My Halloween Costume, Part2A - The One Drop Shop
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2024 3:06 pm
The start of a sequel to THE HALLOWEEN COSTUME on Literotica, inspired by a fan request for a new Halloween story. This first section is all setup, but I figured I'd throw it out there as it's a Saturday. If Carl or someone is around to proof, that would be appreciated. Joe
Looking at me, you’d never identify me as a theme park aficionado. I’m not, particularly, although when I’m in LA shopping on Rodeo drive or attending a celebrity party or visiting one my families’ vineyards in LA, I do occasionally drop by a very exclusive club tucked away in the center of a very particular theme park. The club is seldom discussed publicly, the waiting list to get in is years long, and the initiation fee is more than any of the lowly waiters who serve in the place will see in a year.
When my friends ask me to give them a peek inside, I always turn them down. What’s the point in being exclusive if you can’t snob your friends? I always drop hints that it’s some sort of secret society, like the one Tom Cruise bumbles into in EYES WIDE SHUT, when in fact it’s the same cartoon themed crap they serve elsewhere in the park, for an obscene fee.
Besides making my friends green with envy, the other reason I love this section of the park is the exquisite New Orleans theming. I could visit the French Quarter – and indeed my family owns several townhouses there, and in the Garden District. But the theme park provides a neat, tidy, compact FANTASY version of my beloved New Orleans, and I was all about the fantasy.
So it was that after my Halloween Party with all the celebrities got boring, I had my driver take me to my happy place. My Halloween costume this year was a green, shoulders bare antebellum ball gown, which was silk and sexy as hell without being slutty (or too slutty, at least.) There had been a bit of a kerfuffle at the gate, as one of the older female guards seemed concerned that my gown was so authentic, I might confuse nitwit park guests into thinking I worked in the park. However, a bit of my Southern charm and a twirl of my parasol convinced the man in charge to let me in.
My New Orleans stroll into the past was all I had dreamed it could be. A number of people had stolen my idea and were also dressed for NOLA, although given the nature of the attractions in this section of the park there were far more ghosts and Pirates than there were Southern belles. The few girls who did attempt a Southern theme frowned when they saw me, as I blew them out of the park, and always managed to draw their boyfriends (or husbands) attentions away from THEIR charms.
I walked down the familiar allies, enjoying the little shops filled with trinkets, jewelry, perfumes, crystals, and other accessories, at absurdly marked up prices. The real fun, of course, was seeing how the men looked at me – scrawny freshman college boys from UCLA, fathers escorting their children, and even a few grooms who looked at me and wondered if marrying the woman next to them hadn’t been a terrible choice. It was almost as if I were on the market, up for sale. Naughty, I know, but it gave me a delicious tingle between my legs.
“It’s wonderful to see you, Katherine. Welcome to New Orleans, my home, and now yours.”
I turned and encountered a beautiful woman with gorgeous red hair that draped over her bare shoulders. Her skin was flawless, alabaster white. I frowned as I quickly scanned her perfect figure. Now I would have to compete for the men’s affections.
“You look well,” she said, smiling as she returned my appraising stare. “Does your daddy still own every sugar mill and cotton plantation from here to hades?” she asked, playfully fanning herself, as she mocked my Southern accent.
“I love your costume, though. Give me a twirl! Good girl. Of course, it is a bit on-the-nose, as they say, given how your family made its fortune, isn’t it?”
I stared at her, straining to remember who I was addressing. She knew me, and my family. She was beautiful, but too spirited to be one my daddy’s mistresses, or one my many step mothers. I could tell immediately she wasn’t some random bimbo.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” she said. “I’m Bella Tate, founder of Cyber Virtual. We met at a party about 8 years ago.”
“Yes, I remember. But you disappeared. You’re MISSING,” I said.
“Hardly,” she laughed. “You found me, didn’t you? You found me, you in your sexy Halloween Southern Belle costume that’s causing every man in the park to stain his pants. Quite appropriate, given the many such stains in your families past.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I said, stiffening a bit at the accusation.
“Your family made it’s fortune on the backs of slave labor, sweetie,” Bella purred. “Sugar, mostly, because you were all so sweet, but also plenty of cotton and rice. And after those stupid Yankees outlawed the slave trade, you made even more money breeding slaves.”
