Amorous Goods: Seen in Sepia

Then early on Thursday morning the dream came again. It was a regular, almost a friend, and she stood on the stage, exposed in the spotlight, the audience just outlines in the dark. And she danced, clad in only thigh-highs and heels -- not stripper heels, but something lower, classier, and the club seemed classy, too. She swayed and flaunted, slid down on her haunches, the pole against her spine and her knees wide, obscene, hair sculpted in a thin strip on her mons. She ran her fingers under her breasts, let her thumbs tease her nipples, felt the desire ripple off the crowd and over her. It felt powerful to know the men were wanking, stroking their meat, gasping and grunting as their heads grew purple, their fists squeezing tight at the sight of her...

And the music became her phone as she woke with a start, fumbling in the half-light of the morning, grabbing her mobile and trying to focus. It was an unknown number and she went to reject it as she always did but in her half-conscious stupidity she accepted instead and only then realised what she'd done.

"Hello," she said, dopey and embarrassed and angry at whoever had the effrontery to call her.

"Who is this?" A man's voice.

"No, no," said Vikki, waking up, "you tell me."

"Forgive me," said the man, and his tone sounded genuine, as if he had remembered himself, "my name is Mr Brown. I understand you are the executor of Amorous Goods."

"Err, how did you get my number?"

"I represent a client who had some dealings with your uncle," continued Mr Brown, and now Vikki was starting to feel uncomfortable, "my client engaged him to source an item, an antique of sorts. A down payment was made, and before your uncle's unfortunate, err, demise, he informed me that he had come into possession of the item."

"I suppose this has something to do with me?"

"We understand that it must be a difficult time for you, having lost someone of your uncle's stature..." Uncle Lewis had stature? "However, as you are now wrapping up his affairs, my client was hoping that I might liaise with you regarding collection of said item and settlement of the outstanding fee."

Vikki grunted as she tried to grope her way to an understanding of the one-sided conversation.

"What is this item? You do know my uncle's shop is an utter mess? I'd be lucky to spot a bison in amongst everything..."

"It is the Gultved Cup," said Mr Brown, and he paused as if waiting for Vikki to reply, 'oh yes, how silly of me! The Gultved Cup? Why didn't you say?' Vikki was silent, however.

"It is Danish, 10th Century," Mr Brown went on when it became apparent that Vikki had little to add to the conversation, "a silver cup with gilt interior, runic inscription and Jelling-style gripping beast motif. I would be grateful if you could attempt to locate the item. Might we say, within the week?"

"Erm, yes, I suppose. I'll have a look at his ledger and see if I can find the dratted thing."

"Thank you," said Mr Brown, "you have my number." And with that the line was dead and Vikki was left staring at the ceiling, processing what had just happened, and trying to hold on to the rapidly fading physical sensations her dream had stimulated. It was no use, the dream was gone, and she thought fondly of it: every time she ovulated recently, there it was, making her feel horny and desired, a powerful combination.

She lay there until the twin demands of the bathroom and coffee drove her up, and she yawned her way through her small flat, bathroom then kitchen. As her coffee cooled she stared blankly out of her window at the grey Oxfordshire drizzle, glad that she didn't need to be at work until the afternoon. Finally, though, she could put it off no longer, and she turned her mind to the telephone call, and with a sigh she looked at the pile of Uncle Lewis's papers. The first place to start was probably the Amorous Goods folder: that at least looked to contain a legible list of items in and out.

The ledger was actually quite brief, a mere four pages of double-spaced entries. She glanced at the first entry and her eyes widened in mild surprise when she saw it was more than twenty years old. Well, that was no use, and she decided to begin at the end and work backwards. Another oddity that struck her once she found the last entry was the lack of any running total -- so this wasn't an account, just a list of things. The last entry, hanging orphaned halfway down the last page, read Popp-Bier Meissen Stein (whatever that was), and Vikki swallowed hard when she saw that Uncle Lewis had paid more than a thousand pounds for it.

