Author's Note:
This is a story of witches, sex, and magic anklets. The 1958 movie with James Stewart and Kim Novak,
"Bell, Book, and Candle"
is the inspiration for the character Rylan, her cat Meyollnir, and the Zodiac Club. That world of the 1950's witchcraft, spells, and emotionless quirky characteristics fit well into this present-day story.
If extra-marital fun and sharing offend you, skip this story.
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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. This is one of the stories of those encounters with objects found at "Amorous Goods".
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Early 1960's
The tall, lanky young businessman was wearing customary attire for an elegant evening in the city, a topcoat covering his black tux, white shirt, bowtie, and a fedora hat to protect his hair on this snowy winter evening. He had taken a taxi from the high-rise building where he lived in the penthouse suite. But as instructed, he was dropped off a block away for the rest of the journey by foot to his destination.
Looking intently down as he walked, he finally saw the two-inch wide golden line with arrows which seemed to glow through the light dusting of snow in the center of the sidewalk. The few other people walking nearby didn't seem to notice the glowing line directing him, as if it appeared only to those who knowingly looked for it.
The line led another fifty feet and turned toward what he always knew on this street to be an empty dark alleyway, where now there stood an obvious door twenty feet within the alley on the side of a building. The door with black foot-wide wooden columns on either side was surrounded with signs of the zodiac drawn in gold in vertical patterns on those columns. The words
"The Zodiac Club"
were glowing in bright blue neon letters above the door.
The two-foot-tall wooden shutters to the left of the door opened and a pleasant little turban-wearing man popped his head out saying, "Welcome back, my friend. The signs of the zodiac are most favorable for your return this evening. Enter!" Then the door swung open inward.
The young man walked through the opening into the small foyer surrounded by walls of bare red brick. He checked his topcoat and hat with the girl just inside the door. Then he started down the metal stairs on his right, descending to well below street level.
As he sank into the subterranean world of the Zodiac Club, it seemed to grow ever darker and more foreboding than even the cold alleyway outside. He found the club filled with smoke at this early evening hour. The dozen or so patrons around the room were a pale, expressionless lot, sitting around their small tables with a few at a bar as he stopped halfway down the stairs and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light.
The room's dim spotlight drew his attention to the small unoccupied stage to the left with its single tall backless stool sitting there empty and a set of bongo drums off to the side. To his right starting near the base of the stairs was a long bar, with a higher stage for a band behind and slightly above the back of that bar. There were two men, both dressed in black, standing and leaning against the bar looking at him.
All tables in the room held flickering candles to provide at least some light, but he noticed one table in the far corner of the room where the candle sat unlit. He saw her there, sitting alone in her chair as she leaned back against a red brick column. Her face was hidden in the darkness of a shadow, but he knew this was the woman he sought.
He thought she was gorgeous the first time they met, dressed in black tights and thin black hooded shawl making her pale skin and red pixie-cut hair stand out in any crowd. Tonight, even with the snow outside, she was dressed the same and oddly barefoot, sitting there with a cigarette in her hand. If she were any other woman, he would crave her attention for whatever minutes she might graciously give him. But even with his money and status, he knew she had no interest in him or his kind.
Weeks ago, he had sought the services of a rather peculiar old woman, Madame Freyja, maker of spells and potions, in an old house on the outskirts of the city. He asked if she could provide him with something special. But Madame Freyja had pointed him in the direction of this club and the young Rylan Stephens as best able to make the present he wanted for his young wife. The elder witch had warned him that
normals
weren't welcome in their emotionless community, but that Rylan was probably the only one with a
'familiar'
pet assistant powerful enough for his odd request.
As he walked past the bar toward Rylan, one of the male patrons disdainfully blew a cloud of cigarette smoke in front of him. He swept a hand at the smoke, unsuccessfully trying to brush away the acrid smell and only adding it to the general cloud before he took the last steps to her table. He pulled out the chair across from her and sat before asking hopefully "Do you have them?"
Rylan leaned forward, the youthful woman's face leaving the shadow as she reached her left hand to the ashtray in the center of the table to crush her cigarette. With her right hand, the beautiful witch laid a small black felt bundle about the size of her closed hand on the table.
