Middle of the shift the security-sensor beeps as the frosted-glass
door swings open, and, preceded by a humid blast of wind, a
customer-bald, middle-aged, no point to card-enters the shop,
regards the display carousel of weighted testicle parachutes by
NassToys ($14.99 each plus tax), and then churns on past the
checkout counter.
"Welcome to Fantasy Adult," I say.
The customer looks back and nods, then disappears behind the tall
shelves of DVDs in the She-Male section. When the sensor chimes
again a few minutes later, this time a regular comes in: Greg D.
Davis, Rental Account 13227, a man who, since I have known him to
frequent Fantasy, has tallied an impressive list of felonies and
misdemeanors against the store. He once came in, drunk off his ass,
ranting about the lack of BDSM titles.
"Four f-ing racks of pegging and splosh, but only one rack of
bondage. Demand drives the market, for fuck's sake, and I am
demanding," he said. Had he not been using an axe as a walking
stick, steadying his uneasy balance by gripping the blunt top of the
blade, I may have wondered (as I did later), why he bothered to
censor himself, only to then use at the next opportunity the same
word he found too obscene to utter a second before. But the
situation what it was, I only wondered how long until the cops
responded to the silent alarm.
Another time, though I wasn't there to see it, so don't quote me or
anything, Mr. Davis came into the store drunk-a persistent theme-
and gave the new girl Amy a roll of red duct tape, on which he had
inscribed in black permanent marker several times around the spool,
this love note: RAPE TAPE. (Amy had made the error of telling Mr.
Davis a vulgar joke, I won't repeat it, and he mistook her jocularity as
a sign of encouragement. She quit the following Monday.)
Most troublesome for me, however, is four days ago Mr. Davis gave
my girlfriend a lace bra stuffed inside a cigar box. "Why would you
take that?" I asked once Sarah told me where she got her new bra,
and why her breasts smelled like a bar. "You can't accept gifts from
that psychopath. Give him a week and he'll be bringing you severed
fingers in glass cases or some such shit."
Management, the immaculate assigner of days off, the all-knowing
dispenser of paychecks, has barred people from Fantasy for less
serious offenses. For instance, people who get belligerent about our
policy of no returns, incredulous we won't take back their defective
(read: used) vibrator. But because Mr. Davis drops an inordinate sum
of cash each week, buying a Melinda Muse replica blow-up doll by
Doc Johnson ($199.99 each plus tax), as well as any new title in
which the starlet has appeared, when Mr. Davis misbehaves
Management only whaps him on the nose with a rolled up magazine,
says NO!, then forgives, such is his magnanimity.
"How's it going tonight?" I ask Mr. Davis as he approaches the
counter.
He bends the brim of his hat, a floppy, worn ball cap with the faded
logo of a basketball team embroidered on the front. "Feeling fine as
frog's hair," he says. He isn't an elderly man, fifty-four according to
the birth date listed on his account, but the wrinkles enclosing his lips
like an unsolved equation give him the appearance of a longer life. Or
perhaps just a harder life. My thoughts derail. In the context of my
hyper-sexualized environment, I make disturbing leaps with the word
harder, and like an Etch-a-Sketch I have to shake my head to erase
the carnal images of Mr. Davis. My mind, ever the survivalist,
focuses on some diversionary stimuli: the magazine racks. A lanky
man with gray hair and a slightly ridiculous ponytail thumbs copies of
Gallery and Swank. He knocks one onto the ground, checks to see if
he was spotted, then slinks away from the mess without picking it
up. Jerk.
"Is Sarah here tonight?" asks Mr. Davis.
"Nope."
"When she work next?"
I shrug.
"All right. I guess I'll just give her this next time I see her." He pats
his pant leg, and I snap to attention, but I say nothing. Anything
beyond the standard greeting, and I risk being drawn into a
conversation. I want nothing more than for the weirdo to be gone.
"Onto other business… I've got a quick question for you." He takes a
while to ask, his breathing short and ragged. Years of smoking, I
figure. The rectangular outline of a pack of cigs bulges in his shirt
pocket. "Did you get in any new Melinda Muse movies?" Melinda
Muse's fan-base has grown considerably ever since she won Best
New Starlet of 2006, and Adult Video News described her as their
"favorite gap-toothed whore." But to Mr. Davis's credit, he has
obsessed over her long before she became popular, boring me on
multiple occasions with recitations of her features: her luxurious,
whiskey-colored hair, her radiant, gleaming eyes, her big gorgeous,
grin. I swear I thought he was going to break into poetry. Over a
porn floozy.
