by JD Chambers
“Both. I like the variety.” I get an approving nod at that. “I’ve never had their bentos, though. I stick with the sushi.”
“Have you tried their crickets?”
My eyes bug out, pun intended, and his laughter is sweet in the air.
Ted coughs, and when I look back, he makes an obvious show of checking his watch. I roll my eyes, because there are only a couple of teenagers in the store right now, snickering at the pointy boobs on an old Tomb Raider game.
“Better get back to work. Friday night, Suzushi’s,” I say with a finger pointing to his chest. “We’ll see if you can get me to eat bugs.”
I reach the door leading toward the breakroom before glancing back to see him still awkwardly holding his hand up in a half-wave. Christ, I’m going to eat him up before we’re done.
Inventory takes forever on a Monday because all of the shipments unable to be delivered over the weekend arrive all at once. Ted and I quickly get in a groove, where I’m unboxing and scanning items, then he tags and stacks them for the shelves. I’m in the zone, scanning without paying attention because my thoughts are with a cute blond nerd, when Ted’s voice startles me back to the present.
“I’ve been trying to think of some new ideas for promotions. Business has been good so far this summer, but I don’t want to get stagnant. Do you have any ideas?” he says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to discuss business with me. Even though Ted seems like a nice guy and all, we’ve always had more of a he-gives-the-orders-and-I-follow-them type of relationship.
“Do you have anything already in the works?” I ask.
“There’s the Fourth of July parade,” he says, and I groan. We did that last year, and I wound up with a sunburn and blisters for a week. “Hey, we got a lot of business from that, so don’t knock it.”
“Hmmm, you could try a promotion in conjunction with another store. Like the dispensary next door. Buy a joint and get a free hour of game time in the gaming room.” Ted laughs, and I join along. “I think this could be a huge untapped market – the stoners who will sit in front of the computers for hours on end without even realizing it. Just think of the boom in business!”
With a shaking head, Ted claps my shoulder and dashes my hopes. “Sorry, but I don’t think the market potential outweighs all the soccer moms we’d lose when they found out about it.”
“Can’t alienate the soccer moms.”
“No, we certainly can’t,” he says with fake gravity. “Without them, we’d never have our Christmas bonuses off the sale of new consoles from Santa.”
“We get Christmas bonuses?” I ask, and smirk at his panicked expression.
We return to our comfortable working silence, but my brain won’t stop ruminating on his question. He’s never asked for my advice before, and I don’t want to disappoint. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot going on in Fort Collins during the summer except the Fourth of July and CSU starting back up.
“What about New West Fest?” I ask. “All the new CSU students go to it; it’s like their introduction to Fort Collins life. You could get a booth. Maybe give away some stickers or buttons. Have a raffle. I hear Ben is quite the expert at staffing booths.”
Ted gives me a weird look at that last part, but I can tell my idea has piqued his interest.
“That’s not a bad idea. Why don’t you come in early tomorrow and take the time to investigate it? See how much a booth would cost, giveaways, stuff like that. Then we can decide if it’s within our budget.”
Our budget. I know he means the store’s budget, but it still sends a few extra palpitations through my chest. It’s slightly pathetic how amazing that tiny bit of inclusion means to me. At least, that’s what the apathetic dickhead side of my personality mocks at me. The other part, the little boy who wishes someone would notice him, flips the dickhead the finger. He’s on cloud nine right now.
“Did you go to school for this?” I ask him. Video gaming doesn’t seem like an industry that needs a college education, but Ted really knows his stuff, and I wonder how much is instinctive rather than learned.
“I did, actually,” he says, setting down the boxes he was tagging so he can look at me. It’s like he’s seeing me with new eyes, and pride blossoms inside my chest. “I didn’t go right after high school like most people. I had other things going on. But in my mid-twenties, I came into some money. I knew that I wanted to open a game store, but I didn’t know how to do some of the basics, like how to incorporate a business or create profit and loss statements, financial stuff like that.”
I don’t respond other than with an interested hum, because now my mind whirls with new possibilities, like potential business applications for my schoolwork, even if I stuck with my job here. It’s something new to consider.
“Are you thinking about school?” Ted asks, but there’s no judgement in his eyes like I feel when most people bring up college at my age. Just the same interest as before.
“I’m still deciding. I’d only go part-time, so I could still work here,” I rush to reassure him.
“I’m not worried about that.” He waves off my concern, and then loads up his arms with freshly tagged boxes, nodding for me to do the same. “I’d work around your schedule, just like I do with everyone. I’ve been wondering how long it would take for you to realize that you have too much talent to be stuck working a cash register.”
I sigh at his inadvertently drilling to the root of my problem. “Even if I do get a degree, though, I still can’t think of anything I’d rather do than work here. Wouldn’t it be a big waste of time and money?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. One of your classes might uncover an interest you never knew you had.”
Victoria almost had me convinced that school wouldn’t be worth it, but Ted’s advice is awfully convincing too. Grr, now I’m even more confused than before.
On my walk home, the dispensary has some new t-shirts up in the window, and one reminds me of Zach. It has pictures of a chicken and a pot leaf next to a Greek pi symbol. Chicken pot pie. I snap a photo and shoot it off in a text to Zach.
