Really, yoga will help with that,” I heard Belinda say. She said it a lot. Whenever anyone complained of a headache or shortness of breath or stiff back, she touted yoga as a cure.

Fred was a repeat offender, and as her testimonial continued, he clearly regretted sitting down and complaining of a stiff muscle—and given the tone in his voice when he started, I had little doubt which muscle had stiffened so uncomfortably.

I finished my morning coffee and glanced at the two sitting at the next table, Fred scrawny but cocky, Belinda blonde and finely shaped. She had been a gymnast in high school and college, and her muscular body still showed under the slight comfortable padding of a bit more than a decade as a salesclerk.

Her breasts were still firm under her bra, her belly still largely flat, her neck showing only a few delicious touches of gravity that fit well with the ringlets of gold cascading to below her shoulders. From the locker room talk, I knew she bedeviled the heated sexual fantasies of every other young man in the warehouse, but she blithely ignored the attention and shut down such chatter fast. Knowing a reasonably intelligent and accomplished older woman would have no interest in me, I actively avoided entertaining any desire or crush for her.

At fifteen minutes till opening, Fred stood up and extricated himself from yoga with difficulty. After he left, Belinda and I stood up at the same time to wash our cups. She smiled and arched her back to stretch, pushing her breasts out and up like a maiden on the prow of a sailing ship, and I smiled and made sure I didn’t stare. “Poor guy really needs to learn how to do muscle stretches,” she said.

I just smiled and nodded. She walked to the sink, her long skirt fairly tight below the billowing looseness of her blouse, and I stiffened immediately as so often and tried to hide my erection. After she finished washing her cup, she stood to the side and leaned back against the counter as I washed mine, looking forward, then at me. “Have a good weekend?”

“I had a good run between books. You?”

“I went to the state forest, Saturday, did some great hiking.”

“I’ll have to try that sometime. Spring break’s coming up soon enough.”

“You should.”

“See any interesting trees?” Belinda was a gardener with a love of all plants and trees.

“No new kinds, but there were some great views.”

I had looked over at her off and on, afraid to look too constantly because the looseness of her blouse allowed a beguiling view of half of her breast encased in a lacy bra that would lead to drooling and stupidity on my part if I looked longer. When I looked at her again, I kept my eyes at eye level and saw her green eyes flecked with gold were watching me.

“Yeah, we hiked everywhere. Lindsey and me.”

“Sounds like fun. Well, I have to go to work.”

“Me too.” She smiled warmly and walked off to take her position with Lindsey at the counter nearest the door to the hallway to the offices. The two of them were observant and devoted to their employer, which also fed the nattering mouths of those less attached to workplace integrity.

I walked to the door to the floor and peeked out. Housewares were closest to the door, and their counter was on the left along the wall. The clock read eight to nine and everyone was getting ready to open. Belinda and Lindsey looked up and smiled at me; Lindsey waved and turned back to continue checking the register and card reader, while Belinda continued checking the goods in the display.

I looked to the right and tried to catch a glimpse of the front door, but a new display blocked my view. I shrugged and took another look at their counter. Lindsey’s black hair was bound up in a braid that reached to the small of her back, her brown Chinese body lithe and flexible-looking and tightly toned under her black dress.

I walked out enough to see the front door. Today the sidewalk was empty. “It’ll probably be slow today,” Lindsey said behind me.

I turned around and said, “Well, maybe I can just sit in the back of storage and do some thinking,” I smiled.

“You could do stretches. It would do you no end of good.” Belinda said, “Right, Ling?”

Lindsey smiled, “And then meditate.”

“I’m afraid I’m not so enlightened,” I said. “I’ll probably just gather wool and create a new menu for cheesy noodles.”

Belinda laughed, “To each his own.”

“Gotta get to work,” I said. “See you in the break room maybe.”

“Oregano,” Lindsey said. “Maybe some thyme.”

“Huh?”

“Liven up your cheesy noodles. Better living through herbs.”

“I already use them. I’m thinking of expanding to marjoram.”

“Nah, go the basil route.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” I said, as always making a point of not looking below shoulder level at either of them. “Later, you two.”

“Later, guy,” Lindsey said, and Belinda waved her fingers as I walked off. As usual, as I stepped into the hallway I heard them giggling about something, and as always feared it was me. Shrugging, I walked back quickly to work and clocked in with two minutes to spare.

As I walked over to check out the schedule for incoming shipments, I heard Jim and Bill behind the shelves in the next aisle. Both in their forties, they pretended to be in their twenties and condemned the female world for refusing to take them at their word. “Total lesbians,” Jim said. “Probably face-sitting each other every night.”

“I’d convert ‘em.”

“Bullshit. Lesbians are a lost cause. Who wants to chew carpet? That’s the only way to make progress with ‘em. Ain’t worth the effort.”

Without even waiting to hear more I knew they were griping about Belinda and Lindsey. Their sour grapes gone all to vinegar, and even though they were a more age-appropriate choice than me, I was glad they’d been shot out of the saddle. Probably two years before, since they nursed their grudges like a bankrupt drunk nursing the last cheap beer he could afford that evening. Knowing them, they probably did that too.