"Yeah. We got a few. In New Release."
"I know, but which ones?"
With a few keystrokes, the motions made unconscious through
countless repetitions, I search the database, pull up her new titles
and read him the list: "Invocation, Cumfart Cocktails 12, Cock
Caroling Cunts, Pacific Rimmed and You Fuck Me So Hard I need to
Take a Shit 19. Pacific Rimmed is checked out though."
"Damn," he says. "That's the one I really wanted, too."
Of course it is. Had I named any other title, then that would've
been the one he really wanted. What is unobtainable is always more
desirable.
"It's due back in a couple days. I can put it on hold."
"I'd appreciate it."
"Yeah, no prob." I grab a pen and pad of Post-Its from beneath the
counter and jot a note to hold the movie for Mr. Davis when it is
returned. Leaning forward to write, I see soldierly rows of Eros and
Wet Glide and I.D. lubricants stocking the guts of the display case.
"It'll be set aside for you when it comes back."
Mr. Davis, the deranged bastard, pivots on his heels and totters off
without saying thank you-but then again he never does-hustling
towards the New Release DVDs, humming or wheezing, I can't be
positive which.
This is technically my day off. But earlier Management ambushed
me with a call at 7:45 in the morning. Still drugged with sleep, I
rolled over and pounded on the alarm clock until I realized it was the
phone ringing. "Huh?" I answered. I knew it was a mistake before I
identified the voice. No one ever called this early unless someone
died.
I drifted in and out of consciousness, catching only snippets of
what was said. "Hey…we…thief…," the voice rumbled through the
receiver.
"Guh?"
Louder this time, the voice repeated, "Hey…we…thief…"
"Muh?"
"Wake up!" Distilled into a whip-cracking imperative, I finally
recognized the voice as the fascist bark of Management. I rolled
over onto my back, elbowing Sarah in the face; she stirred, then
continued lightly snoring.
"Puh."
"Hey, it's me. We caught the thief. Or thieves to be more
accurate. Dorsey and Derrick are no longer with us." Management
spoke of them as if they were dead. And to Management they were.
He would mail them their final checks as though sending flowers to a
funeral. "Look, I know this is short notice, but I called last night and
couldn't get hold of you"-last night when I was cognizant enough to
read the caller ID before answering-"Can you come into today?"
"Yuh."
"Great. See you at nine."
"Buh."
"Oh," he added, just before hanging up, "I need you to work a
double."
The receiver clicked. For awhile I lay in bed, phone at my side,
watching little white spots float in front of my eyes, translucent
comet tails trailing them, until the busy signal began pulsing loudly
enough that Sarah protested and shifted beneath the blanket. I put
down the phone and slipped out of bed.
"Where you going?" Sarah asked. "What time is it?"
"Good morning, doll-baby." I stretched across the bed and planted
several kisses on her forehead, cheek, lips and nose. "Got called in."
"What? You should've said no. We're supposed to get groceries."
"Yeah, I know. Management fired half the staff, though, and he
needs warm bodies." Grabbing a folded pair of khaki slacks off the
chair in the corner of the room, I say, "Which reminds me: don't pick
up your cell. They'll be calling you next." Sarah's phone vibrated on
the nightstand. "See."
Since we began dating, I have been protective of her. In the little
ways as well as the large. Sarah was a friend of my last girlfriend,
Monica Kidd. She roomed with Monica for a while once she moved to
Orlando from Riverside, CA. I had only met her a couple times before
Monica drowned, swept from shore by a riptide at Daytona Beach.
Sarah carpooled with me to both the wake and the funeral, drawn to
one another by our mutual loss. "I need to find a new apartment,"
Sarah had said as we drove back from the service. "I need to find a
new apartment and a job."
"Fantasy's hiring," I said.
"No offense, but I don't want to sell porn."
"It'll pay the bills until you find something better."
"I guess. But so will flipping burgers."
"We don't make you wear hats. Come in and fill out an app. And
you can crash at my place until you get set up with a place of your
own."
