Bookstore Becomes Site Of You Know

Working retail for a living is nightmare enough, but working at a cruddy mall bookstore called Tomes-a-Waitin' is the kind of torture that can drive good men mad. It's a soul-deadening experience intensified by having to work the noon to six shift on a Sunday, when the lamest customers stumble past the Gap and Radio Shack right into our store to thumb through the magazines, ask irritating questions, and gawk at us like retarded chickens as we explain our Discount Club to them at corporate gunpoint. I don't want to hear anymore about the so-called sufferings of people confined to the Gulag, or rotting in a prison during the French Revolution, or even buried alive in Pompeii. Any retail clerk knows a fate far worse than any of these alleged "difficulties".

Fortunately, I worked last Sunday's shift with Lila, who usually manages to bring an atmosphere of campiness to the proceedings. She and I both despise having jobs, and whenever we work together, not only does nothing get done, but the price of Tomes-a-Waitin' stock actually seems to dip noticeably during the next day's Wall Street trading. Lila is in her mid-twenties, thin and blonde with green eyes, and she likes to dress to make everyone else look like zombified mental patients. She has often pushed the restraints of Casual Day to the level of Asimovian fantasy, forgoing her usual tasteful fashion sense for the most eye-popping garb. She'll wear leather or even plastic reflective pants to work, low-cut tank tops with vaguely offensive slogans printed on them, necklaces draped one on top of the another until you wonder how she can even stand up anymore, Bono-like sunglasses, high heels...all to say to the world, "You can make me work, but you cannot make me care."

Last Sunday I oozed into my shift after a late night of chatting with Lila online about how we just couldn't take one more wretched day of this $7.00 an hour crap-athalon to find her in fine fashion form, as always. She had donned a red leather mini-skirt and a hilariously tight black sweater to accompany silver high heels.

"I see you're in the mood to risk being fired today," I said in greeting.

"Damn right," she said in reply. "It's been a bad morning already. Some woman asked if I could please hurry ringing her up because her church service started in fifteen minutes."

Ooo, the churchies. They're all over us on Sundays. They come in after yapping with God and never buy a goddamn thing.

The first hour at work was one of record-breaking miasma. We had a total of three customers. Each requested a book we didn't have and which we lamely offered to special order for them, knowing they'd just walk right across the mall and buy it at Booktitanica, our monstrous competitor. Each looked at us with a dazed expression of utter lifelessness and dribbled out the door like lukewarm spit from a baby's drinking glass.

"All right, that's it," Lila said to me as we lethargically stickered the new John Grisham novel. (I think this one was about a young firebrand with something to prove!) "I need some human reaction here. And if I get fired, I'm taking you down with me."

"Then it's agreed," I said, suddenly finding meaning in my life. "We'll just accept that today is our last day. Let our shameful dismissals bring us much personal satisfaction."

I wasn't exactly sure what kind of chaos Lila was planning to create-I thought maybe she'd just run up and down the fiction aisle like usual, telling anyone who would listen how 'the vampires were coming to claim us', or pretend to be a customer and ask me loud stupid questions, like why the Classics section had omitted the works of Dean Koontz. But to my delight, she promptly undid the top three buttons of her sweater and leaned over the counter slightly, awaiting an approaching middle-aged man who, with perfect dramatic serendipity, was coming to the counter to buy a copy of a respected national periodical of current social and political discourse called Almost-Nude Grannies 'n' Friends.

The poor sod put his periodical on the counter inches from Lila's semi-exposed moon pies. The front catch of her black bra was plainly visible to anyone.

"Hi," she said to the customer with just a hint of lasciviousness.

The man muttered something back. Lila rang him up, standing straight and arching her back slightly.

I swear to God, the guy paid absolutely no attention. Here was this cute blonde with her cleavage exposed to the world and he was too dead to the world to notice. He took his change and his magazine and left.

"Oh...my...Jesus," Lila whispered, and I nearly burst out laughing.

Undaunted for the moment, Lila resolved to take things one step further with the next customer, who luckily was a teenage boy. This couldn't miss, right? He was even buying a cheap paperback about Britney Spears, so obviously this sixteen year-old doofus had only one thing on his mind, and it wasn't the haunting melodies of "Oops, I Did It Again." Lila reached for the stars, undoing two more sweater buttons, leaving only the very bottom button fastened. Most of her satin bra was visible, and she made sure to scrunch her shoulders just a bit as the boy came to the counter so that her curve-a-lots were squeezed together in a most fascinating way.

Goddamn if that kid didn't lay a ten dollar bill on the counter with bovine eyes and walk away with his Britney book without taking a single look at that Peabody Award-winning chest.

"It's true!" Lila cried, throwing her arms up in the air as the kid walked out. "Nerve gas has eaten away the central nervous systems and brain stems of our city's populace!" She crouched behind the counter for a moment and undid the last button of her sweater. Then she was shimmying it off entirely.

Tears of laughter began to flow down my cheeks. "Girl, what are you doing? Give it up. Homo Sapiens is being declared officially dead."

