1

“I’ll be right with you!”

Tia set down the ash carving and slipped into moccasins before returning to the front room.

“Good evening,” Tia said to the statuesque stunner on the other side of the counter. “How may I help you?”

“I’m Simone.”

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in earlier,” Tia said. She extended a calloused hand. “Tia.”

“A pleasure,” Simone said, taking Tia’s hand and holding it for a few seconds. Her touch was pillow-soft and warm as August lakes. “You have a lovely shop.”

Tia noticed a boombox-sized object in Simone’s left hand.

“Thank you,” Tia said, blushing at a compliment from a pretty stranger. “Are you looking for anything specific?”

Simone shook her head, tossing jet black curls from side-to-side, and said, “I’m curious: where did you acquire so many wonderful pieces?”

“Actually, I found a lot of them on my expeditions.” Tia tried to stop herself from blushing again but discovered she was helplessly heating up around this complimentary and curious stranger.

“You’re an archaeologist then?”

“Sort of,” Tia said. She leaned against the countertop and smiled with pride. “More of an explorer, a ... treasure hunter, although that sounds a little cheesy.”

“No, not cheesy at all.”

An awkward pause followed, and Tia suddenly suspected Simone was taking stock, like she was an unusually cordial burglar.

“Would you examine something for me?”

“Sure!” Tia said. “What do you have for me?”

Simone hefted what she held in her left hand onto the counter. The mystery object was wrapped in heavy, dun cloth and landed on its smaller face with a satisfying thunk.

“What is it?” Tia said. She reached for the covered object after Simone did not answer her question.

Tia pulled the cloth away to reveal an obsidian mirror mounted on the bowed head of a worn wooden statuette, which depicted a naked woman extending her hands.

“Where did you find this?

Tia looked into the mirror but refrained from touching. Her eyes wandered its contours, scanning the oval-shaped surface for telling details.

“Do you like it?”

“Huh?” Tia said, temporarily lost in the mirror. “I mean, yes, it’s ... enthralling. Are you thinking about selling, or do you want an appraisal?”

“I’d just like you to look at it.”

Tia returned her gaze to the obsidian mirror. In its depths, Tia saw a shadowy version of herself staring back. The mirror smoothed many of the reflection’s features, leaving the outline of Tia’s heart-shaped face, mildly framed by her loose brown hair. Tia could still make out some details, like the slight upturn of her nose and her pouty pink lips, but almost everything else had faded away.

The whole effect disturbed Tia. She had seen ancient mirrors before, but this one screamed danger.

“This mirror is ... it’s...” Tia said before losing her train of thought. She flushed for the third time and said to Simone, “Sorry, I’ve never seen something so...”

Again, Tia forgot what she was going to say, and Simone seemed content to let it hang for a few minutes before speaking.

“It was my grandfather’s.”

Tia managed to break concentration on the mirror for a second. She saw Simone’s smile, and the way the stacked beauty curled her crimson lips tickled Tia’s spine.

“Any idea why he left it to you?”

Tia attempted to divide her focus between the mirror and Simone, but she swiftly found the mirror devoured the lion’s share of her attention. Every time Tia took another look at the mirror’s surface, it swallowed another of her features.

“When I was a girl, we used to look at it together,” Simone said. Her voice was distant, lost in the shop’s dusty air. “He used to tell me all these stories.”

“About what?”

“Mostly nonsense,” Simone said. Tia considered looking up, but the mirror beckoned. “Nonsense about how the mirror has magic powers, about how it once belonged to the queens of Atlantis. You know, stuff old men make up.”

“Right.”

Another pause, and Tia thought she heard Simone moving around the shop, thought she heard the wood-on-glass sound of the shop’s “Open” sign flipping to “Closed.” The mirror sucked up Tia’s concerns, though. How could Tia divert her attention to a trivial thing like the “Open” sign, when the mirror had such sights to show her?

After a hazy amount of time, Simone said, “Do you want to hear about the mirror’s magic powers?”

“Huh?” Tia said. “Uh, sure.”

“Supposedly, the Atlantan queens would use these mirrors to control their subjects.”

“Really...”

Tia’s countertop posture transitioned to a slump, with her chin resting on her folded arms like a bored student in class. Except Tia had never been more focused as her soft hazel eyes stared blankly at the mirror, trying to trace the shadowy outline of her head. The longer Tia stared, the fewer features remained.

“Really,” Simone said, and Tia glimpsed Simone’s curvaceous figure stepping around the counter. “After her coronation, the new queen would put a new mirror in each household.”

“Uh huh...”

Tia felt Simone behind her now, felt her hands dancing up Tia’s flanks, almost tickling her. Simone pressed her ladyfingers into Tia’s temples. A tiny voice attempted to interrupt Tia’s languid thoughts, fruitlessly cling-clanging an alarm bell. Tia ignored the bell and delved deeper into the mirror. The dazed shopkeeper let Simone bend her until all Tia saw was the mirror.

“Utter nonsense.”

“Nonsense...” Tia said, not even nodding. All she could do was breathe, stare, and move her lips.

“Imagine,” Simone said, reaching underneath Tia’s baggy button-down and cupping Tia’s breasts through her bra, just aggressively enough to make Tia gasp. “Being a queen’s subject and having to stare at a mirror.”

“Stare at a mirror...”

“Watching and listening for the queen’s words to seep into your head, to reshape your thoughts.”

“Reshape your thoughts...”

“A queen with that kind of power could make her subjects do anything.”

“Do anything...”

In the space of unremembered mirror moments, Simone had unbuttoned Tia’s shirt and removed her bra. Tia’s breasts hung like tasty treats, spoils for Simone’s conquest. The beautiful interloper played with them like a cat with a ball of yarn, pressing here, pinching there. She was rough with her paws but mind-bendingly skilled, and Tia could only ache with wet want and gaze into the mirror.

“She could make them obey her every command.”

“Obey her every command...”

Tia felt Simone nibbling at her ear, running her tongue along the lobe. One hand slipped down the front of Tia’s jeans.

“She could make them her slaves.”

“Her slaves...”

Once all of Tia’s features were gone, she could see the mirror more clearly. She could see how it was perfectly polished, how it had been prepared for her. She gulped down any resistance and let her jaw go slack while her thoughts trailed off a cliff.