potvin

Ginny began to awake.

At first she thought someone in the neighborhood was playing drums, just a little too enthusiastically. She was about to get up, open the curtains and check where the sun was before calling the police. Just as she reached up, a loud boom blasted against the window. She flinched wondering if there was a shootout at the crackhouse down the alley. A brilliant flash of light quickly followed as a wild charge of unharnessed electricity jaggedly zigzagged across the eastern sky.

Then came a wind that quickly began chasing the lightning laced clouds over the dawning canvas of day. Ginny sighed with relief and as she stretched to greet the rising sun, a more gentle breeze replaced the wild animal now charging farther to the south.

This creature was much more refined. As it it danced and played through the tree branches, Gin could swear she was listening to a beautiful stringed quartet. The breeze softly continued and the overture ended as a single flute began a rather hypnotic melody. She relaxed completely, sank down into the comfort of her rocker and began to plan her day.

As the flute continued to weave its magic spell, she drifted back to a time many years before. She was sixteen the day that Mel sullenly slammed the car door and reluctantly approached the steps that led into her old house on the family farm.

Ginny’s mother had a mission that bordered on the passionate. She was a foster mother and at the end of her life, was able to claim having raised over 53 children. This woman dedicated her life to the rescue of troubled souls who had lost their way on the path of life at a young age. She gathered these children to her ample bosom, offering them the nurturing care of a protective mother. She had been an only child and longed for siblings. Her parents had been alcoholics and she had desperately prayed for others to help shoulder the burden and spread the responsibility of caring for this loving, but drunken pair.

For Ginny, her mother’s occupation was a mixed blessing. When Ginny was young, her mother took mostly babies and toddlers. For Ginny and her sister, her mother’s two biological children, these children replaced dolls. Ginny especially was thrilled to have control over a human, totally dependent upon her care and attention. 

Sometime around the age of thirteen her mother began taking teenage boys. She stolidly refused to accept females as she believed the extra vigilance was not her forte. She made the exception with her own two biological girls. She simply trusted that no hanky panky would take place and that her girls would behave as she dictated.

The mother had done her best to domesticate Ginny. Luckily, her daughter had managed to retain a secret centre where she remained quite feral.

The mother had her weapons to try and break this rebellion. By thirteen she had indoctrinated Ginny into the world of dieting. She firmly planted the seeds of an eating disorder and did her best to ensure that her daughter would have little time for other preoccupations. This activity led to much animosity between the two. All was well when Ginny was compliant. However, when she went off any diet, gained a pound or two, or, God forbid, was caught cheating, all hell broke loose and the tension between the mother and daughter was palpable.

Ginny became intensely jealous of the attention her foster brothers began to demand. Her parents decided to become an official group home and though her father did his best to restrict the numbers, their table often held fifteen to twenty people. For the most part, this was an amazingly wonderful environment. The boys, sent from problems encountered in city life, became productive, contributors to a loving family home. They were treated very well, fed the best of food, clothed and sent to school. Each child was expected to work, either outside doing barn chores, or in the house doing household chores. This expectation was a requirement to live in the home and each foster child was rewarded by being given a generous allowance. Few turned down the opportunity to earn money and all seemed to benefit from the lessons learned by being a contributing member of the family.

All was well until the year Gin turned sixteen. The discord between her and her mother had become more pronounced and Gin’s sullen rebellions took on elements of nastiness. It didn’t help matters that her mother often had her on diets that restricted her food intake to nine hundred calories a day. Ginny fiercely guarded her pre-portioned plates of food and would have stabbed anyone who attempted to take something off her plate. She began making midnight runs to the freezer to score a fix with her favourite substance- ice cream.

Life was fairly under control until that fateful day Mel arrived. He was fourteen the year he was sent to live on the farm. His choices had been narrowed down by some of his recent activities. Luckily for him he’d stolen his step father’s car, rather than a stranger’s. The ensuing joyride had totaled a beautiful 1965 Mustang and thoroughly finished off an already rocky relationship. The options given to the family were none too appealing. Stan, the stepfather, was partial to the plan that would’ve put Mel in a boy’s reform school. Mel’s biological father was a self-centered alcoholic who loved his children, but chose the bottle over a life that included his wife and two teenage boys. The mother had moved on, met Stan who was a rather decent fellow and at first was willing to roll with the reality of two resentful boys who detested him and gave little opportunity to gain a foothold of trust. 

The relationship wore thin eventually and came the day the police gave the family two choices: put Mel into the care of social services or the police would have him charged and sent to a boy’s reform school. This institution was well known as a catchall for troubled boys who were ultimately destined for more serious adult detention centers. 

