My brush with the impossible comes not in an ancient temple or a mysterious magic shop, but in a pizzeria. I am, as so often, by myself. I don't have, and indeed have never had, a boyfriend, or a girlfriend. I consider myself attractive, in a tomboyish way, and I try to keep fit, but I'm not good with people. I'm certainly no goddess.
The woman who suddenly sits down opposite me may well be. She's a tall Mediterranean beauty in a long red dress, sun-bleached strands of gold threaded through long, dark-chocolate tresses. She helps herself to my wine, a red, pouring it into my unused water glass, and sips it as she regards me with her dark eyes.
"Always alone," she says. "Week after week. You eat, you drink, you read. Alone." Her accent is unfamiliar to me, and her words feel like criticism.
"I'm happy this way." My tone is sharper than I intended. My irritation at this intrusion is balanced by a desire not to offend this divine woman.
"But I am offended, Emilia," she says, as if reading my mind. How she knows my name, I don't know; it's Emily, not Emilia, but close enough. "And you're not happy this way. You should be adored!"
I don't know what to say. Such a beautiful woman telling me that I should be adored? "I, ah."
She laughs, her eyes bright with gentle humour. "You must think me mad," she says, "but in truth I think the same of you. A young woman wasting her potential? It is a crime - no, wait, don't get upset with me. I bring you a gift."
She places a small box on the table between us. A wooden box with my name inscribed in gold lettering. "Do not open this box," she says sternly, "unless you wish to be adored. If eating pizza by yourself, week after week, is the life you truly wish, do not open the box."
She finishes her glass of my wine and stands. "Choose wisely, Emilia," she says, and leaves me alone with my red wine, my goat's cheese pizza, and my book. And a small wooden box with my name on it.
Of course I open it. Not because I'm unhappy with my life, but because I'm human, and curious, and don't believe anything could change my life the way she suggested. Besides there might be drugs in there, or a severed finger, or a bomb even, though I pray not as I carefully ease the box open.
I scream. I squirm in my seat as I am assaulted. Intimately. Inexplicably. Invisible fingers clamping onto my tongue, onto my clit, onto my ass. I swivel round frantically, looking for my attacker, but there is no one behind me, no one beside me, only a dozen pairs of eyes, staff and diners, alarmed, bemused.
No. Not fingers, but a definite sustained pressure. As much to escape the watchful eyes as to try and escape the unwanted touches, I rush to the bathroom. Alone in front of the mirror, I stick out my tongue - and suddenly the pressure makes a horrifying kind of sense, for there is a piercing now where there never was before. A shiny metal ball in the centre. Two, in fact; one on top, one beneath.
"How?" I whisper. And did that mean -
I lock myself in a cubicle and push down my trousers, and, more carefully, my knickers. I don't have a mirror, can't see myself clearly down there, but my fingers trace the outline of a second piercing, a ring immediately below my clit, with a ball pressing against my most sensitive spot. "Fuck!"
And then there is the third, a piercing that loops through the actual hole of my ass, so that my sphincter threads through the metal ring. "Fuck," I hiss. "What the actual fuck!"
I sit here hyperventilating for an age, feeling violated by the laws of nature themselves.
They don't feel tender, like I imagine a fresh piercing would, and I can't find a way to remove them. They resist my tugging and twisting. Probably I would need surgery or something - though given how magically they appeared, I don't have great faith in that. "Fuck."
Magic. It has to be magic. It happened as I opened the box.
Sitting half-naked on the loo is answering nothing, that's for sure. Shaking, I straighten myself up and return to my table, to the half-drunk bottle of wine and the cold half-eaten pizza. I pour myself a liberal glass of the former and push away the latter, my appetite gone.
The box lid is still raised from earlier. Inside is a piece of paper with smallprint, in various languages, almost like a manufacturer's warranty: "Seduction for the tongue. Aphrodisia for the clit. Command for the ass. Direct contact recommended for best results. Use daily."
I read it again, and again, but am little wiser. Yes, the piercings are connected, and seem to be magical in nature and sexual in intent, but what am I supposed to do with them? More importantly, how the hell do I get them out? Piercing isn't my kink, and I don't even wear earrings.
I pay for my meal, take the box home with me, and (with the help of my smart phone's camera) finally get a look at the polished steel rings: the captive-bead triangle-piercing under my clit, and the anal ring too. No doubt if I ever do have lovers they will find them fascinating and erotic, but I'm still in shock that they're there at all.
After a while, I shower and head to bed, but it's a long, long time - not helped by the marathon sex session between my flatmate and her boyfriend - before sleep finally claims me.
*
There are days when you wake up horny, perhaps because of erotic dreams, perhaps because it's been days since you last released the tension of daily life with a little self-care. Or perhaps it's because you're wearing intimate body jewellery that's infused with erotic magic.
Whatever the reason, I wake up horny, and it's impossible not to press my fingers to my clit to confirm the existence of the ring and bead, and it's impossible to do that without also touching my clit, and of course one thing leads to another - the other being an orgasm of unusual intensity. Indeed, as my body succumbs to that solitary ecstasy, for the first time since opening the box I wonder if maybe my new piercings aren't so bad after all.
I wish I could lie in bed all day, doing nothing, thinking nothing, but it's a work day. After a quick breakfast of toast and tea I'm out the door, Jenna emerging from her bedroom as I go. Her dark hair is a tangled mess of curls, and she's dressed in a grey hoodie that's three sizes too big for her. I guess the boyfriend's still there, in bed. The way Jenna's looking at me, I have to wonder if they heard me this morning. If so, I don't want to know.
I work in asset management, which in my case means wandering around a large warehouse on the outskirts of town all day with a tablet in my hand, checking that the correct numbers of items are where they are supposed to be. Despite a sophisticated computer control system to manage it all, human errors and sheer laziness cause no end of troubles.
In my work trousers and shirt, you would never guess just how self-conscious I am about my newly pierced ass and clit. There's no soreness, and I'm quickly growing accustomed to their presence, though their existence still baffles me. I'm unprepared, however, for the commute to work, the vibrations from the bus teasing my clit mercilessly. It's all I can do not to wriggle in my seat, though the redness of my cheeks must surely be a giveaway.
And of course there's nothing I can do about it. All morning I am tense and frustrated, and worried also that someone will see my pierced tongue and think I'm kinky and hypersexed and one breath away from sucking their cock. (Why does the idea of that excite me? Is it simply curiosity about the ring in my ass that makes me keep wondering what it would feel like to have a cock in there too?) And then there's Karen, the boss's hot secretary, always immaculately made up and too posh for the likes of me. How I'd love to see her expression if I sat on her desk (naked, nats) and parted my thighs for her to admire my magical new jewellery. How I'd love to feel her lips on me, her tongue exploring my pussy, for hours, and hours.
Fuck I'm horny. As if proof were needed, when I go to the loo at lunch time, my knickers are soaked with evidence. I resist the temptation to finger myself, promising myself a long session later in the comfort and relative privacy of my home.
