The Gift of the Ball Thief
By DX



Copyrighted 4/2024, all rights reserved.  Story may not be reproduced in any format without the author’s permission.




 He watched her from across the street.
 She lived in a quaint, charming house in the middle of the block, like the candy and gingerbread cottage in the middle of the woods that lured prey in.  Her front yard was a tiny maze of bursting roses, and every year the block association presented her with a certificate for most beautiful floral display.
 But she wasn’t a witch.
 She was the Ball Thief.
 Her real name was Candice Starling, and back in the day she was the focus of every boy’s wet dream.  Her hair was black as night, and her eyes as cool as winter.  She had strong, full lips permanently shaped in a bemused smile.  Her wholesome, fulsome breasts were magically light, and somehow bigger than her callipygous hips.
 She wore high heels, even when tending to her magnificent roses, and her tiny feet danced like giggling fairies.
 When the kids played in the street, eventually a badly thrown ball would smash into her roses, splinter their delicate limbs, and scatter petals everywhere.
 More often than not, a ball smashed her front window, or dented her screen door, or cracked the siding of her house.
 Even in her controlled, steaming vexation, she was alluring, and the kids would gather and stare as she chided them.  “You must learn to be mindful of other people’s things.”  She would always say.  “You may have your ball back when you return with a parent.”
 No parent ever came.  No ball was ever returned.
 Now, twenty years later, maybe twenty-five, he stood across the street and watched as she came out with coveralls clinging to her wonderful curves and picked apart a load of cinderblocks she had delivered to her driveway.  She hadn’t aged.  The few strands of grey only highlighted her hair.  Her cheeks deepened as her looks soaked in.  Her curves became more curvier, and she was still certainly the subject of every wet dream.
 His wet dream.
 He walked across the street, not because he wanted too, he could watch her haul cement blocks all day, but because he couldn’t look away and was quickly becoming a voyeur.
 She looked up as he approached her, and her steel blue eyes snatched his breath and stopped him from introducing himself.
 “William!”  She said with a breathy smile.  “How are you?”
 William was stunned to silence and only stammered before he regained his footing  “Miss Starling!  You remember me?”  He laughed breathlessly in surprise.  “After all these years.”
 “Of course, and please, call me Candice.  You were in my class in the eighth grade.”  She said knowingly.  “You were all about word problems.  You loved logic.”  Her smile deepened.  “I used to stay up and write them just for you.”
 “I’m honored, and flattered.”  He managed to say.
 “You were an excellent student.  One of my best.”  She pulled off her work gloves and shook his hand.  “How have you been?  You went to work for that big firm… United, something something.”
 He shook her hand and marveled at its softness.  “United Conglomerate Corpora.  Over twenty years now.”  His voice saddened.
 Her face showed his pain.  “Oh, I heard, they just…”
 He shrugged.  “Crumbled like a house of cards.”  His voice lowered.  “We had agreed to stock options instead of a retirement plan.”  He grunted.  “All gone now.”  He forced himself to smile with retuned energy.  “I have prospects, and many, many options.”  He said brightly, then motioned back across the street.  “I’m with Mom until the dust settles.  And she needs the help.”
 “Of course.”  Candice said sympathetically.  “You’re bright and skilled.  You’ll be okay.”
 He nodded.  “I saw you out here and I thought that a little manual labor would be good for me… get some blisters on my hands.”  He reached down and picked up a cinderblock, surprised at its ungainly weight.
 “Oh, no!”  She said, a little embarrassed.  “I can handle this.”
 “Please, let me.”  He said, smiling.  “Mom’s out, and I need something tangible to do.  Seriously, you’d be helping me out.”
 Her eyes were full on concern.  “Well, if you’re sure.”
 “I’m sure.”
 They hauled the blocks down her driveway into her backyard, a wonderland of flora and fauna.  There, they neatly stacked them to wait for her next project, a raised bed herb garden.
 When they finished, they retreated into her kitchen and had a proper visit over tea and cake.
 He returned the following day to help her build the raised bed.
 He returned often, sometimes a few times a week.  Sometimes to help, sometimes to just visit.
 “My boyfriend and I,” she delicately slipped into conversation that she was spoken for, “are going to the open air concert tonight.  Maybe you and your… girlfriend,” she winced slightly, “boyfriend?…would like to join us?”
 He dismissed the idea.  “It’s just me, right now.”  He said, trying not to be too much a downer.  “Three’s a crowd.”  He finished his tea then looked up.  “I just… I appreciate visiting you,”  He grinned.  “and I appreciate you putting up with me.”
 She touched his hands.  “I enjoy your visits!”  Her face brightened.  “I delight having someone to talk to in the afternoons.”  She looked over her tea ware.  “I have all these herbal teas I grow in the garden and I get to share them.  You would be amazed what grows back there.”  Her eyes searched his.  “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