Craig: This made me think of you.
I haven’t even made it past the window when my phone dings with a return text.
Zach: Because I’m a pothead???
I snort out a laugh so loud that several passersby notice.
Craig: No, because you’re a nerd.
I’ve already hit send before I analyze what I’ve written in context of what I know about Zach. Shit.
Craig: In a good way. Like, your t-shirts are nerdy and funny and I like them.
Rolling bubbles indicated he had started typing out a response, then stopped when I sent my follow-up attempt to stave off disaster. Now the bubbles are back. I realize I’ve stopped walking while I wait for his reply.
Zach: Don’t hurt yourself with all that backpedaling.
Zach: Seriously though. I wasn’t offended.
A shit-eating grin splits my face for the rest of my walk home. I’ve forgotten about school and work and any other troubles now that I’ve seen yet another side of Zach’s personality. I like a sassy Zach.
9
Zach
I can’t get Craig out of my head all week.
Half of me keeps repeating and dissecting Monday and what we said to each other and what we texted to each other. I never get flirty like that, and my first instinct is to berate myself for putting it out there, but then his smile floats through my head. Throughout that horrible story on Monday, and even the nerdy comment in his text, I never felt judgement coming from him. Is that because he actually likes me, or is he still trying to atone for being an ass last weekend?
The other half tries desperately to put his pretty eyes and full bottom lip into a locked compartment in my brain so that he’ll stop popping into my evening wanks. I’m going to have a difficult enough time on Friday looking at Craig without bursting into flames, but I’ll never be able to face him if I insert him into one of my kinky fantasie
s.
I have no idea why I like the things I do, and believe me, I’ve tried to figure it out. When I was younger, and just starting to masturbate and figure out what things turned my crank, everything was equally taboo according to my church. You were labelled just as much of a sinner for being a serial killer as you were for being a middle schooler touching yourself for the first time. There were no degrees of sin, just the fact that if you hadn’t been “cleansed” of any of it, even that innocent wank, you were going to hell.
Maybe that threat works for others, but for me and my teenaged sense of rationality, it actually worked in the opposite direction. The way I saw it, if everything is taboo, then really, nothing is. So at a young(ish) age, late teens really, but still younger than what’s probably normal to be exploring kinks, I felt free to explore fantasies, from gang bangs to puppy play and everything in between, figuring out which of those things I liked and which did nothing for me. I knew these were things that kids my age would find gross and weird, but they were also very vocal about thinking gay sex was gross and weird, so again, I was damned either way. I may have felt shame over the things I enjoyed thinking about, but that didn’t seem to be much of a hindrance.
During college, I took too many psych classes to try to psychoanalyze my kinks, but eventually gave up and just accepted that there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I still can’t explain why I love the thought of being used like a blow-up doll in a gang bang, but cringe at the thought of calling someone master or licking a boot. But over time I learned I wasn’t alone in these fantasies, and got to the point where I no longer felt the need to constantly berate myself.
This is also why my fantasy life is great, but real-life sex not so much. After Eric, I swore that my fantasies would remain just that, and I’ve never attempted to mention them to another soul since. I guess if the worst thing I’m doomed to in life is mediocre sex, my life isn’t too bad.
During tonight’s jack-off session, my thoughts refuse to stray from Craig and his sexy piercings and intensely handsome face. He pushes my shoulders down until I drop to my knees. His hands bury in my hair. I don’t imagine what his cock looks like, just what it feels like, invading my mouth. He pushes me hard against him, grinding my nose into his pubic hair until I can’t breathe. Saliva pools in my mouth, but my lips are sealed so tight around him that it has nowhere to go but back. I’m seconds away from choking when he jerks my head back enough to allow a breath and for all the drool to stream from my gasping lips. It mixes with the tears and snot that his rough grip and deep throating have automatically triggered.
On my bed, cock in one hand, I pull my own hair, mixing real and imagined pain together, getting me closer to the end.
Craig shoves me back onto his cock. “Yeah, take that, you little slut. I could tell from the first time you blushed that you were just a little slut thinking about taking my cock.”
My mouth is so full, but I still groan around it, and the vibrations push Craig over the edge. He’s so far into me he shoots straight down my throat. I can’t even taste it on my tongue.
Ungh. I’m still not there and part of me feels cheated that I didn’t get to taste him. But this is my fantasy, so.
Craig stuffs my mouth again, but after I groan, he pulls out and pumps his length, painting strand after strand of milky white cum across my face. He’s not through. It’s rough enough to leave bruises as he grabs my arm and spins me around, pinning my chest to the floor. I can hear the slick sounds of him beating off as his other hand spreads my cheeks. This time he sprays my crack, and the hot liquid dribbles over my hole and down my sac. Fingers swipe at the mess, then push the cooling seed into my hole.
I find my release, gasping at the thought of being coated, inside and out, in Craig’s cum.
10
Craig
After the few flirty texts on Monday, I don’t hear from sassy Zach again for the rest of the week. I tried to coax more out of him with a few witty texts, at least I thought they were witty, but he kept his responses short and polite. When I texted him the time to meet at Suzushi’s, his response was “Sounds good.”
