Chapter 2: The Crimson Lotus
The Crimson Lotus loomed at the end of the seedy, lantern-lit street, a three-story building of dark stained wood and garish red paper lanterns. Music and raucous laughter spilled from its open windows, a stark contrast to the library-quiet Candice was accustomed to. She stood frozen across the street, her grey student robes feeling like a ridiculous costume. Every instinct screamed to turn around, to accept her expulsion with whatever shred of dignity she had left.
But the memory of the number ‘13’ hanging in the air, and the dean’s cold, final tone, pushed her forward.
The interior was a bath of warm, dim light and overwhelming scent. Incense, perfume, spilled ale, and the unmistakable, salty-sweet tang of sweat and sex. Plush crimson carpets swallowed the sound of her footsteps. Women and men in varying states of undress lounged on velvet chaises, their limbs entangled, their murmurs lazy and hungry. Candice kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, her face burning.
“You must be Candice.”
The voice was like smoked honey, smooth and warm. A woman emerged from the shadow of a beaded curtain. She was older, perhaps in her forties, but time had been exceedingly kind. She wore a gown of emerald silk that clung to a figure that was both lush and powerful. Her chestnut hair fell in loose waves, and her eyes, a knowing hazel, held a compassion that immediately put Candice on edge. This wasn’t the hardened madam she’d expected.
“I’m Lysandra. Kendra’s told me so much about you.” She smiled, and it reached her eyes. “Come, darling. She’s in her suite. She’s… finishing a session, but she’s expecting you.”
“A session?” Candice’s voice was a croak.
Lysandra’s smile didn’t falter. “This is a place of business, sweetheart. And practice. The two are beautifully aligned. This way.”
She led Candice up a grand staircase, the banister polished to a high shine by countless hands. The sounds of the main floor faded, replaced by muffled moans and the rhythmic creaking of bedframes from behind closed doors. Candice’s stomach churned. Lysandra stopped before a heavy oak door at the end of a plush corridor.
“Now, what you’re about to see… it’s just work. It’s just magic. Try to see the technique, not the act.” Lysandra’s tone was gentle, instructive, like a professor introducing a complex new spell. It was somehow more unsettling than outright lewdness.
She didn’t knock. She simply opened the door and ushered Candice inside.
Kendra’s private suite was an assault on the senses. Velvet drapes in deep purple and gold, a dozen flickering candles in gilded holders casting dancing shadows over walls lined with full-length mirrors. The air was thick with jasmine, sweat, and the sharp, coppery scent of sex.
And there, in the center of a massive, circular bed strewn with black silk sheets, was Kendra.
She was on her hands and knees, her scandalously short skirt pushed up around her waist, presenting her massive, round ass to a large, sweating man who knelt behind her. He was gripping her hips, his knuckles white, his body pistoning into hers with a brutal, slapping rhythm. Kendra’s face was turned towards the door, her eyes glassy with pleasure, her pink, obscene lips parted in a continuous, breathy moan.
“Fuck… yes… right there, you fucking brute,” she chanted, her voice a ragged purr. “Harder. Fill me up.”
The man grunted, a bestial sound, and increased his pace. The wet, filthy sound of their coupling filled the room. Candice saw everything in horrifying, hyper-real detail: the way Kendra’s breasts swung heavily beneath her, the gleam of sweat on the small of her tanned back, the frantic clutch of the man’s fingers on her flesh, the distorted reflection of the act multiplied endlessly in the surrounding mirrors.
Candice made a choked sound and stumbled backward, her hand flying to her mouth. She turned to flee, but Lysandra was there. Not blocking the door, but standing beside her. She placed a firm, gentle hand on Candice’s shoulder, her grip unyielding.
“Watch,” Lysandra murmured, her lips close to Candice’s ear. Her voice was still kind, but it held an edge of steel. “This is the source. Watch the energy.”
Tears of shame and revulsion blurred Candice’s vision, but she was paralyzed. She watched.
Kendra’s moans climbed in pitch. Her long pink nails scrabbled at the silk sheets. A faint, shimmering aura began to manifest around her—a glow that started at her core, a deep, vibrant pink. It pulsed in time with the man’s thrusts, growing brighter, more intense.
“I’m gonna come… I’m gonna fucking come!” Kendra screamed, her back arching violently.
The man roared, slamming into her one final, shuddering time, his body locking against hers. As they climaxed together, the pink aura around Kendra erupted. It wasn’t a flash; it was a wave of visible, lust-saturated power that rippled out from her, making the candle flames dip and dance. The air crackled, that same scent of burnt sugar and ozone from the examination hall cutting through the room’s musk.
