"You gotta be kidding me?"
Britney's eyes distended over the brim of her glasses. In her hands, the petite blonde held an old book entitled: The Tickler. She combed a strand of hair away from her heart-shaped face and looked up to the young man across the counter. "Where the hell did you find this, Jay?"
Leaning on the cash register in the quaint store, the lanky man showed a pearly white smile. "Well, it all started when I tried some alcohol called the Tickler at my neighbor's house. She said it was from New Orleans—"
Britney's face sunk with boredom. She twirled her wrist for him to hurry. "Short version, please."
"Well, I wanted to learn more about it, so I looked it up on internet. Nothing. I actually had to go to New Orleans, search the streets, and finally stumbled across it, hidden away in the French Quarter."
"This cannot possibly be the short version, Jay."
"So, I walked in and an old lady—back bowed like a crescent moon—says she's been waiting for me. She gives me everything in the store: seeds, recipes, oil, and—"
"For free?" Britney arched her brow.
Jay nodded. "Get this. She then shoves me out and sets her small store on fire. Spooky shit."
"She died?" Britney asked.
Jay shrugged. "I don't know. I took off."
"Very heroic." Britney rolled her eyes. She then gestured to the plastic covering over the book. "Can I?"
"First things first, how much?"
"Well, first, I need to see if it's the real thing."
Jay heightened a brow. "I've seen Pawn Stars. As soon as you open something like that, it devalues. I can't believe you'd do a friend like that."
"Friend?" Britney's head shot back. She scrunched her brows, puckered her lips. "You 'hit' on me and got bullied my boyfriend. That's not a friendship."
"Bullied? Pssshhh! Me and Chase were cool."
Britney scoffed.
"And as for me 'hitting' on you, I was being nice," Jay said. "You just took it the wrong way."
"Hm!" Britney scoffed. She held up the book. "A hundred. Take it or leave it."
"Leave it!" Jay snatched the Tickler from her grasp.
"I don't know if this is real or not, so I can't just go all out."
"I can prove it's real."
"How?" Britney asked.
"Are you familiar with this?" Jay waved the book.
"It's my job to know about this stuff." Britney folded her arms and put her pointy chin in the air. "So, yeah. The Tickler is an x-rated book banned in the early part of the last century."
"Yeah, it taught ways to pleasure not only yourself but your partner as well, experience things you never thought existed."
"And I'm assuming you want to prove this book is real by doing these things on me? Ha!" Britney busted out in laughter. She showed off the wedding band on her ring finger. "No. And even if I wasn't, just no."
"It's not sex or anything—" Jay stopped himself. "Hang on. You married Chase?"
Britney responded by leveling him with a cold stare.
"Y'all dated all throughout high-school. Damn!" Jay cringed. "Have you ever been with anyone el—"
"Leave."
"Okay, okay, okay," Jay backed down. "Where was I? Oh yeah! It's not sex necessarily. It just involves your foot, that's all."
"Not a chance." Britney shook her head but suddenly perked up and sharpened her glower on him. "Wait, wait. How do you know how to do these things unless you've already opened the book, huh?"
Jay started to reply when he just froze. After a brief minute, he fumbled an excuse, "What I, uh, meant was it devalues each time you open it."
"Psshhh!" Britney rolled her eyes.
"Hear me out," Jay said. "If you don't cum, I'll give you the book for free."
"You serious?" Britney leaned-in, elbows on the counter. "If I don't have an orgasm from your foot massage, I get it for free?"
"Precisely. So, do we have a deal?"
"Of course." Britney waved for him. "Easiest money I've ever made."
Jay's smile stretched across his smooth face. He rubbed his palms together before hopping over the counter. He looked into her brown eyes. "Just because Chase can't make you cum doesn't mean I can't."
Britney pointed down. As Jay crouched to a knee with a creepy smile, she lifted her left shoe off the floor. "Not a word of this to anyone, got it?"
"Yeah, yeah." Jay untied Britney's laces and pulled her Converse off, along with her ankle sock. He marveled at her small size 6 foot. Her thin, perfectly proportioned toes painted a light-teal. With his legs crossed under him, he started his sensual massage by gripping the sides and digging his thumbs into her lower arch. He rotated his thumbs in circles all the way up the soft sole.
The bell jingled above the door.
On one foot, Britney hopped around to the new customer. "Hi-ya! How may I help you today?"
Hidden by the tall counter, Jay pressed his thumbs into the ball of her foot and then pinched and stroked each toe.
The young man approached. "I was wondering if you had a copy of Batman Rebirth 15."
"Let me check." Britney tapped the key on the computer and scrolled through their database. Jay's pressure increased on her foot, awakening a fuzzy feeling in her body. Her heart fluttered. She slightly wagged her head and refocused on the screen.
While holding her foot in his left hand, Jay made a fist with his right and kneaded her sole with his knuckles. Starting at her heel, he worked his way up. With a mischievous smile, he glanced to Britney, gauging her reaction while grazing his fingertips down her ticklish arch.
Britney bucked from the tickle, hips slamming into the counter. She paused. Her eyes shifted from the computer to the patient customer, who was staring at her with a peculiar expression. She blushed, forced a smile. "I uh..." She glared down at Jay but played it off to the customer as if searching for a bug, spider. "...thought something bit me."
"You alright?" the man asked.