Vanna Bardot: Gape my Asshole!

Vanna has contracted an appraiser to determine the worth of her valuables, but what she’s really after is an expert in the art of anal.

The house had been in her family for three generations, a sprawling Victorian that had once been the pride of the neighborhood. Now it stood like a aging dowager, still beautiful but faded, full of rooms that hadn’t been opened in decades and secrets that had died with their keepers.

Vanna inherited it six months ago, when her grandmother passed at ninety-three. She’d spent those months doing nothing—just walking through the rooms, touching the furniture, breathing the air that smelled of old wood and older memories. The house was all she had left of her family, and she couldn’t bear to change a thing.

But change was coming, whether she liked it or not. The taxes were due, the roof was leaking, and her savings were running out. She needed to know what she was sitting on—not to sell, not yet, but to understand. To make informed decisions. To face reality instead of hiding from it.

Hence the appraiser.

Julian Cole arrived on a Tuesday morning, prompt and professional. He was younger than she’d expected—maybe thirty-five, with kind eyes and the patient demeanor of someone who spent his life handling other people’s treasures. He carried a leather satchel and a small notebook, and he introduced himself with a handshake that was warm without being lingering.

“Ms. Thorne,” he said, looking up at the house. “This is quite a property.”

“Vanna, please. And yes, it’s a lot.” She stepped aside to let him enter. “I should warn you—I haven’t done much with it since I inherited. Some rooms are… well, they’re exactly as my grandmother left them.”

Julian’s eyes softened. “That’s actually ideal for an appraisal. Original context tells me more about the pieces than if everything had been rearranged.” He set down his satchel, pulling out a notebook. “Shall we begin?”

They started in the parlor, the room Vanna knew best. She’d spent countless hours here as a child, sitting at her grandmother’s feet while the older woman told stories about ancestors Vanna would never meet. The furniture was heavy Victorian, dark wood and velvet, the kind of pieces that would be called “oppressive” in a modern design magazine but felt like comfort to her.

Julian moved through the room slowly, touching nothing without permission, asking questions about each piece. Did she know its origin? Had her grandmother ever mentioned its history? Were there documents, receipts, any paperwork that might establish provenance?

Vanna answered what she could, which wasn’t much. Her grandmother had been a woman of stories, not records. She knew that the clock on the mantel had come from Germany with her great-great-grandfather. She knew that the painting above the fireplace was of her great-aunt Matilda, who’d died young and beautiful. She knew that the rug beneath their feet had been a wedding gift in 1923.

But provenance? Paperwork? None of that had mattered in this house. What mattered was memory.

“This is fascinating,” Julian murmured, examining a small porcelain figurine. “This mark here—this is Meissen. Eighteenth century, if I’m not mistaken.” He looked up at her. “Do you have any idea what something like this might be worth?”

Vanna shook her head. “I know it was my grandmother’s favorite. She used to say it reminded her of her own grandmother. That’s all I know.”

Julian smiled, and something in his expression shifted—warmth, recognition, a kind of understanding that went beyond professional appraisal. “That’s the most important thing, isn’t it? What it’s worth to the market matters less than what it’s worth to you.” He set the figurine down carefully. “My job is to give you the first number. You get to decide what it means.”

They moved through the house room by room, hour by hour. The dining room with its massive table and twelve chairs, all original, all solid. The library with books that hadn’t been opened in decades, their spines faded but intact. The bedrooms upstairs, each frozen in time, each holding the ghost of someone who’d once called this house home.

In her grandmother’s bedroom, Vanna paused. This was the hardest room—the bed where she’d last seen the old woman alive, the chair where she’d sat reading to her, the window where she’d watched birds visit the feeder her grandmother maintained until the very end.

Julian stopped beside her, not pushing, just present.

“This was her room,” Vanna said quietly. “She died here. In that bed.”

“I’m sorry.” His voice was gentle. “Would you prefer to skip this room? We can come back another time.”

“No.” She took a breath. “No, we should do it now. Get it over with.”

They worked through the room methodically—the dresser, the nightstand, the small desk where her grandmother had written letters in elegant cursive. Vanna opened drawers, found photographs and postcards and a diary she couldn’t bring herself to read. Julian catalogued the furniture, the jewelry box, the small collection of perfume bottles on the vanity.

But it was the closet that held the surprise.

Tucked in the back, behind boxes of shoes and out-of-season coats, was a painting. Large, covered in a cloth, leaning against the wall like something forgotten rather than something hidden.

“What’s this?” Julian asked.

Vanna shook her head. “I’ve never seen it before.”

He lifted the cloth carefully, and both of them gasped.

The painting was extraordinary—a landscape, but not just any landscape. It was this house, this very house, but years ago, when the neighborhood was still countryside and the trees were young. The colors were vivid, the brushwork masterful, the composition so perfect it hurt to look at.

“Vanna,” Julian breathed. “Do you know what this is?”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

“This signature here—” He pointed to the corner. “This is a California Impressionist. Early twentieth century. If it’s authentic, and I think it is, this painting alone could be worth more than everything else in this house combined.”

Vanna stared at the painting, at her house as it had been a hundred years ago, at the vision of someone who’d seen beauty in this place and captured it forever.

“Why would she hide this?” she whispered. “Why wouldn’t she tell me?”

Julian was quiet for a moment. Then: “Sometimes the most valuable things are the hardest to share. Maybe she wanted you to find it when you were ready. Maybe she wanted it to be a gift, not an inheritance.”

Vanna felt tears slide down her cheeks. She didn’t wipe them away.

Hours later, the appraisal was complete. Julian had photographed and catalogued everything, filling his notebook with observations and estimates. They sat in the kitchen—the one room Vanna had updated, the one room that felt like hers—and he walked her through his initial findings.

“The house itself is valuable, even in its current condition. The location alone…” He named a figure that made her dizzy. “The furniture is a mix—some pieces are genuinely valuable, others are more sentimental than monetary. The Meissen figurine is significant. The painting…” He shook his head. “The painting changes everything.”

Vanna stared at her hands. “What do I do?”

Julian reached across the table, covering her hand with his. It was a gesture of comfort, nothing more, but it steadied her.

“Nothing, yet. You sit with this information. You decide what matters to you. Some things you’ll sell, probably—the taxes won’t pay themselves. Some things you’ll keep. And some things…” He smiled. “Some things you’ll rediscover, the way you rediscovered that painting. The way your grandmother wanted you to.”

Vanna looked up at him, this stranger who’d spent the day handling her family’s treasures with more care than she’d thought possible.

“Thank you,” she said. “For being gentle with it. With her. With me.”

Julian’s eyes held hers, warm and steady. “It was my honor. Truly.” He stood, gathering his things. “I’ll have the formal report to you within two weeks. But Vanna?”

“Yes?”

“Whatever you decide to do with any of this—sell it, keep it, give it away—remember that the worth was never really in the objects. It was in the love that collected them. That’s something no appraisal can measure.”

He left her sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by a house full of valuables, holding the only thing that really mattered: the knowledge that she was part of something larger, something that had been growing for generations and would continue long after she was gone.

The painting leaned against the wall where they’d left it, waiting to be hung, waiting to be seen. Vanna looked at it and saw her grandmother’s face, her grandmother’s love, her grandmother’s quiet gift.

She’d contracted an appraiser to determine the worth of her valuables. She’d found something far more valuable instead.