Agroup of fresh-faced boys walked into the store, their cocky laughter filtering through the city’s largest selection of adult movies, toys and novelties.
Strip Mall: Strip down to your naughty side!
I pressed my pelvis against the stool behind the till. Leaning over the counter, I asked to see their ID’s. Each one of them handed me their cards, their eighteen-year-old fingers shaking and sweaty.
“Is this your first time here?” I asked.
They nodded, shoulders tight, voices muted, the expanse of Strip Mall before them. The boys spread out and wandered solo between the aisles. I focused on one kid with a shaggy haircut and dark-washed jeans. He ran his hand along the shelves, fingers just inches away from the movies.
The clock ticked above me, the only sound in the store that made my heart throb against my chest. I lifted my skirt and pressed my bare crotch against the stool. Its cold metal surface forced me to draw a breath.
The shaggy-haired kid picked up a DVD, his smile widening, the awkwardness spreading. “You guys wanna rent My Ass Is Haunted?”
The boys grouped together again. Their laughter overpowered the sound of the clock, ruining the moment. I pushed my skirt down. My fingers clenched over the hem, nails scratching against my bare thighs.
The clock kept ticking, an endless lack of relief.
The boys took forever, taking turns hitting each other with the whips and paddles from the bondage bargain bin. I sat on the stool, my gaze on the door, fingers rapping against the counter, restless sweat breaking out on my forehead.
I heaved a sigh when Steve arrived. The boys looked up, their gazes glued to his small stature as he walked toward the BBW section at the back of the store.
The boys exchanged glances with each other, snickering at Steve, laughing when he picked up Horny Holly Hanson’s Hungry Hungry Humps. Steve turned his head, looking the shaggy-haired boy in the eye. “Something wrong?” he asked.
The boys shook their heads. They put the whips back into the bin and then mumbled to each other before leaving the store.
Steve smiled as he walked up to the till. “Rite of passage shoppers?”
“You couldn’t have waited longer to show up?” I asked, looking down at the movie. On the cover was a curvy woman on all fours, her ass arched up like a cat. I rang it through as the boys’ laughter echoed outside.
“I didn’t mean to ruin your fun,” Steve said.
“They weren’t cutting it,” I said, putting the DVD into a plastic Strip Mall bag. “I didn’t want them to be here when Nelson showed up.”
He shook his head. “I should be offended that I’m not your favourite customer.”
I looked up.
“I’m the only customer you actually talk to,” he said.
“You are my favourite customer,” I assured him.
He laughed just as hard as the boys. “Don’t shit yourself, Megs. I know I’m not your type.”
The second hand ticked over the store, timing his footsteps. It was quarter after eleven. I pressed my thighs together, building the tension, the pressure. Nelson walked in and the burning erupted between my legs. I reached under my skirt and buried my fingers in the wetness.
Nelson’s name wasn’t really Nelson, but he looked like a Nelson, a somber, middle-aged man who tucked his button-front work shirts into his jeans, a man with a wedding ring and faded family pictures in his wallet. He walked slowly through the aisles, taking his time, never looking up from the shelves.
The clock ticked harder, timing a careful pace toward the hardcore masturbation videos. His shoulders rose and fell, and I rubbed my clit to his awkward selection of a movie. I pushed my skirt back down when he turned and approached the till.
He placed Scrumptious Stuffed Sluts: Volume 1 on the counter. On the cover was a collage of girls taking on zucchinis and rolling pins and full cuts of salami. He pulled cash out of his wallet, his fingers flinching over the bills.
“How are you doing tonight?” I asked.
“I’m fine.” He put a twenty down on the counter.
I took the bill and gave him his change, my wet fingers brushing over his palm, as the clock’s ticking throbbed between my legs. My toes clenched in my shoes. I rang the movie through and reached for a plastic bag.
“I have my own,” he said, showing me the reusable grocery bag in his hand. He snatched the movie from the counter and slipped the it inside.
I tore the receipt from the till but he held up his hand.
“Have a good night,” I said.
“You, too!” He wrapped the bag over the DVD and went for the door.
I lifted a slat over the blinds covering the front window, and watched him unlock his car. He threw the bag into the passenger seat. My hand drifted under the hem of my skirt, my fingers slipping between my lips, over my clit.
