Curse History

Firstly, I want to thank everyone who has read, supported and contributed to this story so far. The response has been amazing and I am incredibly grateful. When I started this story I figured it would mostly just be me writing it on one branch, so felt it was okay to keep a lot of the background stuff in my head to perhaps reveal later. But since there are so many branches and authors after less than a week, I thought it might be helpful to set out how I envisioned the curse to have originated and its intention. I never want to stifle creativity, so if people ignore this backstory that is fine, but for those that are interested this is the canon history of the curse, both ancient and modern.

As might be expected, the exact origins of the curse are quite murky (the actual backstory can be found here: https://chyoa.com/chapter/400-Years-Earlier--Lincoln%2C-England.1812189), but this is the version of events that has been passed down through the generations of Maisie's family.

A young witch named Rosalind in 17th century northern England was due to be married when her husband-to-be Arthur jolted her to instead marry Maisie's descendant Isabel, claiming that she was in fact his true love. The witch told him that his decision had nothing to do with love, but it was made because Maisie's ancestor was the most beautiful woman in their village and he was thinking with something other than his heart. Nonetheless, he went on to marry Maisie's ancestor anyway. The witch therefore decided to grant them a very special wedding present. She placed a spell on the bride which meant her husband could do anything he wanted to her. If he had truly loved the woman, as he claimed, this would be an incredible gift, which he could have spent the rest of his days using to make her the happiest woman on earth, whose every wish about herself could come true.

As the witch predicted, she instead became his lifelong sex toy, and thus the couple had several children, the females of which inherited the curse. And since the women in Maisie's family have always been beautiful, and with the witch seeing men as being primarily motivated by their sexual urges, she believed that her "gift" would in fact always be a curse, just as she intended. And for many years that was what happened, time and again.

However, over the centuries the curse became less of a big deal. People were a lot less superstitious, the original events and local tales about the curse were largely forgotten. Though all women in Maisie's family were warned about the curse, most chose to ignore it. Some lived long lives in happy marriages without their husbands even finding out.

That all changed when the ex boyfriend of one of Maisie's aunts stumbled across the curse and used it to make her his personal sex ****. That left the other women in the family with a choice - to not tell anyone and risk a similar fate, or tell someone they really trust. Most, including Maisie's older sister Holly, didn't trust anyone enough and took their chances at keeping it a secret. But Maisie believed, perhaps naively, that she could persuade her platonic childhood friend, the narrator, to be given control of her curse and not use it.