Shaking that silly feeling off, Susan smiled reassuringly to her customer. “Don’t worry. We get a lot of guys in here who need that sort of assistance.”
The young man looked taken aback and even more confused. “You do?”
“Of course, all the time!” Susan smiled, and stepping away from the counter began to move towards the love and reproduction section of the store. It was filled with an assortment of enhancers, enticers, and even a few herbal tonics that could steer you toward the type of sexual experience you desired. “It’s far more common than you might realize. Come right over here, describe your problem to me and I’m sure we can find something to address your particular situation,” she flashed him a bright smile over her shoulder, and motioned him to that area of the store.
When she caught a glimpse of his eyes again, she felt that same strange shudder inside she had felt just moments ago. Obviously confused, the handsome man slowly followed her to where all the various fertility elixirs where shelved, carefully arranged according to the issue needing to be addressed. “Now I realize this may be a bit embarrassing, but in order to make sure I give you the correct potion to help you, I need you to be as specific as possible all about your problem.”
Turning from the group of potions all along the shelves back to her customer, Susan began the familiar line of questioning. She did her absolute best to keep her expression void of any emotion, and to make him feel as comfortable as possible. “Now, to start, how exactly would you characterize your problem? Is it related to performance, fertility, or romance, generally speaking?”
“Huh? What do you mean?” He stared at Susan, completely dumb founded, his deep blue eyes blinking rapidly, clearly more confused as time passed by.
“Well…” She started again, trying to further clarify what she was asking, without further embarrassing him. “Don’t worry. Anything you tell me is completely confidential here. Kind of like when you talk to your doctor or lawyer. So, are you having trouble trying to conceive children?”
Startled, the man shook his head, his eyes wildly staring at her now. “What? No! No! I’m not trying to conceive anything. I’m not even married.” he said, thoroughly embarrassed.
“Ok, so that narrows it down a bit more for me, thanks!” Susan looked away from him and continued on as patiently as she could, hopefully without stressing him out even further. She could easily see that this man was too inhibited to be open about his needs, so she decided to question him in more detail.
“All right, so is your problem more… endurance related, or perhaps”, she gave his trousers a discreet glance, but from what she could tell, it wasn’t his size that was giving him trouble in bed. “Um, clearly not size,” she cleared her throat and tried not to blush. “So, are you having trouble pleasing your lady friend? I have a wonderful potion that completely divines a persons erogenous zones, in case you’d be interested with that.” She began to reach for the potion, but stopped as she heard him stutter.
“What do you mean?!” he gasped out, clearly flustered, his tone indicating he was completely shocked by her line of questioning and her assumption concerning his sexual prowess to begin with. “You thought I was having trouble with my… with sex? No, oh, no! No way!”
He was clearly horrified by her insinuation as he stared at her with a mixture of embarrassment and irritation. “I mean, I don’t even have a girl friend or lover right now, but I have never had any problems, of any kind, at least I haven’t had any complaints. Er… no, that is not my problem at all! Not at all.”
He put a frustrated hand over his eyes, and sighed, his whole body shaking a little bit by this time. “Clearly this wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had. I don’t know why I let my friends talk me into this. Maybe I should just leave….” and with that he turned toward the door of the shop to get out as fast as he possibly could with whatever shred of dignity that he had left.
Book 2: Paranormal Beverages, Potions and Tonics (Chapter 3)
Yikes, Holy Cow, or any other term of excitement or alarm, would have been a complete understatement for what this situation required. Susan was horrified as soon as she realized her mistake.
“Sir! Wait, please! Please don’t leave.” She put her hand on the man’s arm to stop him as he turned to leave. “This is completely my fault. I should know better than to ever assume anything like that. But the usual things men come in here for, by and large, are almost always related to sex – or their lack thereof, in some way. So please, really, Sir, let me help you, Mr. – what did you say your name was?” She smiled gently at him, hoping he would give her a chance to rectify her mistake.
“It’s Charles Scott. My name is Charles Scott. You can call me Charles,” he stammered, still a bit shaken by their earlier encounter.
Susan smiled and stuck out her hand, forcing as much warmth into her large hazel eyes as she could. “I’m Susan Henry, it’s nice to meet you Charles. Okay, so let’s start all over, if that’s all right with you. Now what can I help you with today, Charles? What exactly are you looking to remedy or fix?”
As Charles continued to shake Susan’s outstretched hand, she could almost feel the waves of frustration and embarrassment washing off him. Charles finally began to relax, and as he did, he explained what was really bothering him, and his main reason for coming into her shop in the first place.
“Here’s my problem. I have to give a big presentation at work on Monday. As I think you just found out, I have a hard time expressing myself. And it gets even worse when I’m nervous.” Blushing again, he smiled shyly at her, then looked down at the floor.
Feeling suddenly relieved, Susan asserted “All right then, that is no problem at all that I can’t help you with. I have just the thing for that. In fact, it’s a potion made purely for clear thought and eloquent tongue.”
“That sounds good,” Charles said, sighing under his breath. “But, it won’t have any affect on other areas of my, life, right?” he asked meeting her eyes cautiously.