I came to the sound of him driving away.
I checked the ids of a group of girls who went straight for the wall of dildos and vibrators. They were pretty girls, like the ones in high school, and they ignored me just like the girls in high school did. They never asked me questions, so I made a fist and spoke up like Steve.
“Seriously, if you guys really want to get off, you need the Magic Wand.”
One of them laughed. The rest of them turned away, the clock ticking like it used to in every high school classroom, backing all the whispers, the snickers, the hesitant laughs. My throat tightened, but the laughter continued as the girls went through the store. One of them turned back to look at me, her pink lips twisted into a sneer, making me feel like Masturbating Megan all over again.
In high school, the girls used to huddle close, their voices pitched and pierced, saying, “She’s the girl who masturbates in class.”
High school was where the clock started ticking, me with no friends, sitting in the back of every room. Somehow it always felt better, hearing the second hand time the awkward silence that followed whenever the teacher asked one of the boys a question. It made me so wet, watching them flinch, listening to their voices stutter. I’d feel the gears of the clock shifting in my cunt and I’d spread my legs under the desk. I’d have to deal with the pressure.
It didn’t take long before somebody noticed.
“Oh my God,” one of the girls said. She pointed at one of the dildos on the wall, the big purple one the shape of a fist. “That’s so gross. Who would ever want to shove that up their vajayjay?”
“For fuck’s sake, just call it a goddamn vagina,” I say.
The girls look up and stare.
“Just call it what it is,” I say.
I took home every movie that Nelson rented. The first scene in Scrumptious Stuffed Sluts: Volume 1 was of a blonde straddling the tapered end of a butternut squash. I pictured Nelson in his basement, the lights out, and the TV volume low. I pictured him dick in hand, his fist clenched, thick with lube while he jerked himself to a finish. I thought about how restrained his groan sounded when he came. I rubbed my clit to the idea of him staining the couch, his relief only temporary, his breath getting frantic when his wife’s footsteps sounded upstairs. I pictured him rushing to eject the DVD from the player, having to hide the case, the evidence, and the shame.
I never felt so close to him, climaxing with the blonde on the screen. Hot squirt gushed across my coffee table, all over the DVD case. I thought about the jizz-stained fingerprints he’d covered it with and I said his name aloud, my gasps matching the frantic ticks from the collection of vintage anniversary clocks on my bookshelf.
“Nelson, Nelson, Nelson, Nelson, Nelson.”
Steve drummed his fingers against the counter to the pace of the second hand. It was half past eleven. Nelson hadn’t stopped by in over a week.
“Stop it.” I put my hand over Steve’s. His skin was lukewarm.
“The Internet was made for girls like you,” he said. “You could post an ad, post a video. You’d get exactly what you want.”
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“Companionship.”
I looked down at the counter.
“You know what’ll happen, right?” Steve glanced down at the cover of Scrumptious Stuffed Sluts. His brows furrowed. “Eventually he’ll cave. Eventually he’ll get tired of energy drink cans and zucchinis.”
“You keep coming here,” I said.
“Because I know what I like,” he said. “I keep things simple. He only started simple, and soon enough this store won’t be able to offer what he’s going to need. Soon enough he’ll be jerking it in front of his computer to a Japanese chick shoving cockroaches up her snatch.”
The clock wouldn’t stop ticking.
“He’s an addict, Megs. There’s nothing you can do.”
I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to. After work, I stopped by the grocery store and bought a bottle of lube and a cut of salami.
Nelson came in the next night, looking rushed, frantic. He didn’t take nearly as long as usual to pick out Great American Challenges. The cover had a picture of a girl taking on a purple fist dildo like the one on the wall. He brought the movie back the following night.
“Was it not good?” I asked.
He shrugged. His gaze dropped and he looked out at the expanse of the store before turning back to me. “It wasn’t my thing.”
“What is your thing?”
“I just, I’m not really...”
The ticking clock made him sound like all the cocky boys in high school. I pressed myself against the edge of the stool, ground my pelvis against the seat. I leaned over the counter but he didn’t look up, didn’t look at me.
“You like insertions, right?”
