Topic: The Puzzle Box Curse - by Randomking
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The Puzzle Box Curse
Part 1
By Randomking
“Look, I just sat through your tattoo with you, Jenna. Going to a curio shop is the last thing I want to do. I just want to get back to my hotel room and make some edits to that press release.” Violet was visibly annoyed. Jenna had made her go to this redneck vacation town for “a release,” but everything had been awful. At the bar, she was hit on by some of the worst country rubes. The amusement park turned out to be an exercise in reliving the worst part of high school, idiotic teenagers being loud, obnoxious, and incapable of controlling their youthful lust. Then, she had to put up with Jenna’s desire for a tattoo. “We could do that in Chicago,” Violet had said. She didn’t think that it was particularly more adventurous to do it in Missouri.
“Oh, come on. I’ll buy you a shrunken head or something,” Jenna jested. She wanted Violet to live a little, though in hindsight, maybe central Missouri wasn’t the best place to get away for a commodity trading company lobbyist.
“Fine, then we go back to the hotel.”
Bells on the door jangled as the door awkwardly swung open, the sloppily rigged spring mechanism making it slap back to shut with a thwap. A black man and his swooning white girlfriend were finalizing a purchase with the proprietor, and Jenna caught Violet’s brief nose flair, knowing that Violet was always bothered by interracial couples. Jenna was going to have to pick on her for that later. The shop itself was a mess, as all curio shops are supposed to be. A mummified cowboy stood grinning in a glass case near the door, freaking out both ladies when they saw it—though they quickly adjusted. Several automatic fortune tellers were lined up like slot machines near the counter, and a confusing assortment of baubles, trinkets, ratty “period” clothing, and strange items filled the shelves, racks, and tables that haphazardly filled the floor.
Violet politely wandered the store, occasionally looking at an item just to keep herself occupied, while Jenna seemed to take great interest in many odd items. Violet was examining an odd box decorated with images of sensually clad female demons—or at least Violet guessed they were demons, since they had horns, tails, and so on—when she was startled by Jenna’s shout. “Violet! Check it out! They have sex toys!” Violet dropped the box with a clank, as she jumped at the noise. Then, she was simultaneously embarrassed at two separate things: she had just dropped and possibly damaged store merchandise, and her friend had just yelled at her about a private matter in the middle of a store. Actually, Violet should have expected that. Jenna always liked to embarrass her. One time, they were at a fair in Chicago when Jenna unexpectedly yelled, “Don’t touch my penis!” at the top of her lungs. The crowd scattered at the disturbance, and Violet and a grinning Jenna were left standing in the clear, angry parents and bemused youngsters staring at them. Jenna had a good laugh about it later.
“Jenna!” Violet half shouted, half whispered. The few other customers were clearly entertained by the situation, since they were the sort of people who go into curiosity shops. “Don’t say that out loud.” Violet picked up the box, but as she stood, she was facing the owner of the shop, a large man who, despite evidence to the contrary, didn’t look like the stealthy type. His stature and his demeanor were creepy to Violet, and she barely choked back a scream.
“You will buy the puzzle box,” he said.
“What? I just dropped it, and I don’t think it’s broken.”
“It has a crack.”
“No it…” Violet saw a hairline crack along the side of the box, and then she scanned her surroundings, realizing that it was a curio shop where half of the items were bound to be damaged or worn in one way or another. “Oh. Well, I didn’t mean to.”
“I didn’t say you did. It will be thirty-five dollars.” He clearly didn’t lack confidence. A couple of decades of intimidating unruly teenagers had clearly given him some skills in this endeavor.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll pay you when we go.”
“Okay,” he said as he turned to go back to his post behind the register.
Jenna gave Violet a look of sympathy as she joined her. “Come on. Let’s go look at some dildos.” The sympathy was somewhat limited to cruelty perpetrated by people other than Jenna herself, of course. She couldn’t resist keeping Violet’s face bright red. Violet followed her, still a bit shaken by the owner.
They looked at the toys, many of which looked like they had been used and only rinsed. Several vibrators looked like pieces from a museum on Nineteenth Century psychiatry. One had rubber belts on the outside that connected the filthy electric motor to the vibrating device. Cheap packages of silly “fetish clothing” from the Eighties were still on sale for their original price of $5.99. Given the disappointment, the two elected to pay for the strange box and return to their hotel.
Jenna went to the poolside for a tan, while Violet worked on her press release. At dinner, Jenna decided to press Violet about her reaction to the black and white couple leaving the store. “Why were you upset about the girl with her black boyfriend?” she asked.
“I wasn’t,” Violet replied.
“I saw you flair your nostrils. It’s what you do when you are upset by something.”
“I flared them, because the store smelled funny.”
“No, you didn’t. I remember that you were always trying come up with reasons to break up with Jason.” Jason was Jenna’s boyfriend for a time and is black. Jenna, incidentally, is white.
“He was an asshole,” Violet said.
“Actually, he was sweet. I was just disappointed that his dick wasn’t as big as advertised.” Jenna was a bit of a size queen.
“As advertised?” Violet asked.
“You know. They say that the brothers are hung like mules.”
“The brothers? Whatever. I’m not a racist.”
“I didn’t say you were, but you always seem uneasy about interracial couples.”
“Fine. I don’t think it’s quite right, the races mixing like that. I wouldn’t discriminate on the job about it, but I don’t think they should marry.” Violet felt like she couldn’t quite get the words out right, like she was sounding more bigoted than she was. Jenna clearly picked up on this.
“You’ve never thought this through, have you?”
“I guess not. It just doesn’t seem right to me. I mean, I want to marry a white man and have white children like all of my foremothers.” She looked like she was trying to figure out how to make a speech of it; as a lobbyist, it was sort of her job.
