The Mirror — Olivia London

Patrizia was a smart Italian girl trapped in a stunod life. Her father, a Norwegian, didn’t care for his Italian wife’s native tongue, insisting only English be spoken at home. Despite the language prejudice, Patrizia managed to pick up some Neapolitan vocab. Stunod she came to understand as meaning slow, dim-witted, and possibly even crazy. The neighbors, for example, owned a pet monkey. Who owns a pet monkey? Only the stunod, according to Gina, Patrizia’s mother. Il rifiuto was the garbage they fed students at school, and teachers were gavone (ignorant) if they complained about the olive oil leaking from Patrizia’s focaccia sandwiches onto desks and notebooks. In school, Patrizia’s teachers Americanized her name to Patricia which was eventually truncated to Pat. And that, as the Neapolitans say, was that.

The nuns might have prayed for Pat had they known about her mother’s spate of pagan experimentation. A strict Catholic, Gina had five kids by practicing the Church-sanctioned circumlunar method of birth control. As an adult, Patrizia was convinced a bunch of drunken priests must have been playing poker somewhere and one of them put his cards down and said: ‘Hey, fellas. I thought of a way to keep the planet populated with Catholics: tell women to time their periods by the shape of the moon.’ ‘Brilliant, Father Jim!’

When Pat came home and found her mother in the kitchen with a bottle of Chianti and a Ouija board, she thought what any kid would think: Mom and Dad are getting divorced.

Next came candles, weird jewelry and tomes on witchcraft. Then Gina started going to séances. None of this made any sense, especially when Pat’s mother took to wearing black hair pieces blithely referred to as falls. Pat would say, Mom, you don’t need a wig, and Gina would say, It’s not a wig, it’s a fall. It was like a toupee for women who had more hair than they knew what to do with. Pat’s mother bought a new wardrobe and thought nothing of going to the mall or grocery stores wearing her Maid Marian velour capes.

One day, Pat opened a book of spells. Pat’s mom was now using her daily horoscopes as bookmarks. Pat’s brother called them “horrorscopes” then quit when Gina threatened to stop cooking for him and no mammano wants that. A mammano is a mama’s boy.

There was a spell called “The Mirror” that looked promising. Pat read aloud to herself:

Stand in front of a mirror. Make sure all lights are off and you are not standing near a window illuminated by the moon. (Why? Will I get pregnant?) Hold a taper to either side of your face: if you stare long enough, you may see who you were in past lives. Or you may see who you are yet to become.

Pat didn’t know why she did it. Maybe she wanted to bond with her mother; more likely, she hoped to prove Gina was wasting her time, nudge her back to making delicious lasagna and meatballs.

It was after midnight; everyone was asleep, even Muffin, the world’s most hyper dog. Candles lit, Pat stood on a stack of phone books and went to work. An English teacher had told her class all about Oliver Twist so for a second, Pat saw herself running barefoot down the grimy streets of 19th century London, her pinafore stained with suet and long blond hair stiff from its bimonthly washing with lye soap. In History there was the French Revolution: maybe Pat had gone to the guillotine! Her imagination was running morbid. She stared and stared but nothing happened.

Finally, the candle flames listed as if someone were trying to blow them out. Pat’s stomach muscles tightened with fear but she held her ground. Expecting the worst, this is what she saw:

…a stable teaching job in a quiet, Midwestern city where Pat would soon turn 50. She was married to a kind man who had children from a previous union, ergo, there was no pressure on Pat to procreate. The marriage had its ups and downs, but her partner didn’t lie, gamble or fornicate with other women. They had a nice home and the in-laws didn’t live within a thousand-mile radius. They had it good.

Pat blew out the candles and went to bed dreaming of a soft, uneventful middle age. Gina eventually tossed her Ouija board and went back to being Catholic Mom. When asked about her short-lived fascination with the occult, Gina put her hand up in a semaphore of warning. Of this passade with the unknown, she would no longer speak.

Years later, when Pat had graduated from college and was in fact living in a Midwestern city, she returned home to Florida for a visit. She was frustrated both in her personal life and job search and needed the succor attendant with her mother’s home cooking.

At night, when everyone was asleep, Pat rummaged through some boxes in the attic hoping to find The Book of Spells. She found it wrapped in a velour cape. She opened the book to the mirror exercise and padded downstairs. She approached the hallway mirror with candles shaped like clinkers wedged into copper trugs. She had to find that stable teaching job in the Humanities. And would she ever get laid?

Pat lit the candle and stared into the mirror, hoping to see a happily employed woman and not some harridan screaming on street corners.

She stared and stared until she was mesmerized by a scene of two lovers doing things Pat had only read about.

What was Pat doing going down on some guy who was clearly not a Midwesterner? She was with a handsome black-haired man in a hotel room with a clear view of the Golden Gate Bridge. She was making love to his cock; that’s what she was doing. Her cheeks flushed with happiness as the muscularity of her man’s heat flexed and packed her palate.

With lips dropping like petals, she refined her lovemaking as if this act and this act alone were the most important thing in the world. Once her mouth made exquisite progress to the base of her lover’s shaft she consumed and consumed as if eager to inhale everything that was this resplendent man, everything he had ever looked upon or touched.

Alas, a nascent wind curdled the candles’ flames and Pat was left in the dark. She tiptoed to her old room and removed her panties. She dipped two fingers between the folds of her want and drew them away, letting her quim tingle in its own juices.

She went to bed dreaming of a sexy, eventful future with a black-haired stranger who would not remain a stranger for long. She would love this man and he would accept her love.

Pat drifted into a deep, sweet sleep. She still wasn’t sure if she believed in magic.

But she always did believe in miracles.

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Read Olivia’s other sexy stories published on Every Night Erotica, here.

Olivia London is the author of the story collections San Francisco Lovin’ and San Francisco Bliss: California Erotica, both published by Renaissance E Books and available from Amazon.com.  Titles available frome Xcite Books include Lesbian Love 3, Healthy Addictions, Woman Friendly and the erotic paranormal story Soul Bumping.  The author may be reached at olivialondonstories@gmail.com