I am bound and determined to get Zach talking tonight. I don’t care if he spends the next three hours quoting mathematical equations, if he’s speaking, I’m considering it a win. If I can actually get him to flirt back, I’ll go ahead and nominate myself for best first date ever. Which is kind of ironic since I can’t tell if he realizes this is a date or not.
Every time I’ve seen him, he’s been in a geeky t-shirt and worn-out jeans and tonight, standing outside the restaurant with hands stuffed in his jean pockets, is no exception. Tonight’s shirt extols the virtues of Tolkien, with a pipe-smoking Gandalf. His curls are still a little damp, and his foot taps against the side of the building.
“I thought you said you weren’t a pothead?” I say upon my approach. He’s been looking the other way, and my voice makes his foot slip against the wall, throwing him off-balance. I clasp his elbow to steady him, and watch with pleasure as his eyes slither like a snake sizing up its meal from my toes until our eyes meet, giving away his obvious perusal.
I’m glad he appreciates my efforts, because I spent hours getting ready, trying to pick an outfit that makes my ass look good and my arms muscular, or at least fit. I debated about eyeliner and eventually went without. I don’t mind the attention, and I think it highlights my piercing nicely, but I don’t want anything to make Zach uncomfortable tonight – including me. I’m doing my best to keep a lid on my smart-ass, but it’s incredibly difficult stifling my only natural talent.
I’m going to unusual lengths for this guy, but something tells me it’s going to be worth it. I’m not some big player or anything. I’d like a relationship; it just never seems to work out. Michael only lasted for four months, and that was mostly because he had such a sweet gaming setup. I may have liked his computer more than I actually liked him.
Zach’s brain takes a few seconds to catch up, and I eagerly await the I-just-got-caught-ogling blush that should be appearing right about … now.
“I hope you weren’t waiting long,” I say, and pull the door open for him. “Nice shirt.”
His blush deepens, which truthfully was the goal, but he straightens his shoulders a bit and responds, “Not a pothead, just a nerd, remember? There’s a surprising amount of overlap in t-shirts that are both nerdy and marijuana related. I just happen to appreciate the puns.”
“Well, who doesn’t appreciate a good pun now and then?”
He shrugs and mutters, “I think they’re funny” under his breath.
Crap. I didn’t mean to kill his confidence already, so I nudge him with a shoulder and say, “You mean punny?” It earns me a smile that goes right into my win bank for tonight.
I’m reminded of this stupid matchmaking game app where you take characters on blind dates. Every time the other character likes something that your character does, you get a heart. Every time your character screws up on the date, one of the hearts break. I can almost feel the imaginary hearts popping up, breaking away, and popping up again on my shoulder.
I give our party size to the hostess and we are able to be seated right away if we’ll take one of the Japanese low tables instead of a regular table. I’m game, and I look to Zach, who nods without hesitation.
“I always feel weird taking off my shoes at a restaurant, don’t you?” I ask as we deposit our shoes by the front door to the traditional room. Zach nods. “I mean, I eat without shoes all the time at home without a spare thought, but doing it in front of strangers somehow makes it weird, you know?” I get another nod and an amused smile that makes me think my rambling might be a little tedious, but I can’t help it. I’m determined to get him talking.
“Did you have any trouble with parking?”
“No.”
We fold our limbs unnaturally into position under the low tables and I adjust the pillows behind me. Zach sits across from me, intensely focusing on the menu, but I have a fe
eling it’s so he can avoid making eye contact. He swipes off his glasses to wipe at imagined smudges. I say imagined, because this is the fifth time he’s done it since entering the restaurant. I’ve been counting.
We both order Japanese beers, and I embark on my third attempt at starting a conversation.
“So, Zach, what is it you do?”
I realized that I’d made the mistake of asking yes/no questions on my previous tries, so I’m commencing with a different tactic. If this doesn’t work, I might have to ask him if there is a mathematical equation that explains the correlation of nerds to pot smokers, since that subject has gotten the most enthusiastic responses so far. I’ve never had this much trouble getting a guy to talk about himself. Usually they don’t shut up about how fucking great they think they are.
“I’m an independent financial consultant for small start-up businesses. I put together their pro-formas and perform data analysis of potential markets, competition, and the like, so that they can try to obtain the start-up capital …”
He shrinks back into his pillows, suddenly self-conscious of how animated he’s become discussing his work.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’ll admit I didn’t understand half of what you just said, but I’ve never seen you that confident or excited before. That’s really cool, that you get that from your job. Most people would kill for that.”
I mean it, too. I like my job. It’s a fun place to work, but I don’t get a hard-on for it. And the idea that I’ll be doing the same thing ten or twenty years down the road is equal parts scary and exhausting, even if I can’t picture doing anything else.
Zach offers me a shy smile, and my breath catches in my chest. Something magical happens when he smiles. I don’t mean to sound cheesy or whatever, but it’s true. Zach’s cute – dorky glasses, childlike curls, cherubic cheeks, the whole bit. But when he smiles, it makes you feel like you are the most amazing person in the universe and that you had the power to make him happy, and it is fucking brilliant.