It was a small shop. It carried the oddities of the world. The things that odd people needed for their potions and lotions and curative powders. It was dark, no matter how many lights he lit. The windows were covered with old dust and cobwebs. Shelves lined every wall, and some were filled with vials and bottles and boxes of ingredients needed for many an unusual concoction or elixir. It was not a lucrative shop.
It was all Harold and his mother had, inherited from his father when he died years ago. Harold tended the shop while his mother sat in the back room reading her romance novels. She also slept there. She couldn't make it up the stairs to the bedrooms upstairs. That's what she told Harold. He had fitted it with all her needs. It had its own bathroom.
He obtained his powders and herbs and liquids from people here in town, who gathered some from the woodlands surrounding the city, and from sellers abroad. His sources were quite often shamans and herbalists in the third world, but also China and India. And obscure persons delving deep in the dark forests of the Old World.
Not a lot of people came in anymore. Several Wiccan covens found uses for his products. Some youngsters playing Satanic games would come in and ask for this or that ingredient for a spell they had found online. And there were several practitioners of Santería in the city. Also, traditional medical practitioners from the orient came in sometimes, when they ran out of their own supplies.
They used his products to concoct their medicines. It was a large city and his shop was located in a narrow street just a few blocks from the central business district. It was hard to find, but it did manage to make enough money for his and his mother's simple needs.
Harold was thirty-two years old. His father died when he was only four. He didn't remember his father. After he finished school he took over the shop to help his mother.
His formal education was not great, but he was well read from the library of books the shop also sold, mostly having to do with the occult and the strange. His father had collected many volumes of other subjects, so Harold never lacked for reading material, from here in the shop, and from the library, when he was not catering to his mother's needs.
She had become something of an invalid after her husband died. She claimed it was the stress. She never told Harold what her doctors said, but she always seemed to be feeling poorly, and Harold was her only caregiver. She claimed to be completely disabled when Harold finally took over.
He inherited his good looks from his father, who gave him his athletic body, and his height. He was over six feet tall. His hair was dark brown and he let it grow a little longer than he should have, but he didn't get out much. He often wondered what his father had seen in his mother, even if it might seem disloyal to her. She had always been short, shriveled, and spiteful.
Meeting women had always been out of the question. He had always been shy, so he never dated in school, and after he left school and began working in the shop he never found time to himself. Mother always had needs, always wanted something. She couldn't be left alone. So she said, and he believed her. He was a good son.
That's what she said, when she wasn't scolding him for a fault in him she had noticed. Sometimes he was too slow bringing her the medicines she needed. Often he was not prompt enough with her meals on the tray she used. When not reading her romance books she was watching old movies, and it was his duty to fetch new books or DVDs from the library for her. And if they didn't come up to her standards then he was told about it in her screechy voice. That voice he heard in his dreams.
He knew all about the human body from all his reading. People had to make babies, but they didn't have to do things to each other for any other reason, or it was a sin. It really didn't have anything to do with religion. He had no religion. But he had been taught it was a sin, and he believed it.
But when he went to the library for his mother he would pass some shops that had very evil things for sale. And he was ashamed of the fact that he bought some. Very naughty, filthy books, with pictures. He would sneak them into the house. Late at night, while his mother slept, he would stroke his penis and make white stuff come out. He knew it was semen, and he was sinning.
One day a young woman came into the shop. Her clothing was not modest at all. Harold tried not to look at her body. It was sinful to look at ladies' bodies. But she was a customer. They needed customers. This woman was obviously in her twenties and she seemed very happy. At least her smile was broad and her teeth were bright. She laughed as she skipped around the shop.
He couldn't help looking at her. She was everywhere. Her hair was black as night, or evil, and long and straight. She was not wearing a brassiere and her breasts bounced as she pranced around the shop in her black silk blouse. Once she leaned down and looked through the counter glass, and he saw her breasts, with her bright red nipples.
He was ashamed, but he also looked at her tight, black leather pants. They were very short and showed her off because they were so tight. He could see her vulval lips displayed by the pants riding up into her slit. And her legs were long and shapely. Her feet were shod in ballet slippers, but she was only a few inches taller than five feet. She was dressed shamefully. He tried to look away. He didn't.
"Wow, you have everything in this shop. Stuff I haven't seen anywhere else. This is great. I think I can find all the things I need. Cool. Thanks for being here, dude."
Harold kept quiet. He was afraid to say anything. He might stutter or blush. He had never felt this way before. Finally, he realized he had to ask her what she actually needed. He couldn't expect her to find everything by herself. Besides, many of his products were behind the counter and he needed to climb up to reach some of them.
"Can I help you find what you want, miss?"
"Nope. I'm going to find what I want on my own, thanks."
And with that she began taking bottles and boxes down from the shelves. Soon she was behind the counter, climbing up his ladder, picking out selections, moving the ladder where she needed it, and just making herself at home. Harold was at a loss. This had never happened. But he was too shy to actually reprimand her or even say anything. He just stood back and blushed from his feelings rolling through his body. He looked at her body and felt ashamed again. It was a sin. But she looked so good. And he could feel himself becoming aroused.
Finally, she finished piling boxes and bottles on the counter. If they were large and if she only needed a portion she told him and he doled out what she needed into smaller containers. At last she told him that was all. He began putting everything into paper sacks he kept under the counter. When he was through he added up the total and wrote out a receipt.
"That comes to fifty-three dollars and thirty-five cents, please."
"Oh, that's okay. Just put it on my tab. I'm coming back again. I like this place. You're cute."
Blushing he said, "Oh no. I'm sorry. No, no. I can't run a tab. I don't do that here. No, no."
She became a blur. With a blink of the eye she was beside him. One leg was wrapped around his calf. Her hand went to the erection he had under his khaki pants. She stroked it. She knelt down, and reached into his pants. His cock emerged and her lips went to it.