As I straightened and inventoried the section assigned to me that day, I thought about my coworkers, uniformly a sad and surly lot who’d stab their neighbor in the back just for looking at them wrong. I finished checking my section and saw I had an hour to kill before break. The day had been as dead as predicted and no calls had come over the speakers. I peeked surreptitiously around, saw no one in the vicinity, and sat to read until break or a call.

After twenty minutes I heard a rushing toward my aisle. I hid the book, but not as quickly as I had intended, and Lindsey turned the corner and raised her eyebrows. “Hmm,” she said, “Slacker.”

“Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yeah, well, fancy meeting the manager here. Surprise inspection. On the way. Look busy.”

I stood up straight and grabbed my clipboard, and Lindsey moved to the end of the aisle next to the outside wall. As I took position at the end of the inspection, I saw her reach behind the box and grab my book. Looking at the spine, she looked up at me sharply as if shocked by S/M pornography and tucked the book under her arm.

“Put that back,” I whispered.

“No way,” she whispered back. “They’ll see it.”

“Then hide it better.”

“No! They’re looking for anything at all to skewer you with.”

Just then I heard the click-clack of shoes turn a corner and come swiftly my way and saw Lindsey duck just behind the end of the shelves. As the noise came closer, I got busy and looked up just as the manager came into view and Lindsey ducked swiftly into the aisle along the wall.

Her shoes made no sound as she sidled away. Not that I paid much attention as the suit and two hangers-on thanked me for my loyalty to the company, fine work ethic, and failure to be late, and then grilled me on my work, inspected my inventory sheet, and announced I wouldn’t be fired this time.

“Perhaps in a year or two we might be able to give you a raise,” he added.

I said, “That would be great,” without a trace of the sarcasm they deserved. My chief and his dogsbody, as everyone called him, made faces behind his back and walked off with him.

Since my sheet had now been thoroughly examined by my superiors, I had officially finished the inventory, so I walked to the office a minute later and ran into Fred. “Suck-up. They should fire your lame ass.”

I had no idea what bug had crawled up his ass, but it had squirmed up there three weeks before and seemed to have laid eggs. “They have no problem with my work. Why should you?”

He smirked and walked off, pointing his finger at me. “The things I know…”

I shook my head while thinking, “…might fill a thimble.” I walked on, passing Jim and Bill gossiping as usual, and as always a little too quiet for me to hear, though with significant glances in my direction.

Chief took my sheet and glanced at it, then said, “Close the door. Sit down.”

When I had done so, he rested his arms on the desk and said, “This is entirely unofficial, but I thought you should know that you shouldn’t get too cocky after that inspection.”

“Oh?”

“I am not sure, but I think they’re just looking for an excuse.”

“For what?”

He drew his finger across his throat. “You’re not popular. Shit runs downhill, ya know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“You do now.”

I took a deep breath and said, “Tell me in plain English what you want to say.”

Turning his face away as he covered his ass, he said, “I don’t have anything else to say. I said nothing to you today. Remember, minimum wage flunkies who can count boxes are a dime a dozen. That is your standing here. Remember that, and forget all this. Now go take lunch. Afterwards you’ll be helping Jim and Bill with electrical goods.”

“Right.”

I strolled out puzzled, Jim and Bill staring at me round the end of some shelves. I walked down the hallway to the breakroom, suddenly worried. I took my sandwiches out of the fridge and chewed on them and my problem; only the sandwiches got digested. A few minutes later, Lindsey came in and looked around; she quietly moved over and sat at my table.

“Did I do good saving your ass?”

I smiled wearily. “Wouldn’t have been a problem.”

She looked around as the other two people in the breakroom left and said quietly, “Stuff like that? You’d be out of here so quick,” smiling mysteriously.

“Yeesh, it’s just a book…”

“One that would break all the rules here. Besides just reading on the clock. Nasty, dirty stuff. It’s perfectly fine round here to talk a little too loudly about buggering the new chick or choking the manager’s wife with an exaggerated choad or calling Bel-… some female employee ‘sugar tits,’ but come on. French Political Thought of the 19th Century? Your fine upstanding colleagues would start with wedgies and pass through swirlies to give you knives in the ribs in a dark alleyway before the day was done.”

“Did someone actually…‘sugar?'”

“Yep, and they’re still here. Just can’t talk to us is all. So they glare at us.”

I stared at her as a couple of pieces fell together and blinked as she stared back fixedly. “Can I have my book back?”

“It’s in my purse. After work. You really don’t want to wave that around. I’m the weird chick, no one will care if I read it.”

I thought for a second and said, “Meet me for drinks after work.” She looked at me unreadably, though seemingly with hints of shock, and I said, “Or coffee. Whatever. Both of you, I don’t care. We need to talk.”

 She nodded. “Paolo’s. Six-thirty. Strictly cola for all of us.”

“Fine, fine.”

She smiled, “It’s a date.”

I smiled sadly, “No, it’s a meeting.”

