The next morning I arrived at the shop alone, having left my wife to complete the weekly housekeeping chores while I battled the tourists shopping for cheap souvenirs. I opened the door early, hoping to get my head sorted before the pre lunch rush. I'm constantly amazed by customer's slavery to their stomachs; many of them wouldn't leave their motels unless they were going to eat somewhere.
I looked up from my newspaper as the door bell signalled the arrival of the first customer of the day. Luckily it was one of our semi-regulars so I knew that there wouldn't be any of those nuisance questions about what to do around here if you don't like beaches.
Much as I would always want to reply along the lines of stay in bed and go fuck yourself I was duty bound by the "Tourist Information" signage above the door to point out the many natural wonders of the area.
One of those wonders had just wandered in to my shop. There is a small artists' colony centred around a few shacks on the next bay. Some of the painters are well off but most are just struggling to make ends meet and are supported by their richer peers. There are many stories about free love, nakedness and various drug fuelled perversions circulating about the colony but the couple of times that I have been there it seemed quite dull, just a bunch of hippies sketching or staring at the waves.
One of the permanent residents is a woman named Joy who gets a lot of money for her paintings but she doesn't work that much so she's either rich or broke. Legend has it that she is happy to swap oral sex for food from the butcher and grocer when times are tough but I always scoffed at these tales as some sort of smear campaign.
I pretended to read my paper while Joy meandered her way round the shop. When she wasn't looking I studied her curvy shape. She was younger than me, maybe late forties and she had been quite beautiful in her younger, blonder years. Her hair was still long and flowing but it was now grey verging on white in parts.
She was wearing torn and faded blue jeans that fitted her rounded backside like a glove. Her breasts flopped under the loose fitting orange T shirt. Her sandals made clicking noises as she approached the counter. I looked up. She had two boxes of mouse traps.
"That time of year again!" I said to her as she placed the boxes on the counter.
"Yes" She replied "all those tourists driving the rodents out of their homes!"