“I don’t know that that matters. There were only two things different about Jason. His skin and features were a bit different, and his hair products smelled funny. I don’t think it made a difference,” she said.
“Yeah, well, you dated a girl once, too,” Violet said disapprovingly.
“It was kind of fun. I mean, don’t knock it till you try it, but I don’t think I’ll do it again.” Jenna had a nostalgic smile on her face, and Violet had a look of disgust on hers. She also gave her an inaudible prod to go on. “What? Women are crazy. I couldn’t date one for too long. Besides, I’m a size queen and all that.”
Violet sighed. “Well, anyway, I’m not racist. I just want to date a good man of my own race, culture, and creed.”
“I thought that Southern Baptists were non-creedal.”
“I suppose we are, but it sounded good.”
“Right.”
The trip home was uneventful. Violet took the elevator up to her condo overlooking Lake Michigan and began unpacking. She really didn’t buy many things in Missouri, since the whole culture of the area she went to wasn’t her thing. Dirty clothes went into her hamper; toiletries went back to the bathroom; shoes went into the closet. She pulled out the box. She didn’t know why she packed it carefully with the clothes, as she would do with glassware or ceramics. Well, it was ceramic, she supposed, but it was rather odd. The material was jet black, and a bas-relief detailed a battle… no, an orgy! A naked woman with hooves, a pointed tail, and horns apparently was presiding over the festivities. She stood on what looked like a helmet, which was odd, because that would infer that she was tiny, like a fairy. She was clearly happy about the scene before her.
Then, Violet noticed something really odd. The hairline crack that she saw on it in the curio shop was missing. She prodded it and twisted it, trying to see if maybe the box needed to be torqued to show that jagged fracture, but it remained pristine. Further examination revealed odd runes and a series of sliding parts, but there was no rhyme or reason to them, so far as Violet could deduce. Deciding that she shouldn’t be too curious about the strange thing, she set it on her coffee table and went to the kitchen for some water. That’s when she heard it. A sort of crash emanated from her living room, and she darted back in to see what was amiss.
Amid sulfur-scented smoke, on top of her coffee table, the box sat, and atop that, a small woman, appearing as she was on the bas-relief of the box, sat, cross-legged. Once Violet walked in, the tiny woman, who must have been about nine inches tall, looked at her. Violet was stunned, frozen in space, not knowing what to do. She couldn’t believe her eyes, as nothing in her life prepared her for meeting a being who was clearly physically impossible. She began to shake with fear: fear of this creature (who knows what it could do!), fear of the unknown, and fear of a world that turned out to be something besides what she thought. The little woman clearly didn’t feel the same way.
“I’m Hamamelis. Who the fuck are you?” she said in a breathy alto voice, her hands resting on her ample hips in a sassy sort of way.
Visibly perturbed, her skin whiter than usual, and her blue eyes open very wide, Violet tried to say something, but only a couple of nonsensical consonants came out. She sort of lurched forward to get a closer look and to exhibit some form of courage.
“Okay, mute one, why am I in your apartment?” For ten seconds, nothing happened. Violet just sort of examined Hamamelis from ten feet away. The creature oozed with sensuality. Her proportions were that of an hourglass. She stood straight up, keeping good pose, and her cloven hooves seemed to act on her legs as high heels would act on an earthly woman. Her skin was a deep crimson red, and her nipples and lips were pitch black. She had a five-inch tail with a tiny black arrowhead-shaped barb on the end. A couple of prominent horns rose and curled from her long (well, long for a tiny woman like her) black hair. Hamamelis’ facial features were strong but feminine; she looked like a supermodel who had just retired to take care of her kids, mature and confident.
“I’m Violet.”
“Okay, we’re now only one question behind. Why am I in your apartment?”
“I don’t know.” Violet kind of lied. She wasn’t stupid. After all, she had brought in the box with the depiction of what was probably the little woman standing before her.
“I sense a lie,” Hamamelis said, her eyes being to glow a little, giving her an aura of intimidation.
“I bought the box from a store, and I took it here.”
“That’s better. Okay, well, I suppose I should explain to you that you’re now cursed. I’ll be your roommate for a time, and you get to deal with the consequences of your curse,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“Cursed?” Violet stuttered. “What do you mean?”
“Ah, it’s good that you don’t think that my company is a curse, as that would be rude. Yeah, you will affect people around you. They will be changed to suit my tastes… My tastes are erotic, I think. Anyone you talk to in person for a while will start to be different and oh so sexy,” she said. Hamamelis was starting to get wistful.
“Uh, that doesn’t sound good. Why are you doing this?”
“It’s my nature, my dear. I am a little imp of sex, desire, lust, the erotic… It’s who I am and how I was made. I love the chaos of unexpected desire, unwanted lust, and unfamiliar feelings. These things excite me, feed me, and make me what I am. As part of your curse, you may feel some of what I feel, but not yet. Not yet. There is a future which has not yet been met.”
Violet sat on her couch, since the little imp was apparently not interested in violence. No, this situation seemed worse than that. As Hamamelis got down from the box and began exploring the surface of her coffee table, Violet contemplated what to do. She had gone to church all her life, and part of what she learned concerned the ultimate battle of good and evil that took place between God and Satan. As far as she could tell, it seemed obvious that Hamamelis was on Satan’s side, since that fit pretty well. Southern Baptists were known to occasionally do exorcisms, so maybe she should do that. Yeah, that was the ticket. Violet would call her preacher tomorrow and let him know that he needed to come over and rid her apartment of evil. God and Jesus would take care of things, and her faith would be stronger.
Hamamelis jumped off the coffee table, since it was kind of boring. She began exploring the living room, taking great interest in her DVD collection. Did demons actively take interest in people’s media collections? Violet wasn’t sure, but this one seemed to be. “Is there a way for me to break the curse?” she asked.
