Cursed by the Bottle
This story was originally written for the
Literotica Nude Day Story Contest 2025
.
The idea for the story came from a public domain photo I found on the Library of Congress website titled "Francis Joseph Bruguière - Juniper, erotic photography" from 1915.
This story doesn't include any sex, but it does include descriptions of realistic naked people.
If you are moved to do so, please vote and comment. Thank you.
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As I drove up the driveway to what used to be my Aunt Samantha's house on that fateful Friday afternoon I remembered the summers I spent with her. My parents would ditch me for two or three weeks each year and honestly it usually was a lot more fun than staying at home doing nothing. Mom and dad both worked full time and couldn't afford the camps, or even the day camps, that my few friends attended.
At Aunt Samantha's house I got to stay up late, sleep in, and read whatever books I would bring or we would borrow from her local library. She also had shelves full of her own books, but almost none of them interested a tubby preteen boy. Well, except for The Hobbit, and I usually did read that one each year after I found it when I was ten. At the time I didn't realize what it meant to have a signed copy of that book, nor what it meant that she let me read it each year. I read that book ever time I stayed with her until I turned sixteen and got my first job.
As I got out of my car the house was still the magical place I remembered even after several years of neglect. As Aunt Samantha had gotten older, and sicker, and eventually died, she hadn't been able to maintain the property the way she would have wanted. Her neighbor, Mr. Johnson, had been mowing the lawn for me, but hadn't taken care of the gardens so everything was overgrown. The wraparound porch still had all the comfortable furniture, and the porch swing that we spent so much time in was swaying gently. The sound of the wind chimes made me smile, this was a safe place.
And, unfortunately, it was now mine. I would rather my aunt was still alive, she was good people.
When I heard Aunt Samantha had passed I was really sorry that I hadn't taken the time to visit more than once or twice in the last fifteen years, although we had spoken on the phone several times and I had seen her at Thanksgiving at my parents house. She had never had children of her own and among the cousins I was apparently her favorite since she had left me the property and all the contents of her house. Well, there had been a few things that she had specifically left to her friends, but those had already been turned over. I didn't need the house since I rented a nice apartment, but I also didn't need to live in the city since I worked remotely. Working remote was the best for everyone, really.
I was at my new house that weekend to see what I needed to get rid of so that I could move in. I already knew the internet connection was good enough for my needs from the couple of days I spent here around her funeral. After working a couple of hours Mr. and Mrs. Johnson stopped by. I was a mess; I was sweaty, dirty and probably even had cobwebs in my hair. I had carried all the dead houseplants and their pots out onto the porch, and had started collecting things that I considered to be garbage into trash bags.
"Oh, Rickie, how are you doing, dear?" Mrs. Johnson, Dorcas, asked. "We were so sorry when Samantha passed." The Johnson's were in their late fifties or maybe early sixties, so they were a little younger than my aunt. Mr. Johnson was carrying a casserole dish while Mrs. Johnson was carrying a pie.
"Honestly, I would rather she were still here in her own home so we could sit on the porch swing and talk about... well, anything, really.."
The Johnson's both smiled, and Henry said, "She did love that swing. Have you decided what you are going to do with the house?"
"Not permanently. I'm cleaning it out some now so that I can move in. I'm planning to try living here for a year or two while I decide if I want to keep it." I offered them a drink of water since I realized I needed one myself. I wasn't used to this much physical activity. The water was just like I remembered; even straight from the tap it was cool and somehow sweet.
Dorcas said, "Oh that would be wonderful. We need more young people on the street. Maybe even some kids sometime soon?"
I laughed because it would have been too uncomfortable not to laugh. I'm single, and I've always been single. My date to our senior prom was a lesbian who didn't want to come out to her family and my one and only sexual experience in college was the fraternity ho, and she didn't even seem to remember it the next day. I've always been heavy, I had bad acne during high school and college and started going bald before I even graduated. No woman has ever looked at me, except to then turn and laugh with her friends. I've never had any luck with women and I gave up trying years ago.
"No, Mrs. Johnson, no kids any time soon. I would need to get a girlfriend first."
We talked for a while and they offered to stop over with some of the other neighbors, and people who knew my aunt the next day to help me get rid of bigger stuff. I didn't need all of Aunt Samantha's furniture, and would obviously not have any need for her clothes. They said that they had been planning it for a while and had a bunch of people set up to help, if I wanted. But if I wanted to take care of it all on my own that would be fine, too. All it would take was a couple of calls to the phone trees and they could have people, and trucks, there the next morning.
I knew how it would go. People would show up willing to help, and then once they got a look at me they would never want to see me ever again. It would be best to get it out of the way all at once. "Sure, tomorrow morning would be fine."
Somehow I was wrong; they didn't immediately turn around and leave. Ten or twelve people showed up starting about ten on Saturday morning. The women took over cleaning the kitchen and both bathrooms while the men helped me move furniture and pack up closets full of clothing. There were even two teenagers who did a bunch of stuff outside. The boy mowed and trimmed the lawn and the girl spent hours weeding and trimming the flower gardens.
I didn't do much heavy lifting myself, but I was constantly running around because everyone had questions about what needed to go, or if something should be moved somewhere else. I was once again sweaty and disgusting, but nobody said anything. Only once or twice did I hear people laughing behind my back, and they might not even have been laughing at me. They probably were, but everyone still seemed friendly.
We took a break for lunch about one o'clock and everyone had brought food to share, and leftovers to leave with me. I was already too tired to eat much, but it was wonderful to be included in a community like this, even if I knew they would dump me as soon as they could. Some people had to leave after lunch but they left me their names and phone numbers in case I needed anything. In fact everyone did that before they left at the end of the day.
The men did a bunch of small fix up jobs, like tightening the cabinet doors in the kitchen and changing light bulbs. It was all stuff I could have done, but working together they got so much done so quickly. They even took a bunch of old furniture from the attic and Aunt Samantha's room to the consignment store in town. None of us thought any of it was valuable, but they all trusted the owner of the shop to price stuff fairly. Personally I was happy to have her bedroom dresser with its built in mirror gone. I didn't need to see myself first thing every morning.
