Magic Jewelry: A Journey to 90s Bulgaria

"What... wha... what the hell," I muttered, hearing myself, barely audible under the pounding bass and probably even louder chatter of the other girls. But I heard it, I heard it clearly. I was speaking another language. Albanian or maybe Bulgarian, I didn’t understand, and even though it grated on my ears, the fact that in the reflection of the mirror in that filthy room, what was clearly some club’s women’s restroom, I saw her and she was copying every single thing I did, that, damn it, that was what scared me the most.

"Hey, move," one of the girls shouted right into my ear, shoving me aside with her hip and immediately puckering her lips to fix her lipstick. She said it like all of this was normal, like I was supposed to be here, and again it hit my ears wrong, her words definitely weren’t in English. "Move it if you’re done!"

She shoved me harder and I almost fell, forgetting I was standing in lace-up high heels, and only at the last moment grabbed the edge of the sink, feeling the long nails respond with an unpleasant, sharp sting through my fingers, making me wince.

"Careful, sweetheart," another one smirked from the right, dark-haired with a short bob and a sharp look. I turned to her. She was taller, or maybe I was just short, I don’t know, but her look. God, she looked at me like I was dirt under her nails, not a person. "What, you high or something?"

I swallowed. High? Me.

To hell with this. I need to take this damn ring off. I just need to get it off faster and then I’ll be back home, in my tiny apartment in the Seattle suburbs, I’ll be myself again, just a regular guy named Lucas, a plumber from the US who just happened to stumble onto that old box of magical women’s jewelry at a flea market last night.

I lunged for the ring on my left hand, but the long dark nails immediately caught on each other, sending a sharp pain shooting through my finger.

"Come on, get off!" I muttered through my teeth, trying to pull the thing free, but it wouldn’t budge. Like it was glued on or something even worse

"What are you doing?" the girl who had shoved me away from the mirror said, now finished fixing her makeup and looking at me with a mix of surprise and irritation as I struggled with it. "Oh my God! Snezhana, what the hell?!"

She suddenly grabbed my hand, forcing me to stop, doing it like she was saving my life. I tried to pull away, but her grip on my wrist was tight, so tight I could feel my hand starting to go numb.

"What the hell is this?! What the hell?! Are you seriously wasted?!" she shouted even louder, dragging me aside. The other girls were staring at me like I was the main attraction here. Some were openly laughing, some watched me with suspicion, someone pulled out a phone and started recording me without even hiding it.

"You glued it on with superglue yourself half an hour ago and were screaming and calling your Artyom that now he’s yours forever, and now…" she yanked my hand up sharply, almost shoving it in front of my face, "…now you’re trying to rip your own skin off?! Have you completely lost it, Snezhana?!"

Loud laughter erupted behind me. I could hear phrases in a language that still sounded foreign and yet somehow native at the same time.

"Sveta, look at this, what a damn circus! We gotta post this online!"

"She glued a ring on?! Seriously?! Is she completely insane?!"

I turned toward the voice and immediately felt the heavy oversized earrings swing and painfully tug at my earlobes, making me flinch from their unexpected weight. The long dark hair gathered into a high ponytail with a braided section whipped across my bare back, and something in my chest bounced so hard that I nearly lost my balance.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit!

Anger boiled inside me as I felt these damn tits dragging me forward with their weight, the thin straps of the heels digging into my skin, these full lips twisting into some ridiculous grimace on their own, and all these girls staring at me.

I don't know how long I stood there. Maybe a minute. Maybe two.

Time had stopped.

I was simply trying to make sense of what was happening when suddenly...

A faint but piercing electric jolt ran through my entire body.

Not like before, fifteen minutes earlier, back in my apartment when I'd decided to try on the ring. That had felt more like falling.

This was different.

I turned toward the girl holding my wrist.

"There. Don't thank me," she said, letting go of my arm and holding out the ring, traces of glue still visible on the metal.

Barely managing to stay upright on those damned heels, I stared at the ring as if I were looking at Jesus Christ himself.

"Acetone. Had Mishka go buy some while you were dancing around like an idiot."

But I wasn't listening anymore. Her words passed straight through me.

My entire world had collapsed into a single point, and I couldn't tear my eyes away from that piece of metal.

What the hell?

What the hell am I still doing here?

It was supposed to...

Then cold sweat burst across my skin, and my shoulder blades clenched so tightly that my tits immediately shifted unpleasantly, stretching the tight fabric of the top.