“No. Besides, I like the curse. Why would I tell you such a thing?”
“I bet if I figure out the puzzle on this box, you’ll have to lift it!”
“Give it your best shot, kid. It really doesn’t have a lot to do with it.”
For a time, Violet gave it her best shot. Games and puzzles weren’t her strong suit. She was better at rote memorization, writing, managing, and understanding people. Logic was not her intellectual give. For an hour she tried it out, while Hamamelis apparently charted her entire apartment. It was getting late, though. Maybe she could work this out later; besides, Violet thought she’d have better luck with the preacher.
She went to her bedroom, looking around for Hamamelis. Apparently, she was in the kitchen taking an inventory of her cooking ware. Violet closed the door and began to strip so that she could change into her pajamas. Somehow, Hamamelis had gotten in the room. She was sitting on her bureau, legs dangling. She seemed suddenly really interested in Violet.
“Go ahead. I like a show,” she said, leering.
“Get out of here!” Violet shouted. She hoped that she didn’t alert the neighbors.
“No.”
Irritated, Violet reached out and grasped Hammemelis. Or, at least, she tried to. It was like trying to swat a fly, if not worse. The little imp’s agility was outstanding, and she dodged multiple attempts to grab, seemingly without any real difficulty. After knocking many things off of her furniture, Violet seethed, staring at the little bitch, hating her for intruding. Privacy was important to her, and anyone violating it was going to pay. Hammamelis was sitting on top of the shade of a floor lamp.
“Are you done? Well, clearly, you don’t understand the arrangement of our relationship. I’m an imp, not a pet or a well-behaved guest. It is my nature to be ornery and a poor guest. Just to show how ornery I am, I’m going to have to put a little hex on you. It will be permanent, but I can always add to it, if you don’t come around to understand your place relative to mine, okay?”
Violet just stared at her. Then, her skin started to itch. “What the…?” she muttered.
“Oh, so long as you’re in your apartment, you are allergic to clothing—cotton, leather, synthetic, wool—it doesn’t matter. If it’s something you wear to cover yourself, it will bother you. Now, take it off, but I want a good show, or I make the hex worse, okay?”
Violet wasn’t quite sure how to do such a thing. A show? Did Hamamelis mean a striptease? Violet couldn’t dance, let alone dance erotically. She opted to just take it off. The itching had become burning, and it was getting unbearable. She pulled off her shirt and jeans, getting some relief. Her socks, panties, and bra were hurting like hell. She did her best to get it all off as fast as she could, clumsily collapsing on the bed when she finally got her panties off.
“When I said a show, I didn’t mean a physical farce. Now, you’ve got another permanent problem. You will always be allergic to panties or anything that hugs right up to your pussy.” The tiny woman had a giant grin on her face, clearly taking pleasure in her mischief.
“That’s not fair! I don’t even know how to dance!”
“Fairness and justice are not major weapons in my arsenal, deary. Now, stand up, so I can get a good eyeful.”
“You’re a little lesbo pervert,” she said, even as she complied. It was a rough enough night already, getting cursed thrice.
“I’m not a lesbian, as you may eventually learn, but I am a pervert. Let’s see. Average-sized breasts, lovely little nipples there,” she said, as she hopped back on the dresser, just in reach of them. As she tweaked Violet’s left nipple, Violet angrily tried to dodge. “Decent figure, my dear, but you could do better. Ah, you’re a natural blonde, since the rugs match the curtains. You don’t care much about keeping a well-groomed bush, do you?”
“I, uh, don’t have any need to.”
“Really? No boyfriend? I was hoping to have some fun with him, too.”
“Not right now, and if I did, I wouldn’t be letting him see my privates.”
“Okay, well, that might mean… Go lay on your bed for me!” Hamamelis squealed.
“Okay,” Violet complied.
“Spread your legs for me,” Hamamelis said, as she hopped onto the foot of the bed. Still cowed, she did so. The tiny creature, apparently lacking any sort of manners pulled Violet’s labia wide, arms outstretched, and took a long gander. Violet was starting to tear up.
“Oh, cut that out. You appear to be a virgin, as your hymen is still intact and is the sort of hymen that would break upon penetration. Sometimes, they don’t. Sometimes, they break from stupid things like horseback riding—though there are more fun ways to break one’s hymen with a horse!” Hamamelis giggled when she say it, a wistful look on her face. She hopped back off the bed and started going through desk drawers.
Violet pulled herself together, feeling violated. She headed to the shower. When she got it going, she saw her rude guest sitting on top of her shower head, watching. Still annoyed, she went ahead and tried to clean herself off. She wasn’t going to take a shower, but she felt really dirty. She felt worse when she noticed that Hamamelis was masturbating as she watched. Violet’s eyes went wide, her nose flaring. She was about to swat the little annoyance off of the shower head but realized that would be a really bad idea. She finished her shower and headed to bed. The towels didn’t irritate her until she used them as a wrap. When she turned out the lights and pulled up the covers, Hamamelis crawled up on her pillow and went to sleep, much like some cats would.
Morning was awkward. When Violet woke up, she was sleeping on her side, and somehow, Hamamelis had worked her way into her cleavage, happily sleeping away. Violet, skill afraid of the Lilliputian devil, decided to carefully get her on the bed and out from between her breasts. She proceeded to get ready for work, realizing that she was going to have to put off getting dressed until the last minute. She hadn’t spent this long naked her entire life, and it was still embarrassing, even with her tormentor asleep. She took another shower, ate a quick breakfast, put on her makeup, put her purse together, and finally put on a pair of suit pants. Briefly, she had forgotten about the panty thing, and she fixed that. Thankfully, the pants were loose enough that no one would see any cameltoe or anything. She was extremely uncomfortable by the time she got to the door, and her clothes were still a bit disheveled, but she could adjust them in the bathroom in the lobby of the apartment building.
