This story was inspired somewhat by Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale "The Red Shoes." You don't need to be familiar with that story to understand mine but if you are I'm certain you'll see the inspiration. Enjoy!
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Prologue:
A lifelong collector of goods and objects from far and wide has passed and left the entire collection and the business built around them to the only remaining relative, a niece on a career path of her own. Vikki has taken on the task of administering the estate and liquidating the business and collection. However, she has come to find out that many of the goods have been cursed or enchanted with amorous powers that affect those who encounter them. These are the stories of some of those encounters with objects found at Amorous Goods.
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She fell in love with them the moment she laid eyes on them.
Annabelle Smith and her boyfriend Frank had been out shopping for hours, desperately searching for the proper attire for a work dinner of his they were expected to attend that evening. Frank hadn't been with the company all that long,
but they were determined to make an impression tonight.
Unfortunately, try as they might, they continually came up empty-handed. When all the bigger name shops in town had failed them, they started checking out the smaller, less reputable ones around.
They'd almost driven by this one, and now she was thanking her lucky stars they hadn't.
Neither she nor Frank could recall seeing it before but, then again, they didn't come this way all that often anymore. They were moving up in the world, and places like this no longer seemed to fit the image they wanted people to see. Even so, a name like 'Amourous Goods' stood out, although at first glance Annabelle was almost certain it was a sex shop of some kind based on the name alone.
Yet once inside, they realized it was nothing of the sort. At least not specifically. In fact, trying to describe the kind of shop it was seemed downright impossible, given the veritable cavalcade of items out on display. Clothing, books, tools, toys and everything in between seemed to be sitting on one shelf or another. And while more than a few things certainly looked like they belonged in a sexy shop, that didn't appear to be this place's bread and butter.
The clothing Annabelle could see didn't seem to suit the occasion anymore than the things they'd seen at other stores, and she was almost ready to grab Frank and head back to the car when she spotted them. Sitting there on the end of the counter as if they'd been waiting there just for her.
A pair of vintage black elbow-length leather gloves.
They looked almost brand new, an oddity given the state of several other items littered around the store, yet the lines of age could be seen along the length of the leather. They seemed to glow underneath the overhanging lights, and for a moment Annabelle could have sworn there were diamonds or something similar embedded in them they seemed to shine so magically.
It was love at first sight.
"Oh my," she said at long last, grabbing Frank's arm and drawing his attention towards them. "Those are lovely."
Frank had to admit, they were quite exquisite, although his reasons for thinking that were slightly different than his lover's. In truth, Frank had always had a bit of a fetish for leather gloves on women, and on more than one occasion he'd tried to steer Annabelle into buying and wearing some to no avail.
The fact that she was seemingly drawn to this particular pair gave him hope, as well as a bit of an erection.
"Those aren't for sale."
They turned towards the sound of the rather brusque voice, noting a young woman standing at the other end of the counter with a heavy-looking ledger in her hand. Her gaze was focused intently on the gloves, as well as the couple eyeing them, and she made her way over to speak with them.
Annabelle was already prepared. She'd come across people like this before and had learned that sometimes you just had to offer the right price before they caved. Everything was for sale if you worked at it hard enough. "Oh I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement," she began, her eyes never leaving the gloves even as the younger woman approached her.
"I'm afraid not," the woman continued. "Those are not for sale for any price."
After everything they'd gone through today, there was no way Annabelle was not going to walk out of this shop with the only article of clothing which had interested her. Finally tearing her eyes off the gloves, she looked at the young woman and straightened up.
"If you're not planning on selling them, why have them out for display like this?"
It seemed the right question to ask, and one she intended to use to slowly break the shopkeep's resolve. She would get those gloves one way or another.
The young woman seemed to disagree, shaking her head. "They aren't out for display. I've been cleaning up the shop and placed the gloves there while I looked them up in the ledger... This shop used to belong to my aunt and I'm still trying to get a handle on what we have here."