Alexis and Daniel were wandering through the strange dingy little shop that seemed out of place in a little side alcove of the upscale mall. The sign above the door said ‘Old Magic’. It was certainly old, that was for sure but it was more moldy than magical.
“This place is a dump,” Daniel said.
“Yeah, but I want to give it a quick look. I know it’s silly, but I occasionally hear stories about strange little places offering genuine magical items,” Alexis said with a hint of excitement in her voice.
Daniel and Alexis had been living together for a couple of years now. He supposed they would get married at some point but it just didn’t seem important. In that time Daniel had come to accept his girlfriend’s little magic fetish, hell sometimes it made for fun sex games. “OK babe, take your time. I’ll wait for you at The Burger Shack.”
Wandering around, Alexis picked up a stick that looked like a bedraggled Harry Potter wand and pointed it declaring, “Expelliarmus.” Surprisingly a sad little sparkle of lights shot out about three inches and faded away.
“Unfortunately that’s all that wand does now,” a voice said quietly.
Alexis jumped and turned in surprise to see a wizened old man smiling behind her. “Uh … sorry … I was just sort of looking … for … something uh … something for my boyfriend.”
“Oh well you’re in luck then. I still have a few things that work, well mostly work anyway, and one of them is specifically for couples. Let me show one I think you may like,” the old man said leading Alexis on a winding path into a back room. “These are called Couples Desires,” he said displaying a blue velvet box holding two matching plain black rings.
“Black rings?”
“Oh the color doesn’t really matter, once the couple puts them on they disappear.”
“I don’t get it?”
“Rings like this were created long ago. They were called Couples Desire because they gave the couple the power to alter their bodies as desired. One imagined the changes one desired to make and invoked the changes with an orgasm. The changes could be small or large, it could be to one or both. It even changed clothing to automatically be appropriate if not otherwise specified in the desire or clothing changes could be specified as generally or specifically as desired.”
“That’s pretty hard to swallow,” Alexis said.
“Oh you don’t swallow them, the couple just puts them on their fingers.”
“Ha ha. Surely you don’t expect me to believe that they actually work.”
“They do still work, just not quite as well as they used to. It used to be that they worked exactly as I said. Now there are some … ah … quirks.”
“Quirks,” Alexis asked raising an eyebrow.
“Well first off they don’t work every time. As old as these are they’re only going to work about one in three tries, but they do work, you just have to try several times.”
“You said First, that suggests more gotchas?”
“Well changes are no longer immediate. There’s a delay of indeterminate hours before the transformations begin, and the transformation itself can take a while in fits and starts. That can be a good thing actually because you can specify additional delays and sequences for the transformations, but those additional delays are on top of the semi random delays. So instead of instant change, it could drag out for a bit but definitely no longer than a day.”
“OK, I’ll bite. How much are these failing magical rings?”
“Four silvers and a copper.”
“What?” Alexis asked puzzled.
“Sorry, in your money … a hundred Drac … er … Dollars.”
“Daniel’s going to kill me, but the story alone is worth it. I’ll take them.
“Uh … one more thing,” the old man said sheepishly as he pointed to a minute mark on the inside of one ring. “Only the wearer of the ring with this mark can issue desires. The other ring only accepts desires. Do you still want them?”
With a sudden firestorm of thoughts whirling through her head, Alexis said, “Fifty dollars!”
“Done,” the old man grinned.