“Oh no, not to worry!” Susan shook her head firmly. “This is an entirely different kind of potion than most we make here – it won’t have you excited at all,” she paused and then added in a thoughtful tone. “Well, at least not about anything but your presentation that you have to do. But you will be very passionate about your topic and you will be self assured as you speak to your audience.”
He smiled at her with relief growing on his face. “Okay, that sounds perfect. I could really use the help here. My boss offered me a promotion, but he told me that if I blow this presentation, that I’m going to blow the promotion too. So I can’t afford to mess up, you know? There’s a lot at stake here, career wise, I mean.”
Susan stroked her fingertips lightly along the slope of his arm as he spoke to calm him down and to further encourage him to share. “Don’t worry Charles, you’re in good hands,” she promised him as she continued to touch his arm. With that assurance Charles’s gaze lingered on hers as if he might have something more to say, but he just couldn’t bring himself to speak one more word to ruin the moment.
Susan turned to begin looking for the potion that Charles needed. At that very moment Susan was a little flustered too as she sought the right potion on the shelves. In fact, she could feel his eyes on her as she looked. It was an interesting sensation, to feel this odd tingling bubbling up inside of her. It was something she had never really experienced before.
Sure, she found other men attractive, but this man in particular, this stranger for some reason, seemed to have gotten under her skin right away. What was it about him? Maybe it was because of how shy he was with her despite his handsome, athletic appearance. Or maybe it was because his touch was so warm when he shook her hand. No matter the reason, she soon dismissed it as she continued her search for Charles perfect elixir.
Long ago Susan had resigned herself to a life of isolation, men-wise, that is. Her main focus was always on the shop, her craft, and the potions she, and her sister, created. Most men that sh
e met did not understand this, and some did not even believe in what she did, calling her a liar, or worse, right to her face.
As an educated woman, a business owner and a lifetime student, she soon realized that she didn’t have the patience, or the time, or the need, to prove herself or explain herself over and over to others. Eventually she just came to the assumption that if she ever did find a lover, then he would be the one to find her instead, and over the years, that had yet to happen to her.
After a few minutes of proper inspection, once she regained her focus, Susan had located the appropriate potion. She double checked the label, read the instructions on the tiny bottle to make sure it was exactly 100% what he needed, and then smiled as she headed to the register.
Charles immediately followed her over to the cash register so that she could ring him up for the purchase. She could hear his footsteps just behind her, and she found herself wishing she could think of some way to extend his visit a little bit longer.
“All right then, are you sure you don’t need anything else, Charles?” she asked hopefully. “Maybe something to help you sleep, or perhaps something for motivation?”
He smiled at her and lightly laughed as he shook his head in response. “No, I seem to be fine with both of those things,” he said casually and smiled when she grabbed the bottle to put it in a brown paper bag. He seemed to have found a reserve of self assurance from some untapped location deep within him, his voice lowered to the point that it was a husky whisper and drew her attention from the bag as he bent closer to the counter and quietly asked her, “Do you really have a potion here that divines erogenous zones?” His deep blue eyes met hers and held on for dear life.
Susan was instantly distracted from ringing up his order by the flirtatious question. So much so in fact, that his bottle slipped out of her hand, rolling back onto the front counter. He immediately stopped the tiny bottle and sat it upright on the counter for her. “Well, yes, we do. I haven’t really had a chance to try it myself… but it seems to be quite popular and we do sell a lot of them.” Now it was Susan’s turn to blush, as Charles gave her a sexy smile.
“Can you tell me how that works exactly?” he asked with interest, still talking to her in that low husky whisper of his. It was something he had never heard of before, and it had piqued his curiosity.
“Well, it is basically intended to heighten a person’s senses, so that you’ll be able to feel a kind of draw toward the other person’s most pleasurable areas,” Susan explained in a halting voice. When it came to these types of conversations she was usually very matter of fact, but with his dark blue eyes constantly searching for hers, she instantly felt silly discussing such an intimate topic with a stranger.
“Hmmm, I guess I will have to remember that one then.” He rumbled in a tone that could have been joking, but sounded very serious too. Since she didn’t know him she really wasn’t sure which it was.
So Susan quickly grabbed his bottle and put it firmly in the bag and rolled down the top. Charles paid her, even giving her a tip for such great service, despite their bad start. When she handed the bag to Charles, his hand closed over hers for a long moment, and he met her eyes, before he pulled away to go.
“Thanks for everything, Susan. I will be sure to let you know how my presentation goes.”
“Please do, and come back soon,” Susan said quickly, her breath short. “I mean, to tell me about how the presentation went,” she clarified as he watched her. “Or for any other reason, I mean,” she sighed and realized she was babbling. Giving her a little wave, as the door bell rang happily, Charles walked out of the store, seeming to have a new spring in his step.
After Charles left the store Susan sat down on the little wooden stool behind the front counter – all alone again. She suddenly realized just how quiet the store really was. With a dreamy sigh she indulged briefly in a little fantasy of her and Charles, and the erogenous zone potion he had questioned her about only moments before.
They were half way through their journey, when Susan began to chastise herself for her imaginative, yet extremely detailed, dream. Eventually Susan’s face came down to rest on the counter as she sighed at the memory. But the cold feel of the glass startled her back to reality in a split second.