“Have a fun day!” Hamamelis shouted, as she left. Violet didn’t respond.
After putting the finishing touches on her outfit in the first floor restroom, she continued to the bus stop. She was glad she lived in downtown Chicago, near her work. When she lived in Texas, she had to drive everywhere, but parking and traffic were simpler when she used mass transit, and her apartment was only a twenty minute bus commute, tops. When she got to the stop, a frequent fellow bus rider—whose name Violet never learned—was already there. They struck up a polite and friendly conversation about the last week, since he had not seen Violet in the previous week. She cleared up how she and her gal-pal had taken a brief vacation in Missouri and that it was less fun that she had hoped. The gentleman, a mechanical repairman for one of the high-rises, expressed his sorrow for her lousy holiday but gave some advice on travelling in the region in the future. He seemed kind of distracted and a bit uncomfortable, though, and Violet wasn’t sure how to treat this.
“Are you feeling okay today?” she asked.
He blushed a bit. “I’m fine. I must not have gotten enough sleep last night.” He seemed to want to end the conversation, so Violet just stared ahead and across the street. A minute later, the bus arrived. It was pretty full, but Violet managed to find a seat next to Karen, an intern who worked at the same firm as Violet did.
A similar conversation about Violet’s week and then a conversation about Karen’s involvement in the development of an Asian cultural festival ensued. Apparently, Karen—who was Korean—was going to be manning a booth about archery as a sport and as a historical practice. They continued their conversation, but as they were going, Violet noticed that Karen seem to be similarly uncomfortable and distracted as her repairman friend was. She wasn’t stupid; she knew this might have to do with Hamamelis. She just hoped that her preacher could fix all of it. When they got off the bus, Karen was walking a bit funny, but she obviously tried her best not to draw too much attention to herself.
Violet hurried upstairs, wanting to avoid anyone she could. She didn’t want to cause anymore harm, if indeed she had. She was starting to get a little paranoid about her situation. Plus, she was feeling rather naked in her pantieless state. She got to her office without starting anymore conversations, and then she saw her secretary. Violet had a nice office on the twenty-third floor. Her window pretty gave her a view of an ornate office building across the street. To get into her office, though, she had to go through her personal secretary’s office. Normally, this was great, because Shona acted as a good gatekeeper. It was part of her job, after all. In order to do her work, Violet was going to have to talk to her. There was a week’s worth of calls, mail, email, memos, news… There was a lot that needed to be discussed to get Violet back up to speed.
Shona was a fantastic secretary. She always showed up on time and was willing to work for as long as Violet needed. Despite Violet’s appeals for a raise for Shona, upper management was always making excuses, and Violet always thought it had to do with race. In Violet’s mind, despite her queasiness about the idea of interracial relationships, her acceptance and adoration for Shona was an important part of why she didn’t think of herself as a racist. The young and lovely black woman who maintained order in her office was proof positive that she was tolerant and modern. Whether anyone else saw it that way, Violet didn’t know.
They made some brief idle chat before Violet moved the conversation to work. After all, it was important that she get ready for what was supposed to be an important week. The state legislature was working on regulatory reform in the commodity markets, and her firm needed to make sure that they were friendly to the market players. She was going to need to make some calls, rewrite a press release, and apparently meet with a state senator who was wavering, despite having been solidly on board with her firm’s agenda. There was going to be a meeting on Wednesday, and hopefully, the strategies would be put together then. Unfortunately, Shona was beginning to look antsy and flustered. She kept trying to reach at her back.
“Do you need to take a break?” Violet asked.
“Uh,” she said, pulling at the back of her blouse, “I think so. I’ll be back soon!” She ran off to what Violet guessed was the restroom.
Fifteen minutes later, she returned. By then, Violet was about half-way through organizing her email and Shona simply took her seat at her desk. Violet barely noticed and was too engrossed in her email to return to their work. After that other fifteen minutes, she returned to Shona, who was slouching low in her desk, looking a bit preoccupied and a little upset. “Are you okay, Shona?”
“Yeah,” she said without much confidence.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” She sort of sat up a bit and looked like she was ready to finish what was started. It was then that Violet noticed that Shona was nipping out a bit. It looked like she wasn’t wearing a bra, and it looked like she was trying to hide it without being too obvious about doing so. Violet was good with personal interactions, and she very often picked up on these sorts of things.
“You know it’s office policy to wear a bra, if you’re going to wear a blouse like that, right?” Violet asked and immediately felt a bit of regret.
“Yeah.” Shona looked like she was ready to cry. Violet closed the door to the office.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, okay?” she replied, clearly flustered. It was out of character for her, since she was usually on top of everything, unphased by the biggest of changes.
“Is there something wrong with… Uh, is there something wrong with your boobs?” she asked, suddenly feeling some guilt and major concern.
“Yeah, I think so. My bra stopped fitting.” Shona, who usually looked you straight in the eye looked like a punished school student, staring at the papers on her desk.
“It’s okay. I won’t get you into trouble. You know that.” Come to think of it, Shona’s breasts did look somewhat bigger.
“Yeah. It’s really weird. In the bathroom, they looked like they weren’t mine. I had to pinch myself.” It looked like Violet’s efforts at comfort were paying off. “They’re bigger, and the nipples are bigger, too.”
“Can I see?” Violet didn’t know where that came from. Hamamelis would have told her about another curse, right? Maybe she would, or maybe she just liked tormenting her. At any rate, she was curious. She would have been curious last week, too, right? She wasn’t sure. She’d been through some weird shit.