Mel’s distraught mother chose social services. The family was hooked up with several workers who convinced her that they had the perfect foster home for her son. Mel was none too enthusiastic about this decision and began plotting ways he could escape. In his immature brain, all the options open to him stank and his future held little concern for him. From his point of view, he had nothing left to lose.

Thankfully the home, social services sent him to, was an exceptional environment and had gained a reputation for a safe place to send teenage boys who needed a firm, yet loving hand to guide them back to a straight and normal life.

For Ginny and Mel, the attraction was immediate and strong. As hormonally unbalanced teenagers, this attraction often took rather circuitous routes. To the family at large, it appeared as though the two hated one another. That emotion seemed safer to indulge than the reality of what happened when they were alone with no one to monitor their actions.

Ginny’s father had done extensive renovations to their house. He had built a huge recreation room in the basement which included a regulation size pool table and a secluded alcove with a comfy old sofa and tv. This was a fun place to hang out and provided much entertainment for all.

Ginny had been given her own room in the basement, a greatly appreciated respite to the upper two floors that sheltered a ragtag crew. What no one knew, or even suspected, was that after all the others had gone to bed, she and Mel would meet in the rec room and settle into the alcove. They would turn on the t.v. and begin indulging in carnal delights. Ginny was determined to keep her virginity, yet was intensely curious. She quickly managed to overcome her Catholic indoctrination. Somehow she was able to convince herself that her exciting explorations with Mel, did not constitute premarital sex. This cloudy rationalization left her free to wander fairly far down the garden path.

She and Mel would lie nestled on the sofa, Gin’s back to his front. From this position, the two were able fondle one another for hours at a time. Ginny carefully allowed Mel to grope and tweak her breasts. Her engorged nipples would ache with pleasure and send currents of energy to her pulsating Netherlands. At the same time, she would stroke and caress his rampant teenage penis. Neither of the two spoke a word and it was almost as though the lascivious experimentation was a play being performed by two actors. Mel would ejaculate over and over, Ginny losing count of the number of times she’d bring his erection to a fountain of explosion. She was totally fascinated to see the power of what her hand could produce. That power brought a heady rush of adrenaline and she began to realize that there just might be a lot more to this whole sex thing than she’d previously imagined. She had definitely moved out of the ranks of observer. Her participation in the exchange took the experiment to a much less clinical environment and she began to lose her envy of the farm animals freedom to fornicate.

No one ever learned of their nocturnal activities. Ginny went off to hairdressing school in Vancouver. Mel ‘fostered’ out of their home and moved on to a rather fruitful and productive life. He eventually became a millionaire and credited much of his success to the lessons he learned on the farm.

Ginny went on to a disastrous first marriage, a divorce, more troubled relationships and eventually a second marriage that lasted 18 years but ended tragically with Gin almost mortally wounded and barely able to move on with life.

Through all these years, she and Mel remained in touch and even came to a place where they publicly acknowledged their friendship. They chose not to divulge the true nature of that bond and yet each carried fond memories of the nights they spent hidden away in the dark corner, learning valuable lessons. Ginny's hands-on experience taught her much about male apparatus and lent her the confidence to consider herself quite worldly. Her training with Mel certainly provided her mates with much pleasure. She eventually matured enough to know that her own pleasure was a goal to be sought and she held high expectations of how a sexual partner was to perform.

All might have ended well if it were not for Luke. He came into Gin’s life late. There was a fourteen year age difference between the two and though at first she found this disconcerting, came to see that it really meant very little. Luke was a gifted musician and played several instruments, mostly stringed. Their affair, though rather steamy, never forayed beyond the written word. To say the least, their text exchanges produced much excitement for the pair. Ginny held some hope that this man might be the one who would help her end 30 years of abstinence. He certainly talked a good talk but seemed unable to follow through with real action. The closest Gin got to his flute was when she gave him a foot massage.

Gin eventually grew tired of the limitations and by this time in her life, knew what she wanted. She was quite capable of pursuing that goal. She rather aggressively informed Luke of her intentions and was somewhat saddened to find him unable or unwilling to progress to the next level. She began dreaming of flutes and longed to get her hands on another penis and perhaps make beautiful music with it. Luke’s choice left her with some dilemma. How was she to navigate forward? Well, she simply put on her big girl panties, went out, bought a guitar and began learning to play.

She never quite forgot Luke but managed to fill her life with many activities that more than met her needs. On occasion, she’d sit back in her chair and begin strumming. It was with a certain amount of bittersweet sadness that had her humming an old Beatles tune, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

When she closed her eyes, Luke stood before her as she whispered,

“ I don't know why nobody told you

How to unfold your love

I don't know how someone controlled you

They bought and sold you”.

Her guitar gently wept as the tears rolled down her cheeks and she dreamed of lovely, rhythmic flutes.