Her eyebrows rose again and she walked out.

~~~

At six-thirty sharp, they sat down across from me in the booth and I ordered for us. We chatted about nothing in particular until the colas arrived, and then I asked, “Are there rumors about me at work?”

Belinda rolled her eyes and said, “Damn straight.”

“You are too damn radical for the place,” Lindsey chuckled.

“Huh?”

Belinda smiled, “You remember that little memo you signed your name to?”

“The one about time and a half?”

“Yeah. There were six of you, remember them?”

I thought for a second and said, “Um…Yeah.”

“And how the other five are all gone? After three months?”

I swallowed, “Um… Yep.”

“You shouldn’t have added that bit about going to the NLRB. That got up everybody’s nose. They’re just looking for an excuse.”

“If you want my advice, friend, bring your resume up to date and get ready to hit the pavement.”

“And if they give you the chance to quit, take it. They will fire you if you don’t, I gather.”

Lindsey added, “See? Isn’t it amazing the things suits will say when they think big tits mean little brains and ears full of wax?”

I smiled wanly as I stared off into space, absorbing the new information, seeing without noticing that Belinda shook her head as she smiled at that; Lindsey watched me until after a minute I noticed and my focus returned to her face. “Well, crap,” I said. I then added, “I actually made that much of a stink?”

“It was a slow week at work,” Belinda said as Lindsey laughed and added, “And man, those macho-macho boys you work with really despise you. ‘I bet he ain’t had pussy since pussy had him.’”

Lindsey added, “‘Except fer lickin’ it. Har, har, har.’”

“‘Cunt-lickin’ little lickspittle.’”

“Then there’s lots of stuff about how you prolly deepthroat bananas to get ready for your annual review. When you’re not chewing carpet.”

They watched me as I sat there dejected, disgusted, and dismayed for two minutes, and finally, it was replaced by anger. “Well, fuck ‘em. To hell with that shit. Ankle-biting punks.”

They grinned and Lindsey said, “Good. Now let us buy you a beer, and then we have to go.”

Belinda added, “It’s a shit job. A year after you leave, you won’t even remember it.”

“You’ll look on your resume and say, ‘What the hell was that place again?’”

Lindsey said, “Oh, here ya go,” opened her purse, and handed over my book. “You read lots of that stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d it get there in the first place?”

“Dropped it off on the way in this morning. Took the scenic route. Knew I’d be there, knew I’d finish early, knew I’d rather read for a while than deal with any more of their chicken shit.”

Her eyes twinkled and we talked about something besides inmates in a prison or asylum, take your pick, and after the beers were finished they left. I had three more beers and walked slowly home, drank lots of water, and went to bed early.

~~~

The next morning I woke up refreshed, or at least as refreshed as a man can with four beers and as many glasses of water in his bladder. Or so it felt, and after somehow not filling the toilet bowl to overflowing I dressed and strode off to work, disgusted by the place but glad to see things squarely now, or so I thought.

In truth, I had already started to hate the place; now I simply had a target for my hatred to focus on. It was a petty world of petty people with small minds and smaller motivations. I walked in quietly half an hour early and sat at a table that allowed me to hear the hallway without being seen immediately in passing, but heard nothing about me.

As I sipped my coffee, Belinda sat down at my table and said, “Good morning. You look happy. See, you’re already feeling the benefits of wise sisterly advice.”

I looked up at her grinning face and smiled, “I guess so, yeah.”

“Look at you, so bright and sunny. What happened, did you dream about a squirrel?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I dreamed about a sloth last night so it takes all I have in me not to just curl up in the corner and sleep the rest of the day.”

“And what happens if you dream about an aardvark?”

“I wouldn’t know. Why, do you do that often?”

“No, just platypuses.”

“Ooh, exotic.”

“Why did you dream about a sloth?”

“Why not?”

“There are lots of other animals.”

“True. Luck of the draw, I guess.”

We chatted happily as Lindsey sat down with us. Belinda greeted her, “Good morning, Lingxi, how are you?”

“Fine.” She sipped her tea and started up a chat with me about Victor Cousin, very much to my surprise, until Fred glared in at us and stomped over to the coffee pot. Lindsey raised her eyebrows at me significantly and Belinda rolled her eyes even more significantly, and he sat down at a neighboring table and glowered angrily into space until we left. I went to clock in and was assigned to help Jim and Bill finish up some more work in electronic goods. After an hour Fred strolled up and said, “Need some help.”

“Okay.”

“I didn’t want to bother the busy people, so come along.”

Swallowing my anger, I followed him to where a cup of coffee was spilled on the floor. “Clean that up.”

“Did you spill it?”

“Tripped. I got super-important stuff to do, so you clean it up.”

“You clean it up.”

“I don’t care how you clean it up, you can lick it up like you do your momma’s cooch for all I care, but clean it up now.”

I turned away and muttered, “Or yours.”

I shrugged when he said, “What?” However, this hill didn’t seem worth dying on, so I mopped it up quickly and went back to electronics.

I saw a couple of boxes missing from a shelf where I had counted them earlier, but when I asked what gave, Bill and Jim just shrugged and said, “Order came in. They’re sold.”

“Okay, let me make a note on the sheet.”

“We already did that.”

“Okay…” We finished inventory and I went to a late break.

I poured a cup of coffee. Five minutes later Belinda came in and smiled at the room and the three men in it; I waved her over and she sat happily. “Hi, guy. Things good?”

“Yep.”

“You do seem to be more up today.”