Shona looked a bit shocked, but it was one of those things where one could consider it a medical issue. “Yeah.” She unbuttoned her blouse and opened it. Her breasts, which were a bit smaller than average before looked kind of big. They weren’t huge, and they didn’t mismatch her body, but they were definitely bigger. They had good form, too. They were round and full, drooping pleasantly. The dark brown nipples were very prominent, too. Each one was bigger than one of Violet’s thumbs, and each was surrounded by a two or three inch areola. They looked almost painfully erect.
“Do they hurt?”
“No. The only pain was from the bra. I think I should go to the doctor.”
“Yeah, probably so,” she half-way lied. She thought she should see a religious leader instead, but a doctor was more rational. “Can we get caught up? You can make an appointment right now.”
“Okay, yeah, that will work.” She was rebuttoning her blouse and trying to perk herself up. “I’m supposed to be happy about this, right? I mean, big boobs are good for picking up guys…”
“I guess, but you’ll have to buy new clothes.”
“Yeah. Plus, I could be sick. You know, breast cancer or something.” With that, she started unbuttoning her shirt again. She looked a bit frantic. “I should check for lumps!” she said, a look of mortal concern on her face.
“Okay…” said Violet. She should look away, she knew, but there was morbid curiosity at work. This had to be Hamamelis, right?
Shona worked her shirt off completely, and Violet closed the blinds on the window. It was daytime, and no one should be able to see in well, due to the glare, but one couldn’t be too careful. Shona then started giving herself a self breast exam. The lovely orbs jiggled and almost bounced during the rather frantic examination. “Ungh.” Shona moaned.
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re kind of sensitive,” Shona said, her face blushing enough to show through her dark skin.
“They hurt?”
“Um. No. I’m sorry, Ms. Harlow, but they felt kind of good.” She checked a couple other spots. “No lumps, though.” She put her blouse back on, and Violet noticed that she was starting to get a little wet, and she adjusted herself to make sure that she hadn’t made a dark spot on her suit pants. She hadn’t.
“Okay, go ahead and call the doctor.” Violet’s heart was racing. She closed the door to her personal office and pulled out her cell phone. Hurriedly, she dialed her pastor’s number. He picked up.
“Preacher Joe! I’m glad you’re there. I have a big, big problem.”
“Violet! It’s good to hear from you! What’s wrong?”
“I think… no, I know my apartment is inhabited by a demon, and I want you to exorcise her.”
There was a moment’s silence. “Okay. Yeah, these things can happen. What makes you so sure it’s a demon? Is it voices, apparitions?”
“It’s a little woman with red skin and a tail.” Violet was already feeling ridiculous.
“What? Really? I can come over tomorrow, if that’s okay. I had to take a trip to my wife’s family home in Peoria. I can be by in the evening, any time. I’ve never done an exorcism, though.”
“I don’t imagine it comes up much. Look, just call ahead. She won’t let me wear clothes.”
“Um. Okay. It will just be me and my wife, okay? She went to a seminar on demons and how to get rid of them once, so she has a good idea of what to do. I think that so long as we are faithful, Jesus will take care of it, okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll see you then.” Violet felt like a fool, but she needed the hope that she could get her situation taken care of. She looked into Shona’s desk area, and she was there, apparently finishing with setting up her appointment. This was good. They’d finish up their effort to get the week banged out, and all would be well.
“Can we finish?” she asked.
Violet looked up from her cleavage. “Sure.”
“How did it go?”
“Well, I described what happened, and they said it was ‘unusual’ but that it didn’t sound imminently life threatening. I have an appointment on Friday. Um, we were talking about setting up a meeting with Senator Bensen, right?”
“Yeah, he was supposed to be on our side, but he’s wavering. I guess he wants more PAC money, but you never know with these guys. Sometimes, they get called out by liberals, and it’s all a mess.” Violet practically spat out the word “liberal,” and Shona cringed. Shona wasn’t as anti-liberal as Violet was, since a lot of her family were liberal activists. Indeed, she was frequently picked on for who she worked for.
“Well, I’ll put his number on the phone, if you want to talk to him. I’ll get past his secretary for you.” Shona deftly thumbed through the rolodex and dialed the phone with nearly inhuman speed. “Hi, Vera, this is Shona Walberg at Wright, Blanke, and Samuels… Yes, I’d like to set up an appointment for Violet Harlow… It’s about the regulatory bill, yes… Well, the sooner the better… Today?... You’re sure?... Okay, if that’s all you’ve got this week, I’ll arrange it… Three o’clock… Sure… You, too… Bye bye.
“Okay, he’s busy all day, except from three to three-fifteen. He couldn’t talk, but you’ve got an appointment—a short one, but it will have to do, right?”
“Yeah, if you want to bug out early, I’ll pay for the cab ride.”
“That won’t…” She stopped. She was bothered by something. “I feel funny in my chest,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” Violet was concerned. She thought that Hamamelis’ curse would only work on one person once. This wasn’t a good sign. Shona unbuttoned her blouse once again, and both women were suddenly shocked. Between her breasts, a dark spot with swelling beneath appeared. It seemed to be getting larger. Shona was about to scream, but Violet covered her mouth.
“Shh. I don’t think we want to make a show, right? It will just be an embarrassment.”
“Okay, okay. What’s happening?” The swelling increased, and it was soon clear that the spot was another nipple. It puffed fairly rapidly pressing her two natural—well, they were at least a modicum of normal—breasts apart. They seemed to slide a little to allow their new company room. Shona was breathing rapidly, frightened and curious at the same time. Violet’s mind was a panic, a desperate mix of fear, hatred for Hamamelis, and a feeling of guilt. She held it together, though, since she felt that she had to be tough at the moment. It wasn’t her that was being changed, even if she was perhaps the vehicle. The third breast finished filling in its space within a minute of Shona opening her shirt. It was about the same size as her other two had become with a nipple that matched the others. The symmetry was perfectly bilateral, unlike ordinary breasts. Normal breasts in sets of two are always different from left to right, though breasts can be mirrors of each other. In this respect, the third breast was atypical. No one could argue that its form was offensive, though. Its presence would certainly offend many people, but it did have a certain beauty all to itself.
