"Miss Spacey, your, uh, shirt..."
Olivia looked down at the wayward shoulder strap of her white top.
"Oh, do you want me to fix it?"
Mr. Lecher reached over stacks of papers to grab a tissue from the box on the desk between him and the college girl.
He grabbed one, then two--
Three-four-five.
The last tissue made a hollow
fwip
as it left the emptied box.
The air conditioning blasted in the cramped office--already overkill in the cool morning--but the bald grocer still soaked the tissues as he dabbed at his spotted pate and the darkened armpits of his coarse polo.
"Excuse me," he said, throwing the tissues away even as his head began to shine again.
He glanced at the impossibility before him. A young woman with pink hair and a body so curved it seemed to bend light around it.
"I don't mind," Olivia said with a bounce. Mr. Lecher felt a tidal pull as her cleavage wobbled and her strap moseyed even lower. The flesh of Olivia's ample tit spilled out the side of her top, and a crescent moon of pink came into view.
"If you're fine, I'm fine," Lecher rasped. He raised a thermos to his mustachioed mouth, but only one drop of cool water coursed his dry tongue.
He swallowed anyway, put the thermos down and reached for her resume. His thumbs left greasy smudges on its edges.
"Okay, Miss Spacey, you don't have any prior..." He glanced at his empty thermos and swallowed. "... well, job experience at all."
Her eyes, which had wandered to the ceiling, snapped to his. He forced himself to watch her lips as she talked.
Then her eyes.
Okay, right ear should be safe.
"I'm a good worker!" Olivia said, leaning forward earnestly. Her nipple phased from crescent to half-moon.
Ear. Ear. Ear.
Tender, juicy...
EAR.
"Just ask my dad or anyone, I'm super helpful! I just never had an
official
job in high school. But now that I'm on my own, I thought this would be a good first job."
"Miss Spacey, usually when you're looking for work, you tell the employer what you can do for them, not the other way around."
"I'm a quick learner, and I'm great at helping people!" Olivia said, leaning forward even more.
Full moon now, with a juicy center.
Mr. Lecher stood, realized he was standing in more than one sense, then sat down again.
"Are you okay?" Olivia said, pulling back in surprise, her free orb trembling.
"Sorry, it's just... hot in here," he said as he tried to level the bulge in his faded slacks. "Olivia, your breast is completely out."
She looked down.
She looked at him, then down again.
"Oh, sorry, if it makes you uncomfortable." She watched him a moment. "Sorry, sorry, sorry" she said, finally moving, face flushed as she tucked the tit away like she'd stolen it. She seemed more embarrassed about his discomfort than her own exposure.
Either very sweet, or very fishy. Having lived for decades in the cutthroat world of groceries, Virgil Lecher erred on fishy.
"If this is some kind of interview strategy, it's not going to work," he said sternly.
Probably.
"No no no!" Olivia said with a mortified expression.
Looking at the poor girl, he felt his chest deflate. Even if this was some kind of ploy, could he really blame her? It was plenty hard out there right now--people needed to use every possible advantage.
"Look, Olivia, I want to give you a chance, but this behavior could get me... I mean, it's not appropriate."
I can't afford another Bella.
Still blushing, she grabbed her purse and rummaged in it. After a few long moments, she produced a piece of paper and handed it to the grocer.
"What's this?" he asked.
"A doctor's note."
He read it.
Twice.
Three times.
"Anti... sink..."
"Antisynkentropic anaphia. Basically, I have no sense of touch unless I'm thinking about it."
"I don't understand."
"It's like this," she said, putting a hand over her deep cleavage. "You breathe without thinking about it, right?" She demonstrated with a few deep breaths. "But you can also think about your breathing and control it."
"So you're saying everyone in the world feels without thinking, but you only feel physical touch if you consciously focus on it, like taking a deep breath?"
"Yup! It's why I wear loose clothing," she continued, pulling at her straps and giving him another clear view of her pink twins. "I used to wear tight clothing to stay modest, but it kept cutting off my circulation. I almost lost a foot when I was sixteen!"
She released her straps, which slumped sideways across her chest and exposed half of her other nipple.
"Olivia," he said, his eyes darting between her ear and everything else, "I just don't know...."
"It's considered a disability," she said, "so there might be some tax credit in that."
Mr. Lecher's eyes widened.
Somewhere, a cash register
dinged.
***
In his office, Mr. Lecher lovingly tapped his keyboard, flipping between feeds from his security system on his monitor.
His store used to be quite popular--back when he had more hair on his head than on his back. Of course, more people meant more hooligans. Local teens used to treat the place like a proving ground: nick something from old Lecher and you were officially cool.