“And you seem like you had a daydream about a puppy.”

She laughed quietly, “I did, yes. Just a nice day now, so much better than this morning.” After a second she leaned in and whispered, “Thanks for asking me to sit here. Those other two? They perv on me too much. If I’d sat alone, I wouldn’t have been alone long.”

“Glad to be of service.”

We chatted for a few more minutes, and I returned to work. Chief met me at the door and said, “Come with me now. Don’t bother clocking in.” We went into his office and he sat, “Sit down. Explain this, please.”

He handed me the inventory sheet from that morning and I saw no note of the changed numbers. “That’s not right…”

“Fucking straight it’s not right. We checked all the numbers and receipts, and we are missing three DVD players, six MP3 players, three laptops, and four tablets. What did you do with them?”

“I didn’t do a damn thing with them.”

“Bullshit. I have three witnesses who say you spend all your spare time in that aisle and stuff disappears.”

Realizing what had been pulled on me, I said, “Are you charging me with anything? When will the police get here? I will take this company to court for false arrest so fast…”

“Oh, no, there’s no need for that. We can write it off, and I don’t even think you did it. But I don’t give a fuck, understand? Dime a dozen. The way the bigwigs upstairs are breathing down my neck to terminate you, there’s no way in hell I’ll stick my neck out for you.”

As he spoke, I realized he seemed deathly afraid of the matter escalating to higher circles, which suggested intriguing possibilities. To test the waters, I retorted, “Just your foot.”

“What?”

“I said, there’s no way you can stick your neck out when your head is so far up your ass your lunch is seconds of last night’s dinner.”

He flushed furiously and opened and shut his mouth several times. Finally, he said, “I take it you quit?”

“Depends on the terms.”

“Just quit. I’ll write it off and you can live your life and we’ll live ours. Don’t bother calling us for a reference and we won’t call the police.”

“Sure, glad to be gone. I feel dirty working among all these thieves and fucking cowards.”

“Just get your stuff from your locker and go. Don’t bother saying bye to anyone.”

“Why would I want to? They all steal from their workplace. Lousy company to keep—might make me start losing all moral sense.”

“And you will keep that fucking trap of yours shut.”

He accompanied me to my locker. Fred peeked in the locker room door and said, “Cleaning out the deadwood. Fucking time.”

I simply smiled and after he left said, “You better watch your back. His knife will be in it within a week. You know too much.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Of course. That’s all you ever take care of.”

“Silence. That everything? Badge, please. Keys. Now come with me.”

I walked to the loading dock door and he watched me silently as I walked down the stairs at the side, Jim at the other end of the dock loading a couple of boxes into a truck with a yellow sheet in his hand fluttering in the wind, trying his damnedest to shrink into the brickwork of the wall behind him.

When I reached the edge of the parking lot, I turned around to see the door shut and Jim standing there silently. I shook my head, muttered something about a featherbedded nest of vipers, and strolled to a deli with the lightest step I had had since high school.

I eventually strolled home, oddly feeling an intense desire to celebrate, and after showering I lay down on my bed and my thoughts turned to Denice. Our last evening flooded vividly into my mind as I hardened; she had finally agreed coyly to come home with me and was sitting on my lap with her blue dress down to her waist, her cup-sized breasts standing pertly against gravity with a light sprinkling of freckles going nicely with the light red of her shoulder-length hair.

“You do love them, don’t you?” she simpered as I cupped them and leaned over to suck on them delicately, then more roughly as she purred in her throat and tousled my hair. “You suck my girls almost as well as you do my clitty,” she whispered, and when my hand dipped between her thighs she simply spread her knees. When my fingers reached her crotch, she spread her thighs fully and helped me pull off her panties, and her little flower, as she always called it, was actually wet upon first touch, rare for her.

I caressed her lightly in memory, her red-brown thatch becoming sweaty as her lips opened further to me, and I watched her face as it flushed and tightened; after five minutes, her head rolled back and she released three swift squeals and collapsed on my lap. I laid her down on the couch and knelt between her thighs, delighting in her flower in the light, and she groaned as I leaned in and licked her lightly. She soon responded vigorously to my quickening tongue and finally tightened her thighs around my head as five more sharp squeals were forced out of her.

I stood and undressed, and she looked up at me sleepily. “Would you return the favor?” I asked.

She grimaced, “Of course not. You know that. I don’t do that.” I climbed aboard and she held me quietly as I thrust inside her unresponsive body for five minutes, finally pulling out and spraying all over her belly.

She smiled up at me, “Was it good?”

“Yes,” I responded, though it was no better than any of the other times she had allowed me to take my pleasure in and then on her as she lay there like a spectator at a solo gymnastics contest.

“A juicy memory?”

Playing nice I said, “Yes.”

“Good. I’m glad you’ll have happy memories of me.”

“What?”

“It’s not you, it’s just…”

I wasn’t even that put out, but as we were truly over I just wanted her to leave. Maintaining a civil tone, I smiled and kissed her cheek. “You take care of yourself.” She washed up and kissed me good-bye, and while for the next two nights I had masturbated to thoughts of my sperm spattering like light spring rain on her belly. Other images came to me now of the cool night three days later when I stood at the gate to the yard of an abandoned house and caught a glimpse of dappled streetlight through the leaves on her flaming hair as her head bobbed to and fro on something long and throbbing as an athletic god fell to pieces in her mouth.

