Who wouldn't fall a little bit in love with HB, whatever their age?

Nothing too racy in this story: just a lot of longing and maybe a kiss.

Witches are sexy - so at least goes the conventional wisdom, among those who've grown out of the whole hags-and-warts thing. We've all seen the pictures: tight black dresses, high-heels, flowing locks of wild hair, painted lips - it's all a bit femme fatal, a fantasy of dominant, unashamed sexuality.

Of course, in reality, witches are only ever as sexy as they want to be. Some of them don't go in for that sort of thing at all. Of course, in reality, witches are only ever as sexy as they can be. Some people just have the good fortune to look good in a pointy hat. Some people are beyond redemption, couldn't be helped by all the hair and make-up spells in the world.

There's nothing very sexy about training to be a witch, that's for certain. Shut up in some chilly old boarding school, and clad in the most hideous of uniforms, slaving away at Potions and Spells and Broomstick Riding, trying to pass exams - it'd take an odd sort of fetishist to find any of that sexy.

Of course the girls at my academy all talked about sex. It's something teenage girls do, a rite of passage. There were copies of Cosmo pored over by candlelight after lights out, passed round till they fell apart. The fifth formers sneaked out to meet their boyfriends, and came back full of improbable tales. Pop stars were sighed over, and I'm sure there's many a hot teenage fantasy has passed over a hard academy pillow. But on the whole, it was a decidedly unsexy environment. The sashes they made us wear, the shirts buttoned up to the neck, those ghastly thick tights, knee-length dresses, bloody great boots. Hardly calculated to help a budding woman embrace her sexuality and feel good about herself. And the teachers - all crusty dull old spinsters - if they'd ever known love, they'd forgotten all about it now - a look from one of them could quell the heartiest teenage joie de vivre, I can tell you.

And then there was her. Miss Hardbroom. Even the name sounds harsh.

I didn't think much of her to begin with. She was deputy headmistress, and also taught Potions. The older girls all told the most ghastly tales of her. She was a harridan, a harpy; she'd tell you off for breathing loudly; she'd give out detentions just for a pastime. Rumour had it she'd once turned a girl into a frog for forgetting to do her homework. She was tall and pale, harsh rather than ethereal; she wore nothing but black. The only slash of colour ever to grace her features was her burgundy lipstick, like a big disapproving wound.

I was a bit of a bad girl back in those days - maybe I still am. I rebelled for the sake of rebelling, wore jewellery under my uniform, chewed gum, neglected to do my homework, spent a lot of time outside the headmistress' office for various misdemeanours. Petty vices, really, but they got me a reputation. Trainee witches are easily impressed, and my classmates thought me as cool as they came. I had a few accomplices, but no real friends - people to dye my hair with, to get my belly button pierced with, to smoke my first fag and raise hell with, but not people to confide in.

My first run-in with Miss Hardbroom (HB as everyone used to call her, though not to her face) was in the first Potions lesson of the new school year. It was first lesson after lunch; I slouched into class ten minutes late, chewing gum - and all at once, the tiger sprang, the icy wrath of HB was visited upon me. Was this my usual approach to timekeeping? Spit that gum out; chewing gum is a disgusting habit. Is that a bracelet on your wrist, girl? Take it off, take them all off. No, don't put them in your pocket, I'm confiscating them. When can you have them back? When I feel like giving them back, and not before.

I know what you're thinking. Punishment ahoy, kinky whipping session ahead. Or is it just my mind that works like that? But anyway, corporal punishment is banned in witch schools just as it is in normal schools, and HB never was one for flouting rules. She gave me two detentions, and lines. Lines are hideous, by the way. So's detention, come to that - an hour after lessons, an hour that could be better spent (thinking up new ways to rebel, maybe), writing out the same line again and again under HB's glowering gaze, the ticking of the classroom clock driving me steadily mad...I told you witchcraft training was unsexy, didn't I?

