Sticky Fingers

Max was walking home from work and so distracted by the prize he was clutching in his hands, he didn’t notice the 3 foot tall Albanian man walking towards him.

The dwarf, falling to the ground to get out of the way, shouted out to Max.

“What fuck’s your problem?”

Max’s problem was “Borrowing things”. From little things, like the little pens at banks, to bigger things, like the expensive string of round white polished stones that he was now carefully turning over in his hands. He thought the stones must have been made of marble or some sort of other high-end stone. He wondered how much they would catch at a pawn shop but quickly dismissed the idea.

Max rarely thought about the value of the things he took. It was about the little bolt of ecstasy that ran through his whole body when ever he would surreptitiously pocketed something. But, in the end Max would always give back what he stole. The thrill, guilt, and the shame of confession, were all apart of a neurotic ritual that he had to do be satisfied. And he had been doing it for years.

Max had been trying to quit. He worked as an electrician, and whenever he got a urge he’d just touch an exposed wire. The resulting heart pounding pain would get him what he need for the day to day. But, today, while he was working on a client’s walk-in-closet light fixtures, he had found the broken, yet beautiful, necklace stuffed into a small red silk box. Max couldn’t resist. He finished with his work and left with a smile a mile wide.

**************

The following week Max became obsessed. After days of lying in bed, he began to deeply inhale the sweet and sterile aroma that surrounded the stone beads. Soon he also began to dream of the bittersweet woman who must have worn the item.

Beauty and grace as she danced while an untouched porcine neck was garnished in luxury. A fiery society girl whose constant application of perfume gave the stones a glamorous oily finish. A wild vixen that left only the broken necklace behind when she broke his heart.

For days Max lived, breathed, and even tasted his most sacred treasure. Dreams of dreams built a strange paradise where he could escape at the end of the day to bathe in the object and its mystery owners serene beauty. But the cycle had to be completed. His pent up guilt and desire would not let him cling to his wild fantasies for any longer.

Max drove his car up the long winding driveway to the rich and prolific house on a the hill. Knocked on the intricately carved and polished wooden doors and offered up to the owner, a small balding man with suspicious eyes, his lost necklace. With a rubicund face, Max apologized for stealing, and asked for forgiveness.

The suspicious man’s eyes widened and through a flustered fit of stammering choked out,

“W-w-what could you… have p-p-possibly… What! Reason would you… “ Then in a whisper, “ would you want my a-a-anal beads for?”

Max, the romantic idiot, spent the next two days in the shower. Shaking.
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The original prompt written by ME was: "The problem with kleptomania is that by rule of averages you WILL steal something that has been in a butt"