At the moment, that beauty was underappreciated. “What the fuck? I think I need to call the doctor again. What the fuck, Violet?” She looked frustrated now more than afraid. Whatever happened had apparently ended, but the inconvenience was going to be more long-term.
“I don’t know,” she lied. “Let’s get you home. You stay here, and I’ll grab a big coat for you, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Lock the door, and I’ll knock two then three times.”
“Yeah.”
Violet discretely left the area and headed toward the wardrobe department. Since WB&S needed to do media often, they maintained a room full of all sorts of outfits, plus a full-time seamstress on staff. It was down a few floors, and Violet took the stairs, not wanting to have to confront anyone. She hurried down them, nearly out of breath when she got to the correct floor. The wardrobe department door was wide open, and Violet could hear the sewing machine at work. She slipped in, trying not to arouse any attention. However, Mrs. Hammer was at attention and spotted Violet.
“Hello, Ms. Harlow, what can I get you today?” she asked.
Violet glanced over to see Mrs. Hammer sitting behind her sewing machine, apparently looking forward to company. While ordinarily, Violet would love to talk to the sweet woman, she was in a hurry and afraid of what might happen to her. “I just need a long coat. You know, a trench coat or something?”
“Men’s or women’s?” Mrs. Hammer raised an eyebrow. Despite her age, she maintained a certain aura of elegance and grace that made her more beautiful than one might expect. She always struck the right pose.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“And about what size?” she asked as she stood and started moving toward the racks of clothes.
“Uh, medium? It’s not critical. My secretary… She spilled a lot of coffee on her shirt… She’s had a really bad day and might be sick, so we just need something to cover her up for a cab ride home.”
“I could probably find a shirt to replace hers for the day, if you like,” Mrs. Hammer offered.
That wasn’t very likely, Violet thought. “No, she just needs to get home. A fitting wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Okay, then.” Mrs. Hammer emerged from the clothing racks with a coat in hand. “This one should do. We used it in that commercial about Representative Fox and his dealings with D.C. insiders. I liked that one.”
“Me, too, Mrs. Hammer.”
“Yeah, well, I won’t delay you. Have a good day.” Mrs. Hammer’s smile was so genuine, it could be used as a standard by which all currencies would be judged as counterfeit, regardless of their proper origins at the Denver Mint.
“Bye!” Violet said as she left the room as quickly as politeness would allow. As she entered the stairwell, she thought she heard a scream, but she was in too much of a hurry to debate it. She quickly ran up the stairs, nearly slipping several times and reached her floor, having to will herself to slow down so that she didn’t arouse too much suspicion. When she reached her office, she knocked her code, and she heard the bolt slide. She nonchalantly slipped in and handed the topless but now triple-stacked Shona the coat.
“Okay,” she said as she threw it one, tightly tying the waste belt. “I think I’ll be okay. I went ahead and called a cab while you were out.”
“Good,” Violet said.
“Can you walk me out?”
“Absolutely. I don’t think I have to do anything until that meeting, so it will be alright.” Violet prayed that Hamamelis’ curse wouldn’t strike again. They made their way downstairs to the street level where the cab was waiting. Violet helped Shona in and watched as the cab left.
The rest of the morning was uneventful for Violet. She was trying to keep it together. Her drive to get her work done prevented her from doing what should be obvious: go home and try to figure things out. She didn’t even do research on her special problem from her office. Instead, she did work. She worked on memos and press releases. She boned up on Senator Bensen and their past dealings. She didn’t want to get anything wrong, though she was worried that her curse might interfere with the meeting. These things were important, though. At lunch, she ate a meal from the vending machine, and she did her best to avoid human interaction, something that took a lot of willpower, since she was fundamentally a social animal.
Finally, two-thirty rolled around, and Violet headed off to her meeting with the senator. He was in his Chicago office at this point, since the state legislature was out of session. It was not a long walk, and the weather was fair, so she left on foot and made her way to the office building. She showed her badge at the door, and the security officer let her through. Several local politicians had offices in the building, so she was a frequent visitor. When she reached the office, she encountered Vera, Senator Bensen’s receptionist and secretary. She was an attractive forty-year old Chinese American who didn’t look a day over thirty. She was small but full of energy. Despite Violet’s best attempt to look unfriendly, she started up a conversation.
“The senator will be with you soon. Can I get you anything?”
“I’m okay,” Violet said, trying to avoid eye contact.
“You usually ask for coffee, and it is time for the afternoon crash, you know.”
Violet was feeling weary. “Sure. Cream and sugar, please.”
Vera retrieved the sweet elixir of life and returned as chipper as ever. Despite her best attempts, Violet again had to recount the tale of her vacation, something she was getting rehearsed at. They talked about Vera’s son who had just applied to a plethora of universities, most of them private and on the East Coast. Vera looked uncomfortable at one point, but she seemed intent on being the perfect hostess for Violet. Finally, five minutes late, Senator Bensen announced that he was ready over the intercom. “Yes, sir, I’ll be in the ladies’ room for a bit, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“That’s more information than I need, Mrs. Chin, but I appreciate it.”
“Sorry, sir.”
Violet entered the room. Senator Bensen was a veteran professional baseball player in his youth, and Violet always took great pleasure in looking at his tremendous collection of memorabilia, trophies, and dated sports equipment. He took pride in it, and used it frequently to aid in conversation. His White Sox jersey hung prominently on the wall behind his chair, reminding people constantly that the locals loved him for his baseball skills. Violet always thought it was a silly but quaintly pure way to work up to a higher office. He certainly backed up his popular credentials with a quick wit, and it was difficult to dislike the man.