From that moment on, it was war, so far as I was concerned, between me and Miss Hardbroom. It only took a few more escapades before the feeling was mutual. Every punishment she doled out to me, every detention, every set of lines, every afternoon to be spent washing corridor floors, just made me worse. It's a wonder I wasn't expelled. I thought sometimes that I would be, and bragged to my circle that I didn't care if I was. They all thought I was mad to wind her up like I did. Perhaps I was. No one else gave her as much trouble as I did. I was on a vendetta, practically. The annoying thing was - and this just encouraged me, really - she never really lost her rag. She didn't, not with anyone. She snapped and sniped, barked out orders, gave vent to magnificent sarcasms, handed out punishments left, right and centre - but she never seemed to really lose her cool. Most teachers do sooner or later: their voices get high, their cheeks flush, they shout and bellow, they lose control. But HB? She was mistress of the cool, withering gaze, the cool, withering putdown. I knew she must hate me, but nothing ever fazed her. She was a good teacher, I suppose, in her way.

The years passed, years of mine and Miss Hardbroom's deadly struggle. I'd give it a rest now and then, of course; sometimes I had whole months of model behaviour. But I was just conserving my energy, plotting my next move, and I think Miss Hardbroom knew it. "Detention tonight, Maya!" she once barked at me as I entered the classroom.

"But Miss, I haven't done anything wrong!"

"Don't worry, I'm sure you soon will."

I wasn't a bad student, actually. The end of Form 3 brought exams with it; I was on the promise of £100 from my parents if I did well. I kept my head down in lessons for a month or two - HB cast suspicious glances at me - and actually did some revision. I never saw anyone look so pissed off as Miss Hardbroom did when she told me my grade. "By some miracle, Maya, possibly caused by divine intervention, you seem to have attained to a level 6A." It was a good result - she called it "satisfactory", and her burgundy lips were pursed with displeasure. We were the bane of each other's lives, honestly.

But she got under my skin, somehow. I remember when I realised it. It was near the end of the summer term in my fourth year. I was sixteen, more of a terror than ever. I liked to think of myself as sexually precocious, but the extent of my sexual experience was snogging some boy at a Christmas party. It had been a disgusting beer-flavoured experience, but it was still something to brag about. My partners in crime and I hooked up our gymslips and wore stockings - though who we imagined was looking at us, I don't know.

But yeah. Summer, end of my fourth year. My cronies and I were hanging out behind the broom-sheds; some of us were smoking. Dotty old Miss Bat was on playground duty, so we could do as we pleased - well, so we thought.

And then there she was, Miss Hardbroom, the vengeful deity in teacher form. She plucked the cigarette from my very fingers and crushed it out on the broom-shed's sloping roof; my accomplices, realising they were for it, chucked their cigarettes to the ground and stamped them out.

"Two weeks' detention, all of you. And Maya, see me in my office at lunchtime." Her cool gaze looked me up and down. "And pull that skirt down, you look like a tramp."

Now, I never said I was sensible. There are some who would say I have issues with authority. I was annoyed about the cigarette, besides; they're not a cheap habit, and it hadn't even been half-smoked.

I gave her my most defiant look.

"I thought you'd like to see a bit of thigh, Miss. The whole school says you're a lezzie." They didn't, of course; I'd made it up on the spot. I don't even know where it came from. We all assumed teachers didn't have sex lives.

My friends all clung together in expectation of the explosion. I think they expected to see me turned into a frog at any moment.

Miss Hardbroom glared at me - the glowering glare I'd seen so often, and knew so well. But...did my eyes deceive me, or...no, I saw it, sure enough: a shadow passed over her face, her eyes held a faint trace of fear. Her lips quivered, garish against her pale slender face - and then she barked out some words of harsh reprimand, gave me detention till the end of term and stipulated that I write a letter of apology. All business as usual, in other words.

But her guard had slipped for a moment. I don't think anyone else even saw it. But I knew her well, and I saw it all right. And in that moment - and, believe me, I was pretty bloody surprised by it - in that moment, I actually went and fell in love.

xxxx

I didn't tell anyone, of course. As I said, I didn't really have tell-you-everything type friends. I didn't even admit it to myself to begin with. But at last it got to the point where I couldn't deny it any longer. I hoped it would go away over the summer; I thought I'd managed to put it out of my mind - but no, come September, there it was again. Love! I was bloody well in love! With her, of all people!