Happily, the entry for the Gultved Cup was only another two entries higher but Vikki nearly choked when she saw that Uncle Lewis had noted a buying price of five thousand pounds. Her head started to spin a little and with a dry mouth it was borne in on her that she was probably on the hook for that. Five grand! On a library manager's salary? That was about four months' disposable income. And where had Uncle Lewis found the kind of money the ledger listed as prices paid? Vikki glanced at the pages and yes, every outgoing was four or five figures. But the man was virtually penniless, surely?

She glanced across at the paper parcel containing his last effects that was currently occupying the hall table. She had been putting off opening it, but no longer. She glanced around trying to decide which knife to use, and then in a rising fit of anxiety simply ripped the paper apart. Drab cloth slumped out, and Vikki was looking at the epitome of old man's clothes: brown trousers, cream shirt, beige socks and (ugh!!) underwear, and a brown tank top. There was a pair of old but good quality brown leather sandals, and a flat cap, and not much else. A small envelope contained a bus pass in a folding plastic wallet and some loose coins, and the only touch of colour -- some old-fashioned sunglasses, round blue glass in what felt like quite fragile frames. Nothing, in short, to suggest that he had been a man with a taste in expensive antiques.

And why amorous goods? Vikki looked back at the ledger and decided to go through it properly. Something she noted immediately was that there were amounts noted for sales as well as purchases, and those amounts were very respectable indeed. She reached for her phone and opened the calculator. It took her a few minutes, a double take, and a re-calculation before she arrived at some final figures that gave her pause: Uncle Lewis had purchased items worth nearly a million pounds, but that was more than offset by sales of 1.2 million, and that only constituted about half the items on the list. That meant there was some really valuable stuff sitting around the place... The other thing that leapt out was nothing on his list appeared remotely amorous. Perhaps it was just his little conceit.

It also didn't account for damn near three hundred grand in profit, but she supposed that spread over twenty plus years, and with the costs of the shop, it didn't really amount to much. What it did do, though, was make it imperative that she got to the shop and started sorting through the stock, and within a couple of telephone calls she had brought forward her trip back to Norwich, leaving within 48 hours.

***

The knock on the shop door startled Vikki even though she was expecting it, and the jingle of the bell as the door opened did nothing to soothe her jitters. By chance she was standing behind the counter, the natural position for the shopkeeper, as Mr Brown came in, though the effect was somewhat spoiled by the piles of objects she was attempting to sort through, and the dusty hairband she was using to scrape her hair back off her face.

Mr Brown flashed a brief smile at her, and as she looked at him she found herself confused. He was absolutely not what she expected. He was wearing a dark suit, it was true, and she had pictured an Agent Smith look-a-like. But what she hadn't anticipated was a tall man of about forty, his shoulders in broad proportion to his height, with laughter lines at the corners of his eyes and an easy, open manner that was apparent even in the way he stood: Keyser Soze's lawyer, he was not.

"Mr Brown, I presume," Vikki said, finally collecting herself.

"Indeed," Mr Brown grinned, "though I'm not sure what Livingstone said in reply to Stanley."

"Nothing very interesting, I expect," said Vikki, "otherwise we'd remember it."

"You have something for me?"

"Yes. Here," said Vikki, holding up the small silver cup. She had found it perched on top of a broken jack-in-the-box, relatively free of the pervasive dust since it had only been in residence less than half a year.

Mr Brown was all business at the sight of it, slipping his laptop bag off his shoulder and looking about in vain for a flat surface.

"Here, let me," said Vikki, coming over and simply sweeping a heap of things along one of the tables to make space. He smiled his thanks, and it was a nice smile.

He opened the bag and produced his laptop, absorbed as he opened files and held up the cup, comparing the item to pictures of the cup that appeared to have been taken in a studio, and others which seemed to have been taken in situ, perhaps at the very time and place it had been found. He then took out a loupe and scrutinised it closely, moving over to the limited natural light by the filthy window to aid his examination.

"It appears genuine," said Mr Brown, "though I didn't doubt it, not knowing your uncle. He was always a man of his word."

"Did you deal much with him?"

"Off and on," said Mr Brown, pulling a bulky A4 envelope from his laptop bag, "here is the balance of the transaction. It has been a pleasure doing business with you, and please accept my condolences on your loss."

