Jill felt the cool moisture of the mist on the underside of her wrist. She raised it to her nose and took in the pleasing aroma.
"Umm, that's a good one," she said in a voice barely audible.
She put the bottle back on the display shelf. After rearranging a few other items, she moved on to the next display. She lifted a large, maroon colored candle and sniffed. Not the "old fashioned Christmas" fragrance she remembered from her childhood, but still nice.
Jill Edwards didn't use all the products in the Bath and Body Works store she managed. But, she could talk anyone into buying them. She was an attractive, if not necessarily striking, twenty eight year old single and independent woman interested in one day owning her own chain of stores. She couldn't yet tell you what the stores would sell, but they would be successful.
She was 5'7", blonde with hazel eyes and a figure that actually looked better out of clothes than in them. That was due primarily, she always told herself, to the nondescript white button down shirt and tan slacks she wore at work. Alone, they might have been OK. But, throw in the required apron and her body became as exciting as a lamppost.
Working in a store frequented predominantly by women, Jill saw her share of good-looking women. More than once she had watched a customer from behind the counter, imagining the lines of the breasts and hips and ass if unconfined by clothing. Never had she seen a more perfect combination of facial and bodily beauty than the young girl that entered the store now.
The bell above the door had barely stopped ringing when Jill got her first good look at the girl. Dressed in tight, faded jeans and an even tighter turtleneck sweater, the girl's body oozed perfection. From behind a holiday display, Jill watched the girl stop at a table of gift ideas and smell a bar of soap.
As was her custom, Jill would let the customer shop for a few minutes before offering to help. In this instance, it would also allow the manager time to catch her breath again. Jill followed the girl's long, cheerleader legs from the expensive sneakers to the perfect thighs to the small round ass. Then she admired the skinny waist as it accented the full breasts. Finally, she noticed the girl's long, wispy blonde hair flowing over her shoulders.
The girl appeared to be perhaps twenty. Jill detected the delicate use of soft makeup, unlike the overabundance evident on most of the teenagers who came in. Bonus points, she thought to herself.
The girl looked up and noticed Jill.
"Hi," she said, looking at the price of a gift set.
"Hi. Let me know if you need any help," Jill replied.
"I will." The girl smiled and walked aimlessly around displays to a wall rack of bath oils. As she reached up to an upper shelf, Jill watched her sweater rise above the top of her hip hugger jeans. Smooth, tanned skin flashed briefly before the sweater slid down again.
"Damn, Jill. She's a kid," the manager said to herself. "And certainly not interested in you."
Two more customers entered the store, taking Jill's attention away from the girl for a moment. After exchanging greetings with the new customers, Jill worked her way back behind the service counter. The young girl slowly proceeded around the outside walls until she stood next to the register.
"Gift shopping?" Jill mustered the nerve to ask her.
"Yeah. My mother. I hate buying for her," the girl said with a weak frown.
"We have all new facial and body lotions over there," Jill pointed to the far wall. "And aromatherapy is big this season. We have a big display by the door."
"Aromatherapy? Like the scented oils you burn in a candle?" the girl asked.
"We have that," Jill said. "But, there's a lot more now. Like bubble bath and spray…"
"Ooooh, bubble bath," the girl sighed.
"Here. Let me show you," Jill said, walking around the end of the counter.
The girl followed Jill to the display. The manager pointed out the shelf with the bubble bath bottles and took hold of an aqua colored bottle.
"I swear this stuff works," Jill said. "I don't know what the secret ingredient is, but it does calm you down."
The girl smiled shyly, but didn't respond at first. She sniffed a couple bottles, then said, "I need this after some of the courses I'm taking this semester. The professors are driving me crazy."
"Half an hour in a tub with this and you'll forget about college," Jill said, trying to keep her mind from drifting to a bubble filled tub with this gorgeous, naked babe in it.
"And I suppose my Mom would enjoy it, having to live with my Dad."
Jill laughed. She described a few more of the products before seeing a customer ready to check out.
"I'll let you look," Jill said before turning toward the register.
"Thanks."
While gift-wrapping a purchase for the other customer, Jill saw the girl leave the store and disappear into the mall crowd. If nothing else, the young girl had given Jill something to think about the rest of the day…and night.
On her worse days, Jill drowned in self-pity, not understanding why some beautiful person didn't come along and save her. It used to be a tall, dark man who was a computer network administrator by day and sexual stud by night. But, lately, the idea of a soft female body next to her was sounding even better.
Tiffany Adams stared at the bubbles on the surface of her Coke, oblivious to the bustle of the crowd in the mall's food court. "Why is life so awful? Why do guys hate me? Isn't twenty supposed to be the prime of my life?"
Once again, her mind wandered back to the bath store. "Why did that woman attract me?" She didn't have answers for any of her self-imposed questions. But the most important one concerned that woman. She was tall. Tiffany liked that. And those hazel eyes were full of life. And that cute butt.
"Tiffany. Jesus," she nearly said out loud. She took another long drink from the straw in her glass. Two teenage boys passed her table, staring at her until they almost tripped over another table. "In your dreams," she thought to herself.
Tiffany Adams stared down the long walkway of the mall toward the store where the tall woman with the hazel eyes was probably helping another customer. She looked at her watch. She took a drink.
The bell above the door barely registered in Jill's mind as she opened another box in the store's diminutive storeroom. She took out the dozen bottles of body spray and placed them on top of an unopened box. She dismantled the now empty container until it was a small slab of cardboard and laid it in the corner.
Jill peeked out into the store and froze. The young, blonde girl she had tried to forget about for the past hour was standing at the aromatherapy display. Jill quietly stepped behind the counter.
Tiffany looked up to see the woman writing something, then continued her casual shopping.
"Still undecided?"
The young girl was startled to find the woman standing just a few feet away, striding softly towards her.
"Yep," Tiffany said, realizing she meant that in more ways than one. "I liked your idea of the aroma bath stuff."
"Aromatherapy." Jill mentally kicked herself for correcting the girl. "For you or your Mom?"
"Both, I guess." The girl mindlessly picked up a bottle and sniffed it.
Jill watched her tuck blonde hair behind her ear with a finger. She glanced down at the girl's sweater. The slightest hint of her nipples extended from the ends of her breasts. Jill took a deep breath.