Then, it was over. The man collapsed to the side, panting. Kendra slowly lowered herself to her elbows, her body glistening, a contented, drowsy smile on her face. The pink aura settled, sinking back into her skin like water into sand, leaving her glowing with a healthy, post-coital radiance.
She turned her head, her eyes finding Candice’s in the mirror. They were clear, sharp, and utterly unashamed.
“Hey, Candi. You’re early.” She pushed herself up, completely nude, and walked to a nearby chaise, wrapping herself in a sheer robe as if she’d just finished a workout. “Mr. Hendricks, darling, you were magnificent. Lys will settle you on the way out.”
The man, looking dazed and satisfied, gathered his clothes and shuffled out, barely glancing at the other women. Lysandra gave his arm a affectionate pat as he passed, then closed the door softly.
Silence descended, broken only by the pop of a candle wick.
Candice found her voice, trembling with outrage and humiliation. “You… you made me watch that?”
“I didn’t make you do anything,” Lysandra said, moving to pour three glasses of dark wine from a crystal decanter. “You chose to come here. That,” she gestured gracefully towards the bed, “is the foundational practice. It would be like hiding the practice wands from a first-year evocation student. Dishonest.”
Kendra stretched, a long, feline motion. “Gods, he was a good one. A merchant from the southern coast. Loads of repressed energy. Tasty.” She took a glass from Lysandra, sipped it, and smirked at Candice’s horrified expression. “Oh, relax. It’s a job. A really, really fun job that makes me incredibly powerful. Sit. Have a drink. You look like you’re about to faint.”
Numbly, Candice took the proffered glass and sank into a plush armchair, as far from the bed as possible. The wine was rich and spicy, doing little to steady her nerves.
“You’re probably wondering how all this started,” Lysandra began, settling herself on a couch opposite Candice. She curled her legs beneath her, the picture of elegant comfort. “Kendra came here about eight months ago. Not as a client. As a desperate girl. Magic Level 20, stagnant for a year, staring down the barrel of a mediocre future. She was brave. She’d heard rumors about the Dean’s… unconventional research partnerships. She asked me for a job.”
“I wanted to pay my tuition,” Kendra added, her flippant tone softening. “I was scared shitless. But Lys… she saw something.”
“I saw a spark,” Lysandra corrected gently, her eyes on Kendra with palpable affection. “A hunger for more, buried under all that proper mage training. I’d been… experimenting for years. I was a stripper, a whore, a courtesan. I knew the power that flowed through these acts. The energy of desire, of attention, of pure, unadulterated want. I learned to channel it. To keep it. To use it. I called it Bimbo magic as a joke, at first. A fuck you to all the stuffy old wizards who looked down on girls like me. The name stuck.”
Kendra leaned forward. “She taught me. The first thing is the Mark.” She untied her robe, letting it fall open, and placed a hand low on her abdomen, just above her pubic bone. Candice, despite herself, looked. There, etched into Kendra’s tanned skin, was a small, intricate tattoo. It was a heart, but not a simple one—it was formed of interlocking, cursive lines that shimmered with a faint, internal pink light even now.
“This gets inscribed with a blend of arcane ink and a drop of the caster’s own… essence,” Lysandra explained matter-of-factly. “It’s a permanent mana converter. It attunes your core, replacing your standard mana reservoir with a new one that runs on lust energy. Your own arousal, the arousal you generate in others, the ambient hunger in a room like this… it all becomes fuel. You drink it in through the Mark. The more you love the feeling, the more you lean into it, the stronger the flow.”
“At first, it’s just a trickle,” Kendra said, her eyes distant, remembering. “You feel a little warmer, a little more confident. Then you do a session, like with Mr. Hendricks. The rush when he came, the power from his release and my own… it’s like chugging a gallon of pure energy. My level jumped five points after my first week here.”
Candice stared into her wine. “So it’s transactional. You fuck for power.”
“It’s synergistic,” Lysandra corrected. “The sex is glorious, yes. It’s pleasurable beyond anything the grey-robes will ever know. But it’s also the most efficient cultivation method ever discovered. Think of the years of meditation, the grueling spell drills. This…” She waved a hand around the opulent room. “This is the path. And as your power grows, the magic… refines you. It wants you to be a better conduit, a more potent source.”
“The transformations,” Candice whispered, recalling the dean’s clinical explanation.
Kendra’s eyes lit up. “Yes! At Level 20, you can get a second tattoo.” She turned, showing the small of her back. A larger, more ornate tattoo—a peacock feather that curled over her right buttock—glowed with the same soft pink. “The tramp stamp. It initiates the first refinement. Your body changes. It becomes more of what you secretly, deeply want it to be. For me, it was this.” She ran her hands over her curves. “I’d always felt… plain. Dull. The magic brought out the real me. The one who loves being looked at, touched, desired. It made my hair this color, my lips like this. It made every nerve ending sing. Sex went from feeling good to being… transcendent.”