Smiling, Bella leaned in, pressing me against the wall. “Oh, the Patterson family LOVED slave breeding. Strippin’ ‘em down naked, makin’ ‘em prance around on the auction block, bendin’ ‘em over, checking their teeth, an all their other holes, too. Then all the men folk, and the women, too, watching while they put the wenches to stud, putting sacks on their heads so they wouldn’t get emotional. After all, they were just livestock, right?”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said, biting my lip as I looked away.
“Of course you would, sugar. You know EVERYTHING, smart girl like you. That’s why you like to play dress up here in your happy place, isn’t it? Pretend it’s the old days? It’s okay, sweetie. There’s no secrets between us.”
Looking into the endless pools of her beautiful blue eyes, I felt like I was falling into a trance. I had met Bella once or twice, and hadn’t thought much about her since she had disappeared. When was it? I had gone to the Winter Olympics that year. Was it 2018? A lot of girls disappear. No one would have cared, except Bella was rich, and being a tech CEO, mildly famous.
I hadn’t heard about her reemergence, but that didn’t surprise me. We weren’t close, and reappearing isn’t as good a story.
“Slave markets… auction blocks… breeding farms… whips and shackles…” she teased. “Those were the good old days, at least for the Pattersons.”
I felt myself go flush. “The good old days,” and my many fantasies about them, was what drew me to this place of fantasy, a place where anything was possible. Although I barely knew her, Bella seemed to understand the secrets I never revealed.
Bella reached out and lifted up my chin, drawing so close our lips almost touched. “It’s okay, Katherine. I have all the same thoughts. Naughty thoughts that nice girls like us don’t have. Casually wandering into the slave market. Seeing all the naked flesh… the auction block… the auctioneer, whip in hand, teasing the best price out of the buyers for the women he’s selling like animals.”
I leaned in as her voice dropped to a whisper. “You watch, as the poor girl is prodded to turn this way and that, bending, stretching, jiggling, so the buyers can see her wares. Then finally, the magic word, the transformational incantation that will change her life forever…”
“SOLD!” she shouted, pointing in the air to some lucky unseen bidder, as I banged my head against the stucco wall in shock.
“Oww!” I said, rubbing my head.
“That’s nothing, sweetie,” she chuckled. “When you step off the auction block, they’ll take you to the blacksmith’s forge, and the smoking hot iron. The auction makes it legal. Your brand will make it permanent.”
I swallowed hard. Somehow, the fantasy progressed from me being a spectator to me being the merchandise. It was like my mind was an onion, and she was peeling it back, layer by layer, to expose my soul. What was worse, the heat and wetness between my legs was undeniable.
Lightening my mood, Bella took my hand and let me into the shop behind us, under a beautiful wrought iron arch under a sign that read ANTIQUES AND CURIOSITIES.
The merchandise was beautiful, if absurdly overpriced. I could buy my own shop in New Orleans for what they charged for the chandeliers.
Bella took me to the rear of the store, to a push cart I didn’t remember ever seeing in the shop before. To be kind, the cart was out of place, both because of the cheap looking nature of the rabbits feet and lucky coins and other trinkets that were being sold, and the old, toothless African woman who seemed to be guarding the junk with dark, piercing eyes.
“Hello, Bella,” the old woman said, in a thick African accent. “I see you have bought a friend. Oh, my, what a pretty little birdie you are,” she said, laughing as she looked me up and down. I smiled and nodded, not knowing precisely why I was here, or where this was going.
“Look around, Katherine,” Bella urged. “Unlike most of the junk they sell here, it’s all authentic.”
I examined the cart doubtfully. Everything on the cart looked old, but it also looked dirty, and a bit rotten. I noticed Bella and the black woman exchanging knowing glances as I pretended to “shop.” After giving everything a polite once over, I delivered my verdict. “I’m good,” I said.
The old woman’s stale breath wafted at me as she laughed in my face. “Oh, but you could be better, much better!” she cackled. Slipping a small leather necklace off a wooden peg she held it up for my inspection. The leather looked worn, and very old. The pendant was two squares that had been turned on their side to look like four-sided diamonds. The two diamonds intersected to form a third four-sided diamond in the center.
It certainly wasn't pretty, and frankly looked a little cheap and rotten -- a worn piece of leather with a loop on one end and a little hook to catch it. The pendant itself was quite crude and worn too -- two simple squares arranged to create three overlapping "diamonds".
"Put it on. It is your Halloween costume!" she said, laughing.
"I’m already wearing my costume," I protested.
The toothless old cackled so loudly I could see her few remaining teeth. "No, this is your costume. YOUR costume! Put it on, and you'll see, you'll see. Necklace only costume you need."