Looking down the length of the counter, Susan’s eyes were drawn immediately to a little green glass bottle that she hadn’t noticed before, and then frowned as she read the inscription. “Clear thoughts and eloquent tongue” the little label read, in Emma’s elegant, swooping script. Oh, no…. A horrible feeling immediately began churning in the pit of Susan’s stomach.
Oh, no…. If this was the speech potion, then what had she just sold Charles? Oh, no…. Looking around, Susan immediately realized her new bottle of love potion that she had just bottled was missing. Oh, no…. She double checked all of the shelves, and ran to the back to count – only nine bottles of love potion remained back there, still waiting to be labeled.
“Oh no!” Susan gasped in horror, and ran out of the shop as quickly as she could, the little door bell ringing harshly, as she ran in search of Charles.
Book 2: Paranormal Beverages, Potions and Tonics (Chapter 4)
Susan ran out the front door of her shop and immediately looked to the right and left. That’s when she saw Charles. Looking just down the street from her shop, Susan clearly saw Charles sitting on a bus stop bench only two blocks down. The brown paper bag with the top rolled down sat at his side, and in his hand, Susan could just see the glint of an uncorked green glass bottle in one hand and a newspaper in the other.
“Mr. Scott, stop! Charles! Mr. Scott, please don’t drink that!” She yelled out, running like a wild woman down the street towards him as fast as her legs would carry her. “Mr. Scott, stop!” she called out again to him as she ran, now less than a block away.
She watched, seemingly in slow motion, as he put down his newspaper on the bench beside him, sat back in his seat, bent his neck back and raised his hand as he brought the tiny bottle to his lips.
“Nooooooo…! Please stop, Charles!” She shouted, sped up and tried to knock the bottle out of his hand before he drank it. Instead, she tripped, fell and somehow slammed into him head long knocking both of them to the ground. She hoped no one was taping that move as she felt herself flailing about in the air.
“That would be the most perfect Youtube blooper ever,” she thought to herself, still flying in mid air. Then there was the sound of a man’s confused yell, breaking glass and an odd mixed sensation of warm liquid, pavement and even pain too – one that shot through only one of Susan’s hands.
Once all the commotion was over, looking down, she realized that she had only cut herself on the glass from the love potion’s bottle as she tried to right herself on the pavement just by the bus stop. Lucky for her, as it could have been much, much worse.
Charles was stunned to say the least, as he struggled to get to his feet. “Susan? Are you okay? What was that all about? Did you hurt yourself?” Immediately followed by, ” Mmmm, hey, that tastes like candy… and flowers?”
He smacked his lips lightly, as he suddenly remembered the potion he had just partially drank, which also distracted Susan for just a moment. Then he glanced over at her again, as he brushed himself off. “Hey, are you okay? Your hand….”
With a groan Susan realized she had been too late as she tried to stand up herself. Charles had already drunk some of the powerful potion by the time she slammed into him. Staring at the handsome man, herself dismayed, embarrassed and still a bit wobbly from the fall, she tried to explain what had just happened.
“I accidentally sent you away with the wrong potion just a second ago. Just before you came in I had just brewed a caldron of love potions, and I accidentally put one of those in your bag, instead of this.” At that moment she handed Charles the correct little green bottle, miraculously unbroken after her fall, labeled correctly as “Clear thoughts and eloquent tongue”.
Charles looked at the littl
e bottle, read the label, then stared at her in disbelief. “So, what exactly are you saying to me?” he asked.
But his eyes darkened with concern when he saw the bleeding cut on her palm. He was just about to give her his handkerchief to use on the wound, but at that same time Susan brought her hand to her mouth and, unthinkingly, sucked on her cut. Immediately, the taste of the buttery, chocolate and perfumed liquid blossomed on her tongue, overwhelming the metallic taste of her own blood. She closed her eyes enjoying the flavors – and then just a second later gave a second groan as she realized what she had just done.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!” Susan thought to herself, embarrassed at her rookie mistake.
At that same time Charles was staring at her as if she had just sprouted two new heads. “That was a love potion you gave me? Susan? I just drank half a bottle of love potion? What happened to the eloquent tongue one I bought from you?”
Charles sputtered at Susan, his voice halfway between amazement and horror. “How is that supposed to work exactly? So what does that mean? What do I do now?” He blinked, as if he was trying to get a handle on the ever changing situation.
Susan sighed, took the hand kerchief Charles was still holding in his hand and pressed it to her cut on her hand. She took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts before she began to explain the situation.
“It’s actually very straight forward, Charles. You simply pour the potion into a glass of drinkable liquid – anything you like will do. Then you drink some, and within an hour or so, make sure that the object of your affection drinks the remainder. If the two people are compatible, then the potion goes into effect. The magic basically allows their potential love and passion for each other to come forth,” she frowned before adding. “It can’t make anyone who doesn’t have the notion to love you, love you, but it can heighten the attraction between two people who do have any kind of chemistry.”
Vampires, Love Potions and Other Immortals: A Collection of Paranormal Short Stories Page 5