You

27

I love having you at the shop. Working with you has made me fall back in love with Mooney’s place. We are an adorable couple and a good match and you love it when anyone says so. There are no more dates. There is just us. You get here before your shifts start and kiss me hello. Dull, pedestrian couples get a dog to practice raising a kid, but we have a shop full of books together. We share the load and laugh at the customers and playfully argue about what kind of music to play and we are one of those 1950s couples, very sexist, because I am in charge and you like it that way. You toy with me, bending the rules on a daily basis and you live to push my buttons. We laugh easily. I bring my Holden hat to work and put it on when you’re not looking and you burst out laughing when you see me.

“Omigod, Joe, you have to let me take that away.”

I playfully fight you off. “You can’t take my Holden Caulfield cap!”

You laugh. “No, what I can’t do is let you go out into the world wearing that thing. Clearly I was not thinking straight when I picked it out.”

I like the reference to our time in Young Sluts and I let you grab my hat. I never even took the tag off and you are pleased to find it there. “Now I can get you something even better.”

And I can’t believe how cheesy I feel, how upbeat, but it feels like the world is on my side; it’s downright happy in Mooney’s place! Ethan and Blythe are actually going on dates, which is amazing, and I go to bed wondering what you’re gonna wear to work the next day, wondering when our chemistry will erupt into a marathon fuck session in your bed that I built. We are waiting to have sex because you say this is special. And it is.

Every day is Christmas and today you arrive in a slutty gray slouchy sweater that hangs off your shoulder and transforms your collarbone into a boner-inducing porno shot. You’re chomping on baby carrots. I tell you to go home and change.

You talk with your mouth full. “You never said there’s a dress code.”

“It’s implied.”

“By what?” you sass. “Ethan’s baggy sweatshirts?”

“Calm down.”

“I am calm, Joe. I’m just asking you to tell me about this dress code.”

“Think of it like school. You wouldn’t go to class in this.”

You toss the carrots on the counter. You cross your arms. “I came from class.”

“Just cover it up,” I say and I want to tell you this is why the guys in your class feel permitted to try and fuck you.

“Cover what up?” you say and now I want to bend you over and teach you a lesson. Your daddy issues are intense, Beck.

“Cover your collarbone.”

“Well why don’t I put on your fleece?”

I let you try on my black fleece and it drowns you and I’d like to pick you up by the collarbone and bring you to the F–K section where you went your first time here when you didn’t even know what you were looking for (me), and I can do that because I’m the boss and you want me to do that and I want to do that but I won’t. I like how much you want it now and it’s going to stay that way and I shake my head at you and motion for you to get out of the fleece and you piss and moan and your slutty sweater goes up along with the fleece when you pull it over your head and some pervert in reference books is looking and I reach over and yank at your sweater and pull it down.

You startle and the radiator hisses and the soundtrack of Hannah and Her Sisters delivers instrumental old love songs and you brought me a coffee like a good girl and you hand me my fleece. I take it and sit down on the stool at the register and you bat your eyelashes at me and that perv is still looking and I have to take care of him.

“When you come back,” I say, raising my voice, “you better be wearing a bra.”

You blush and try not to smile and you slip into your peacoat and grab your bag of shit you dragged in here and you nod. “What color?”

It can’t be long before we fuck and I shrug. “You pick.”

“Red?”

“Fine.”

“Black?”

“Go,” I say and you go and I look at the pervert and call him out good, cold. “Did you need help, sir?”

“Uh, no, just looking.”

“Well, if and when you do need help, I’m here,” I say, and I turn off the Hannah and put on the Beastie Boys and wait for you to come back, which you will, because you love it here with me and did I mention that this was the best idea ever? Your first shift, you were an arrogant disaster and you fucked up every sale you made and overcharged and undercharged and wore your fucking Brown University sweatshirt as if you needed everyone to know that you’re above this kind of shit and I told you no sweatshirts and you turned red because you know when you’re being an asshole. The perv in References asks if we have a bathroom and I tell him, sharp, cutting, “No,” and he doesn’t say good-bye when he leaves and I take the opportunity to go downstairs and beat one out because working with you and waiting for you to get here so I can smell you and see you and be near you every day has me worked up like a fucking eighth-grade kid with a slutty substitute teacher.

My phone buzzes and you’re fast and you have texted me:

Knock knock

And there’s a photo and it’s you, in a red bra, and you text again:

Is this appropriate for the workplace?

And I write back:

No

And January is the deadest month in the world and I could stay down here reviewing bras all day and you know it and you come right back:

Knock knock

I type:

Yes?

And here it is again, you, no face, just your tits shoved into a pink lace bra and your nipples are hard for me and I can’t take it anymore and I finish and you text me again:

?

And I refuse to give my dick to you in this way and you’re starting to figure that out and you text another photo of yourself. No bra. And I give you what you want. I text:

Bad girl. Come here. Now.

You text right back lightning fast:

Yes boss

No punctuation just yes, the universal euphemism for FUCK ME NOW, and boss, the universal euphemism for I SUBMIT, and I clean myself up and bound up the stairs and find the Paula Fox I’m pretending to read every time you show up and I take out the Beastie Boys and put on some Beck—it’s a regular thing now, a joke we have, we are that couple with a secret vocabulary of songs and books and looks and meals—and by the time you get here it’s almost time to close and I haven’t even checked your e-mail in days, that’s how into me you are, and you slip out of your peacoat and you’re in a fucking lace, see-through tank top and you smile at me.

“Is this inappropriate?”

I close Paula Fox and the Beck song “Sexx Laws” starts to play, an ode to handcuffs and illogically great fucking. You and I will make our own fucking song and I adjust so I’m facing you and the door is not locked and the sign says open and the streets are emptying out (a Monday in January) and the Hannah was foreplay and the texts were first base and you move toward me, slightly, and I spread my legs, slightly, and you are standing on your peacoat in your fuck-me boots and I can’t take it anymore and I break.

“You’re late. We’re about to close.”

“Sorry, boss. When do we close, boss?”

“Now.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah,” I say, and I’m a rock and you’re not wearing any panties under that skirt, you whore, and you tilt your little head and twirl your little hair and it’s amazing how the most generic shit in the world can be so hot: half-naked girl in a bookstore, reaching for a Twizzler, chewing on it, slowly, begging for it, silently.

“Well, maybe there’s something else I can do for you,” you coo and I shake my head no and motion for you to come here now and you have the Twizzler hanging out of your mouth and you put both of your hands on both of my knees and lean in and dangle the Twizzler at my mouth.

I bite it. Finally.