"Thank you, but I don't want to buy anything tonight," I said, trying to hand it back to her.
"No, no, no!" she said, shaking her head and batting my hand away. "No sell. Your money no good here, not tonight. Gift. Gift! Gift from Africa, to rich American girl who dreams of what it used to be like in New Orleans. It is gift, on night of the darkness. 'Trick-and-Treat', as you say. Ha-ha-ha!"
Taking the necklace, Bella quickly slipped it around my neck, hooking it closed. I blinked as the lights flickered.
Everything was the same, but different. The faux gas lamps were now real gas lamps, and the teenager at the register who had been dressed like a pirate was now an elegantly dressed shopkeeper from the antebellum era, complete with beard and mustache. The other patrons were dressed in period costume as well, and I could see a horse and carriage outside of the store.
“What the fuck!” I said, quickly taking the necklace off.
Again, the lights flickered, and my pirate cashier and the lady in the cargo pants wondering if she should blow her child’s tuition for a lamp returned.
Bella laughed. “Just a little bit of Halloween magic, sweetie!” she said. “That’s your fantasy, isn’t it? To visit the New Orleans where your family made its fortune? To see the markets? The REAL markets, where your family tended to its trade.”
My juices were running down my thighs, but my mouth dried up as I looked at the pendant in my hand. What were the interlocking diamonds, and what did they mean?
“Don’t be frightened, Katherine,” Bella said, once again reading my mind. “It’s just a little bit of harmless fun. It’s no different than the Pirate ride, or the Haunted House ride, only you can stop it anytime you want, by taking off the pendant.”
“I feel like I should give you something to use this… for a while…” I said. “I should give something to the owner.”
“Who owns this place is not your concern, Katherine, at least, not at this time,” Bella said, talking to me as if I were a child. “The question you have to decide is whether you want to cosplay with the trick-or-treaters, and wait in line two hours to go see some fake ghosts, or join me on a REAL Halloween adventure, and join a club far more exclusive than the sad little cartoon hip scam your daddy bought your way into.”
“What sort of club?” I asked.
“The sort of club you’ve been telling all your friends you belonged to, silly. A club for the select few. A club for girls like us, girls with wicked thoughts they don’t dare tell the others. A club where all your dreams will come true.”
Smiling, the beautiful red head held up the leather necklace, dangling it in front of my face. “What’s it going to be, Katherine. Trick-or-Treat! Do you want your candy?”
Looking at me, you’d never identify me as a theme park aficionado. I’m not, particularly, although when I’m in LA shopping on Rodeo drive or attending a celebrity party or visiting one my families’ vineyards in LA, I do occasionally drop by a very exclusive club tucked away in the center of a very particular theme park. The club is seldom discussed publicly, the waiting list to get in is years long, and the initiation fee is more than any of the lowly waiters who serve in the place will see in a year.
When my friends ask me to give them a peek inside, I always turn them down. What’s the point in being exclusive if you can’t snob your friends? I always drop hints that it’s some sort of secret society, like the one Tom Cruise bumbles into in EYES WIDE SHUT, when in fact it’s the same cartoon themed crap they serve elsewhere in the park, for an obscene fee.
Besides making my friends green with envy, the other reason I love this section of the park is the exquisite New Orleans theming. I could visit the French Quarter – and indeed my family owns several townhouses there, and in the Garden District. But the theme park provides a neat, tidy, compact FANTASY version of my beloved New Orleans, and I was all about the fantasy.
So it was that after my Halloween Party with all the celebrities got boring, I had my driver take me to my happy place. My Halloween costume this year was a green, shoulders bare antebellum ball gown, which was silk and sexy as hell without being slutty (or too slutty, at least.) There had been a bit of a kerfuffle at the gate, as one of the older female guards seemed concerned that my gown was so authentic, I might confuse nitwit park guests into thinking I worked in the park. However, a bit of my Southern charm and a twirl of my parasol convinced the man in charge to let me in.
My New Orleans stroll into the past was all I had dreamed it could be. A number of people had stolen my idea and were also dressed for NOLA, although given the nature of the attractions in this section of the park there were far more ghosts and Pirates than there were Southern belles. The few girls who did attempt a Southern theme frowned when they saw me, as I blew them out of the park, and always managed to draw their boyfriends (or husbands) attentions away from THEIR charms.
