Back in the day, there was nothing like a video store job, especially for a film student. It's hard to remember now, what with streaming letting you watch most anything you'd want to, but in the '90s, you really had to look for what you wanted, for the special movies that weren't at just any neighborhood. That's what Video Lab was intended to be: a place where people looked. In practice, we fell short of that ideal.

Mia Soto was its high priestess, the kind of person who bought into the original mission of this as the highbrow video store. She didn't own the place, but she had worked there since she was in high school, and now she was somewhere in her mid-late-20s with the jaded cinematic tastes of a critic four decades older. If you could see a movie at the local AMC megaplex, Mia hated it. She used to drive three hours on her days off to get to the closest art house just so she could sing the praises of a movie no one ever heard of. She was a hipster before we knew what those were.

I could watch regulars visibly relax when they saw I was the one who would process their transaction. Sure, I could be pretentious, but I didn't see a problem with renting Jaws, or Aliens, or hell, even ConAir. If you can't find some joy in "Put the bunneh down" I don't know what to tell you. Trash culture is still culture, after all.

I had worked at Video Lab every summer since 10th grade, and this one, after my junior year in college, was no exception. Consequently, I knew Mia for years, and she liked me a bit better each summer I came back. She still thought I was uncultured, but she liked the way I didn't fish for her approval. since I didn't really care what she thought, Besides, five years of summers working together was bound to soften her a little.

On the day everything began, I was reshelving the display boxes on the floor while she covered the register. She was, at that moment, mid-lecture to a sixteen-year-old kid about why he didn't actually want to see The Rock and actually would be much happier with The Killer. She was right, but I wasn't in the practice of second-guessing a customer's selections.

Mia, however loved to, taking pride in every time she forced a customer back to the shelves to swap out their choices. The position of the register only added to her authority. The counter was built on a rise, so it was chest-height for customers. Sitting on the stool we had up there, you looked out over Video Lab like a judge. It had gone to her head.

Mia's judgmental screeds intimidated me when I first got here. Now they were my primary form of entertainment. As soon as she started, I was watching her out of the corner of my eye. Mia being hot didn't hurt.

She was tall and slender, with long legs, a narrow waist, and modest curves. She wore her glossy black hair to her shoulders, with straight bangs giving her an old school pinuppy look. She wore chunky glasses, and had an effortless style, with lots of high boots, short skirts, and bootleg t-shirts from Japan. The point was, she was cool in the way that someone like me never really would be.

I didn't even have a crush on her as such anymore. She was a regular in my fantasies, but I was content to leave them there. Mostly because she was at least five years older than me and had a boyfriend I was pretty sure was going to be a fiancé soon. Besides, I was still in college and had "pedestrian taste." She was firmly ensconced in "look but don't touch," territory. As I was doing now, thanks to her homemade v-neck and the fact that she was leaning over the counter to talk to the customers.

"Go over there, to Foreign," she was saying, tapping the cardboard VHS sleeve of The Rock on the counter. "Go to the John Woo section and just pick one. Pick any one."

"We want to watch The Rock again."

She rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Fine. Die unfulfilled. See if I care."

She rang them up and I went up behind the counter for another load of movies that needed refiling. "You ever hear the term 'the customer is always right'?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said, leaning back. "It's stupid." She stood up, brushed her short skirt under her butt and sat down.

"Okay, but when Alvin talks to you about customer complaints, don't come crying to me," I said, naming Video Lab's owner. We saw him maybe once a week, and he liked to hide in the back office that was barely bigger than he was. Mia ran the store, and whatever she didn't want to do got delegated to me.

"Like Alvin's ever gonna fire me."

"Yeah, if it hasn't happened yet, it's probably not gonna."

"Besides, if I can get one of these philistines to watch a real movie, I will have done my good deed for the day."

'You're all heart, you know that?"

"That's me."

I picked up the stack. Video Lab was structured the way that a lot of video stores were back then. Out front on the customer floor, we had the movies on shelves, sorted by genre. "Foreign" was a whole genre, which would provoke an outraged rant from Mia I'd been listening to since I was sixteen. The movies on the shelves weren't the actual movies; they were just the covers with a rectangle of styrofoam put in the sleeves so they would keep their shape. Customers would make their selections, bring those up to the counter, and one of us, usually Mia, would ring them up, and the other one, usually me, would go get the actual movies from the shelves in the back.

They pass over the dummy box, I go into the back shelves, swap out the dummy for the plastic clamshell with a copy of the movie. When the tapes came back, I did the process in reverse. A trained monkey could have done it, but in my defense I was a trained monkey with opinions about the films of Werner Herzog.

