I've been working estate sales for fifteen years. My Dad got me in the business, and when he retired I took over. Estate sale companies organize the sale of a deceased person's entire estate, in other words, when you die, we will come to your house and put a price tag on every little thing in there. Whatever your family doesn't want, we sell and then take a cut of the proceeds. The sale usually lasts about three days, maybe five if the estate is large enough to warrant it. Sounds tame enough, right? Nope. Estate Sales are the front lines of the Collectable market, the Antiques market, the Crafter/professional artist market and all the wannabe millionaires who think they're going to find an expensive treasure at trash can prices. And hey, folks sometimes do, including me. I've got friends who are doctors, lawyers, strippers and sanitation engineers, and they all make fun of me for what I do, and it doesn't bug me one bit. The thing is is, I get more sex, and freaky sex, than any of them. All you gotta do is to be able to see a diamond in the rough.
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I had just finished cataloguing an entire estate, mostly on my own. My Dad was sick, and the guys who were supposed to help me flaked. I was in the back bedroom turning off the lights in a large walk-in closet when the I bumped a shelf and fell against the back wall. Whatever I did caused a panel in the back to swing open, revealing a number of shoe boxes and photo albums.
At first I was just pissed at having more things to catalogue, price and display. Can you believe that? What the hell was wrong with me? It's a secret panel! Even if all this stuff is newspaper clippings and snapshots of old haircuts, it's still a secret panel hidden inside the closet of a suburban home owner who lived here for the past thirty years. That's pretty damn cool! I pulled out all the stuff I could find in the compartment and spread them out on the bed. There were five photo albums, three shoe boxes full of black and white photographs, and then a full professional camera kit from the 1960's. I recognized the brand, it was the best in its day. And luck be damned, there was even a roll of undeveloped film still in the camera. Oh, and the photographs, all of them were amateur nude and pinup shots of women.
I catalogued everything, and looked as little as possible at the pictures. They might be private images of the family, which has happened in the past. I have to say the few I saw were high quality pictures of some very attractive women, whoever took them knew what they were doing. And despite the old fashioned nature images, I was getting quite turned on just by the few I saw
As I was entering the last box ID number into the ledger, I heard someone coming in through the front door, and it sounded like they were arguing with someone else. Seconds later two women burst into the bedroom in the middle of a heated argument.
I knew them both. The older one was the deceased's younger sister who had come into town for the sale only. She lived out in the country with her boyfriend who was a Harley Davidson enthusiast. She was about 43, and liked to dress like a biker chick with tight jeans, biker boots, t-shirts and leather vests. Her greying blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, away from her tanned face that was currently redder than usual from yelling at the other woman, who was the daughter of the deceased.
Darcy, the daughter, had just returned from Graduate school with a degree in public policy and was all set for a career in politics. She was shorter than her aunt with an athletic figure, and always dressed stylishly with her jet black hair cut super short in a bob, that showed off her striking facial features. Needless to say, they hated each other.
The rest of the family had finally refused to allow them near the house, as they were sick of their fights. Fights like this one.
"Darcy, I don't care if you have twenty god damned pieces of paper from twenty god damned schools, you still don't know what's best for this family!" Aunt Rhonda screamed.
"Oh blow it out your ass, Rhonda! You never gave a crap about this family, you only want to make a buck for yourself!"
"HEY!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. They both jumped in their boots and heels.
"Neither of you are allowed to be here."
"I am her sister, I have every right."
"They were my parents, you road trash!" Darcy yelled at Rhonda.
"If you weren't my sister, I'd lay you out like a rag doll!"
"If you weren't my Aunt I'd be HAPPY!"
These two crazy broads were making me yell, and I hate yelling! "Holy shit! Shut the hell up! And both of you get the hell out of here right now or I will call the cops."
Rhonda was looking at the secret stash on the bed as I yelled."You found them."
Darcy followed Rhonda's gaze to the pile of pictures and equipment.
"Shit!" Darcy went towards them but i moved to stand between her and the bed.
"Hold on there, that's part of the sale, which means the family decides what happens to it."
"We're part of the family!" They both said simultaneously, which annoyed them both.
"The family that hasn't embarrassed themselves by fighting like crazy people, I should say."
"Look, um, Harry, right? I know we can come to some sort of understanding." Darcy had switched gears to diplomat mode, and her voice almost dripped with saccharine and false promises.
"Don't you dare, those are a legacy and they need to be protected!" Rhonda yelled, not switching gears at all.
I held up my hands, trying to cut them both off. "Whatever kind of pictures your Dad took, it's the whole family's business now, not just yours!"
"My Dad?! Oh, of course you would assume that, that's so sexist."
"Oh, please, that man didn't have an artistic bone in his body. My sister took those pictures!" Rhonda added.
" . . . you'd better explain." I said.
There was wine and bourbon in the kitchen, and I fetched some for my own tired ass and also for our guests as they argued and explained. It seems that Mom/Sis was a Glamour photographer of some renown who worked under an alias, and alias I recognized from my work in the collectible field. Rhonda wanted the shots to sell, Darcy wanted the shots to hide. Rhonda wanted the money, Darcy wanted not to be connected to pornography.
"Pornography? They're just cheesecake shots."
Rhonda chuckled. "You didn't see all of them. There's some in there that go all the way, and some with my sister actually in them. She had...secret desires. Everyone thought she was perfect. . ." Darcy pushed Rhonda aside.
"Harry, these will just needlessly upset the family. Please, just hand them to me, and everyone will be happy and safe." Darcy was almost pleading.
"Those are the only proof of my sister's real life, her art, the thing she loved. Don't let her burn it Harry! Because that's what Darcy's gonna do! She wants to burn it."
"Everybody shut up! Everybody drink!" Rhonda and I sipped our bourbon while Darcy gulped her wine. Everybody had a point here. The family would be upset with lesbian shots of the family matriarch. And did Darcy deserve to have her career tainted by someone else's decisions - no matter your opinion of them? And Rhonda . . . well, I was pretty sure she wasn't out to honor her sister, more like to embarrass her, but these photos were genuine art, at least by the standards of the collectible community. I walked back to the bedroom, leaving the women in the kitchen. I started looking through the photo albums, and saw that they were indeed both soft core and hardcore porn. I closed the books and picked up the camera. It was heavy, made from metal and glass in the days before microchips and miracle fibers. The camera's shoulder strap was worn, even frayed in a couple spots. My fingers traveled to the frays, rubbing the soft underbelly of the strap exposed by years of use, by thousands of photographs, by decades of gazing upon forbidden happiness, and by all too few rare moments of release and satisfaction.
"So, what you gonna do?" Rhonda had slipped into the room while I was waxing rhapsodic. She sidled over to me with a sexy look on her face. "You know Harry, I can make it worth your while. She may try to buy you, but I can tell you're above that kind of thing." She put her hands on my chest and looked deep into my eyes.
"Can you be more of a slut?" said Darcy from the doorway. "Besides what can a skank like you have to offer a guy like that?" Darcy downed the dregs of what had to be at least her third glass of wine. "If he can't be bribed, then cheap sex with a biker girl ain't going to cut it either."
"Oh, you got something better, you uptight bitch?"