At the end, I heard her gagging as his hands held her head in place as he thrust fast forward. I finally gathered my wits to leave as I heard her say, “You always taste so good. Now fuck me.” Imagining myself in his place, I sprayed fast and hard on my belly as I had regularly for the month since I saw her expanding her horizons.

I lay there and said to myself with a fake British accent, “No, I truly have no desire to call her for commiseration,” so then I pondered Loretta, who had stayed the night a few times before I met Denice. I remembered her lying underneath me, climaxing against my hand as I lay on her back, plunging deep into her from behind. Then I remembered her last evening with me in which after I expressed a lack of interest in paying $60 for a concert by a band I had hated since the first time I heard them on the radio and hated, even more, when I heard them in hi-fi.

She had snorted, “I’m so fucking sick of shut-ins. You should get out, but all you do is rot in your apartment with your stupid books. You should have had enough of that in high school. Enough of this! I thought I could pull you out of your shell, but you don’t even have any friends to introduce me to. We don’t go out, we don’t go to concerts, we don’t meet any friends. That’s all you have in your life, isn’t it? Just me, and I don’t think you even like me that much. Just my tits.”

She glared at me as I absorbed that, and seemed disappointed when I said, “I guess you’re right. It probably seems like that.”

Her disgust had almost tempted me to promise to do better when, much to my relief, she threw up her hands and stormed out without so much as a kind word, and two days later a package arrived from her with three self-help books and a letter that began by telling me that I was fated to die lonely and forgotten and then proceeded to analyze all my flaws, even many I had no idea I had, ending with my utter lack of ambition and drive, and then a P.S. detailing some of the more unfortunate features of my physique.

Having softened without release, I chuckled and decided, no, calling her to tell her I’d been forced to quit a job as a warehouseman was a supremely stupid idea, and despite what she thought, I wasn’t quite that stupid. I thought back to my first lover, a cute little thing who after hours of pleading finally let me come inside her on our last date, then announced she thanked me for the memory and hoped I remembered her fondly.

I lay there disgusted with the train wreck of my love life and shook my head as Belinda came unbidden into view, smiling coyly at me as she lifted the hem of a shop-girl outfit and let me see thick brown curls above something beguiling in the shadows. Lindsey came in from stage right in a matching outfit and sat beside her, her hem lifted as well, and they sat there smiling, Belinda saying sweetly, “Whichever you like, friend…”

I came almost immediately, happily spewing despite the sense I was faking reality. They were more than a decade older than me and had a far greater range of opportunities. Still, solace is solace, I thought, as exhaustion closed in.

After dozing a few minutes, I washed up and realized that apart from my uninspiring masturbatory fodder, the futility of which left a deadened sensation in my chest, I was actually damned happy. I lived cheaply and should be able to find a job soon enough, and the loss of the warehouse job was like an open door from a jail cell. Stepping through it, I dressed and went to a movie so stupid I remembered nothing of it, except that I laughed a lot even at many of the parts not meant to be funny.

~~~

My final check arrived a week later in the mail with, as usual, no stub with my hours, but then ever since the memo I had been refused permission ever to work overtime again, so it didn’t matter. In any case, by that time I had gotten a new job in a bookstore; the hours were flexible and the work environment perfect, and despite the market for books I still made higher wages than at the warehouse.

A week after my check arrived, so did a call from the assistant manager of the store requesting my attendance at an informal meeting. So bored I was curious, I agreed and set a morning appointment on my next day off and showed up at the store an hour before opening that Thursday. I was escorted upstairs where my type rarely went and was ushered into a conference room with the manager, assistant manager, and two women and a man in charcoal suits with white shirts and bright red ties. I smiled and said, “I see the legal eagles are out in force.”

I was introduced all around and the most charismatic of the women said, “We would like to talk to you about your recent dismissal.”

“I quit. No dismissal.”

They all smiled and she said, “Glad to hear it. I guess I was mistaken. Now, there have been certain…events, shall we say, that have called into question…”

The woman next to her said, “The health of the work environment and the wellbeing of the company.”

The first woman added, “The lower levels of management do not seem entirely to have merited the confidence we had placed in them.”

“I see,” I said.

“There were certain accusations,” the man next to her chimed in, “that were utterly false and malicious. We do not want those to get around. They could hurt the company, and that could entail… uncomfortable investigations. Perhaps legal action.”

I nodded and said nothing. The first woman continued, “So just as a safeguard of your reputation and ours, we’d like to ensure that we see eye to eye.”

She pushed over an NDA and then slid a check over with it. The check was for almost a year’s pay and the NDA was thick and ironclad. I said, “Really, I don’t know how such rumors get around. I would never spread anything confidential,” and slid the check into my shirt pocket. “Do you have a pen?”

They smiled and handed me something in gold and ebony that probably cost more than my check would cover, and I glanced once more through the NDA and signed it with a flourish.

The ice broken, we shared a cup of coffee far tastier than the stuff downstairs, and they nodded good-bye as the assistant manager escorted me down to the floor. “You would do us a favor not to…visit us for business for, say, eight months, a year.”

“Why ever would I want to?”

“Indeed.”

It was close to opening and as we stepped out on the floor, I heard Lindsey gasp and looked over to see her staring at me. She came over to me and said, “Good to see you again.”

“Not for long,” I grinned.

“I bet. Well, here comes Belinda. That’s our life, every day. Same time same place,” she said with a slight emphasis on each “same,” and I said, “See you around then…maybe,” with the slightest rise on “around then,” and walked with my guide and guard to the front door.

“We’re sorry about all this…informally speaking, of course. Completely unofficially.”

“Oh, I scarcely remember it. Water under the bridge.”

“Good, good, that’s the spirit,” and when the doors were open for business, I left.

