Joe was bored. Bored and miserable. He had scheduled himself for the evening shift that night because he knew it would be a quiet night, but it had been too quiet. His staff was spending all of their time at the registers, chit-chatting away, and there wasn't a blessed thing he could do about it, because everything that needed to be done was done. At least until one o'clock, when the restocking would begin. It was only a little after nine o'clock, and Joe had more than two hours before he could call it quits for the night and get home.
As he wandered the aisles, Joe thought about his life. He didn't like being at work, managing the supermarket, but he hated being at home more. His wife, Gwen, had been a beautiful slip of a girl when he'd knocked her up and they had married. Fifteen years, three children, and a mortgage later, Gwen had gained nearly two hundred pounds and had become bitter. He didn't think she'd had a nice thing to say to him in over five years.
He'd considered an affair. He was, after all, constantly surrounded by the nubile staff of his store, but he had little to offer them. He was an unassuming five foot seven inches, and weighed one hundred and ninety pounds. He had short, black hair that never did what he wanted it to, and it was usually just plastered against his head. His small brown eyes looked bigger because of his thick glasses, and he had a large nose and a weak chin. Hardly George Clooney, he thought again, more like the Anti-Clooney. He laughed inwardly, more like the skinny DJ Qualls
His despair rose as he considered his life, 35 with a dead end job, a dead end marriage, three unexceptional and unattractive children, and two hours to kill before he would be able to get home and sleep.
He turned the corner onto aisle 4, the candy aisle, and he saw the girl. Blending into the display, as he had learned to do long ago in able to watch the pretty girls in the store, he looked her over and felt a voyeuristic thrill.
She was tall, he thought, about five-eight, and she wore the tight low rise capri jeans that were so popular, the red straps of her thong panties rising from the back and up over her hips before disappearing again in front. She wore white knee socks and white running shoes that reminded Joe of a little sports car, and she wore a tight hoodie that left her midriff bare and displayed the intricate pattern of her "tramp stamp" in back and her belly-button piercing in the front.
She had a squarish, cute face with pale skin. Her nose was cute, and her lips large and full, her hair short and black. She was looking around nervously, pulling her little knapsack to her belly, and Joe felt the alarms going off in his head.
The girl opened her knapsack and began to fill it with candy bars! Thank god, Joe thought, this would at least kill the last couple of hours. As she began to zip the knapsack closed, Joe walked toward her authoritatively, calling, "Miss?"
The girl turned to face him and froze, her already pale skin blanching, and her already large, pretty green eyes growing even larger. Her mouth hung open, and Joe could see the was beginning to shake. "Could you please come with me for a moment?"
The girl's head dropped and she walked silently with Joe as he took her elbow and led her to the end of the store, to the door to the stairs that led up to his office. Once inside, Joe closed the door and told the girl to sit. She did, in one of the two utilitarian black cushioned silver frame chairs. She looked delicious, filled with fear and resignation, and Joe quietly locked the door before sitting in his larger office-style chair.
She handed Joe her knapsack when he asked, and he opened it and began to empty candy bars onto his desk. And then two bottles of chewable vitamins, and finally three boxes of condoms and a little bottle of sexual lubricant. As he set the last items on his desk he glanced at the girl and saw she was rather rosy cheeked now, her eyes downcast.
"Is there anything you'd like to say?" Joe asked, using his managerial disciplinary voice. He hadn't been made manager for nothing.
The girl began to stammer, and then leaned forward and met his eyes. "Please, don't call the police!" she pleaded, her eyes wild with fear. Even given the situation, Joe felt himself drawn into the pretty, emerald green of them, as though he was floating across the desk and... "I don't want to go to jail. I'm sorry, you can have it all back!"
"What's-" Joe began and cleared his throat so it wouldn't squeak again, and then repeated, "What's your name?"
"Erin," she said, unable to keep the terror from making her soft, pretty voice tremble, "Erin Hanrahan."
"And how old are you, Erin?" Joe asked, wishing to the heavens that he couldn't feel the erection that was growing in his lap.
"Eighteen," she answered softly.
"That means that if I call the police it will be jail for you, not a slap on the wrist and a trip home in a squad car." Joe sat forward, placing his elbows on the desk. "Why would you steal these things?"
"I don't know," Erin answered, her voice cracking as she began to cry. "I'm hungry, and I don't have any money. I got thrown out of my house a couple of days ago and I don't know what to do!"
"So I can't even call your parents to pick you up," Joe said, shaking his head slowly. "That means it has to be the police."
Erin put her face into her hands and she sobbed, and Joe's heart broke. Unfortunately the message wasn't getting through to his erection, which was throbbing painfully now, and sending evil thoughts into Joe's brain. He could easily picture the little angel and devil standing on his shoulders, just like a movie or cartoon.
"She's a young girl, frightened and alone. You should help her, Joe." The angel was right, of course.
"She's young and beautiful and desperate, and you've got her right where she can't say no," the devil said, "She looks a hell of a lot tastier than Gwen ever did...a little like Margie Hampton."
Joe realized she did look a little bit like his high school dream girl, though she was taller, and maybe even cuter, but lacked Margie's double D cup bosom. Erin was long and thin, with slender hips and a nice, tight little ass he could imagine running his cheek over, and-
"Mister? Please don't call the police. I'll do anything you want."
The devil pumped his arm in victorious glee, while the angel burst into flames and disappeared, screaming.
"Tell me what you were going to do with the things you stole," Joe said, squirming slightly in his chair to relieve the pressure. He knew that if he looked down he'd see a little, or maybe not so little, circle of wetness.
"I was going to eat the candy," Erin said, still sniffling, "and the vitamins too. I don't want to get sick."