He reached for the bundle, and nervously opened it, spreading the felt flat, revealing two thin silver bracelets. Spreading one chain out on the felt, he picked up the other by the ends, admiring the three silver hearts dangling from the center of the strand. "And these will do what I want?" he asked.
"If she accepts them willingly and puts them both on her ankles," Rylan said "you merely snap your fingers once for her to be faithful. She won't have sex with anyone. And she can't remove them unless you unconditionally trust her to love only you."
"And when I want her to have sex with me?" he asked.
"When she hears two snaps of the fingers, she'll begin craving sex," Rylan added. "The craving will increase with every sexual encounter until you again snap your fingers once to return her to a faithful normal."
"Perfect!" he exclaimed as he smiled, picking up the second anklet to see the same three hearts.
"I made those exactly as you wanted," Rylan said, then added in an ominous tone "Be careful what you wish for."
"It was the only way I could be sure she'll be faithful."
"So, you believe," Rylan said in an ominous warning tone. "With your payment, then I believe our business is done."
He reached into his suit jacket inner pocket and pulled out a thick envelope, handing it to her. Rylan took the envelope and casually dropped it into her large purse on the floor.
"Aren't you going to count it?" he asked.
"If you know what's good for you," she warned with just a cheerful hint of caution and certainty to her voice, "it's all there. Now, you should leave. You're making the others here uncomfortable. But if your wife puts those on, you might bring her back here some evening. If she's wearing those anklets, you'll find the others here more welcoming."
He covered the anklets in their felt wrap, slipped the bundle into his inner jacket pocket, and stood to leave. "Thank you," he said.
Rylan just nodded. As he walked away, she leaned back into the shadow and added in a low ominous voice "You won't be thanking me for long."
***
Decades Later
The black Mercedes with darkened windows pulled off the road into a small parking lot in front of the old decrepit house. Decades ago, the house was one of the finest mansions in this area. But its owner's focus on other matters allowed the house to fall into disrepair.
The sun was almost gone on this cool clear autumn evening when the driver door opened, and a tall, pale, lithe figure rotated her shapely legs out. She planted her short heels firmly in the gravel before standing, uncomfortable as she was to wearing shoes. Reaching to pull the black hood of her thin black shawl up and over her red, teased, pixie cut hair, she then slid her hands down a little along her black tights to smooth the wrinkles.
She stepped to her left and closed the car door, noticing her reflection in the glass staring back. The mature face which so many said was still beautiful showed her indifferent expression. Her bright, blue, exotic eyes looked somewhat distant, as if looking through into another world, and uncaring of this world around her.
Rylan Stephens didn't care much for the daylight anymore, timing her arrival here as the sun went down. She realized her preference for the night and general lack of concern had returned. It took decades to undo that curse which made her cry. A warmth left her body with the last tears years ago, leaving behind the coolness she felt since. It was that same coolness she felt toward others when she was younger, before she felt those cursed emotions. Her coolness was an indifference toward normals. It was an indifference only if they left her alone. But when shown any disdain by a normal, she could as coolly enjoy an unnatural season of thunderstorms, if that was their fear. Or perhaps they might find their room plagued with spiders.
But he came into her life, carrying the curse with him! And it wasn't until he left that she was able to undo the damage of those tears which chased away her cat, Meyollnir. During those years, there were no unnatural thunderstorms, odd behaviors of the foolish who annoyed her, or the intriguing trinkets she used to make. The trinkets after that were merely glass, wood, and metal, like those commonly found in all stores ... or almost all stores.
This trip was to one of those other stores which are not quite the same, to retrieve something from her past. It was one of the items she made for the owner of this house. That item was from her much younger days, before he came along, and the tears.
She had given in to the challenge of making the ankle bracelets to such interesting specifications. But that one sale gave her the money she needed back then to open her magic store in Greenwich Village.
Now, she needed the complete set of ankle bracelets to undo the mistake for a ... friend? No, not really a friend. Just some normals she knew, who happened to become close to her during her years of love and sadness.
She walked to the front steps of the house and glanced up at the business sign hanging from the porch roof above the steps, the sign simply saying;
"Amorous Goods"
. She could feel the contents of that house adding to the darkness surrounding it.
