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In case it isn't obvious, all characters are over the age of eighteen.
One of them is over the age of eighteen hundred.
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The pocket watch told perfect time and wouldn't stop ticking. I realize that this is what watches are designed to do, but it had been too long. This was getting ridiculous.
I'd bought the pocket watch for fifteen dollars and thirty five cents at an estate sale. It wasn't what I really wanted to bring home from that auction, but it was all I ended up getting.
Nominally, I was there for a new chest of drawers, but I was actually there for a chance at seeing a certain chest, and the legs attached to it, without any drawers.
My coworker Nell had a hobby restoring old furniture and she went to every estate sale she could find, searching for cheap raw material. She also had the most perfect ass I had ever seen. Listening to snippets of conversation, I was able to further determine that she wasn't in a serious relationship. That suggested an opportunity.
I dropped a few hints around the water cooler that I might be in the market for a new chest of drawers. The staples that held the particle-board drawers together had started to rip out. I'd been addressing this issue for the past two years with some strategically placed duct tape, but now the tape was beginning to detach too.
I'm not sure exactly how I managed it, but I'd held down a job for over four months at that point. I could finally afford to invest in furniture rather than another roll of duct tape.
Nell enthusiastically told me about the estate sale she was planning to attend that weekend. She also let me know her opinion of my unique furniture maintenance strategy.
"Oh my god, staples? Particle board?
Duct tape???
" She visibly cringed.
"You poor thing, we'll get you sorted out. Lots of good stuff cheap, you'll see! If you find something run-down or in the wrong color I'll be happy to refinish it for you at a discount."
She seemed really enthusiastic at the idea of helping me out, and I took it as a good sign.
Unfortunately, Nell showed up with a date. This had the same effect on my good mood, as the US military had on the city of Hiroshima circa 1945.
There were many dressers and chests of drawers being offered. They qualified as attractive, decent, solid pieces of furniture. They were the sort of things an adult would put in his house and use to store his clothes.
Within a few minutes of realizing that this did not, in fact, qualify as my first date with Nell, I reached a decision: I would not buy a new chest of drawers. In fact, I would
never
buy a new chest of drawers. The one I had was perfectly serviceable. All it needed was a little love. Home Depot sold rolls of duct tape for extremely reasonable prices and I clearly had nothing better to do with the rest of my day than to make such a purchase.
I did, however, buy the pocket watch.
Furniture was boring. That shit hadn't changed in centuries. Millennia, maybe. But a watch was a small, incredibly complex machine ticking away, doing it's thing. That was cool.
It was mechanical, with a key to wind it up. Nevertheless, when I held it up to my smart phone the time matched perfectly. I suspected someone had set the time just before the auction, but I was still impressed.
It was also a financially prudent decision. After buying the watch, I had plenty of money left over for the roll of duct tape on the way home.
One week later, I remained very satisfied with my purchase. I carried the watch everywhere, and somehow the time was always accurate.
After another week had passed I concluded that the watch was truly amazing. I hadn't had to wind it up once in the entire first week. According to my research, or rather my Google search, the better pocket watches will run down after a week or so. I hadn't wound the watch yet, and not only was it still ticking but the time was correct down to the second.
By week three, however, I had the nagging suspicion that it was not a mechanical pocket watch at all. The people at the estate sale had lied to me. There had to be a battery in there somewhere.
Maybe fifteen dollars wasn't much for a genuine antique pocket watch, but it was the principal of the thing. I'd been lied to! It was supposed to be one of those old-fashioned mechanical watches, not some modern piece-of-crap knockoff.
I was a sophisticated man, and I deserved a sophisticated time piece. The stunning, one-of-a-kind chest of drawers sitting beside me in my basement studio apartment could even qualify as modern art. The duct tape was there to symbolize the deplorable state of modern society.
Really.
And, admittedly, to hold the drawers together.
That's why I decided to remove the back of the watch. I wanted to find that battery, and prove that the auction people were full of shit. It wasn't as if they would take it back, but I needed to know for sure.
After another trip to Home Depot to get the right size screwdrivers and much fiddling with tiny screws, I got it open. I expected to see a battery, or if by some chance I was wrong, a bunch of tiny gears whirring away inside.
I did not expect to find a bubble.
A shimmery iridescent material formed a glimmering half-dome over the top of the open watch. I couldn't quite see what was beneath the reflective sheen. As if this wasn't weird enough, I realized the bubble was growing, elongating from a half-sphere to become longer, cylindrical.
Phallic.
This resemblance became even more pronounced as the bubble briefly shrank down a bit into the watch, and then expanded back outward. If I had to pick a single word to describe such movement, it would be 'thrusting.'
Then the music started. It was a cover of
Wild Thing
, with a female vocalist I didn't recognize. She was
good
. That voice was liquid sex.
The watch itself had taken on an ethereal sheen and was growing along with whatever was coming out of it. It grew larger then shrank along with the dick-bubble, then expanded again, larger than before. Rinse, repeat. Over and over, to the rhythm of
Wild Thing.
I stood, stunned, at the impossible scene unfolding before me.
When the bubble was roughly the size of a person it burst, spraying my apartment with fluid and revealing that I was being treated to a live performance.
The watch had returned to its proper size, but this barely registered as I gaped at the woman in front of me.
If her voice was liquid sex, the rest of her was the distilled, concentrated essence of carnal delight. Her deep blue eyes matched the color of her skimpy blue bikini and perfectly contrasted with her pale skin and fiery red hair. I'd never seen a woman quite this beautiful, even on television. She put Nell to shame.
As I scanned her… assets, I also noticed she wore a bit of unusual jewelry, a simple, unadorned silver bracelet on her right arm, and three identical, solid metal rings on her left hand.
"Shake it, shake it wild thing."
The impossible vision of feminine beauty put her arms on my shoulders, gyrated her hips and looked directly into my eyes as she finished her song.
"Yes, please," I said in stunned approval.
She laughed, and stepped back. "Oh baby, you need to tell me what you want before we can get started!"
"I think you already have the right idea," I told her with what I hoped was a sly grin, and not open-mouthed incredulity.
"Unfortunately, no," she said with a sigh. She leaned back, resting her beautiful bottom on the work of modern art next to my bed. "There are rules. I hate rules. Don't you hate rules?"
"Fuck the rules," I said. Now there was a sentiment I could get behind.
"I know, right? Anyway there are rules. You don't get three. One to a customer, and no take-backsies. It's gotta be in my field, which is… well. Look at me. And you can always opt out. You can now, I mean." She giggled. "Not after. That would be silly."