He braced his hand against the counter and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. His fingers curled into a fist. “I’m uh, well... I’m into that.”
“I can probably order in something for you,” I said.
He met my gaze. His posture stiffened. His gaze dropped back to the cover of the DVD case, his lip curling at the plastic toys, fake dicks, simulated pleasure.
“I’ll dig around. I’ll find something. You want, like, live stuff, right? No animation?”
He nodded, the slow bob of his chin matching the ticking of the clock. My pussy dripped against the edge of the stool. I shuddered, but he didn’t ask me if I was okay. His fist started shaking over the counter. He swallowed and pulled away.
“It shouldn’t be too long,” I promised.
A woman walked in as I was ringing through Steve’s favourite movie, Big Bodacious Babes in Brazil. The woman looked at Steve and then at the movie on the counter, her lips turning a sneer. She had a worn out face and circles under her eyes. She walked toward the till clutching a reusable grocery bag.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
She turned the bag over on the counter and shook out all eight volumes of Scrumptious Stuffed Sluts.
I felt Steve’s gaze, but I stared at the woman, at her uneven skintone. All I could think about was how much better she’d look if she’d put on makeup.
“I found these in his filing cabinet,” she said. “He told me everything. I made him tell me everything.”
I stared too long. Her eyes narrowed and I shook my head.
“My husband,” she hissed. “You know who he is. He’s in here all the time.”
“That’s none of my business,” I said. “I just work here.”
“You’re supporting this,” she said. “You’re ruining families, ruining lives. You have no idea how long this has gone on.” Her chest heaved. She blinked and her eyes got red, wet. “I cancelled the Internet. I spent nights talking with him. He promised he was over it and now he’s just getting all his filth from here.”
The clock ticked. I looked down at the movies, the girls on the covers even filthier than me, taking on wine bottles and cucumbers and pillar candles.
“We have kids,” she said.
My lips smirked. “Like I told you, I just work here.”
She blinked and the tears slipped down her cheek. She took a breath and looked me over, judging my low-cut shirt, my short skirt, and the streak of pink in my hair. She stared too long, just like all of the girls in high school used to.
“It’s disgusting what you do,” she said.
“You shouldn’t involve yourself in this,” Steve said.
“I’m trying to keep the store in business.”
Steve walked around the counter. He crossed his arms. “He’s not a sex-addict, Megs. He gets off to girls on a screen.”
My heart pounded in my ears. Heat rushed up my chest. I blinked and felt the burning behind my eyes. “I don’t care about his marriage.”
“He doesn’t want anything to do with you,” Steve said.
I set my camera up in front of my bookshelf, the clocks ticking behind me. I took the salami out of the fridge, getting wet thinking of Nelson seeing me, seeing Masturbating Megan for the first time.
“You’re fucking hungry, aren’t you?” I asked.
His eyes were the lens, watching me lube up the meat, watching me spread my legs. The meat was cold, sliding in, stretching me out. The clocks ticked. My breaths got heavier, laboured.
“Do you wanna know how disgusting I am?”
The salami warmed inside of me. I opened myself, pushed it in deeper. The clocks ticked and my heart pounded, head spinning so fast I felt like exploding.
There was an envelope in the return bin. Inside were the broken disc pieces of Masturbating Megan Munches Massive Meat: Volume 1. Inside were family photo of Nelson and his wife at a park. They were sitting on a playground bench with his two little daughters. On the back of the photo was a note his wife had written with a black Sharpie:
YOU’VE BEEN CAUGHT, SLUT! STAY AWAY FROM MY HUSBAND!
I flipped the photo over again. Nelson’s wife was wearing makeup in the photo. Her hair was shiny and straight, her pink lips turned, smirking.
Steve would have lectured me, but Steve didn’t have the ability to understand.
The sound of the clock was overtaken by the sound of a car pulling into the parking lot outside. I peeked through the blinds. The car was Nelson’s. His shadow was slouched inside, his head against the dash, hands gripping the wheel.
I didn’t have to stay away from him. He would always come back. He knew me better than anyone.
It was impossible to feel guilt, impossible to feel anything but the heat dripping down my leg.
The second hand on the clock went tick, tick, tick.