With that Mr Brown closed his laptop and slipped it, and the Gultved Cup, into his bag, leaving the envelope on the table. His smile was broad and open once more as he turned to go, and it occurred to Vikki that this was the first actual conversation she'd had with an attractive man since... well, since she could remember, and she was suddenly sure she didn't want it to end. He was already out of the door, though, the bell jingling again, and she could only walk over to the window and peer through the smudges and smears as he got into his black Audi and drove away.

She remembered the envelope, the balance of the transaction. Over the previous days she had been so focussed on finding the cup and discharging her side of the deal she forgot it was a two-way thing. She opened the flap and peering inside she began to shake. She'd never seen so much cash in one place, and as she up-ended it fifteen bundles of twenty-pound notes tumbled out onto the table. Each bundle was held together with a currency strap, and clearly printed on each strap was £1,000.

Vikki's mouth was dry as she spread the bundles out on the table and counted them. Fifteen thousand pounds. Fifteen thousand pounds! Fifteen thousand fucking pounds!! She bounced and screamed and giggled and danced around the shop, and then stopped suddenly, fearful that it might be snatched away from her. Working quickly and cursing her clumsy hands she scooped the bundles back into the envelope and dashed into the back room. She stuffed the envelope into her backpack, then sat at the bureau fanning her flushed cheeks with her hand, her mind filled with the enormity of that money.

After a brief moment she was all action again, grabbing the Amorous Goods folder and Uncle Lewis's notes and shoving them into her backpack next to the money. Then she strode to the door and left the shop, double-checking that she had locked the front door before making her way to the short term let she'd taken near the centre of the city. It was counter-intuitive, but she would have preferred the street to be busy: bustling people deter thieves and muggers, but as ever the place was deserted and she feared being followed through the gathering dark of that late Sunday afternoon.

Rain was dropping through the halos of street lights by the time she reached the small apartment she'd rented. She had a pain in her neck from looking over her shoulder, a miserable man walking his depressed dog on the other side of the road a source of particular paranoia. Once inside the flat she slammed the door and leant back against it, before hurrying over to the window and peering out between the curtains. There was nobody there hiding in the shadows or pressing back inside a bush whilst trying to keep Vikki's window in view, and when she breathed out it felt like it was for the first time in forever.

She turned to her backpack, the money burning a hole in it. What she would do with it, she wasn't sure, but what she did know was banks these days often had questions when someone turned up with piles of cash to deposit, and if she didn't put it in the bank, well, where would she keep it safe? There was also the small matter of the other objects on the ledger, the ones Uncle Lewis hadn't sold and which were, presumably, in the shop.

After trying and failing to eat on a wildly excited stomach Vikki spread out the ledger and the notes across the bed. Contrary to Margot's assertion they weren't in some code, it was just that Uncle Lewis's handwriting was simply very small, although he did have an annoying habit of abbreviating. Back at home she'd stared for hours at the pages until it had finally clicked with her, as if she'd been trying to solve a cryptic crossword: GCp was Gultved Cup.

She'd bought a magnifying glass and since then she had been spending time trying to make sense of Uncle Lewis's entries. Some of them were brief. He had copied the runes on the Gultved Cup on the notes, and next to it had written a strange entry: mun.thu.mik.man.thik.un.thu.mer.an.ther followed by the single word 'potent' and four exclamation marks. She hadn't spent much time wondering about that entry but now she came back to it, curious about why someone would pay twenty thousand pounds in total for something about big enough to hold a double shot of liquor.

The cup was Danish and it was the Vikings who wrote in runes, if she remembered correctly. Taking her phone she searched for Viking runes and matched the runes in the inscription to the letters they represented. Sure enough, Uncle Lewis had provided the modern alphabet letters for the runes in his entry. So, his entry was the Viking words the runes represented. But what did they mean? And here she marvelled at modern technology and wondered how the oldsters had managed without the internet. It only took another fifteen minutes and she had a translation: Think of me, I think of you. Love me, I love you.

Which was cute, but it didn't tell her why it was potent. She glanced at her watch -- after 7.30, which meant the twins would be asleep, so she called Margot, needing to speak to someone about all of this. There was no answer, which could just mean the boys were being difficult going to sleep. She waited five minutes and called again.