"Thanks," she said, and Sarah laid her head on my shoulder, a
cruelly tender gesture. As roommates, Monica and Sarah shared a
bathroom, and the scent of her hair, a strong whiff of mango-kiwi
identical to the scent of Monica's shampoo, wounded my heart. I
pulled over and cried.
next page
door swings open, and, preceded by a humid blast of wind, a
customer-bald, middle-aged, no point to card-enters the shop,
regards the display carousel of weighted testicle parachutes by
NassToys ($14.99 each plus tax), and then churns on past the
checkout counter.
"Welcome to Fantasy Adult," I say.
The customer looks back and nods, then disappears behind the tall
shelves of DVDs in the She-Male section. When the sensor chimes
again a few minutes later, this time a regular comes in: Greg D.
Davis, Rental Account 13227, a man who, since I have known him to
frequent Fantasy, has tallied an impressive list of felonies and
misdemeanors against the store. He once came in, drunk off his ass,
ranting about the lack of BDSM titles.
"Four f-ing racks of pegging and splosh, but only one rack of
bondage. Demand drives the market, for fuck's sake, and I am
demanding," he said. Had he not been using an axe as a walking
stick, steadying his uneasy balance by gripping the blunt top of the
blade, I may have wondered (as I did later), why he bothered to
censor himself, only to then use at the next opportunity the same
word he found too obscene to utter a second before. But the
situation what it was, I only wondered how long until the cops
responded to the silent alarm.
Another time, though I wasn't there to see it, so don't quote me or
anything, Mr. Davis came into the store drunk-a persistent theme-
and gave the new girl Amy a roll of red duct tape, on which he had
inscribed in black permanent marker several times around the spool,
this love note: RAPE TAPE. (Amy had made the error of telling Mr.
Davis a vulgar joke, I won't repeat it, and he mistook her jocularity as
a sign of encouragement. She quit the following Monday.)
Most troublesome for me, however, is four days ago Mr. Davis gave
my girlfriend a lace bra stuffed inside a cigar box. "Why would you
take that?" I asked once Sarah told me where she got her new bra,
and why her breasts smelled like a bar. "You can't accept gifts from
that psychopath. Give him a week and he'll be bringing you severed
fingers in glass cases or some such shit."
Management, the immaculate assigner of days off, the all-knowing
dispenser of paychecks, has barred people from Fantasy for less
serious offenses. For instance, people who get belligerent about our
policy of no returns, incredulous we won't take back their defective
(read: used) vibrator. But because Mr. Davis drops an inordinate sum
of cash each week, buying a Melinda Muse replica blow-up doll by
Doc Johnson ($199.99 each plus tax), as well as any new title in
which the starlet has appeared, when Mr. Davis misbehaves
Management only whaps him on the nose with a rolled up magazine,
says NO!, then forgives, such is his magnanimity.
"How's it going tonight?" I ask Mr. Davis as he approaches the
counter.
He bends the brim of his hat, a floppy, worn ball cap with the faded
logo of a basketball team embroidered on the front. "Feeling fine as
frog's hair," he says. He isn't an elderly man, fifty-four according to
the birth date listed on his account, but the wrinkles enclosing his lips
like an unsolved equation give him the appearance of a longer life. Or
perhaps just a harder life. My thoughts derail. In the context of my
hyper-sexualized environment, I make disturbing leaps with the word
harder, and like an Etch-a-Sketch I have to shake my head to erase
the carnal images of Mr. Davis. My mind, ever the survivalist,
focuses on some diversionary stimuli: the magazine racks. A lanky
man with gray hair and a slightly ridiculous ponytail thumbs copies of
Gallery and Swank. He knocks one onto the ground, checks to see if
he was spotted, then slinks away from the mess without picking it
up. Jerk.
"Is Sarah here tonight?" asks Mr. Davis.
"Nope."
"When she work next?"
I shrug.
"All right. I guess I'll just give her this next time I see her." He pats
his pant leg, and I snap to attention, but I say nothing. Anything
beyond the standard greeting, and I risk being drawn into a
conversation. I want nothing more than for the weirdo to be gone.
"Onto other business… I've got a quick question for you." He takes a
while to ask, his breathing short and ragged. Years of smoking, I
figure. The rectangular outline of a pack of cigs bulges in his shirt
pocket. "Did you get in any new Melinda Muse movies?" Melinda
Muse's fan-base has grown considerably ever since she won Best
New Starlet of 2006, and Adult Video News described her as their
"favorite gap-toothed whore." But to Mr. Davis's credit, he has
obsessed over her long before she became popular, boring me on
multiple occasions with recitations of her features: her luxurious,
whiskey-colored hair, her radiant, gleaming eyes, her big gorgeous,
grin. I swear I thought he was going to break into poetry. Over a
porn floozy.
