Claiming A Cursed One

Author Note: For the avoidance of doubt, the MC in this branch is completely different to Maisie's friend.

You have never had much luck with women. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with you, just nothing particularly right. You are average looking, a couple of inches below the median height for a male, earn decent but unspectacular wages and are a little on the shy side, particularly around hot girls, who you have always found naturally intimidating. You are intelligent, funny, and decent, you like to think, but it turns out women don't really give much of a shit about those things, despite what they always tell you.

You feel, at twenty one, that you are destined to eventually settle for some plain Jane who you will have mediocre sex with, have a couple of kids and grow old and ugly together binge watching box sets since even that would be preferable to dying alone. Unless...

It seems crazy, but you are both a bit of a local history buff and a fan of the supernatural, and a few years ago you found some very scattered information about a so called curse, originating in your home town of Lincoln, England, that inflicted all the female members of a specific family. A curse that allowed the first man to learn of it and "claim" a female carrier to have the ability to completely control them at will, in any way they wanted, just by saying their name. And what was more, all of the women in this family were said to be beautiful. It sounded too absurd to be true, of course, but the more you researched it the more references you found to it throughout the centuries, only really fading away some time in the second half of the twentieth century. It had to be worth looking into.

You were able to track down the records of the first woman apparently cursed, named Isabel Petersen, who was born 1603 and died in 1672. She had no less than seven daughters, four of whom survived long enough to have daughters of their own. Using those records as a starting point, you have been able to track down as many living descendants of Isabel as you can find. There are probably thousands out there, and you already have a database of more than a hundred within your age range. Once you have a name and location, it isn't too difficult to find further information these days, via the carriers socials or even LinkedIn. For most of the women you have identified as curse carriers, you know what they look like, have an idea of their interests and personalities, their relationship status and even profession, in many cases. And whether the curse is real or not, the part about them all being beautiful is certainly accurate. And if it is true, you could claim almost any one of them as your own. Virtually none will have had their curses activated in an era where curses are dismissed as the stuff of fairy tales. Most won't even have a clue they carry it.

But you can only choose one. One girl for life, no switching, no refunds. You scroll through all of the photos and basic details you have gathered for the many candidates one more time, trying to make a decision. Just knowing they are cursed is not enough. Until you walk up to one of them, or even message them if you are willing to risk claiming someone without seeing them in person first, then the curse won't activate. Once it does, you are locked in for good. You will leave the rest of the curse carriers alone, not tell another soul and let them live their lives in peace. You only want one for you, then you are done.

But who to choose? A local girl? Unsurprisingly there are a few of them, including one or two of the hottest girls in your class from when you were at school. Or do you go further afield? You have located curse carriers in virtually every country where English is a first language, and a few where it isn't. It would be worth the plane ticket for the right one.

Do you go for a blonde, brunette or redhead? A sexy cheerleader or a hot goth? Someone your own age or a MILF? Do you maybe meet a few first, see if any of them stand out before you choose which one is going to be your forever girl, fully obedient to you always, and ready and able to fulfil your wildest sexual desires at any given moment just because you asked, no, told her to?

You are feeling overwhelmed by your options, and really need to get this right. But as you take in the array of beauties scrolling past your eyes, and realise that anything you don't like can be changed anyway, you feel like, if the curse really isn't just an old wives tale, you can hardly get this wrong.