You probably think I was mad. I thought I was mad. I struggled against it with all my might. But every time I saw her, I just fell in a little deeper. I couldn't stop myself.

The thing is...I honestly think we knew each other better than anyone else. What with all the detentions, and everything, I honestly reckon we saw more of each other than anyone else did. We hated each other, of course, but we'd also got to know each other. I could read her mannerisms like a book, knew the exact moment she'd start to tap her fingers in that pissed-off way, knew the way she pursed her lips when she was displeased. I began my fifth year business as usual, but after a while, baiting her seemed to lose its savour. I only misbehaved a little, now and then, just enough to get a detention - and joy to me if I was the only one in detention that night, if it was just her and me in that room, and I could look up between lines and watch her.

She was beautiful. I never knew why I hadn't noticed it before. We all think of teachers as ancient, but I realised that she wasn't really that old; it was just her sternness that made her seem so ancient. But as to the rest, her fine features, high cheekbones, piercing brown eyes, those damn lips, the whole Ice Maiden persona - she got me hot under my itchy school shirt collar, and that's the truth. Did she know it? I could read her mannerisms but not her heart. I only knew that her cool had momentarily deserted her the day I called her a lesbian, and I pinned so many hopes on the memory of that moment.

I became quite well-behaved during my fifth year, as I said. Now and then I actually knuckled down and did some work. I daydreamed a lot in Potions classes, mostly about her. But on the whole, I was on my best behaviour. She looked at me suspiciously for a while, as if suspecting me of planning something; then one day she said to me, "I am glad to see you have turned over a new leaf, Maya; I never like to see talent go to waste." She said it in her frostiest tones, but it was still a compliment; I think I may have blushed. In that moment, I'd have become a total geek if I'd thought it would please her.

I liked to think I'd begun to break down her defences. Sometimes she actually came near to smiling at me. I thought her lips would crack with the strain.

One day in the summer term, she asked me to stay behind after class. I thought maybe she was missing our detentions. Turned out she wanted to talk to me about daydreaming. And not in the kind, is-anything-preoccupying-you-dear way that any other teacher might have. "You never seem to be wholly present in my lessons these days, Maya. I am growing quite tired of repeating myself for your benefit; I wonder if you would care to share the cause of your abstracted state. You look gormless half the time, girl."

I don't know what made me tell the truth. A moment of madness, I suppose. The temptation was too great. The weather was so hot; we were alone in the classroom; I remember my thighs were sticky with sweat under my skirt, and my lips were clammy with longing.

"I'm daydreaming about you." There, I'd said it. Let her make of it what she would.

I thought she gave a sharp intake of breath. "Me? Look at me when I'm talking to you, girl!"

I couldn't have looked at her if I'd tried. Was it just my imagination, or had her voice trembled a little as she said, "Me?"

"Yes, you," I said, as boldly as I could, "I think I might be in love with you."

As confessions go, it was a bit gauche, I admit. Nothing seemed real anymore; the world was turned suddenly upside-down. Her silence was profound; the clock ticked; my heart hammered; girls clattered and chattered in the distance. She was wearing all-black as usual, even though it was a hot day; there was a little sweat on her brow. She laced her long fingers together, then unlaced them again.

"I suppose this is your latest idea of a joke, Maya."

"Not at all, Miss. I'm utterly serious, honest. I'm in love with you. I don't mean to be. Just...just, won't you tell me if there's even a chance you might feel the same?" There was a catch in my voice; I'm sure it didn't go unnoticed.

"You are being improper and impertinent." I think she saw it in my face that I really meant it, but her voice didn't soften. If anything, it grew harsher. "I am your teacher, Maya, and you are a student. You will desist in this unsuitable...attachment at once."

"I can't just "desist", for God's sake, it doesn't work like that! Surely you know that? Don't you think I've tried? But you...you've got under my skin these last few years."

"You are an adolescent. You don't know your own feelings. I think it would be best if you were to leave now. We will not mention this improper outburst of yours again."