"Hello," gasped Margot on the fifth ring.

"Oh sorry!" said Vikki, "I didn't make you run, did I?"

"Erm, no," said Margot, sounding as if she was trying to collect herself, "how are you? Is it urgent?"

"Well, no, but..."

"Sorry, darling, but I'm a bit..." and it sounded like she was trying not to giggle, "call you tomorrow, ok?" And before waiting for an answer she was gone.

Vikki slumped back on the bed and stared at her phone. Had she just heard Peter grunting in the background? Were they fucking when she called? She thought about Margot, dependable, straight Margot. The idea that Margot might be fucking her husband (it was utterly inconceivable she would be fucking anyone else) at any time other than about eleven at night, right before sleep -- and probably in the missionary position for the purposes of procreation -- seemed alien, but there it was, she had heard the evidence. This was the woman who said 'man thing' when she meant cock, and only referred to sex as 'making, you know'. Well, perhaps still waters did run deep, after all.

She turned her attention back to the ledger and the notes, matching those items that might still be in the shop with the miniscule notes. There were thirty-one items listed and subsequently unsold, and she decided to be methodical, working her way through the notes to identify any extra information she could about each one.

The first unsold item was listed as the Kettleby Bone Flute, bought for a mere (!) three hundred pounds, though that was in 1999, so the value must have increased. She found the maddeningly brief entry in her uncle's notes: KBF, vibrations? Which was about as much use as a chocolate radiator. Why couldn't he have included images in his notes, and prices he expected to receive for the items? A list of potential customers with their phone numbers and email addresses would have been perfect, but then a dark thought crossed her mind -- we're these items strictly legal? Had they been illegally sourced from collections or archaeological sites? She breathed out heavily: she was going to need help with this, but before that she was going to need to know just what she was dealing with.

***

She dreamt the dream again, and it was strange to have it return so soon. This time she wasn't interrupted, and she danced and swayed and exposed herself, and the men groaned and came, and she finally awoke horny and restless. She resisted the urge to pleasure herself, in part because she had important things to do, but also because she wanted the urge to linger, to feel it inside her, feeding her energy.

When the dream had first arrived she'd wondered what it meant, had thought that maybe she was suppressing some desire that had to find a way out. But over time she had stopped asking that question: a dream was a dream and nothing more. There was no hidden meaning, she had no repressed need to be validated by the sexual urges of strangers. It was just a pleasant sex dream and Freud or whoever could go swivel. She was lying to herself.

***

The bell jingled as Vikki opened the door, and the shop seemed to pay attention to her, a dog awaiting its master's command. Vikki stood in the doorway and gazed around at the stock: so far she had merely dithered and dallied, but now she had a plan, and a deadline. By the end of the week she needed to have identified all the items on the ledger and put them to one side, have decided if there was anything else of value, and she needed to have got rid of everything else. She nodded to herself and marched through to the back room, dumping her backpack and taking the ledger.

Two hours later her focus had wandered somewhat. Working down from the top of the ledger she had found what looked like two items, a Venetian mask and a sewing machine made by Halliburton and Dawes of Gosforth in 1878. They were now resident in the backroom, but there was still the mountain of stuff, crap, a world of junk and gems in front of her. She needed a break.

Wandering over to one corner of the shop she looked at something large covered with a sheet. Of course, she'd seen it before, but she'd paid it no heed. Taking a corner of the sheet she pulled it away to reveal a large, red drum, arranged vertically on four iron legs above waist height, also painted red. There was a viewing scope at about shoulder-height attached to the drum, and a turning handle. She grinned -- it was one of those What the Butler Saw machines that were so popular in seaside towns before the First World War, along with dirty postcards and floral clocks. She smiled at the thought of a time when the sight of Great-aunt Mildred's bloomers was so earthshattering that it was worth paying a whole penny to see.

She needed to check it was in good condition, and it was bound to be worth something if it was. Happily, Uncle Lewis seemed to have prepared for such an eventuality, and there was an old tobacco tin on top of the machine with a pile of Edward VII pennies. Vikki took one and slipped it in the coin slot, then bent forward and looked through the viewing slot. She turned the handle.