Put the bracelets on

Yes, maybe you should put the bracelets on. Just once.

With others around you were too embarrassed to do so. You thought people would judge you, that they’d think you believed in magic, or that secretly you wanted to become a sex god. It’s like porn. You’ve watched porn. But only when Samantha had been away on digs. And every time you’d done so fearful that someone was watching over your shoulder. It’s a minor entertainment you’d be incapable of admitting.

And you’re not a jewellery person. You don’t wear rings. You don’t wear necklaces. You’re vanilla. Putting on bracelets feels wrong. Especially when they’re supposed to turn you into a sex god.

But alone in a room with the bracelets, you feel compelled to try, just once.

Of course, nothing happens. There’s no such thing as magic. Wearing jewellery won’t turn you into a sex god.

You jiggle your wrists just like your colleagues did. The bronze bands spin. They nearly drop off. After all it was easy to slip over your fists, because the bands are bigger than your fists. It’s actually hard to stop them falling off.

Which means. You wonder. Are they really bracelets. They’re labelled as bracelets, but they’re called bands. The Celts often wore armlets higher up the arm, above the elbow and just below the shoulder. Their size is more indicative of that. They won’t be as loose up there.

If you push them up, you’ll struggle to see them. But there’s a full-length mirror in the bedroom. Clothes might interfere with your perusal, so you remove your long sleeve t-shirt, and on a whim your trousers. You can’t face yourself naked, so leave you white underpants on.

Then you push one of the bracelets up your left arm. Something tells you this is the left arm bracelet, although how you know that you can’t tell. It slips over the elbow, and up the upper arm. It snags into your pathetic muscles and grips. You flex the arm and the band barely shifts. Yes, that looks better.

You take the other bracelet and repeat the actions on your right arm. Again, it grips the flesh high up the arm. Again, it sticks.

You turn and look at yourself in the mirror. A disappointing vision. Slightly flabby. Slightly short. Unremarkable. The bracelets haven’t changed you. You hadn’t expected them to. But, there’s something odd about the armlets now. There’s a sheen to them as if they’re catching a light that doesn’t exist. The symbols appear more fluid. No, they’re moving. The phallic symbols appear engorged, growing, ejaculating. The copulating couples actually appear to be rutting like animals. You peer at the action and your mind spins, as if you were suffering from vertigo. You drag your gaze away from the mirror.

You must look again, but directly this time, not through the mirror. Yes, there is movement there. Or is there? Vertigo strikes again. You stagger towards the bed. Somethings wrong. You reach out to remove one.

It’s warm. Warmer than your body heat. Getting hotter every second. Your fingertips as you grip it inform you of that. Once you realise it, you can feel the warmth in the flesh of your arm. In the flesh of both arms. What’s happening?

Desperately you try to shift one of them. Release the grip it has so you can remove it. But it won’t move. You try to hook your fingers under the bronze, but you can’t. And all the while they’re getting hotter, and the warmth is spreading up and down your arm, and into your chest. Warmer. Hotter.

You must do something. But what? You stumble across the room desperately trying to dig metal away from flesh. And failing. Your heart flutters. Your legs weaken. You collapse onto the bed. The warmth overwhelms you. Followed by the dark.