I was desperate. She was stood right in front of me, her back to the teacher's desk. I threw myself suddenly into her arms; she protested and made to fend me off; I grabbed her face in my hands, and kissed her full on the lips.

There, I've admitted it. I'm a teacher-seducing slut. The whole thing wasn't so much sexy as clumsy - bear in mind it was only the second time I'd ever kissed anyone, and the first had been a drunken teenage boy at a Christmas party.

This was different from that, so, so different. She could have fought me off, forcibly removed me. But it seemed she surrendered to me, just a little. She responded to my fierce, desperate, clumsy clashing of lips. It was as if I'd done it all wrong - God knows I had - and now she was going to show me how to do it right. Her lips pressed so gently, and then so firmly, against my own; I felt her arms wrap around my body, and I trembled a little. I'd dreamt so many times of all the awful, outrageous things I'd do if ever I found myself in such a position as this, and now it had come to it I was far too afraid to do a single one of them. I only hung there, helpless, my arms around her neck, our breasts pressed together, her lips gently teasing mine. I felt her tongue against my mouth; I sighed, I moaned; I wanted so much to be near her, and nearer still. Her hand rested on the small of my back; every place where our two bodies touched seemed as if it were on fire; her tongue was in my mouth; I thought I'd die of ecstasy.

Maybe some noise startled her; maybe her conscience suddenly woke up. She let go of me so quickly that I stumbled and fell to the floor - an ungainly way to end a wonderful kiss. She didn't offer to help me up. She swept away from me, round to the other side of her desk; she took out a compact mirror, repaired her lipstick. I saw that her cheeks were flushed, and I saw that her hand trembled. I put a hand to my own lips, and my fingers came away stained with her burgundy colouring.

I got slowly to my feet. "Miss Hardbroom...?"

"Get out." She spoke in that low, frosty tone that she did so well. "Get out, Maya. We won't mention this again."

"But you...you..." My whole being longed for her; I thought I might be going to cry. "You kissed me."

She pursed her lovely, lovely lips. "You are a student, and I am a teacher. There will be no further impropriety." As I think I said, she never was one to flout rules.

"I won't tell anyone!"

"You had better not." She gave a sigh; she seemed so strangely vulnerable suddenly. I knew then that the kiss must have meant as much to her as it had to me. Was she standing there wanting me just as much as I wanted her? The thought was enough to drive me half to distraction.

"But...in a couple of months, you know...my training will be over, I won't be a student any more..."

She had been turned slightly away from me; now she rounded on me with blazing eyes. "You think the whole world revolves around you, don't you, Maya Silver? You think you should get everything you want, delivered up on a platter, just because of the mere fact that you want it. You're spoilt, utterly spoilt. And I have been too lenient with you, indulged you, for years, and now I must live with the consequences of my actions, the fact that you believe that any and every forbidden fruit is yours for the plucking."

"I don't understand, I..."

"No, I don't suppose you do. Perhaps with a little time to reflect you will see how foolishly and shamelessly you have behaved. You do not believe that rules apply to you; you career through life scattering chaos in your wake. It is my duty to tell you that rules do apply to you. It may be that it is too late to give you such a message. One day your recklessness and your selfishness will get you into trouble, Maya, and I will not be dragged into that trouble with you."

"You kissed me."

"I can assure you it will not happen again."

"I'll...I'll tell the headmistress you kissed me! I'll tell everyone! I'll get you sacked for sexual assault!"

Perhaps she knew I didn't mean it. She raised her eyebrows rather sardonically, and said, "Get out, Maya."

"God, I hate you!" That was the last thing I said as I stormed from the room. Of course I didn't mean a word of it. I loved her, loved her more than ever, loved her so bloody much that my heart was breaking for her sake.

The term was nearly over. For the rest of it, we kept out of each other's way. I kept my head down in class; she didn't pick on me. I thought a lot about what she'd said. Now and then, I'd look up from my work, and catch her looking at me - then she'd turn her gaze abruptly away, as if the sight of me was too much for human eye to bear.

xxxx

Two years later. The school's hardly changed; I have. I still have my old bellicose streak, of course, but I at least don't look like such a bad girl any more. The black hair dye's grown out, the piercings have grown over. I'm trying to quit smoking. I'm a fully qualified witch, and I just got myself A-levels in Advanced Potions and History of Magic. I'm a retired bad girl, a Bad Girl Made Good.

