I own a specialty women's apparel store in Dallas called Les is Mor. It's a play on the old Bauhaus/Mies van der Rohe design adage that Less is More, but with the spelling its message dictates. It also reflects the kind of clothing I sell. As applied to the female figure, Les cover is Mor interesting. Mor exciting. Mor tantalizing. Mor arousing. I don't carry anything that isn't most of the way to scandalous. The skimpier it is, the quicker it sells.
Les is Mor is the only tenant in the building I also own. Some sort of mumbo jumbo legal shit separates the building from the store although I am the sole owner of each. Location, location, location helps, and mine is about a mile north of downtown. Very nice apartment district. The most exclusive gentlemen's clubs are close. The money in Dallas is north. The store's isolation keeps kids just developing an interest from sticking their nose against the window. This alone should be enough to separate us from the mall-addicted Victoria's Secret chain, but I can't seem to dissociate us. I even have warning labels posted on the door. No minors, X-rated, occasional nudity and language, yada, yada, yada. Probably worthless but so far (knuckles rap my wooden head) there haven't been any holy rollers trying to shut us down. This man's store is his castle, and if the king edicts that Les is Mor inside his castle, well….
My largest clientele are dancers. No, not ballet and not ballroom and not any type that you do with a member of the opposite sex. These dancers used to be called strippers, or in posh clubs ecdysiasts, but now most of them take offense if I don't ask them about their dancing. Hell, I don't want to disparage their dancing. Many of them do dance extremely well, but guys don't pay to watch them dance. Men want to see their tits, their asses, their cunts. Even those who can't move their feet to match the steady beat of a bass drum can hold a job if they look good enough.
Since I am in the store almost all the time, I designed it to suit my purposes. No, there are no see-through mirrors or hidden cameras. I don't need them. These girls like to show off, and I just provide a venue that halfway legitimizes it outside the strip joint, um sorry, gentlemen's club. They all make great money and they all dress nicely. In this case, nicely means both expensively and revealingly.
The openings to the four changing rooms in my fine establishment face the sales counter. I am a fixture on my throne behind that counter. Two walls in each changing room have full-length mirrors. Naturally I can see these two mirrored walls from my throne. There are no doors on the dressing cubicles. I personally selected the curtains that pull across the openings. The material is white gauze that would be illegal for a dress worn in public. The curtain is so narrow it lacks about 6" from stretching across the entire opening and it is so short there is an 18" gap on the bottom. Silhouettes, reflections, visual innuendoes and translucent gauze provide a continually charged atmosphere. Spending sixty or seventy hours a week here is a labor of lust.
Most of the dancers seem to enjoy the built in exposure when they try on the clothes that men love to peek down, up or through. They recognize the store was designed so I could watch them, and they usually tease and tantalize me with a sexy grin. At worst they humor me. Dancers understand how deep the root of sexual desire goes in men; and catering to that need is, after all, the business they are in.
While dancers make up the bulk of my business, about 40% of my sales are to the girl next door. Unconnected single girls, girlfriends, and wives are considerably less comfortable using my changing booths. The exposure that induces a blush of embarrassment and shame usually generates the alter ego as well: a heady rush of excitement and arousal. All the key indicators that the nervous system has been activated are present when these girls exit the cubicles. Rapid breathing, reddened skin, racing pulse, blood pressure up, adrenaline pumping, erectile tissue responding. Which emotion dominates the activation? Does it matter? The girls are excited, and they remember the experience. My changing rooms have been the setting for many erotic dreams and bedtime fantasy scenarios. When these "innocents" visit a second time, the exposures are longer, clearer, and often targeted at a male shopping companion who wasn't with them the first time.
While I admit that 99% of the store design reflects my desire to see beautiful naked girls, it has proven to be an effective design to prevent shoplifting. As much as these gorgeous girls make, they still steal if they can. Even a tiny purse can hold some of the sheer panty and bra sets, and large purses can hold most of the items I sell. I'm good at catching them and even better at getting them to pay for it rather than just give it back. I've threatened to call the police a couple of times when girls refused to open their purses, but I've never had to follow through. My changing room design makes it nearly impossible for them to shoplift by wearing unpaid-for-clothes out the door. I can see what they took off and what they put on, and I remember stuff like that despite concentrating more on the interval between the two events.
I also have a single fitting room back of the sales counter. It does have a real door with a lock, an elevated platform to assist in alterations, full-length mirrors on all four walls and the ceiling, and a couch for me to take an occasional nap. It is relatively soundproof, which I originally specified to enable me to sleep. The soundproofing has come in handy for more sensual reasons many times, as has the couch. The mirrors fascinate girls who like to show off, and they are like Spanish Fly to girls who have never seen themselves being fucked.
Usually I have two sales assistants working with me, but sometimes I schedule as many as four into my relatively large store. It has been my privilege and my unending delight to hire only young, gorgeous, sexy girls who like to wear the clothes I sell. It would be a shame to put little nametags on them to spoil the effect of the clothing, so I have a large sign behind the counter that says "Sales Assistants for Sales Assistance". I like the fact that assistants and assistance are pronounced identically, so when it is spoken it sounds stupid and redundant whereas if it's read silently it makes perfect sense. I send each girl I hire to a quality portrait photographer friend of mine, and a 16" x 20" portrait with the girl's first name affixed on a large bronze nameplate is hung under the sign when the girl is working.
