(Author's Foreword: Decades ago (on alt.sex.stories.mod, accessed via a gateway on the BatBoard -- long distance - through anon.penet.fi) I published a story involving the TV program Friday the 13th: The Series. It ran in the late 1980s, and was B-movie TV at its best. I've long since lost the 5 ¼" floppy drive my very different story was stashed on -- and how would I access it, anyway? My thanks to
jaF0
on Literotica for giving this world birth. Respecting the original copyrights, he's changed the names of the lead characters and other plot bits. And now, back into retirement. Dotage is vastly underrated.)
/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 his only remaining relative, a distant niece on a career path of her own as an archivist. 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
./
It'd been the busiest day at Amorous Goods since they'd taken over. The Saturday, a full month before Halloween, had been profitable, but insanely hectic. Dylan's feet ached, his back hurt, and his head still throbbed from last night's hangover. He'd been behind the cash register, without a break, since his tardy arrival at 10:30 that morning to an already jam-packed store. His late appearance had set Vikki off, and she hadn't spoken to her cousin all day. Their only interactions and been her staring daggers at him, and he trying vainly to placate her wrath.
*
Mary Stanley frowned as she placed the brown bakelite object back on the shelf. It wasn't much to look at -- a five-sided vertical cylinder, about four inches tall, with a button on its gabled top, mounted on a slightly larger base. It was adorned only with pinstriped gold panels. The button depressed, like a switch, but nothing happened. She hadn't realized it was a music box until she'd turned it over. On the bottom, a winding key and an inscription engraved in tiny type; "To Gypsy Rose Lee, From Her Darkest Fan." The name sounded vaguely familiar. Maybe somebody famous. She immediately Googled it. "Holy cow," she whispered, "burlesque entertainer . . . stripper! I have to have this, even if it is broken!" She stroked it with slender fingers tipped with chewed nails.
The tag read NFS -- not for sale -- along with what seemed to be an inventory number. She visibly sank into herself. That figures, she thought bitterly. That's the story of my life. Something amazing comes along, and I can't have it. Graduation day: the girl just ahead of her in the class rankings had gotten a full scholarship to the University, she'd gotten the scraps - barely enough for tuition and books at a community college. The wallet she'd seen in the gutter: her so called friend Paul grabbed it before she could, and made himself an instant $427. And on and on and on. Poor girl. Poor life.
She glanced around the, crowded, odd shop, cringing slightly at the sight of some of the disturbing, nearly lewd objects on display. An antique boned corset with an absurdly tiny waist posed on a dress form. A huge hookah with a leering demon-faced bowl lurked beside a counter. The place made her feel nervous, soiled somehow. She wet her dry lips. She just /had/ to have the strange music box. It absolutely /belonged/ in her collection.
No one was watching. Who'd ever noticed the mouse girl, anyway? Mouse brown hair. Mouse brown eyes. Mouse brown personality. Mary gritted her teeth. Not this time.
It was easy -- and thrilling - to surreptitiously slip the tag from the primitive painted wooden buddha and switch it for the one reading NFS on her music box. It's not really stealing, she reasoned. After all, it's broken, and I'm giving them twenty dollars for it. My last twenty dollars, at that. Nothing but ramen for the rest of the month.
Still, it was incredibly nerve-wracking to approach the beleaguered, red-eyed clerk, wait as he scrawled "Music box, $20," into the old-fashioned ledger, and bag up her purchase. He was really good looking, but his blood-shot eyes raked over, then dismissed her. Like someone as hot as he is would ever give her a second glance. He liked bad girls, not girls like herself.
She shivered, a mixture of fear and excitement. In her entire nineteen years, she'd never done anything remotely like this. Like stealing. She'd always been the good girl, doing all the right things for no reward. She marched as innocently as she knew how from the shop. She fought back a giggle and whispered to no one, "He doesn't know how bad I really am."
As she waited for the bus, she returned to her internet search. "Oh, my'" she muttered to herself, as she read the scandalous woman's Wikipedia biography, over and over. "What a wicked woman."
But that just made the strange box more valuable, didn't it? Gypsy had been famous. Controversial. Independent. Successful. A bad girl made good. Pleased with herself, titillated by her own uncharacteristic wickedness, she nearly skipped off the bus to her dingy little off-campus apartment. Well, efficiency apartment, really. Or, most accurately, a bedroom, with tiny sink, hot-plate, microwave, mini-fridge, and a shared bathroom down the hall. It was the best a poor student could do.
*
They'd locked up at 7 pm, and Vikki had grunted approval when Dylan had timidly offered to venture out for pizza while she closed out the till. As he re-entered with the food a half and hour later, she stood from behind the counter, ashen faced. "You idiot," she screamed. "You fucking idiot! You sold the music box!"
He took a half-step back. "The what?"
"The cursed one, fucktard! Gypsy's music box!"
*
There was room for a single bed, a battered vintage waterfall-style vanity, a wobbly kitchen table with chipped ceramic top, and two mis-matched chairs. Stuffed into a corner was a ratty but cozy overstuffed chair. The walls were lined with uncertain shelving bearing text books and an array of music boxes. Twirling ballerinas and skaters and ballroom dancers, small jewelry boxes, even a couple of musical toys -- favorites from her collection brought to college. She gently placed her newest prize on the vanity and propped herself on one elbow on the sagging bed.
"Too bad you don't work," she told it, reaching over to tap the button on top. She nearly shrieked when the device started playing a tinny but catchy tune she thought she'd heard before. The top cylinder rotated and astonishingly began to unfold like an pentagonal plastic flower. All five panels opened and reversed as they re-closed, revealing an empty half-moon shaped pocket on what had been the inside of each. "What in the world?"
Mary sat up and leaned closer, catching a faint, vaguely familiar smell she couldn't quite place. She inhaled with closed eyes. The scent reminded her of her glamorous and scandalous great aunt Hattie. Perfume and . . . smoke. Cigarette smoke. Hattie'd been the black sheep and the only smoker in her family. Mary opened her eyes wide. "A musical cigarette box. How weird." After a ten second pause, the music repeated itself as the box returned to its closed position. Mary giggled and tapped the button again, enthralled, breathing deeply of the faintly pleasant smell.
She flopped onto her back and pulled up her phone, her thumbs tapping out another search. She ended up watching the 1962 version of the movie /Gypsy/ until she fell asleep. When the song "Let Me Entertain You" began, she drowsily recognized it as the tune her new box played. She fell deep into sleep with the ditty running endlessly through her head.
*
"Why was it on the shelf anyway?" Dylan groused. "Everything cursed is supposed to already be in the vault."
"It didn't work, I labeled it NFS, and there no more room in the damned vault," Vikki spat at him. When he cringed, she reined in her anger, ran her fingers through her long red hair. "Sorry I got so upset. It's been a long day."
"Well," Dylan shrugged, "If it's broken, it's probably harmless."
"Let's hope so. No idea who carried it off?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No." He thought for a moment. "Well, maybe. There was this one girl who was acting kinda strange. Guilty, maybe."
"What did she look like?" Vikki smirked. "If it was a female, I know you paid attention."
He tried to look offended. "Just a college kid. Not gorgeous, not ugly. Brown hair, pony tail out the back of a ball cap. Baggy clothes." He hurried on. "But whoever it was paid cash, so we can't track a credit card." He walked to the empty spot where the box had been. "Look. The buddha has an NFS tag now. It's been switched."
