Chapter 1. The Antique Shop

Hannah did not choose it. She was just wandering through the streets filled with small shops and restaurants, killing time before the plane back home and looking for places to spend what was left of her local currency. She pushed the door of the shop on impulse, perhaps attracted by its mysterious appearance (but then again, about half the shops there had mysterious appearances), perhaps just by chance.

The interior was no less mysterious than the exterior. It was dark, poorly lit, full of small objects that Hannah could barely see - statues, jewelry, figurines, boxes, books ... All kinds of things, really, some of which seemed to be from modern times, others from ages past. It was impossible to tell if this place was run by a cunning swindler selling overpriced tourist junk, or if he was really selling some unique treasures. Probably both. There were few customers in the shop and no shopkeepers in sight, so Hannah began to browse without anyone bothering her.

She twisted some beads and figurines in her hands, unfolded some ancient maps with inscriptions in unknown languages, sniffed some balms and perfumes ... Finally, she came to an elegantly inlaid box with three dice inside. The price tag exactly matched her remaining money, and Hannah took it as a sign of fate.

She looked closer. The dice were obviously intended for a sex game, the typical kind, with poses and actions finely drawn on the sides. There were no words, just numbers, but the pictures gave clear instructions. Hannah shrugged. The dice looked ancient, made of some white stone, pleasant to touch, with a black pattern. But of course they could not be that ancient, the whole concept was probably invented less than a century ago ... But they certainly looked ancient.

Hannah took the box and came to the counter, calling for the shopkeeper. He suddenly appeared from behind one of the shelves, as if out of thin air. He was an Arab man, in his fifties, maybe sixties, dressed in a traditional white robe, tall, with a long beard, calm and serious. He did not greet them, just took the box of dice and asked:

“Do you want to buy?”

Hannah nodded. The shopkeeper took something from under the counter and handed it to her. It was a small booklet, similar to the instructions that usually come with board games. Like the box and the dice, it looked ancient, with yellowish pages and a worn leather cover. Unfortunately, it was written in Arabic (perhaps ancient Arabic), which Hannah did not understand. Fortunately, there were pictures, quite clear and ... um, explicit.

Hannah flipped through the booklet, trying to figure out how the dice worked. It showed various scenes of lovemaking between two (sometimes more) people of different genders. The first ones depicted casual lovemaking - kissing, fondling, caressing, standard sex poses. The pictures included pictograms from the dice faces, so everything was really perfectly clear. The later pages got more and more kinky - oral, anal, BDSM and even more perverted. Hannah did not have the courage to look to the end. Okay, she got the idea. After all, she did not have to do every suggestion the dice could give.

She nodded and opened the purse. The shopkeeper silently accepted her last Egyptian pounds, placed the dice and the booklet in a package, and handed it to Hannah.

“Be careful with these,” he said. “There’s more than you expect.”

A common tourist gimmick, Hannah thought. It’s strange, though, that he said that after the purchase and not before, as the vendors usually do.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“They may look like the game dice, but they are real. They will change your life.”

He said no more, and she did not ask. They exchanged polite smiles, and Hannah walked out into the street. She put the dice and instructions in her purse and headed for the airport.