I walked down the familiar allies, enjoying the little shops filled with trinkets, jewelry, perfumes, crystals, and other accessories, at absurdly marked up prices. The real fun, of course, was seeing how the men looked at me – scrawny freshman college boys from UCLA, fathers escorting their children, and even a few grooms who looked at me and wondered if marrying the woman next to them hadn’t been a terrible choice. It was almost as if I were on the market, up for sale. Naughty, I know, but it gave me a delicious tingle between my legs.
“It’s wonderful to see you, Katherine. Welcome to New Orleans, my home, and now yours.”
I turned and encountered a beautiful woman with gorgeous red hair that draped over her bare shoulders. Her skin was flawless, alabaster white. I frowned as I quickly scanned her perfect figure. Now I would have to compete for the men’s affections.
“You look well,” she said, smiling as she returned my appraising stare. “Does your daddy still own every sugar mill and cotton plantation from here to hades?” she asked, playfully fanning herself, as she mocked my Southern accent.
“I love your costume, though. Give me a twirl! Good girl. Of course, it is a bit on-the-nose, as they say, given how your family made its fortune, isn’t it?”
I stared at her, straining to remember who I was addressing. She knew me, and my family. She was beautiful, but too spirited to be one my daddy’s mistresses, or one my many step mothers. I could tell immediately she wasn’t some random bimbo.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” she said. “I’m Bella Tate, founder of Cyber Virtual. We met at a party about 8 years ago.”
“Yes, I remember. But you disappeared. You’re MISSING,” I said.
“Hardly,” she laughed. “You found me, didn’t you? You found me, you in your sexy Halloween Southern Belle costume that’s causing every man in the park to stain his pants. Quite appropriate, given the many such stains in your families past.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I said, stiffening a bit at the accusation.
“Your family made it’s fortune on the backs of slave labor, sweetie,” Bella purred. “Sugar, mostly, because you were all so sweet, but also plenty of cotton and rice. And after those stupid Yankees outlawed the slave trade, you made even more money breeding slaves.”
Smiling, Bella leaned in, pressing me against the wall. “Oh, the Patterson family LOVED slave breeding. Strippin’ ‘em down naked, makin’ ‘em prance around on the auction block, bendin’ ‘em over, checking their teeth, an all their other holes, too. Then all the men folk, and the women, too, watching while they put the wenches to stud, putting sacks on their heads so they wouldn’t get emotional. After all, they were just livestock, right?”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said, biting my lip as I looked away.
“Of course you would, sugar. You know EVERYTHING, smart girl like you. That’s why you like to play dress up here in your happy place, isn’t it? Pretend it’s the old days? It’s okay, sweetie. There’s no secrets between us.”
Looking into the endless pools of her beautiful blue eyes, I felt like I was falling into a trance. I had met Bella once or twice, and hadn’t thought much about her since she had disappeared. When was it? I had gone to the Winter Olympics that year. Was it 2018? A lot of girls disappear. No one would have cared, except Bella was rich, and being a tech CEO, mildly famous.
I hadn’t heard about her reemergence, but that didn’t surprise me. We weren’t close, and reappearing isn’t as good a story.
“Slave markets… auction blocks… breeding farms… whips and shackles…” she teased. “Those were the good old days, at least for the Pattersons.”
I felt myself go flush. “The good old days,” and my many fantasies about them, was what drew me to this place of fantasy, a place where anything was possible. Although I barely knew her, Bella seemed to understand the secrets I never revealed.
Bella reached out and lifted up my chin, drawing so close our lips almost touched. “It’s okay, Katherine. I have all the same thoughts. Naughty thoughts that nice girls like us don’t have. Casually wandering into the slave market. Seeing all the naked flesh… the auction block… the auctioneer, whip in hand, teasing the best price out of the buyers for the women he’s selling like animals.”
I leaned in as her voice dropped to a whisper. “You watch, as the poor girl is prodded to turn this way and that, bending, stretching, jiggling, so the buyers can see her wares. Then finally, the magic word, the transformational incantation that will change her life forever…”
“SOLD!” she shouted, pointing in the air to some lucky unseen bidder, as I banged my head against the stucco wall in shock.
“Oww!” I said, rubbing my head.
“That’s nothing, sweetie,” she chuckled. “When you step off the auction block, they’ll take you to the blacksmith’s forge, and the smoking hot iron. The auction makes it legal. Your brand will make it permanent.”
I swallowed hard. Somehow, the fantasy progressed from me being a spectator to me being the merchandise. It was like my mind was an onion, and she was peeling it back, layer by layer, to expose my soul. What was worse, the heat and wetness between my legs was undeniable.
