My Candelabra
by Mudak
“Hi, honey! I’m home!” Robby called out as he stepped into his house. He strode into the living room and put his packages down on the floor.
“Hi, Robby! Did you get everything?”
“Pretty much. Why don’t you come down here and check out what I found!”
“Be right there!”
By the time Paige found him, a large number of props, gags, and decorations were spread out across the floor. She picked up a mask and held it up. “You going to wear this?”
“Yup.”
“Let me see how you do as a zombie.”
He laughed and stood up. “Cause it’s a thriller! Thriller night. You’re fighting . . .”
“That’s enough. I get it. I get it. Just remember that the kids who come to our haunted house are going to be a bit too young to know that video. At least, most of them will be.”
“But Michael always was the scariest zombie of them all.”
Paige laughed. After a brief silence, Paige started going through some of the other things Robby had brought home. She stopped on a crudely-wrapped package with brown paper and a bit of twine surrounding it. “What’s this?”
“Oh, that! It’s actually an interesting story.”
“I’m listening.”
“This strange lady walked up to me as I was walking to the car and said she’d heard me talking to the clerk in the store about how I wanted something that’ll send shivers up people’s spines and all. She asked me if I wanted to buy something of extraordinary magic to help with our party.”
“And you fell for that?”
“Not at first, no. But then she demonstrated it for me and, well, it was a bizarre feeling, so I figured, why not?”
“So what is it?”
“Open it.”
Paige slowly untied the twine around the package before starting to peel the brown paper away. “What is that on the paper?”
“Dunno. Grease of some sort, I guess.”
Paige grimaced as she ripped off the paper from a corner that seemed reasonably clean. “Is that a . . .”
“A candelabra. Right.”
“It’s heavy.”
“It’s made of iron, and, if we can trust the woman who sold it to me, it was forged more than 700 years ago.”
“Um, if it’s that old, wouldn’t it show, you know, some signs of like rust or something?”
“Shit. I didn’t think of that. I, um . . . Even if it’s not that old, though, something happened when she demonstrated it for me, and, well, I got the willies when she did it.”
“What’d she do?”
“She took a candle and put it in the center holder and lit it. It was ... It was weird, I guess is the best way to put it. It felt like the light of the candle was sucking out all the light around us. And this was in broad daylight and, well...”
“So she only expects us to light one candle in this thing?”
“No. She said if that was enough to pique my interest, then I should buy it, take it home, and light candles in all three holders. Or, more specifically, we should.”
“Wait. What do you mean, ‘we should’?”
Robby hesitated and looked down at his feet before answering her question. “You see, take a closer look at the candelabra.”
Paige examined it closely, running the tips of her fingers slowly over the figures that seemed almost welded onto the lower arms of the candelabra. The paint was still visible, even if it was faded. “Um . . . This side looks like a girl, and this side . . . what is that? Is that an animal of some sort?”
“You could say that.”
“But you won’t. Then what would you say?”
“I’d say this is where we get the old Beauty and the Beast fairy tale from. You know how the beast was really a handsome prince and he’d be transformed when a princess kissed him?”
“Um . . . Where’re you going with this? You’re not going to scare anyone with a fairy tale, ya know.”
“It’s not really a fairy tale. The true story is much more interesting, and it goes back 700 years, just like this candelabra. It’s cursed and people who use it wrong will be punished, just like in the story.”
“And how do you use it wrong?”
“Um . . . By not using it like the old lady said we should?”
“Damn! And I was really hoping I could use it as a bludgeon to attack unsuspecting kids coming to our haunted house.”
“Ha, ha, ha.” Robby rolled his eyes and scowled at Paige. “Will you pay attention?”
“Sure. What’re we supposed to do with this candelabra?”
“We put a candle in each of the three arms. What happens is you light the candle in the arm with Beauty in it, and I’ll light the candle in the arm with the beast in it. Once we’ve got them both lit, we each take our own candles, pick them up, and use them both to light the third candle in the middle.”
“Then what’ll happen?”
“Not sure. That’s not how the gypsy woman demonstrated it to me. She just said that if we used all three candles and followed her instructions, we’d see for ourselves.”
Paige sighed. This whole story is interesting and all, she thought, but surely there must’ve been better ways for Robby to spend his money. Figuring that she had no recourse other than to patronize Robby, she stood the candelabra on an end table. “Do you have any candles, or do I need to get some out of . . .”
“Right here.” Robby reached into the inside pocket and pulled out three long candles that were fashioned in a twist shape, alternating between blue and white spirals.
Paige took them out of his hands and placed them in the candelabra. “Let me go get some matches.” She walked into the kitchen, muttering “I hope you didn’t spend too much money on this thing” under her breath.