When I arrived that morning, I noticed an alphabetization problem caused by Toby, who worked whenever I didn't, and was generally the bane of my existence. With my refiling done, I had time to fix it. Sure, Toby would fuck it up, but it had to be done. That's when I heard something I barely ever did from Mia.

"Oh, good choice," she said.

I looked over to see what movie she was talking about, but what I saw instead took my breath away.

Mia was leaning with her elbows on the counter, which was not unusual. She was fully off the stool, bent over in an L-shape, which was. Her skirt was so short that in that position, I could see more than I expected. Her panties were black, not quite a thong, riding up between the shapely brown globes of her ass. As she shifted, I glimpsed between the modest gap at the apex of her thighs where the material hugged her the lips of her sex. I was momentarily stunned, my eyes exploring the contours, following the swell her of flesh.

"Sirens," she said, turning. I blinked and looked up into her brown eyes. She held out a dummy box. "Hey, are you listening?" Her eyes followed where I had been looking, and a tiny frown creased her brow.

"Yeah, no problem." I grabbed the box and found the movie, relieved to be out of her eyeline. As I swapped out the cardboard box with the art on it for the unadorned clear white clamshell, I tried to analyze the look she'd given me. Had she caught me appreciating her unintentional show?

I handed it over and went back to filing, not so much as glancing her way. She rung the guy up, and then turned in the stool, crossing her legs. They were bare to mid-calf, down to a pair of black Doc Martens.

"Did you see that?"

"What?" I blurted, my face going hotter than the sun.

"Sirens," she said. "Have you seen it?"

"Oh, yeah, I saw it. I liked it."

"Bet you did. Nobody wants to talk about the message of sexual liberation. It's just about how Elle MacPherson got naked."

"Both things can be great."

She chuckled and shook her head and gave me a speculative look. I felt that were I to look down in that moment I would find myself completely nude. I turned away, momentarily cowed by her frank appraisal. Nothing else happened that day.

I opened the store on Thursdays. I was finishing up when a police cruiser pulled up on the curb outside. Mia thundered out of the passenger side, and I heard a male voice calling to her from inside. That would be Luis, her boyfriend-maybe-fiancé, and I couldn't make out what he was saying, but judging by the look on her face and the way she slammed the door, they'd had a fight.

This wasn't uncommon and I knew better than to talk to her on those days. Better wait for the first person to come in and try to rent an Adam Sandler movie and let them get both barrels.

The first customer came in around ten, dropping off their movies on the counter and browsing the racks. Just as I had since the day I'd gotten a glimpse of her panties, I went to refile the returned tapes immediately, hoping for another look.

Mia was propped up on her elbows, bent at the waist, ass sticking out. I sucked in a shocked breath. It looked like she had gone without panties. But then, she moved her legs, and I spotted the material emerging from its hiding spot, barely covering her sex. I watched as she shifted back and forth, and fancied I spotted gooseflesh on her roundness.

This show had to be an accident. Had to be. And yet...

The next customer came in and I scurried to my spot in the back, certain that this time it wouldn't happen. It did. I watched every motion of her ass, every sway of her hips, willing more of her panties to disappear between her cheeks. It called me to come closer, to press my face between those globes, to fill my mouth with her taste and her scent. I moved in slow motion, mesmerized by her perfection.

When she turned to take the movie from my hand, she gave me a smirk. It wasn't until later when I remembered the movie was Die Hard, and Mia hadn't read the guy the riot act.

It happened again and again throughout the day. Every time a customer came in, I would take my spot and Mia would bend over the counter and give me a show. I started to try to will customers in, find psychic powers I didn't know I'd had to compel passing pedestrians to step inside. Mia's ass was art, and all I wanted to do was appreciate it.

Finally, though, it was closing time and I realized I wasn't getting another show. Probably good, since I'd been walking around with an erection all day, and it was right on the edge of being no longer fun. I thought about taking care of myself in the tiny employee bathroom, but that door was tissue paper. No way I wouldn't be heard.

"You up for closing tonight?" she asked, giving me a winsome smile.

"Luis isn't here yet," I said.

"Oh, fuck him. I'll take the bus."

"I'll drive you," I blurted, then cursed inwardly. The longer I had to wait to take care of myself, the more unbearable this would be. Yet I wanted to be with her more. Wanted to marinate in her scent, to bask in the heat from another smile.

"I guess we'll both close then."

With the two of us, it didn't take long. We closed, and took the back door out into the narrow parking lot that served the line of businesses up and down Fairview Ave. We climbed into my shitty Tercel and I tried not to be too obvious ogling her long legs.