~~~

At six-thirty sharp, they sat down with a thump, grinning like to burst, and Lindsay said, “So, how’s life as a gentleman of leisure?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m just some working stiff.”

They laughed and Belinda said, “That soon?”

“Oh yeah.”

“So, why did you come back?”

“The weasels had a few traps to shut.”

“I can imagine. They probably used a carrot with you. They have a big stick for the employees.”

“So, what gives?”

They smiled at each other and Belinda said, “This goes no further.”

“Of course.”

“Well, four of the warehousemen were arrested. They had a ring going where false orders came in that they loaded onto trucks. Then your old boss cooked the books. That’s the rumor anyway.”

Lindsey added, “Straight from the horses’ asses. I swear, if I had tits like hers, I’d be the best-informed woman in the world.”

They laughed as I pondered the news, seeing without noticing that Lindsey seemed put out by my failure to laugh while Belinda beamed. I asked a few questions. Fred had started the plan, on the idea that as his father was a local police chief he’d be too safe to be messed with. The boom fell with a surprise inspection and inventory overnight by the home office, suspicious about the report of my supposed doings in conjunction with suspicious figures popping up on occasion for the last six months.

The disappearance of a grandfather clock just two days before rubbed salt in the wound and ensured that charcoal-suited vengeance descended without mercy or delay; the four were arrested as they came in the door to clock in, and Chief was taken with them in handcuffs as Fred’s father personally handcuffed his son. There were rumors that Fred’s father had used the fraternity paddle he kept on his wall on Fred, who was now busting rocks for the next six years, apparently saying with each whack on his ass, “I raised you better than that, boy,” stress on a different word with each whack.

Other rumors stated that Dogbody had filled out my termination paperwork a little too fully. Just enough to attract attention from the central office, but despite his swift knifework, had been let go nonetheless for gross incompetence that Chief had covered up to buy his silence on earlier incompetence of his own.

Belinda said, “Apparently they hate you, so they’d never ask you back after you signed that memo, but they’re giving us pay stubs now and paying time and a half.”

“Was Chief in on it?”

“Only at the end. He was too fucking stupid to see what was going on, so they swiped piles of shit before he caught on that his ass was on the grill as much as theirs. Apparently he was squirming the whole time trying to keep it covered up.”

“I thought so.”

“Oh?”

“Sorry, silence is golden. Or at least the equivalent in treasury notes.”

They nodded, “Fair enough.”

“But to make it up to you, allow me to buy us dinner.”

They grinned and Lindsey said, “Please do!”

Belinda asked, “Do they have filet mignon here?”

“We shall see.”

As we ate, Lindsey said, “There are even rumors that Chief was looking for a hitman to shut their mouths permanently, like a year’s salary for each. Stupid man, I’d have done it for free.” We choked as she laughed, and she said, “Nah, live and let live, I say, and make the world around you just a little bit better than you found it. Even if it’s in prison. Even if you only make the world a better place by going there. —Say, let’s get a bottle of wine and go for a walk.”

We grabbed a liter-and-a-half red monster and three paper cups and strolled around as the sky darkened. We joked happily about cannibalistic weasels, stoats, and snakes and found a secluded hollow in a park where we could sit on the grass and chat; a lamp came on in the distance, illuminating the space enough to feel safe, and we chatted about my new job. Lindsey quizzed me on the books we had to see if I was well-read enough to work there, and finally said, “It’s a shame to lose the only guy in the store worth talking to. Wish I’d known earlier.”

Belinda giggled, “Shame for us. Dream for him.”

I nodded, “Glad to be out. I do miss your company though. You two were the only ones there who treated me like a human being.”

“Well, thank you,” Belinda said.

We sat quietly in our thoughts until Lindsey said, “You get an employee discount, right?”

I grinned, “And extensive borrowing privileges.”

“Can I give you a list?”

“Of course.”

“Yay!” We laughed and she took another swig of wine. We talked about books for another hour, soon having enough wine in us to start reciting poetry, and after Belinda had tried to pass off some Jacques Brel as a 19t- century master, we decided to return home. As we strolled along, we hummed to ourselves, me the harmonica part of a blues song, Belinda Brel’s “Mathilde,” and Lindsey something she identified as “Faye Wong, you barbarians.”

When we reached an intersection most of the way to my apartment, Belinda said, “We go this way.”

“Need me to accompany you?”

“No, there are two of us.”

Lindsey said, “Yeah, we share a house. We know this neighborhood, no problem.”

