ACCESSORISED
It was a simple yet beautiful thing: an original, in soft monogrammed leather, the repeating logos geometrically precise, tessellated millimetre-perfect in gold on dark brown, accessorised with soft pink leather straps and gold metalwork trim. She took it everywhere on her travels.
Jessica was the proud owner of a matching purse and handbag, too; expenses she couldn’t really afford.
For some reason, her precious bag seemed inordinately heavy tonight as she hefted it back from the airport. Worse, when she got it home to her tiny apartment, it wouldn’t even open.
She fiddled with the gold zipper; looked at, scratched her head; finally, she gave it a gentle kick and left it where it was, in the corner of the bedroom, and hit the sack. Troublesome bags could wait until the morning.
Jessica woke with a start. Something was moving in the room; she was sure of it. Half asleep, she lay still, listening: silence. For a moment she thought she must have imagined the sound. Then, there it was again—a sound like something creeping gently across the floor. A rat? An intruder?
All at once she was wide awake. She sat up and reached for the bedside light, her heart beating fast.
Silence. She looked around. There was nothing unfamiliar in the room. Relieved, she was just about to turn the light off when she heard it again, and out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed it. Her head snapped instinctively towards the half-seen movement. She felt her eyes go wide. Her bag was slowly creeping across the bedroom floor towards the half-open door, arching and stretching like a pink-strapped slug.
What the hell? What was in her bag? Some kind of animal? She leapt from the bed in her underwear, and grabbed the bag by its shoulder strap. At once it started to wriggle harder, frantically straining against her grip.
“Oh no you don’t, whatever you are,” she hissed through gritted teeth. Jessica flung herself onto the bag, pinning it to the floor. The wriggling went on for a while, and at last subsided. Carefully, she unclipped one end of the shoulder strap and hooked it onto the handle of her dresser. She stepped back.
At once the bag resumed its determined crawl towards the door, logos flexing and rippling like muscles; she watched, fascinated, as it reached the limit of its pink tether and was brought up short. Experimentally it tugged, strained, but the strap held.
Fully awake, breathing hard in confusion and alarm, Jessica wondered who she should call about this. The cops? Rentokil? Was there such a firm as Bagbusters?
At that moment the holdall turned to her, lifting one cylindrical end up off the floor, and in its flat surface a pair of incongruous golden eyes opened.
“What the fuck —“ Jessica scrambled back, away from the sudden shock of her bag looking at her. Hand luggage did not have human features! It did not! She scrambled onto the bed and knelt, staring at the flat face of the, the, the—thing.
The golden eyes looked back at her calmly.
A mouth opened in its flat brown and gold logoed surface. Full pink lips; white teeth, a glimpse of a pink tongue behind as the bag spoke to her.
“You are not him,” it said, in a soft neutral voice.
Jessica was dumbstruck. She opened her mouth to reply, gaping like a goldfish; closed it again.
For a moment the room was still and silent; nothing moved; gold eyes fixed on blue.
Then Jessica saw the bag begin to bulge, stretching at the sides, lengthening. From one side, and then the other, two perfect hands began to emerge, then arms, coming seamlessly into definition as if emerging from liquid plastic. She watched as the bag divided at its other end, two protean limbs gradually acquiring shape; legs, feet. The bag stood.
There was a liquid whirl of logos, a blur of gold and brown and pink, and suddenly a woman was standing her bedroom; petite, perfectly still, dark skinned, naked, and covered in a neat repeating grid of golden four-petalled flowers and initialled insignia. Her hair was a deep metallic gold, exactly the same shade as her eyes.
Around her neck and wrists Jessica saw pink leather bands, gold trim buckles, and from her neck dangled the pink shoulder strap, the other end still attached to Jessica’s dresser.
Jessica let a low a whistle of astonishment. She thought she knew what she was looking at, now.
She’d heard they’d been working on such products, the ultimate in designer accessories for the very select few who could afford them. Some of the prototypes had been featured in certain magazines, and there had been hints that they were very versatile indeed.
The Bellucci Cat, for example: all faux-fur and slinky friendliness, which when alarmed could apparently swell to the size of a lion. She had read it would be the most vicious and reliable security guard for any home, once the initial teething troubles had been overcome. There was an interview with the wives of the R&D team urging the House of Bellucci to continue; they hoped their men hadn’t died in vain.
The putative Fiorendi Maid was due for release next year, she’d read, complete with a variety of uniforms; Fiorendi denied categorically any suggestions that the Maid was designed to do anything other than housework.
The Seven LaDien Dwarfs; not really dwarfs at all, more like tiny black-clad catwalk models scuttling around, very like LaDien’s own stable, all cheekbones and surliness; fetchingly draped in couture a la mode, but programmed to cook your dinner on demand and—heaven!—clear up afterwards. Apparently their constant complaining about being forced to do such menial tasks was all part of the fun.
All the big design houses were getting in the act. But she’d never expected to see one with her own eyes.
She stared, transfixed. Looking at its perfect toned figure and chamois-smooth skin; its lustrous gold hair, she felt a dim pang of irrational jealousy.
She stepped closer, fascinated; the accessory didn’t move. Jessica touched it, gently; it felt just like soft flesh. She could feel the radiative warmth of her body against her own. Jessica shook her head; she reminded herself this wasn’t a ‘her’, it wasn’t human; it was just a thing.
Nonetheless, a wonderful thing, right here in her bedroom: an original Louis Vuitton, in soft monogrammed leather, the logos geometrically precise, tessellated in gold on dark brown, accessorised with soft pink leather straps and gold metalwork trim. An object to covet.
Jessica imagined whoever owned her must take her everywhere on his travels. No—not ‘her’, dammit. It. A very versatile accessory. An object!
A finely-crafted object, for sure, with its beautiful golden eyes and tasteful pink and gold detailing. A flawless object, really; she perceived no blemishes at all amidst the symmetry of its patterning. An object of desire. The perfect swell and ebb of its curves must have been engineered to nanometre tolerances, and from what she could see, all was precisely anatomically correct.
But what did it do?
She gently stroked the accessory’s smooth logotyped skin. She knew without a doubt that this was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
But what was it for?
Jessica sighed. She should probably take her—it—back to the airport. Its owner must be going nuts by now. He’d never find it without her.
She really should take it back.
Shouldn’t she?
The accessory smiled guilelessly at Jessica, as if in expectation of instructions.