My lap top is still broken. I plan to have a friend of mine perform some robot surgery on the little guy but, the most Californian thing I have said since “The morning fog makes my yoga mat slippery”, I want to wait until Mercury Retrograde is over. Mock me if you must.
You could better expend that energy by buying me a new laptop.
Point being, this was posted from my cell using the WordPress App. So, again hope it’s working out for you.
I work in a smut shop and sometimes the customers bother me enough that I have to write about them. Since I can’t be mean to their faces. I collect these stories and call then CREEPS. Several of them are available in issue seven of The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction. Others may never see the light of day. We’ll see how it goes.
Funny how the woman talking about ball gags made me wish she was wearing one.
It wasn’t the sound of her voice. The tone and frequency weren’t particularly offensive. Just that she was talking. That she could talk.
Two women opened the door and hesitated at the entrance.
“Why not?”
– inaudible response-
“Oh, come on. We can’t get in much trouble…”
I heard the the knob from the deadbolt we recently changed and poorly installed clatter to the floor. Everyone lets the door slam behind them.
I was standing behind the counter and putting matching pink and red lingerie sets, surely made from some highly flammable poly blend, on new hangers. Trying to fool what few customers we may have into thinking they are new product.
The first woman entered and gestured at me. “See, she seems harmless.”
The second woman, obviously here against her will, didn’t look at me. She gazed after he friend, exasperated. “Why would she be?”
The first woman was almost in awe of the shop. That such things could be for sale to the general public. At first she seemed to delight in trying to embarrass her friend. She didn’t stop talking for more than a moment and when she wasn’t yakking away, she was texting.
Her ringtone was too loud. A long conch warning like Lord of the Flies. I pictured her a wild boar rotating over a fire on a spit with a shiny red apple in her mouth.
It was at this moment that she turned to the mannequin next to the counter.
My boss purchased two of them. Molded plastic faces that were something like an anime Harley Quin. Huge eyes with gaping, joyful, clown mouths. They were terrifying. So terrifying that I wasn’t the least bit upset when one day I bumped into one, knocked it over, and busted her head off.
The mannequin at the front counter remained in tact. Her face still frightened me so I covered it with a full face mask, harness and ball gag.
The first woman stared at it. She raised her hand and then let it fall dramatically to her side as she sighed “Oh, allllllll this. This is just too much.”
The second woman forced a smile and milled around waiting for her friend to finish shopping. “Shopping”. “Observing” was more like it. “Gawking” was more accurate still.
The longer she roamed the sales floor the more she came across things she found offensive.
I walked back to the secret labyrinth hallway in search of more hanger clips and heard her voice, completely aghast at something.
“Oh my GOD! Are these REAL?”
I didn’t care enough to look back and see what. The answer was probably yes.
She picked up stripper stilettos, fetish style toe shoes, glass dildos, and handcuffs. She made her way to the toy room at the back of the shop, touching everything along the way. Her companion trudged along behind her, dragging her paper shopping bag on the ground.
I finished hanging molotov lingerie as they walked back onto the main floor.
“No. I’m just not into it.”
The first woman said this firmly, defensively and walks away from the second woman. “No. Just. Not into it. No.”
She walked back to the front door, the second woman a trail of beige behind her.
The door slammed and the lock fell off again.
We really ought to get that fixed.
(it’s since been fixed, so don’t get any bright ideas, jerk)