"I refuse to believe people are so damn ignorant," she said. I was suddenly staring at her naked back. She had taken off her bra and laid it down on top of a box of receipt tape. Then she put her sweater back on quickly, standing up again. She made a concentrated effort now to experiment with different mathematical button combinations, hoping to expose herself as much as possible without actually drawing the attention of mall security. She turned to me at length and said, "Okay, how's this for a grabber?"

She had fastened just one button again, the one a couple of inches beneath her breasts. She turned sideways a bit so I could see how the slope of one of them led down behind the material of the black sweater, concealing a nipple by bare centimeters.

"You underestimate what the media, the government, and the demons of consumerism have done to reduce the awareness of the masses," I said, sweeping my arm across the bookstore, where a total of two other duds were standing and snooping through our substandard goods.

"Then screw it," Lila said cheerfully, and unfastened things again. Her sweater was now simply hanging open, her cleavage fully exposed. An older gentleman approached the counter to inquire as to the release date of the new Encyclopedia of Herbs, Shrubs, Grubs, and Assorted Greenery of Note. Lila checked the computer as he idly thumbed through a tiny book of Dylan Thomas' verse sitting on a display rack. She then told him it looked to be about August. The man left with a brief note of thanks. At one point during the exchange Lila's love dimes were clearly visible. The dude never gave a hint that he gave a rat's ass.

After several minutes of Lila's agonized shrieking and flailing, I offered to give her what I thought would be an informative demonstration in good customer service. While she stood there, making no attempt to cover herself, a middle-aged woman sidled up with a copy of whatever feel-good womany crap Oprah was pushing that day.

"Have you heard about our Discount Club, good madam?" I asked her.

"Uh, no," she said.

"Well, it's a wonderful thing," I told her. "For every twenty dollars you spend here at Tomes-a-Waitin', I will go down on you for a full half hour."

She absently turned the bookmark carousel around and around, looking for just the right colorful scrap of paper to pay three dollars for. "No thanks," she said.

"Are you sure? Our Bonus Club Members are guaranteed a minimum of two orgasms through oral sex."

"No, that's okay," the woman said. "I'll just take the book..."

It was then that Lila and I made a pact that went far beyond our original intention of simply getting fired. We would not rest until we had made history. Such was our frustration with the retail myopia which was coming to a head on that Sunday afternoon. It is said that there comes a time in every person's life when they must reach deep within themselves to attain a goal that seems beyond their grasp. One is reminded of Christopher Columbus' tireless pursuit of the New World, of Admiral Byrd's dogged, relentless quest for the Pole, and maybe even my old roommate Benny's ceaseless stalking of Catherine Zeta-Jones. At any rate, Lila and I vowed to take one great step forward in the battle against...well, it was a battle against something, right?

Suffice it to say that the next customer, a tobacco-chewing redneck, should have been shocked to his very foundations by the sight of a pretty, utterly topless bookstore clerk ringing up his copy of This Month in DogWalking while my hands gently massaged her naked mams from behind, causing her lickables to become fully aroused. Yet even the soft moan Lila emitted between the phrases "Would you like a..." and "...bag for that" did not distract that potatohead from his meaningless thoughts.

Nor was a young woman from Pensacola, Florida (that's what it said on her check) at all thrown by the image of Lila's hand cradling and slowly massaging my hard longshoreman as I informed her that her SAT study guide would come to a total of nineteen dollars and forty cents-"before tax, you lusty piece," I added casually.

And you would have thought, certainly, that when a Catholic priest came up to the counter and found Lila sitting on top of it with her legs spread and her leather skirt hiked up around her hips, he would have suspected something was amiss, that perhaps this bookstore chain could be doing a better job of helping its customers, and that maybe a call to the home office would be in order. He asked Lila where he might find a copy of Oh, the Places You'll Go!, and she could only respond with a fluttering of her eyelids and a breathless sigh.

"How about you, sir?" the priest asked the back of my head. The front of it was quite busy engulfing Lila's juicer. In fact, I could barely hear the man above the delightful wet licking and sucking sounds. I was courteous enough (I've always had a soft spot for the clergy, you see) to interrupt the proceedings briefly to tell him he might find that particular volume in the For Grads section. He thanked me and the next thing I knew Lila had grabbed the back of my head again and forced it back into place. I tongued her while she let out little sobs of approval, making a mental note both to order more Dr. Seuss titles for the summer rush and to draw Lila's gumdrop deeper into my mouth, giving it a few swirls for good measure, which she seemed to find acceptable.

The bookstore was actually getting a little busier now, and we decided without a word that it was time for the full show. I stood in front of the counter and took off my shirt. My jeans had already been unbuttoned and shucked down a bit so Lila could get a good hold of the Great Gatsby. It was just a matter of kicking off my shoes and my socks. Then Lila had taken care of the rest. I leaned back against the counter and she yanked off my pants, then off came my shorts with one fell swoop of her hand. I took her skirt off, her panties already having been flung away pre-oral. They now hung unassumingly from a sign informing our customers that our entire selection of children's bibles was twenty percent off all this month. We stood completely naked for a moment and then she led me behind the counter again by something that was standing out far more prominently than my hand. Someone was coming.