Virgil didn't mind much when a candy bar disappeared here or there--most were expired anyway. But the pilfered objects grew in size and value until Lecher's profits dropped achingly low.
So when a door-to-door salesman came pitching a camera security system, Lecher fulfilled the man's monthly quota all in one go. He found out later that he could have gotten the same product for half the price, but it served him so well that he felt almost proud of how much he paid for it.
The state-of-the-art system caught so many thieves that it ended up paying for itself twice over in the first five years. That always irked his ex-wife, who had bellyached about the price even years after the obvious return on investment.
"Stupid..." Lecher muttered. Blue light shone on his eyes as he leaned toward the screen. The monitor showed Olivia, now wearing a dark
Lecher's Local
apron, stacking cans from a high angle.
Yes, the cameras had not only saved the store, but his own ass.
Bella Zuleika had tried to smuggle a box of condoms under her hoodie. When the police arrived, Bella told them that Lecher had offered the box on the condition that he got to use one with her.
Bella was sixteen at the time.
The allegation was completely false, but the box was open and one of the condoms was missing--which earned Lecher a ride downtown and gave Bella a head start on sharing her version of things.
He still thanked God every night for his cameras which unequivocally proved that Bella had walked in, grabbed the condoms, then walked out without even seeing the grocer.
Lecher felt like he'd escaped a hangman's noose only to find the court of public opinion didn't care about little things like evidence. Regular customers, even friends, stopped coming by the store. He saw less business than ever. His wife left him--but that cow always had a hoof out the door, anyway.
Coming back to the present, his eyes focused on the screen as Olivia bent for a can.
"What a can... Christ almighty, this is a bad idea, this is a bad idea..." he muttered as he watched the silent screen.
***
Olivia hummed, not caring that the work was menial. She was only dimly aware of the cans as she stacked, just enough to make sure she was matching like-colored labels. Her humming became a stilted, thoughtless thing.
Why do cans have those grooves in them? Is it a structural thing, or purely aesthetic. Towels have a similar pattern on their end as well, which seemed aesthetic but were actually functionally useful. I wonder how many other things are ribbed for stability. Is that why every animal with bones has ribs, too? Wait, is there a vertebrate that doesn't have ribs?
She tried but couldn't think of any.
"Really!" came a voice from behind her.
Her train of thought wobbled on the rails as she came back to the present.
"Huh?" she said, turning to see a middle-aged woman staring at her. Olivia smiled and said, "How can I help you, ma'am?"
"You could start by covering up!" the woman sneered, walking away in a huff.
Olivia felt the waxy toad of embarrassment wiggle down her throat. She focused on her body and felt the misty grocery air clinging to her shoulders, no problem; cleavage, usually fine by people; and ass, no big--
Ass?
Shit!
Olivia looked left and right.
No one in the aisle.
She hooked her thumbs in her belt loops and hiked her pants into place with the grace of a drunken toddler. Distantly, she heard the chime of the door as the woman left. She also thought she heard a groan, but a quick look around proved she was alone.
With a shrug, she returned to her work and her idling train of thought.
Despite her distractions, Olivia worked quickly. Soon she was leaning deep into her boxes to reach the ever-lower cans. Each stretch pulled her ass a little freer of her departing denims.
This time, Olivia made sure to check herself every time she added a complete row of cans. By mid-morning all the donuts and pension-check old timers were gone, leaving the store practically empty.
She stacked the final can and looked around the empty aisle.
No more leering veterans or hostile grannies.
A hand to her ear, she couldn't hear anything besides the music from the all-treble, no-bass store speakers.
She thumbed a belt loop and felt how much looser it had become.
If no one's around...
Humming, she stacked the next row of cans and replaced thoughts of her leaving Levi's with thoughts like whether corn was a grain or not.
She was thinking about how peanuts are actually legumes and not nuts at all when she heard a gasp behind her.
Olivia turned and smiled at the man in a hat and brown sports coat.
He looked down the aisle, then smiled at Olivia.
"How can I help you, sir?" she said, shimmering with cheer.
"I was looking for, what do you call them, juice boxes I guess? For kids?" the man said, his eyes darting to her waist as he spoke.
Olivia raised a finger to her chin. "Oh, I'm not sure where those are! Today is my first day," she said with an apologetic laugh.
He chuckled with her.
"I think I saw something like that over here, though. Care to follow me?"
"Please!"
He coughed.
"Thank you," he said.
Their shoes slapped the linoleum in tandem as he stayed tight on her rear, surely eager to get that juice.
When they arrived, Olivia bent at the waist to inspect the shelf where she thought the juice would be, but alas, it was only tomato juice.
"I don't see it," she said, sliding things around for a better look.