“I hear, sir, that you are having some second thoughts about your position on the regulatory bill, and I just came by to see what you might need to come around,” she said, smiling as sincerely as she could.
“Ah, yes, you would be here about that, Ms. Harlow. I’m getting some flak from my party heads, and apparently, there is a new PAC ready to fund a primary opponent. Now, I’m sure that your intentions are pure, but I’m not financed to fight a tough primary and a general in the same year. My old teammate is running on the Republican side, you know, and he was born in this neighborhood.”
“I heard, and we don’t want that happening. Listen, your new position on this bill will be difficult for you, since a lot of people in your district will be affected. You know that a lot of the small businesses in your district rely on the presence of the traders at the exchange. Think of them.”
“Oh, the exchange isn’t going away, and you know it. It won’t affect the deli workers, and you know it. This is about your clients’ bottom lines. For once, I think I can make alliances with the rural Illinoisans. That doesn’t happen very often these days.”
“Well, it’s going to be bad for business. This bill will put in too many bureaucrats who will do nothing but slow down the market.”
“It needs to be slowed down. It’s too volatile, and that hurts our farmers and industry.”
Violet looked at him for a moment. He looked like he had found some inner courage that she hadn’t seen in him. Sure, he was spouting off anti-market claptrap, but she never remembered him having any sort of moral fiber. He was great to work with, and he was always a generous man, working to help individuals with their problems, but she could usually count on him to weaken bills that seemed too aggressive toward commodities trading. “What’s this about? You can win a primary, and you know that if you vote for the bill as it is, we’ll have to fund your Republican opponent.”
“Yes, I know that. I look back on my service, though, and I see a decade of candy-ass voting and manipulations. I want to do something that’s right, something I should have been doing all along.” He looked a bit emotional, like there was something more important than the conversation. “This is something I can do.” Was it his health? He was only forty-five. Things can happen, though.
“Seriously, sir, is there something wrong?” If it was his health, then hitting him hard in an election could prove to be disastrous to the industry. State senators will fight like starving dogs to cram things through or kill bills, but when someone picks on one of their own from the outside, they could unite as a pride of angry lions, filled with a righteous vengeance. Senator Bensen just looked at her with his gray-blue eyes, seeing that she might have caught on.
“By now, you’ve guessed at it, I suppose,” he said. “I’m not too long for this world, and I want a better legacy. Chicago is full of sycophantic ass-lickers, brown-nosing their way to the top, and for what? Kickbacks, more power for its own sake, women… God, I don’t know. Now and then, we get a hero. When I have to think about death, I have to think about immortality. I figure I’ll go somewhere when I die—I’d like to think heaven, but I deserve hell. I also figure this world will keep on going, and I want to leave it a better place than I found it.”
“Alright. We can find other votes.” She was feeling a lump in her throat. Even when you face an enemy, if that enemy is noble, you cannot help but to feel grief for their loss.
“No, you won’t. I think I can beat you on this one.” He was starting to look distressed, though.
“Sir, are you okay? You look ill!” She was reaching for her phone, preparing to dial 911.
“I think… I think I’m having a heart attack!” he said. For an instant, Violet was tempted. She could let him die, and she could have the bill watered down, saving her clients hundreds of millions of dollars. Senator Bensen wasn’t going to be too long for this world—he said it himself—but… no. Violet was a good person, a good and moral Christian.
“Hold on! I’m calling 911!” she said as she dialed. “Yes! I’m having an emergency. I’m in Senator Bensen’s office, and he’s having a heart attack, I think… Yes, that’s the place. Hurry!” She turned to Senator Bensen whose features were looking a bit different. “They’re coming, sir. You’ll be alright!” He looked more relaxed, though. Oh, God! Was it going to be that quick? But, wait. He was breathing normally, but he looked confused. In fact, to Violet, if she hadn’t been in the room all this time, she wouldn’t recognize him. He looked younger and more… feminine?
“I, I…” His voice cracked. It was a little higher. “I feel… odd.” Now, if violet had walked in, she would not only have misrecognized the man, but she would have thought him a woman. He reached down to his chest, and his hand darted away, like he had touched a hot stove. “What the…?”
Not again. This must be Hamamelis’ doing. There were a pair of breasts under that dress shirt. Violet could see them, along with nipples that poked out from under the dual layers of an undershirt and the dress shirt itself. Senator Bensen looked… well, pretty now. He felt himself again and looked extremely confused. His breathing increased. “I feel hot.” The voice was distinctly female.
“Sir, I think you’ve spontaneously swapped genders.” It was stating the obvious, but at the moment stating anything not obvious would really have underappreciated the reality of the situation.
“What?” she said. Senator Bensen was definitely smaller, and the clothes no longer fit well at all. The shirt was far too big, especially in the arms and the waist. The pants would have fallen off, if she wasn’t sitting. Her shoes were already off, and her socks dangled oddly. She looked like a twenty-something year-old woman, a rather beautiful twenty-something year-old woman, actually. She had smallish but pert breasts, a robust but attractive figure, and a cute, girl-next-door kind of face. “I… did. I…” She passed out. No one would be surprised at that. Violet looked around the room. What could she do? There was an ambulance on the way. The secretary had not yet returned. The paramedics would not know what to do, since they would be looking for someone who did not look like himself.
She quickly scribbled a note. “This is Senator Bensen. Something strange has happened. Ask him questions only he would know the answers to. Trust me. – a friend.”
Violet ran out the room and exited the building as fast as she could. When she got out, she got a call. “Hello?... Yes, this is her. Tell your paramedics that the situation has… changed. It is really, really weird, okay?... You wouldn’t believe me if I told you… No, he’s not dead, exactly… I wouldn’t say that, either… Just trust the note you find, okay?... Yes, I’ll make a statement later.” She had no idea what people were going to do with Senator Bensen. Little did she know, but if she had told her story a month later, few would have any problem believing it.
