Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 =================================== Jack and the Box A Short Short Story by
Han Li Thorn ===================================

   Jack set the mahogany chest on the countertop and smirked, remembering
how the bric-a-brac lady hadn't even noticed the vintage silk stockings
secreted inside.  He caressed the polished wood and the lid swiveled up
silently, almost weightlessly.  There, nestled between velvet folds, were
the stockings.  They radiated...  what?  Promise?  Allure?  An unmemoried
hint of perfume, the fragrance of some previous wearer?

   It was time for the ritual of acquisition.  As he stripped, Jack's
shaven calves were already tingling from the anticipated caress of cool
silk, steeped in the femininity of time past.

   Reverently, he lifted the wispy garments from their casket.  As he laid
them down, invisible sparks flew from the rumpled gauze, shocking their way
through fingers and nerves and into Jack's brain.  The stockings trembled,
then tautened and swelled like a sail responding to unfelt zephyrs, like
gossamer stretched over a lithe-limbed void.  And there she was, sitting on
the countertop, wearing the stockings and a smile.  Jack reeled from the
shock of it--and from a full, delightful measure of the faint girl-scent
he'd noticed before.

   "Thanks." She glanced at the box.  "It was getting kind of tedious in
there."

   "Who are you?"

   "My name's Jeannie." Her gaze swept his nude form.  "I see you're ready
for your wish."

   "My wish..." Jack's blood was hot and red, but his desire for Jeannie's
flesh couldn't overmaster his craving for the silk she wore.  "I'd like the
stockings."

   Jeannie's face fell, then brightened.  She slipped the stockings off,
handed them over, and watched as he eased them on.

   Jack's head swam.  The room was receding...or was it him?  Open-mawed,
the mahogany chest flew towards him.  The last thing he heard before the
lid snapped shut was the girl's soft laughter.  His final, fading prayer
was that the next owner of the box should be another silken-legged beauty
like Jeannie, and not some rough skinned sailor.
   (c) 2007 Han Li Thorn www.hanlithorn.com