 “I am.”  He assured her.
 As time went on he became a fixture at her table.  Sometimes she had friends over, and on more than one occasion she tried to introduce him to friends closer to his age, subtly playing the matchmaker.
 It never happened.
 Days and weeks, then months flittered on the calendar, until one day, as the fall leaves fell like snow, he went to visit.  She smiled like a spring morning when she saw him at the door.  
 “Come in!”  She ushered.  “There’s something I want to show you!”  She moved with the energy of bee, almost buzzing, as she sat him down in the kitchen in the chair where he usually sat.
 He watched her in askance as she retrieved four little jars from the shelf above the door.  They were glazed, earth-ware pottery about the size of a baseball, fat and stout, with proper fitting lids.  He had seen them a thousand times and paid them no mind, figuring they were the part of the wonderful, magical decorations she had throughout the house.  Seeing them up-close, he noticed the lids were wax sealed in place.
 She took her usual seat across from him.  She picked up one of the jars.  “I take a pottery course at the community college.”  She studied the jar, scrutinizing its invisible flaws.  “I made each of these.”  Her eyes flashed at him.  “They are very special.”  She set it down on the table for him to inspect.  “Each one contains a man’s testicles.”
 Her voice was like a saber, so keen it took seconds to bleed.  
 He said nothing as his mind tripped and fell and lay on the floor wondering what it could have tripped over.
 She went on, picking up the first jar.  “A man broke into my house.”  She said, almost speaking to the jar.  “He was going to hurt me.  He had duct tape, a gun… but I lucked out.  With my self defense training I got the upper hand and restrained him.”  
 She rolled the jar in her fingers before setting it down and picking up the second.  “This one is his brother.”  She snorted a laugh.  “His sister-in-law came to see me.”  She pushed forward the first jar.  “She figured out something had happened because her abusive husband had changed almost overnight and she put it all together.  She was also in my class, and smart like you.”  She pushed forward the second jar.  “So she introduced me to the sister in law.”  She shook her head sadly.  “Poor thing, looked like a prize fighter… he had beaten her so bad.”  She tapped the lid of the jar, brightening.  “He’s nicer now, and getting nicer by the day, or so I’m told.”
 She pushed forward the third jar.  “This one’s empty.  It’s sort of a place holder in my collection.  I found out about this guy through a series of friends of friends.  He was a human trafficker.  He forced girls into prostitution.  He was the first I used my special herbal remedies on.”  Her face hinted of pride as she thought.  “Grown in my garden and distilled in my basement, my little magic potion drugged him up so I was able to get a band on him.  It’s a very strong, very tight, rubber band that cuts off all the blood flow to the testicles.  After a couple hours the testicles are unsalvageable.  I stayed with him for several hours after to be sure.  My potion not only dopes him up, but it messes with his memory so he woke up with no idea what happened and a black ball sack with dead balls.”  She smiled gently.  “I hope he went to the ER.”  She nodded.  “I’m sure he did.”  She shrugged.  “Or maybe not.”
 She regarded him, watching for some reaction, but he only watched her numbly, unable to process what she was saying.  
 “This guy was a college.”  She pushed forward the last jar.  “I discovered he was…” She paused, thinking of a diplomatic term.  “behaving inappropriately with students.”  Her lip sneered with disgust as she set down the jar, unwilling to touch it any more than she had too.  “No need to be ribald.  Let’s not get caught in details, but to say the least, he doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore.”
 She sat back, and her eyes smiled at him as she presented her little collection.  “Do you remember what the kids used to call me back in the day?  The Ball Thief.”  Her hand fanned across the table.  “How prophetic.”
 He looked at the jars.  He felt a touch of delight that she trusted him enough to share her secret.  What she had done was illegal, albeit justified; but she trusted him enough to disclose her superhero secret identity.
 He nodded.  “Thank you for telling me.”  He finally said.
 She watched him for a moment, then slid forward and touched his hands.  “I have one more thing.”  She rose, and returned the jars to the shelf.  She then opened a cupboard and retrieved a fifth jar.  “I made this last month.”  She set it before him.  “I wasn’t quite sure why I made it, or why I glazed it in these colors and pattern.”  She admired it.  “Sometimes art is that way.”  She looked up at him.  “I also think it’s my best work.”
 He smiled simply as he admired the squat, little jar.  “Yes, I think so.”  He noticed the lid had not been sealed in wax.  He looked at her curiously, then slowly lifted the lid.
 It was empty.
 “I think I know why I made this now.”  She said warmly, and held his hands as they held the jar.  “I made it for you.”

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Copyrighted 4/2024, all rights reserved.  Story may not be reproduced in any format without the author’s permission.

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