“Okay. Night.”

“Brunch this weekend?”

“Love it.”

We made arrangements and went our own ways. When I got home, I sat there enjoying the afterglow of the company, the lightest evening I had had in months. Soon I went to shower, and as the hot water washed over me, I remembered my evening. Thoroughly fun and thoroughly civilized, I decided the evening had been, and the sight of Belinda’s breasts pressing against her top rose to my mind despite my resolution never again to focus on either one in my fantasies.

Harmless conversation in the moment developed into blatant come-ons, and soon I sucked on one breast while Lindsey sucked on the other. Both of us competing to caress Belinda's sodden mount and velvety folds, and with a sudden groan, I unloaded hot streams of seed on both their breasts and bellies, or rather, I chuckled, the shower tiles.

I stood there exhausted and felt a pang of guilt I never felt when masturbating to thoughts of other women, since Belinda and Lindsey were my friends now. Indeed, it was impossible for me to imagine either Belinda or Lindsey in a state of sexual frenzy… until just then I did. Belinda settled herself on me, and I gave myself over to fantasies of her riding my cock as Lindsey settled with a happy sigh on my face.

I came fast and hard again, shame and fascination bedeviling me as I splashed water on the tiles where my cum lay in thick streaks. The next morning over coffee, I thought again of dinner the night before; things had changed for me, though certainly not for them. I knew very little about them, apart from the fact I wanted to seduce both of them, and all the perils of that situation rose immediately before me.

~~~

That Saturday I arrived at the pub a few minutes early and found Belinda and Lindsey already there.

“Hey, guy,” Lindsey said, and Belinda smiled and waved her fingers at me. Their plain-Jane greeting chastened my sudden surge of desire for them, and any interest I had in them was put on hold.

“Saw Dogbody last night,” Belinda said.

“Really? What happened to that punk?”

“Shit, I almost wish he hadn’t been fired. When we were coworkers he was prohibited from speaking to me. Now he’s a damned gas station attendant. Offered to take 10% off the gas if I let him fuck me.”

Lindsey chuckled, “At least he’s not a pizza delivery guy. Then we’d start getting all these pizzas delivered to our place without even ordering them, probably with obscene messages baked into the cheese. Sausage crumbles spelling out ‘Suck my dick.’”

We laughed and Belinda retorted, “And thick streaks of alfredo sauce…only not alfredo sauce.”

We all gagged and laughed, and I said, “Did you report him?”

“No, then he’d track me down and, oh, I dunno, pee on our porch every night or something. He’s not even dangerous, I don’t think, just really really skeezy and disgusting, like some pale squirmy thing under a rock.”

Suddenly feeling as if my fevered imagination had been lumped in with that, I smiled and said, “I wonder what happened to Chief.”

“Whatever for?”

“To know where to avoid.”

They nodded sagely and Lindsey said, “I think I heard he’s left town. Store didn’t press charges against him; decided his career being ruined was good enough. Probably have to change his name or something.”

“Knowing him, buy some forged documents.”

Belinda shook her head. “In some ways, he was the worst. He never said anything, but his eyes were just…if you could imagine a shark, or a snake, cold-blooded, looking at you like it’s playing out some sort of blood-streaked porn flick in its head and I was the star. Just waiting, just biding its time…” She shuddered. “Fred seemed almost put-up-with-able next to him.”

Lindsey shrugged, “Fred should suck my cunt. Only he should do it when I’ve been hiking for a week in 110-degree weather without so much as a wet-wipe. And just when I’ve started on the rag.”

I grimaced, eyes closed, and when I opened my eyes again I saw Belinda contemplating the corner above my head. She looked over at Lindsey and said, “You know, in those circumstances, and only those circumstances, I might let his mouth, and nothing else, get anywhere near my cunny.”

Lindsey smirked, “For a guy who goes on so much about how disgusting we are down there, I think he might actually brag about that, so no. Changed my mind.”

Belinda nodded, “Yeah, prolly right.”

We laughed and our food arrived; over food Lindsey asked me about certain books and placed an order, and said, “You can front me them, right?”

“Sure, pay me when I deliver.”

As we talked, I watched them for any sign of interest in me and found none. Nor did they seem to show any sign of interest in each other. Or in anyone else around us. The usual enigma of unobservant men, I put it down to, shrugged, and smiled. Lindsey glanced over at me, her fine eyebrows arched above high cheekbones, her hair pulled back into a braid, as usual, visible on one side or the other of her well-sculpted neck curving gracefully down. Her eyes glittered as she caught mine and for a second the breath caught in my throat as she seemed as if entranced, then she glanced at Belinda and said, “What should we do today?”

“Museum. Make this a sort of stay-cation.”

“Good idea,” then to me, “Accompany us?”

“Oui, Mesdemoiselles.”

“Oh, you can go on home if you’re going to talk to us like that.”

Belinda smiled, “I’m tired of guys trying to get in my pants by talking bad French. I mean, your accent is atrocious. Rubs all the romance off the language, and it’s not like French is as sexy as everyone seems to think.”

We laughed and spent the rest of the day roaming around as the spirit moved us, and we made plans for brunch again the next Saturday. That day we chatted for a while about school, and at one point Lindsey said, “So that was, when?”

“I think we were sophomores?”