"Yeah. We got a few. In New Release."
"I know, but which ones?"
With a few keystrokes, the motions made unconscious through
countless repetitions, I search the database, pull up her new titles
and read him the list: "Invocation, Cumfart Cocktails 12, Cock
Caroling Cunts, Pacific Rimmed and You Fuck Me So Hard I need to
Take a Shit 19. Pacific Rimmed is checked out though."
"Damn," he says. "That's the one I really wanted, too."
Of course it is. Had I named any other title, then that would've
been the one he really wanted. What is unobtainable is always more
desirable.
"It's due back in a couple days. I can put it on hold."
"I'd appreciate it."
"Yeah, no prob." I grab a pen and pad of Post-Its from beneath the
counter and jot a note to hold the movie for Mr. Davis when it is
returned. Leaning forward to write, I see soldierly rows of Eros and
Wet Glide and I.D. lubricants stocking the guts of the display case.
"It'll be set aside for you when it comes back."
Mr. Davis, the deranged bastard, pivots on his heels and totters off
without saying thank you-but then again he never does-hustling
towards the New Release DVDs, humming or wheezing, I can't be
positive which.
This is technically my day off. But earlier Management ambushed
me with a call at 7:45 in the morning. Still drugged with sleep, I
rolled over and pounded on the alarm clock until I realized it was the
phone ringing. "Huh?" I answered. I knew it was a mistake before I
identified the voice. No one ever called this early unless someone
died.
I drifted in and out of consciousness, catching only snippets of
what was said. "Hey…we…thief…," the voice rumbled through the
receiver.
"Guh?"
Louder this time, the voice repeated, "Hey…we…thief…"
"Muh?"
"Wake up!" Distilled into a whip-cracking imperative, I finally
recognized the voice as the fascist bark of Management. I rolled
over onto my back, elbowing Sarah in the face; she stirred, then
continued lightly snoring.
"Puh."
"Hey, it's me. We caught the thief. Or thieves to be more
accurate. Dorsey and Derrick are no longer with us." Management
spoke of them as if they were dead. And to Management they were.
He would mail them their final checks as though sending flowers to a
funeral. "Look, I know this is short notice, but I called last night and
couldn't get hold of you"-last night when I was cognizant enough to
read the caller ID before answering-"Can you come into today?"
"Yuh."
"Great. See you at nine."
"Buh."
"Oh," he added, just before hanging up, "I need you to work a
double."
The receiver clicked. For awhile I lay in bed, phone at my side,
watching little white spots float in front of my eyes, translucent
comet tails trailing them, until the busy signal began pulsing loudly
enough that Sarah protested and shifted beneath the blanket. I put
down the phone and slipped out of bed.
"Where you going?" Sarah asked. "What time is it?"
"Good morning, doll-baby." I stretched across the bed and planted
several kisses on her forehead, cheek, lips and nose. "Got called in."
"What? You should've said no. We're supposed to get groceries."
"Yeah, I know. Management fired half the staff, though, and he
needs warm bodies." Grabbing a folded pair of khaki slacks off the
chair in the corner of the room, I say, "Which reminds me: don't pick
up your cell. They'll be calling you next." Sarah's phone vibrated on
the nightstand. "See."
Since we began dating, I have been protective of her. In the little
ways as well as the large. Sarah was a friend of my last girlfriend,
Monica Kidd. She roomed with Monica for a while once she moved to
Orlando from Riverside, CA. I had only met her a couple times before
Monica drowned, swept from shore by a riptide at Daytona Beach.
Sarah carpooled with me to both the wake and the funeral, drawn to
one another by our mutual loss. "I need to find a new apartment,"
Sarah had said as we drove back from the service. "I need to find a
new apartment and a job."
"Fantasy's hiring," I said.
"No offense, but I don't want to sell porn."
"It'll pay the bills until you find something better."
"I guess. But so will flipping burgers."
"We don't make you wear hats. Come in and fill out an app. And
you can crash at my place until you get set up with a place of your
own."
"Thanks," she said, and Sarah laid her head on my shoulder, a
cruelly tender gesture. As roommates, Monica and Sarah shared a
bathroom, and the scent of her hair, a strong whiff of mango-kiwi
identical to the scent of Monica's shampoo, wounded my heart. I
pulled over and cried.
next page