“And at Level 40,” Lysandra continued, “the chest tattoo locks in the second transformation. It amplifies everything. The curves, the sensitivity, the capacity for pleasure and, by extension, for power. Kendra achieved that just last month. Her magic is now self-sustaining in many ways. A glance, a sway of her hips, can pull latent lust from the air. Actual intercourse… it’s like a mana geyser.”
Candice’s mind was reeling. It was a hideous, elegant trap. The promise was undeniable. Power, fast and immense. But the price was herself. The quiet, stubborn, proud girl who valued knowledge and discipline would be erased, painted over in layers of artificial lust and pink lightning.
“Why me?” Candice asked, her voice small. “You have this. You’re powerful. You’re clearly…” she gestured weakly at the room, “happy. Why do you care if I fail?”
The question hung in the air. Kendra’s confident mask slipped, just for a moment. She looked at Lysandra, then down at her hands.
“Because I was lonely,” Kendra said, the raw honesty in her voice shocking Candice. “I got everything I wanted. Power, attention, money, mind-blowing orgasms. But I lost my friend. Everyone at university either fears me or wants to fuck me. None of them know me. None of them remember the girl who used to stress over midterms with you.” She looked up, her eyes glistening. “Lys is amazing. She’s my mentor, my… my mom, kinda. But I want my friend back. I want someone who understands both worlds. The before and the after.”
Lysandra nodded, her expression somber. “Kendra’s happiness is everything to me. She sees a sister in you, Candice. A potential companion on a path that can be exhilarating but is also… isolating. We’re offering you a sisterhood, as much as we’re offering you power.”
“And the dean just wants his experiment to have a larger sample size,” Candice muttered bitterly.
“The dean wants powerful graduates,” Lysandra shrugged. “His motivations are his own. Ours are here, in this room.”
Candice drained her wine, the alcohol a welcome burn. She looked from Kendra’s pleading, transformed face to Lysandra’s compassionate but unwavering gaze. The terror was still there, a cold knot in her gut. But underneath it, something else had begun to stir—a terrible, curious hunger. She had felt so weak for so long. The image of that pink lightning, roaring and undeniable, flashed in her mind.
“This… transformation,” Candice began, her words careful. “You said it brings out what you secretly want. What if I don’t secretly want… this?” She gestured at Kendra’s exaggerated form.
“Then you won’t become this,” Kendra said simply. “The magic is a mirror. It amplifies your deepest, most buried desires. Maybe you want to be a sleek, dark siren. Maybe you want to be a cute, bubbly tease. It’s you. Just… more.”
“And my mind?” This was the core of her fear. “The word ‘bimbo’… it means stupid. Airheaded. Will I become some brain-drained slut, only good for sucking cock?”
Lysandra laughed, a rich, genuine sound. “Oh, darling. No. That’s the lie they tell to keep women from claiming this kind of power. The magic has nothing to do with intellect. If anything, your mind becomes sharper. You’re more aware of micro-expressions, of desire, of social currents. You have to be, to work a room, to maximize your energy intake. Kendra’s grades have improved, not declined. She’s just less inclined to waste her energy on pointless academic posturing.” She leaned forward. “Becoming a ‘slut’ isn’t about losing your intelligence. It’s about choosing to prioritize your pleasure, your power, and your body’s capabilities over outdated moral codes. That choice remains yours. Always.”
Silence stretched again, thicker now. The offer was on the table, glistening and obscene.
Kendra stood and walked to a beautifully carved wooden box on her dresser. She opened it and took out a small, crystalline vial filled with a viscous, iridescent pink fluid, and a slender silver needle that seemed to be made of light. “This is the ink,” she said softly. “And the needle. One drop of my essence is already mixed in. A link, from me to you. Student Instructor to student.”
Lysandra rose as well. “The choice is now, Candice. We can inscribe the Mark. You will feel the change immediately—a warmth, a new awareness. The hunger will start. We will guide you through your first… energy collection. Or, you can walk out that door. We will not stop you.”
Candice looked at the vial, at the needle, at Kendra’s hopeful face, at the rumpled silk sheets on the bed that still held the imprint of the act she’d witnessed. She thought of the expulsion notice being drafted, of her parents’ resigned disappointment, of a lifetime of being the weakest, the forgotten.
She thought of the pink lightning.
A strange calm settled over her. It was the calm of a prisoner stepping toward the gallows, of a diver stepping off a cliff. There was no more debate. Only action.
She set her glass down. She stood, her legs steady for the first time all evening.
“I'll become a bimbo mage, but I don't want to become a slut.” she said, her voice devoid of tremor.