“Yes, that’s right. When Scurvy Pervy was harassing you.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“Purvis. One of our profs. He’s still there, of course, making all the busty women’s lives hell.”

“Staring down our blouses as he talks about… oh, anything, but it always seems to end up about sex.”

Belinda added, “He wrote a letter of support for that Lindstrom bitch, you know.”

Lindsey raised one eyebrow. “Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Huh?”

“Lindstrom. She was that woman prof suspended for sexual harassment.”

“Yeah, harassed this poor woman student of hers. Sent on and on about how it’s not sexual harassment if a woman does it because we’re all so fucking powerless in society, and doubly so for lesbians.”

“Embarrassing for all of us.” I wasn’t sure if she meant women or lesbians, but before I thought how conceivably to even ask which, Belinda continued, “So Scurvy Purvy wrote a letter to the committee saying that the erotic charge between a teacher and a student is natural and beautiful and should be encouraged to create a truly healthy society free of neuroticism and shame.”

“Man, all that verbiage when simple masturbation would reduce the risk of prostate cancer just as much as fucking some fledgling adult.”

“Or hirsute prepubescent.”

“That’s what most of them are, yeah.”

I thought for a second and said, “So you don’t think students are all drooling for their teachers either then?”

Lindsey smiled wickedly, “No. Why, are you hot for teacher?”

“No, definitely not.”

Belinda winked, “Are you sure? I seem to remember you had a twinkle in your eye for…what was she, history? That time we were talking on break?”

Lindsey added, “Now now, that was just a boy crush. I had a couple of girl crushes myself.”

“Yeah, I remember, mooning after…was it Tagliaferro?”

“No, Susan.”

“Yeah, Susan Tagliaferro. And then Pavlova.”

“Ah, Nastya.”

“You mean Dr. Pavlova.”

“Geez, don’t harsh my buzz. Besides, what about you going to every single office hour with Lamontaine?”

“You know I loved French literature.”

“You hated French literature. You loved Véronique.”

They laughed and Belinda said, “Point taken.”

Lindsey said, “So, some students get crushes on teachers sometimes, but I guess they’re like for anyone else. In most cases.”

I said, “Yeah, it’d be a bit of arrested development to always lust after someone who teaches you. What will you do when you grow up? Not inflict yourself on your students, I hope. Trying to dip your wick in someone a lot younger than you, and it’s not like they’re that interesting, really, not nearly enough life experience. One prof who was a friend of my dad once told me that if he ever got worried about getting inappropriate thoughts about a student, he’d just strike up a conversation, and he always found they were only gorgeous until they opened their mouths. He said he’s a tit man but only if their brains are even bigger.”

They stared at me throughout my spiel with inscrutable expressions as they each pondered something and sat quietly looking at me and then each other for a minute afterwards, and Lindsey said, “Why didn’t we ever meet profs like that?”

“We did. We just never associated them with sex since they didn't notice us sexually, I guess.”

“Unlike the ones who indelibly fixed themselves on our memories.”

“Like Scurvy Purvy. Offered me good grades in return for taking off my blouse and bra and posing for target practice.”

I said, “Target practice? Oh.”

Lindsey nodded, “Yeah. Yuck.”

Belinda shuddered, “Dirty old men and their stinky sticky cum. Bleargh.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I had a talk with another prof, who had a talk with him, and he ignored me the rest of the semester.”

I shook my head, “You should have crucified him.”

“He’d have killed my college career. You have to choose your battles. It was a small required class, nothing serious, so I just hid in the back row after that, and he graded me only a little down. Asshole.”

Lindsey added, “Yeah, it’s not like Dogbody or Chief. Thank goodness we weren’t in your department.”

“Yeah, but we stay together during office parties, Lindsey and me, and leave pretty early. Especially back then. Didn’t want to get left alone with either of those two. Liquor flows, tongues wag, hands roam, fingers pinch…”

Lindsey added, “And then I’d have to cause severe testicular injury, and they’d take me to court, and no one would be happy.”

I asked, “And the other prof, the one you talked to, didn’t even do anything but talk to him?”

“Yeah, she was kind of the departmental safety valve. All the students he had an eye for were informed by word of mouth that if he got too out of hand, just go to her on the down-low. She couldn’t do anything strong since he has tenure, but she could advise him to lay off when he got too ridiculous.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“He was that, in the sense that even if you crucified him, he’d be back in class in three days.”

“Tenure and the old boy’s network, it works almost as well as being the Son of God.”

They laughed as I shook my head, and after we finished eating we went to a museum and then made arrangements for coffee in the middle of the next week. They looked at me appraisingly throughout the day and seemed to make a point of neither leaving the other alone with me, as if afraid I’d jump the unlucky one, and I shrank and died inside.

That night I masturbated to thoughts of taking them in turn and came three times and lay there drained and feeling tainted and ungrateful for their friendship. I thought again that perhaps I should just throw it all up in the air and run away, but then the thought of each of them flooded again into my consciousness and my good common sense slammed the door on me, muttering, “Well, if you won’t even listen to me, you fucking ingrate…” and I fell asleep ready to struggle through another day of frustration to enjoy their friendship.