She returned a few minutes later with a book of matches. She lit one match and lit the candle that now stood, slightly askance, in the arm of the candelabra with the Beauty.
“Nervous?” asked Robby.
“Should I be?”
“No, I guess not.” He reached for the matchbook and lit his own “beastly” candle.
With both candles now lit, he said, “All right. And we use our candles to light the third candle together. You ready?”
“Yup.” She grabbed her candle by its base and took it out of the candelabra.
Taking his own candle out of the candelabra, he said, “All right, then; on three. One. Two. Three.”
With one fluid motion, each of their candles converged over the wick of the candle that remained in the iron artifact. The third candle immediately became awash in the glow of its own flame.
Robby returned his candle to its holder; Paige’s candle found its place soon thereafter.
“So now what?” asked Paige with a skeptical tone.
“I don’t.. Let’s just wait and see.”
Smoke from the three candles began to twirl and fill the room. They both inhaled deeply.
“It smells . . . sweet. I, uh . . . I like it.” Paige let out a girlish giggle as she spoke.
Robby gazed at Paige as he watched the expression on her face slowly evolve from one of consternation to an expression that he couldn’t quite find the right words to describe. Giddy was the first word that came to his mind, but this didn’t feel right either. Paige was now smiling broadly, but the expression in her eyes was distant, unfocussed, almost vacant.
“Paige?” The moment he spoke, he raised his hand to his mouth. Even through his own ears, his voice sounded low, course, practically a growl. Something was clearly wrong. He stood up and ran to the bathroom.
Once in the bathroom, Robby stared in a mixture of horror and amazement at his own face. Even though he had shaved that morning, but now he had a full, bushy beard and mustache that gave his face an almost bear-like appearance.
He looked down at his hands and the hair sprouting out of his pores. Strange that he didn’t feel anything. He ran one hand over the back of the other and shuddered at the roughness of the hair that was growing. His fingernails turned yellow and became more like claws than nails.
“Paige!” He yelled out to his girlfriend. “Can . . . could you please come here for a second?” By now his voice was so gruff, so strange, he wondered if she would even recognize that it was him calling.
She called back, a lilt in her voice. “Where are you honey?”
“In the bathroom!”
She skipped towards him, her head bobbing as she moved. “I’ll be right there!” When she got to him, she giggled. “Is something wrong, baby?”
“Um . . . Yeah. Look at me!” By now he spoke in a tone slightly more quiet than a roar.
“Well, you don’t scare me baby. After all. I know what you’re like on the inside . . . You’re really a puppy dog at heart.” She giggled as she took one of his hands in both of hers. With a shudder, she added, “Besides. I like this new look. And I can’t wait to feel what you’re like now . . . from the inside.”
He roared his approval as she led him back into the living room. She took his hand and drew out a claw, tearing her t-shirt slightly.
“Be the beast I know you want to be,” she whispered in his ear.
With one smooth motion, he ripped open her shirt. Her eyes had a wild, passionate look to them as he did the same with her skirt.
“That’s it, baby,” she cooed as she reached forward and pulled his pants down. Seeing his cock, now covered in fur, standing at attention before her, she quickly took off her bra and panties, throwing them into a corner of the room. The strap of the bra sailed over the candelabra and they both gasped for a moment as they both realized how close they came to knocking the candles over.
Once they realized they were safe, Paige lay back on the couch and Robby jumped on top of her, ravishing her with an energy and violence that seemed to fit his now-animal-like appearance. She screamed in excitement and passion, her yells echoing off of the walls.
She bucked and yelled, occasionally turning her gaze to the candles that by now had burned halfway down the candelabra. With each glance at the flames, she inhaled deeply and felt an increasing passion and pleasure. Through a series of gasps, she said, “I . . . like . . . this . . . thing!”
Robby followed her gaze to his purchase from the old gypsy woman. “I . . . do . . . too!”
As the three candles were nearly burnt out, the two of them climaxed simultaneously. Both of them felt overwhelmed, drained of energy. They both turned their heads and watched the three candles die out.
The first candle to die out was the one that Paige had lit and placed in the “beauty” arm of the artifact. At almost the same time as the flame died out, Paige fell into a deep sleep. Robby’s flame was extinguished next. He fell onto the floor and was faintly aware that the hair on his body was retracting as he, too, fell asleep. The third candle burned out without anyone watching it.
When they awoke a few hours later, naked and satisfied from the vibrations that coursed through and between their bodies while the candles burned, Paige smiled at Robby. “I’ve got to admit. I was skeptical when you brought it home, but I love that candelabra. Not sure if it’s right for our haunted house, but it’ll definitely make for a good centerpiece for our more grown-up party. That gypsy woman was right about the shivers down my spine.”
Robby nodded in agreement as they both stroked the sides of “Belle’s Beast.”