Violet frantically unlocked her apartment. She looked like a mess. She ran all the way to her apartment, a feat that had battered her. She was drenched in sweat, her pant suit was torn in several places, she had snapped the heel off of left shoe, her hair was a complete mess, and she had several bruises and scrapes from the falls she endured. Every time she faltered, she got back up and continued running. She wasn’t really in that kind of shape, and her pained, deep, and rapid breathing belied that fact. Upon entering, her suffering only got worse. Her clothes were irritating her skin badly. She anticipated this, but she wasn’t going to strip before coming inside to the relative privacy of her apartment.
“You look great!” Hamamelis said as Violet desperately peeled off her clothing.
“Fuck you,” she replied.
“Okay. How would you like it?” she said sweetly with a hint of optimism.
“No, you bitch! You really hurt at least two people today. I saw it, their bodies changed in ways that will make their lives really, really hard.” She was nude now, and she had to stop her rant, since she had to catch up with her breathing. She noticed that the television and her desktop computer were on. A bunch of stuff had been rearranged, apparently to make it easier for nine-inch tall people to navigate her apartment. Hamamelis had devised a bed of pillows on the coffee table and had the remote control resting on a couple of books so that it was in reach.
“Probably, yes. It’s what I do.” She was cocksure and cool.
“My friend is going to have to get surgery to get rid of that abomination you put on her chest.”
“That wouldn’t be wise,” the demonette replied.
“What? Why? She will look like a freak to everyone if she doesn’t.”
“She will if she does, too. Your people have come up with all of this great technology,” she said pointing at the flat screen television on the wall, “but you can’t use it to undo the effects of magic.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ll slice of that tit and sew her up. In minutes, it would grow back and stand as proudly as it should.” Hamamelis had a wicked smile on her face.
“That’s awful! And what about Senator Bensen? No one will even know who he is!”
“So, that’s why you left him, eh?”
“Um… No. What was I supposed to do, infect the paramedics?”
“That would have been fun. Besides, she’s better off. She’s got another sixty or eighty years to live now.”
Violet was stunned. “You healed him?”
“Her. Basically, yeah. It was fun. I am no homicidal, you know. Killing people isn’t much torment for them, and anyway, it’s just not my style.”
“Hmph. I need to call Shona and let her know that surgery isn’t going to help.”
“She won’t believe you.” That was true.
“Unless she saw you.”
“I suppose so. If you hang out with her again, though, you never know what will happen.” The evil grin got nastier.
“That’s not fair!”
“We can make it fair.”
“How?”
“Well, we can make a bargain.”
“Um, what kind of bargain?”
“You take a change of your own, and I’ll never change Shona again.”
Violet glared at her rude guest. “What’s the change?”
“A surprise.”
Her intrinsic goodness, charity, and selflessness bubbled up inside. “Okay, fine. I’ll take the change,” she said, hoping it wouldn’t be terrible.
“Done.”
Violet looked herself over. She didn’t see anything different. Nothing felt different. “I can’t tell anything,” she said.
“Probably not yet,” she said. “The change is done, but it’s subtle, and it’s in your head.”
“Hey! You never said anything about that! Everything was, you know, physical!”
“I never said it otherwise, either. I do both, you know. Both are fun. The mental ones can be really fun, but they’re no good if they’re too big. It’s much more torment and amusement, if it’s something really minor. On my homeworld, I once made a woman feel herself every time she saw a horse. That one was amusing, to be sure.” Hamamelis laughed a little.
“That’s mean.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do to me?”
“I’ve found that it’s always much more fun to watch you find out for your own.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll call Shona now.” Violet found her purse and dialed her.
“Hello?” The voice on the other end was cracked and weak.
“Hi, Shona?”
“Yes. Hi, Violet.”
“We need to talk.”
“I’m not fired, am I?”
“Not if I can help it. Look, you have to see something in person, or you wouldn’t believe me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to drive over and pick you up, okay? You don’t need to dress up or anything. Just keep that coat.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be over soon.”
“Okay.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Violet rummaged through her drawers and found some sweatpants, a couple of t-shirts. She was going to put one inside the other so that she could go without a bra. She also found some sandals. Altogether, it was very, very casual, but it would have to do. Once assembled, she put them on as quickly as she could, grabbed her purse, and left the apartment. She was fast enough that she barely itched. She then headed down to the parking garage that was in the basement of the building. In the elevator, she happened to encounter a local she knew, a woman who lived down the hall from her. She was a local college student, supported by her very wealthy parents. They were wealthy enough to pay for a suite in the trendy apartment building, anyway. Violet didn’t know her name, but she knew she majored in economics at the University of Chicago, and she liked to throw parties. Sometimes, the apartment would have to break them up, since they got a little raucous from time to time.
“Hey,” the young lady said.
Let’s hope nothing happens, Violet thought to herself. “Hi.” Violet looked over at her, taking notice that the shirt she was wearing showed up quite a bit of cleavage. Violet tried not to stare.
“I’m hosting a party tomorrow night. I know you’re older, but it would be cool if you came over.”
Probably not. Hamamelis would get such a great thrill out of that. Violet couldn’t afford the little devilspawn that. “Thanks, but I have plans.”
“That’s cool.” The young lady had larger than average breasts, that was for sure, but Violet wasn’t sure why her eyes kept trying to dart at her cleavage. She briefly wondered what they might feel like, but she stopped and decided to focus on Shona. The young woman left the elevator at the first floor, and Violet continued to the basement. She made her way to her car, a practical sedan, and she started it up. The trip to Shona’s house was uneventful, until she hit the rush hour traffic. That was a beast. However, she did make it.