"...take it off yourself. If someone else removes it, you'll stay in that life. Good luck exploring!"

"Give it here!" I barked, or rather squeaked, snatching the ring so abruptly that my long nails instantly scratched the skin of her palm.

"Ow! Are you fucking crazy?!" she yelped, jerking her hand back and glaring at the thin red line across it. "Snezhana, are you even hearing yourself?!"

I wasn't listening anymore.

My fingers trembled. The nails got in the way, catching on each other, and that damn ring, cold and sticky from the leftover glue, felt like the only real thing in this entire nightmare.

I grabbed it between two fingers and shoved it onto my finger as fast as I could, preparing myself, no, hoping with every fiber of my being that I would instantly fall somewhere and wake up back home.

Back in my own apartment.

Back in my own life.

But instead...

"Hey! Why are you all stuck in here?! Anka said the strippers are already waiting!" another loud voice called from behind me, and at the same moment a woman's hand landed on my shoulder. "What, trying to take it off?"

Then came laughter.

Loud, booming laughter that spread through the entire women's restroom, bouncing off the tiled walls and mixing with the bass still pounding from the club floor.

"She was trying to. I helped her. Now she's putting it back on again. You didn't slip anything into her drink, did you?" the girl who had removed my ring said, looking past me. "She's been acting completely out of it for the last five minutes."

"Me?!" a voice came from behind, "Why the hell would I need her to slip her something. Though maybe her dear husband pulled some shit. You know him."

I sharply turned toward the girl behind me and immediately felt my heavy tits sway under the thin top, pulling the fabric tight over my nipples so that goosebumps ran across my skin. In front of me stood a tall blonde, or maybe everyone just seemed tall to me right now, with smeared mascara under her eyes and a cigarette between her fingers, and she looked at me like I was supposed to understand everything without a word.

"Which… husband..?" I forced out, and even I heard how that sounded.

She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, looks like he did slip you something after all," she said, pulling out a cigarette and a lighter while I just stood there staring, trying to process it all. Husband. Slipped something. Ring. What the hell am I still doing here?

"Well, she sure picked herself an aristocrat," she went on, taking a drag and not even looking at me, talking to the girl behind my back, "I told her. Hell, everyone told her… that he’s a complete psycho, but she didn’t care. ‘I’m in love, I don’t care that he’s a gangster, he’s sweet to me.’"

The last part she said in a mocking, nasal tone, and another girl behind me burst out laughing, loud and genuine.

"She’s still the same now. Forgot how you glued the ring on or what?" a pause, she takes another drag, her tone turning more serious, "just high right now, when it wears off we just gotta keep the glue away from her."

Loud laughter rolled through the room again, like I wasn’t a person, like I didn’t even exist here. Though who even was I? Malcolm, who apparently didn’t exist anymore, or Snezhana? That question alone made my head spin even more.

They kept chatting about something, still discussing me, or rather Snezhana, or me? Fuck, I tried not to think about it. I needed a phone. A phone so I could call myself. Maybe that would fix something.

"Phone! Mobile! I need a phone!" it burst out of me in that same ridiculous female pitch, but I didn’t care anymore, my eyes darting around the cramped, smoke-filled, yellow-lit room where everything looked exactly like it smelled.

The girls, apparently Snezhana’s friends, or now my friends, immediately burst into laughter, one louder than the other.

"Whaaaat?! A phone?! A mobile?!" one of them laughed, the one who had taken off my ring, "where’d you see those, Snezhana? In the movies, for fuck’s sake?"

"Even your ‘cool’ Artyom only has a pager," the blonde added, calming down a bit and taking a deep drag so hard her cheeks hollowed.

A pager. “Cool.” What the hell kind of reality is this. Who even is this girl and...

It hit me like an electric shock. Am I… in the past?

"What year… what year is it now?" I started, already bracing for another wave of laughter from my “friends,” and as if deciding to finish myself off, I added, "and… where am I? What is this… place, country and—"

They didn’t let me finish.

"Bulgaria, ninety-five, Sofia, club ‘Zvezda,’" the blonde cut me off, "we should ask her what she took and stay the hell away from it."

"Yeah," another one said, "she’s tripping hard."

I stayed silent. I heard them talking about me. Felt my tits pulling me down. Felt my feet aching in the heels. Smelled the smoke, perfume, sex in the air. Saw it, heard it, felt it, but stayed silent.

1995. Bulgaria. Sofia and I… I’m some damn Snezhana, apparently married to some kind of criminal boss, and the damn ring doesn’t work anymore...