This $300 investment in a high-quality portrait that presents each girl as an incredibly beautiful young woman pays tremendous dividends. All the customers in the store can match my beautiful salesgirls with the pictures on the wall, and I think it fosters a more friendly and personal family atmosphere. Those huge portraits are better than a personnel department. Girls hate to quit and lose the identity working in my store gives them, and when I am trying to hire a new salesgirl, the idea that she will have her own large portrait is a tremendous hiring tool. But I think the largest return on my investment is the appearance of my girls when they show up to work. A very large picture on the wall proves how beautiful they can be, and they arrive looking just as beautiful. I have my own fashion show with my sales assistants every day, and it would be impossible to calculate how many sales were the direct result of how nice one of my garments looked on one of them.
I receive more personal assistance from some of my sales assistants, but it is only because I don't refuse what is freely offered. I don't make innuendoes or offer sexual hints, so the only way sexual harassment could be an issue would be if they opened up the law to include looking. I freely and proudly admit I love to look at beautiful girls, and when my eyes track one of my gorgeous assistants long enough, magic happens.
The mere fact that my eyes are so obviously caressing, fondling, stroking, undressing, sucking, licking, and fucking her body triggers the magic. It permeates into that part of a beautiful girl's sexuality that wants men to look. And then see more. And then see everything. When the magic flows I think the girl somehow knows I am hard. It is almost an act of will, but as I wish for more exposure and I know the magic is spreading, I start to see subtle signs of her arousal. When the magic is at its most potent, her displays are flagrant and her arousal is obvious. She must initiate any behavior beyond my intense gaze, but when she wants to stay alone after work, it is a green light with the words "PLEASE FUCK ME" stenciled on her cunt. I own an extremely profitable business with great fringe benefits.
There are three easy chairs off to one side of my sales counter for waiting husbands, boyfriends, and shopping companions. If anything, their view of the dressing cubicles is even better than mine. They are lower. I have a sign on the wall above the chairs that says "Eyeball Therapy Clinic" and directly below it in smaller letters another one that says "Fee: One Female Shopper". Frequently there is a male butt in each of my comfortable easy chairs, and I believe going shopping with the little lady is not much of a chore if they come to my shop. In fact, I have to run off guys just stopping for a gawk more than I would like. They don't have the fee.
Many of these gentlemen bring in their "significant others" so they can scout out other girls in the shop. Many dancers begin their nighttime occupation early, just minus the dancing part, and afternoons hop at the changing carrels. My sales assistants are always dressed to show, so even late mornings aren't bad. There is one other group "for your viewing pleasure", and I find an increasing number of men who encourage their wives to provide the treatment and improper exposure to the eyeballs receiving therapy in my painless clinic. I am the only permanent patient in this small examination room, and it is this growing group of husband voyeur/wife exhibitionists that I find the most interesting. The excitement is genuine, obvious, and fresh for both spice (spouses?),
I generally find that these voyeur husbands are not alpha males. The wives are even less assertive than their husbands. They both fantasize that a strong-willed, huge-cocked man's man will sweep the beautiful wife off her feet and provide her with an otherworldly sexual experience. The exhibitionism stokes their sexual embers and her exposure is a prelude to watching or sharing the wife, whether they know it or not. There are a few exceptions to this gross generalization, and I had the unfortunate distinction of being forced to speak to one who thought he was one of the outliers—a manipulative intimidator of a husband named Andy. I wouldn't be writing this story if he hadn't called.
"Les is Mor". I think it's a cool way to answer the phone too. They hear the name of my store and they get my philosophy on women's apparel. There is no way it could be conveyed in a shorter message, which again matches the meaning of the words.
"I'm interested in very revealing clothes for my wife. I've heard you cater to girls wanting to show off." Cut to the chase. All business. Not even an introduction or a hello.
"That's our business. There are a lot of dancers who shop here." "You mean strippers?" Abrasive, but I silently agreed with his assessment.
"They dance while they take off their clothes, but they don't like to be called strippers." Politically correct definitely applies to strippers if they make up most of your yearly sales volume. I always, always call them dancers.
"OK, whatever. Do you have clothes they wouldn't wear while 'dancing'?" Whoa. His sarcasm was too intense. "I'm not sure I know what you mean." Ah, the dumb blonde salesgirl trick. I had seen it work for my sales assistants many times. I could still learn.
"Well, there are clothes they wear on the stage that they remove as they 'dance' and there are revealing clothes that girls wear that they wouldn't wear on the stage." The explaining-to-a-two-year-old tone lit my fuse. What an asshole.
"That line is very fuzzy. What do you want?" No more sugar coating. I didn't need his business badly enough to put up with his shit.
"Well, now I want to speak to the manager." I love it when people say that to me. My brusque answer must have pissed him off.
"Speaking. I'm also the owner. My name is Kirk. What's yours?" The adrenaline was pumping.