In the confined space, her most palpable feature was her scent. Mia wore perfume, but never bathed in it. It was always over the top of the rest of her, the clean smells of soap and makeup, then something darker, spicier beneath. It was like her smile in that way, beautiful on the surface but hiding mischief. Now it folded me up, sparking every memory I had of her bent over, her perfect ass shimmying back and forth.

"I probably should have asked where you live," I said.

She laughed. "Yeah, I was just wondering if you knew."

As it turned out, she was about fifteen minutes away in the complete opposite direction to where I lived, down the coast rather than up, a neighborhood that was quite literally on the wrong side of the tracks. As though to hammer the message home, a freight train, giving a mournful whistle, thundered past one intersection while we waited.

"Thanks for the ride," she said.

"Least I could do. This is a long-ass bus ride."

"I just couldn't fucking deal with Luis right now."

"What'd he do?"

"Be a macho asshole."

"He's a cop."

She sighed. "He's a sweet guy, but he thinks that I'm gonna marry him and just quit my job."

"But you love movies. To an annoying degree."

"It's more than that. The money I get is shit, but it's mine. He thinks I'm just gonna stay home and pump out babies."

"Oh yeah," I said. That was right when I realized there was a great deal I knew absolutely nothing about.

We turned at a corner with a market tucked into the ground floor of an old apartment building and we were on Mia's street. Palm trees loomed over crumbling two-story houses. Children's toys bleached on dead lawns. And yet, this place felt alive to me in a way my suburb defiantly, secretly was not.

"Thanks for the ride," she said.

"Any time."

She got up, and I couldn't help myself, I watched her go. For the last time that evening I got my glimpse of her bare buttocks, and the barest flash of her pussy straining against her panties. And I swear she paused just long enough for me to get a look. Then she was out the door and walking up her stoop, her hips swinging back and forth like a pendulum. I watched the maddening dance of the hem of her skirt, willing it to flip up just a little bit more, show me and flash of bare flesh, but it refused. She let herself in and waved to me.

I drove home and immediately went to my room. Memories of Mia got me off, but soon, I didn't need memories.

For the next week, we continued that game. By the third day at it, the possibility that this was an accident was vanishingly small. For one thing, she usually broke up the short skirts with jeans or cutoffs, but not this week. Every day it was one of her skirts that barely made it to the top of her thighs, and every day a new pair of panties. Some lacy, some plain, some boyshorts, some thongs. All that remained was to test the boundaries.

It took several days to work up the courage. On the day I took the next step, I knew from the moment I woke up. My heart hammered against my ribs. My blood was electric. My whole body hummed as I went through my day on autopilot waiting for my chance.

I watched for customers. Whenever someone walked by on Fairview, I tensed, hoping to hear the collection of bells hung by the door to ring. Maddeningly, they stayed still, and there was Mia silent as the sphinx, perched on the stool behind the register, long, bare legs crossed. As the morning wore on, I was starting to hate every person that passed. Didn't they know we had movies?

I was sitting at the far end of the counter, failing to read the Clive Barker novel I'd brought with me, when I heard the ringing of the bells. My heart jumped. I looked up, pathetically eager, saw the first customer of the day. I knew the guy, he was a regular, and he immediately went behind the beaded curtain.

This is going to sound as confusing to modern audiences as the idea of commercial air travel would be to Thomas Jefferson, but there was a time when you had to rent porn. The sad thing was, it was the porn section, a small room that ran parallel to the store, that paid the rent. The rest of the selection was more like a bonus.

I got up in anticipation, lingering in the shelves behind the counter. As I passed Mia, I caught a little smile quirking her lips. The man came to the front, and though we all knew what was going on, he never made eye contact with any employee. We never judged. Hell, one of the perks of the job was access to those same pornos.

Mia bent over the counter. "Oh, this is a good one. One of my favorites," she said.

She raised her ass from the seat. Today, she was wearing something relatively demure, the line of her panties running halfway across her cheeks. The contrast of the white of the fabric with her brown skin was intoxicating. As she moved, the line crept back and forth as she shifted in place.

I found myself moving without intention, drawn by her ripe display. I came up next to her, leaning over to grab the box off the counter. As I did, the back of my other hand ran over the bare flesh of her buttock.

"Your c-c-card," she stuttered, shivering at my "inadvertent" caress.

The customer handed it over and she sat back, ringing him up. I retrieved the man's porn, and handed over the clamshells. He took them and lumbered out. I sat back down at the far end of the counter and pretended to read. We both knew what happened, but neither of us said a word. We let the electricity hum between us, there but unmentioned. Talking about it would have broken the spell, would have made this fine. And neither of us wanted that.