I've been in a relationship with a woman. She was nice, and pretty and all, but the relationship went nowhere in the end. You see, my heart already belonged to someone else - it has done for years.

It's the last day of the spring term; there's trainees and parents everywhere. No one looks twice at me. I suppose I just look like someone's big sister, or something.

I know where she'll be; I head straight for the classroom. There she is, alone, tidying spell-books. She's wearing the same old black dress, the same old burgundy lipstick. My heart turns over as I suddenly recognise the black obsidian bracelet on her wrist - it's one she confiscated off me in my last term, and never gave back. She never used to wear jewellery. She's still beautiful.

I enter the classroom. She looks round at the sound of the door, looks me up and down, recognises me. I hear her sharp intake of breath.

"Maya!"

"Hey, Miss Hardbroom." I try to act casual; I feel anything but. "I was in the area, and thought I'd drop by. Catch up, you know..."

"Is there no escape from you, Maya?" She tries to sound as icy as she always used to, and only just manages it.

"Nope," I say, cheerfully, "We've got unfinished business, you know we have."

"I don't know what you mean."

"I think you do. You've still got one of my bracelets, for one thing." Her eyes immediately flick to her wrist. "I'll let you keep it if you'll come out for a drink with me."

"Maya..."

"I know, I know." I cross the room to stand close to her - but not too close, not yet. "I can't expect to get everything I want just because I want it. The world won't come to me dished up on a platter. But I don't want the world. I don't give a damn about the world. I just want you. For God's sake admit that you want me too. I'm not talking about love. I was young and naïve when I used that l-word at you. But I'm thinking you, me, see where it goes. You're kidding yourself if you say you're not interested. I remember the kiss you gave me."

The look that flashes across her eyes is expressive. I know what she's thinking, because I'd think the same if I was in her place. "She came back, she made the first move and the first surrender. I've triumphed." For people like me and HB, that's a powerful feeling. She knows what I've sacrificed by being the one to give in first; she knows what depths of longing and desperation underlie my belligerent words.

"Love's become just another four-letter word to you, then?" she says, "Cynicism has come to you early in life."

"Oh, it's like all four-letter words. I like it, but I try to avoid using it so I don't cause offence."

She puts down the spell-books. "You think as highly of yourself as ever, I see."

I take a step closer to her. "Between us, we could achieve world domination."

"You are improper and impertinent."

"Last time you said that, it was right before you kissed me."

"Ah, yes. The kiss you "remember"."

"Not so well that I don't want my memory refreshed." There is a silence. "Come on. I'm not a student any more. I'm a fully qualified witch. I could turn you into a frog if I wanted. You, me, how about it?"

"Some things are wrong. Rules are there for a reason."

"Yes." I lean forward and kiss her cheek, and am delighted by the way she starts in surprise. "They're there to be broken."

"You know nothing of me, nothing of what it would mean to..."

"So come with me for a drink and tell me all about it. There's rules and then there's destiny."

"You sound like a bad romance novel. I expected better from you."

"The Queen's Head. Tonight, at seven."

"I never go to pubs."

"We'll meet here then, go to your private rooms."

She doesn't refuse, but then she doesn't agree either.

And then, suddenly, she kisses me. It's like that first kiss all over again, only better, even better. It's a desperate kiss, a passionate kiss, a kiss that says more than any amount of words ever could. It's not enough, of course, not nearly enough, to compensate for all the years we've missed. But it's a very good start. And this time, I manage not to fall over, though I'm left reeling and giddy. She gives me one long look, and then she leaves the classroom without another word - not that that matters. That kiss was worth all the promises in the world.

After she's gone, I stand alone in the classroom, listening to the clock ticking, my heart pounding, just like the old days. Then I go on my way, wondering what I'll do between now and seven. Daydream, probably. She'll be furious when I tell her.

I admit it: conventional wisdom's right on one thing. Some witches are sexy. And some...well, some bloody well blow your mind!