It was a sixty year old woman whom we recognized; she was a regular. The kind who was always asking if we matched our competitor's prices, and why we couldn't relocate to the other side of the mall so she wouldn't have to walk so far to get to us.

Glorious naked Lila was leaning over with her elbows on the counter. The old lady, Hortense by name, asked her if we had the new Farmer's Almanac.

"Not...just...yet," Lila said. The pauses between words were pretty much my fault. She could really only speak on the downside of the thrusts of the Last of the Mohicans sliding into her from behind.

"The release date on that would be-" I started, and snuggled myself deep into Lila, pausing there for a moment for convenience's sake. "-March 23rd, you nasty old crone!"

"Thank you," the crone said, and Lila and I both nodded politely as I cupped her prancing bosom, she throwing her arms back around my neck as we resumed our rhythm.

"I heard the new Almanac says it's going to be a hard winter," Hortense said dreamily. "Gonna be tough on my cukes and my tomatoes!"

"That's...life," Lila panted. I lowered one hand to her left ankle and lifted her leg up off the floor, to give Hortense and whoever else might be wandering around a slightly better view of the proceedings. I let out an impressive groan that was due half to the feel of Lila, half to pure showmanship.

"Of course, I can save forty cents if I buy the Almanac at MartMan," Hortense went on, touching her old woman's glasses to her cheek in thought.

"In these crazy times, you elderly windbag, you gotta do what you gotta do," I told her. Lila released herself from my yule log, spun around, and grabbed me by the arms. She pushed me backwards into the counter, and I hopped on top of it and laid back so my face was purse-level with Hortense. Lila climbed up on the counter and shimmied forward, taking the Great Emancipator in one hand and lowering herself onto it in one long, slow movement. After that, there was slightly less subtlety. She began to rock up and down on top of me, supporting herself by placing her left hand on the cash register.

A line had formed. There were four customers waiting behind Hortense, who was babbling something now about how in the old days (of the Mesozoic Era, one would assume) she could order almost anything from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue, from a genuine three-pronged lamshackey to a handmade wicker spinecob.

"Tell me, Hortense dear," I moaned, cradling Lila's frontnot as she lap-shnazzed me with an abandon that would make any Tomes-a-Waitin' shareholder beam with pride, "do you find the level of service here to be less than, say, what you experienced when you bought your first cotton gin from Sears?"

"Stop talking, I'm trying to Vesuvius!" Lila yelled at me. "How many chances do I get in this damn store?!"

And suddenly a voice cried out from the front of the store: "Oh my God, you're naked!"

Lila and I were far beyond the point where we could stop gadoogling, but we did look up for a moment to see our regional manager, the coldhearted, bald-pated Mr. Von Moptart, standing there with his clipboard, ready to document the slightest breach of company policy!

"Be with you in a jif, sir!" Lila cried out, and thrust herself downward one more time, grinding her thelma onto me for dear life, shivering slightly as her caged bird sang. Her orgasm began non-destructively enough, but soon fifty-seven dollars of company merchandise went flying off the counter.

Mr. Von Moptart ran forward, nearly stumbling over his own feet in a desperate attempt to shield the customers from the atrocity before them. He grabbed a large cardboard standee of Salman Rushdie and held it up to block their view.

"We're really almost done here," I assured our distressed visitor, feeling a new warmth and moisture swallowing my wangie.

"Mnnmmn almosht dnnnnnnnn," Lila agreed, her mouth temporarily occupied with more important pursuits than calling in special orders to Ingram.

"One dollar off any purchase of fifty dollars or more, folks!" Moptart shouted, putting the customers first as always, God bless him. "Just forget what you've seen here today!"

"Try and forget this!" Lila said loudly, sensing that I was about to erupt and stroking me frantically with her hand until, two seconds later, a seemingly endless stream of silkymilky leapt out. I did my damnedest to make Lila's chest the recipient of most of it, but if Hortense and a few other innocent bystanders caught a little of the action, well, it's like they say: You can't make an omelette without getting some sperm on people.

From that point on, what I remember mostly is Mr. Von Moptart accidentally choking on the phone in his desperate attempts to call 911, the overhead fire sprinklers being set off, and Lila demanding in the midst of all the turmoil that I go down on her again because I "hadn't quite aced it the first time". The store was cleared out, the police brought in drug dogs, the property was condemned, and Lila popped one more time, her legs wrapped around my shoulders in the History aisle, before we ran for it.

Basically the point is that last Sunday was not only the end of our tenure at Tomes-a-Waitin', but the end of our retail careers. There are now no less than one hundred and forty class action lawsuits pending against the company, while Lila and I escaped unscathed-you gotta love America and its willingness to blame anything and everything on corporations and not their crazy employees. She and I have interviews with the Salvation Army next week. Someone told us the work is honorable, but a little boring sometimes. Lila wants to know if she'll be allowed to wear only a bikini top to work.