Lightening my mood, Bella took my hand and let me into the shop behind us, under a beautiful wrought iron arch under a sign that read ANTIQUES AND CURIOSITIES.
The merchandise was beautiful, if absurdly overpriced. I could buy my own shop in New Orleans for what they charged for the chandeliers.
Bella took me to the rear of the store, to a push cart I didn’t remember ever seeing in the shop before. To be kind, the cart was out of place, both because of the cheap looking nature of the rabbits feet and lucky coins and other trinkets that were being sold, and the old, toothless African woman who seemed to be guarding the junk with dark, piercing eyes.
“Hello, Bella,” the old woman said, in a thick African accent. “I see you have bought a friend. Oh, my, what a pretty little birdie you are,” she said, laughing as she looked me up and down. I smiled and nodded, not knowing precisely why I was here, or where this was going.
“Look around, Katherine,” Bella urged. “Unlike most of the junk they sell here, it’s all authentic.”
I examined the cart doubtfully. Everything on the cart looked old, but it also looked dirty, and a bit rotten. I noticed Bella and the black woman exchanging knowing glances as I pretended to “shop.” After giving everything a polite once over, I delivered my verdict. “I’m good,” I said.
The old woman’s stale breath wafted at me as she laughed in my face. “Oh, but you could be better, much better!” she cackled. Slipping a small leather necklace off a wooden peg she held it up for my inspection. The leather looked worn, and very old. The pendant was two squares that had been turned on their side to look like four-sided diamonds. The two diamonds intersected to form a third four-sided diamond in the center.
It certainly wasn't pretty, and frankly looked a little cheap and rotten -- a worn piece of leather with a loop on one end and a little hook to catch it. The pendant itself was quite crude and worn too -- two simple squares arranged to create three overlapping "diamonds".
"Put it on. It is your Halloween costume!" she said, laughing.
"I’m already wearing my costume," I protested.
The toothless old cackled so loudly I could see her few remaining teeth. "No, this is your costume. YOUR costume! Put it on, and you'll see, you'll see. Necklace only costume you need."
"Thank you, but I don't want to buy anything tonight," I said, trying to hand it back to her.
"No, no, no!" she said, shaking her head and batting my hand away. "No sell. Your money no good here, not tonight. Gift. Gift! Gift from Africa, to rich American girl who dreams of what it used to be like in New Orleans. It is gift, on night of the darkness. 'Trick-and-Treat', as you say. Ha-ha-ha!"
Taking the necklace, Bella quickly slipped it around my neck, hooking it closed. I blinked as the lights flickered.
Everything was the same, but different. The faux gas lamps were now real gas lamps, and the teenager at the register who had been dressed like a pirate was now an elegantly dressed shopkeeper from the antebellum era, complete with beard and mustache. The other patrons were dressed in period costume as well, and I could see a horse and carriage outside of the store.
“What the fuck!” I said, quickly taking the necklace off.
Again, the lights flickered, and my pirate cashier and the lady in the cargo pants wondering if she should blow her child’s tuition for a lamp returned.
Bella laughed. “Just a little bit of Halloween magic, sweetie!” she said. “That’s your fantasy, isn’t it? To visit the New Orleans where your family made its fortune? To see the markets? The REAL markets, where your family tended to its trade.”
My juices were running down my thighs, but my mouth dried up as I looked at the pendant in my hand. What were the interlocking diamonds, and what did they mean?
“Don’t be frightened, Katherine,” Bella said, once again reading my mind. “It’s just a little bit of harmless fun. It’s no different than the Pirate ride, or the Haunted House ride, only you can stop it anytime you want, by taking off the pendant.”
“I feel like I should give you something to use this… for a while…” I said. “I should give something to the owner.”
“Who owns this place is not your concern, Katherine, at least, not at this time,” Bella said, talking to me as if I were a child. “The question you have to decide is whether you want to cosplay with the trick-or-treaters, and wait in line two hours to go see some fake ghosts, or join me on a REAL Halloween adventure, and join a club far more exclusive than the sad little cartoon hip scam your daddy bought your way into.”
“What sort of club?” I asked.
“The sort of club you’ve been telling all your friends you belonged to, silly. A club for the select few. A club for girls like us, girls with wicked thoughts they don’t dare tell the others. A club where all your dreams will come true.”
Smiling, the beautiful red head held up the leather necklace, dangling it in front of my face. “What’s it going to be, Katherine. Trick-or-Treat! Do you want your candy?”