LOVE, LUST, DEATH, PLUS SOMETHING EXTRA.

"Love, Lust and death, that's all you people want of us," observed the gypsy.

"Look, I'll pay one guinea for each recipe," offered the man.

"No, I just sell the potions not how to make them," replied the gypsy.

"Ok, five guineas for all four, that's more than you will earn in a couple of years," offered the man.

"Tell you what," said the gypsy, "how about ten guineas and I throw in an extra that's worth more than all the others put together."

"What! What extra?" demanded the man.

"Something really special," laughed the gypsy, "but you must promise never to reveal it to anybody."

The man thought about it for some seconds, he dearly loved to have the potions for he knew they worked and worked well but ten guineas was a lot of money.

"Ok, it's a deal," sighed the man, "you write out the recipes and I'll bring you ten guineas."

"Give me three days, ok?" said the gypsy.

It was a lovely cottage, a bit run down but sound and it was all mine. The split after the divorce left me with just enough to buy it outright. Sure I could have bought a nice flat in town but this place, although very old it had potential; no hot water or bathroom, but potential, I smiled. First things first, fix those loose boards by the front door, hundreds of years of use had made them a bit loose.

The first weekend I found my old tools and lifted the three oak boards by the front door. Underneath I found this old stoneware jar, still sealed with a waxed in cork. Inside were ten fragile pages covered with very small writing and a few drawings. They were much too fragile to handle much so I booted up my computer and scanned all ten pages in, plus I zeroed in on the beautiful pen and ink pictures as well. The pages were labelled 'Love', 'His Lust', 'Her Lust' and 'Death' and at last 'Vassal', whatever that means. Now I could study them easily, it was obvious that these pages were recipe for love potions and such and were very old indeed. The pictures referred to some of the ingredients mostly toadstools and mushrooms with a few other plants as well. The drawings were so good that I could easily identify them in the modern books that I got from the library. What the fuck, my luck with women was as bad as it gets so what did I have to loose.

The ingredients for 'Love' were mostly easy to find in the surrounding woodlands but when I looked them up some of them were a little worrying. Two of them, my book said didn't know if they were poisonous or not and one ingredient the book said it was mildly hallucinogenic; well I had no doubts that I would get some reaction. The preparations were simple enough, pour boiling water over to cover the dried and powdered ingredients and let it all go cold, then strain.

So I had a small bottle of light green liquid, what now? The instructions for the 'Love Potion' was, one drop in food or liquid and be alone with your subject for at least half an hour. So what girl did I know who I could use it on? My sister, my mother, my ex-wife. Then the council sent someone to discuss the plans I had submitted for my cottage. Ok, she wasn't the prettiest woman I had ever seen but she was female, under thirty and had a reasonable figure.

The hands on my watch seemed to have stopped but minute-by-minute they moved around until thirty minutes had elapsed since I had slipped a drop of my mixture into her coffee. Nothing, but then what did I expect, then as she was leaving she took my hand to shake it good-bye but she lingered just a little. Probably it was my imagination but it was enough to send a shiver down my spine.

I kept telling myself that it was my imagination all the time I was preparing my second brew. This time I was making 'Her Lust' an almost identical mixture to 'Love' with just few extra bits. I had to wait for 2 weeks before Mrs Dure came back to see how things were progressing.

The instructions were the same as before, one drop and wait half an hour but it only took twenty minutes before it started. I had been sitting on the sofa with Mrs Dure sitting opposite me when suddenly she moved and flung herself on me. Her hands moving over my body while she kissed me.

"Fuck me!" she shouted and she started to tear at her own clothes.

Her body was ok, nothing special, my ex-wife's was a lot nicer, but then I suspect she was now spreading her long legs for some other guy by now. I slipped into her sopping pussy and almost at once she started to have an intense orgasm. I don't know how long we lay there dosing, probably no more than an hour but when we did stir I could see she was deeply embarrassed by the whole thing. She quickly dressed and left almost on the run.

It worked, no both preparations had worked and there was nothing to say that the other three wouldn't work either. The first four potions were pretty self-evident, I suspected that the 'his lust' was some sort of Viagra substitute, but what was this 'Vassal' thing? I looked it up: To subjugate one person to other, servant, slave, subordinate. Well that all looks interesting.

The ingredients for 'vassal' were totally different from the first two and it took quite awhile to find them all. The resulting green/brown mixture didn't look anything special but I was confident it would work. My problem now was on who I would use it on; I decided to let fate take a hand.

"This is a nice place," said Clare my ex-wife.

"Thanks," I replied for I was proud of my new home.

A few weeks had passed and I had almost forgotten about my 'vassal' mixture and then Clare rang me and requested a meeting about a few points not sorted out during our divorce. Clare was always in command and she had been the one wearing the trousers in our five years of marriage. Into her tea I put one little drop and then set my watch. Today like most days she was wearing her usual business suit that did nothing for her except make her look efficient. I checked my watch one last time.

"You should wear your skirts shorter," I said, "you always had the great pair of legs."

Which is true, she did have exceptional good legs. I could see conflict in her face; she wanted to lash at me with her sharp tongue.

"Yes, dear, I will," she said at last, and by the look on her face she was as surprised as I was with her reply.

"In fact, you should wear something all together sexier than that outfit," I pushed, "I've always said that you had a great body."

"Oh, do you think so?" she said, her face colouring up.