When the next customer came in a bit more than an hour later, I was still jittery. I popped to my feet, grateful that the counter would shield me from the waist down. My erection was a swollen pipe running down my thigh. I went to the back to grab the movies.

This time when she lifted her ass from the seat, she swayed it back and forth, beckoning. I came up behind her to take the dummy box. With my other hand, I reached down, and I brushed the edge of her panties. Deliberately, I ran my finger along the line of fabric from the apex down her cheek, stopping where her buttock curved under. I waited for her to spin, to slap me, to call me a motherfucker.

She didn't. She shivered as my touch ran up that secret curve, her eyelids fluttering for a moment as my finger slipped under. She cleared her throat, and to the customer, "Excuse me? Sorry, I missed that last part."

I moved off to fetch the movie while she took the video card. When I turned back with the clamshell, I found her presenting her ass to me again. Swaying back and forth. Back and forth. I put the movie on the counter, then ran my finger down the other side of her.

Once again, when the customer left, we said nothing. I did some refiling, we sat in our spots. She watched Here and Elsewhere on the TV while I read the same page over and over again. Sometimes I would look over at her, where her long legs were crossed. She shifted back and forth, her thighs languidly rubbing together.

With every customer, our dance progressed. Each time, I explored a little more. A caress across her buttock, a touch along the cleft of her ass. I wanted to reach below, to cup the sultry place between her thighs, but I didn't. We were still too close to the beginning.

Each time I approached her scent grew stronger. A heavy, womanly aroma washing up, fighting through her perfume. She still never spoke, though I saw her fighting to keep her breathing even. Her face was flushed and sweat beaded on her forehead.

I was disappointed when, as we closed, Luis picked her up in his cruiser. He came in, greeting me with a nod and a "Hey." I did the same while Mia hopped off the stool and swanned out, waving to me with a smile. Luis had to smell her arousal. He couldn't miss that. And then what would he think? I'd spent the day playing sex games with a cop's girlfriend, which was at once the stupidest and most exciting thing I'd ever done in my two decades of life.

Not that blatant stupidity would stop me. Mia was too intoxicating. This game of ours had broken a dam inside me. Five years of a crush I didn't know I had. The woman I'd been intimidated by, then looked up to, then surreptitiously admired. She'd been many things in my subconscious. Now she was a drug that I craved.

The very next day, she wore a thong. At the first customer, when she bent over, I swear I heard choral music. At first, I thought she had thrown caution to the wind, gone commando, but then I saw the tiny white triangle at the top of her cleft, the string disappearing down that sweet line. I put my finger at the bottom of that triangle and followed the cloth, headed for places south. I felt her warmth on both sides of my digit, and she clenched, whether to keep me out or hold on, I couldn't tell. Maybe she didn't either, knowing it was wrong and wanting it all the more for it. And then the terrain changed. The smoothness gave way to a rubbery place at the center of her. I paused my descent, my finger poised over her.

She sucked in a breath, shivering in anticipation. "Sorry," she said to the customer. "What did you say?"

"I don't have a card yet."

"Okay, let me get to the computer." That was to me. The computer was right next to her, and she shifted, not actually sitting down, maintaining my access. She took the customer's information, while I moved on, tracing the strand to where it widened to cup her. Her panties were soaked. I felt the folds of her sex, and moved my fingertip up them, first one, then the other, then a brush between. She hissed. "Sorry, my cousin's from there," she said with a brittle laugh.

"Oh, right," said the confused woman.

I moved away. My fingertip was still damp with her, and I rubbed it with my thumb, worrying the softness against my skin.

She excused herself and went into the bathroom and returned quickly, looking as flustered as she had before and sat down on her stool. Her face was glowing and the hair against her neck was wet. I didn't find out what she had done until the next customer jingled through the door.

Which took forever. It was a slow day, and waiting for the next customer was maddening. She dried on my fingers while we waited for anyone who was there to do more than drop off some movies. The sun went down and closing time neared and I was beginning to despair. Then a regular came in, a woman who Mia hated for her pedestrian taste in romcoms. In that moment, I loved her. She was my favorite customer.

I watched her wander the store, browsing, taking forever. I tried out my mind powers once again to no avail. What are you doing? I thought at her. We all know what you want. Just grab the nearest Julia Roberts movie. You know you want it.

I watched Mia watching the woman, the same annoyance on her face that I'm certain was on mine. Mia turned to look at me and I looked away. I didn't want to break the artifice of our game. As long as this went unspoken, as long as we pretended this was nothing, it was bright and electric.

Finally, the customer came to the counter. I grabbed the dummy box and went back ot the shelves, where I could see Mia. I finally saw what Mia had done in the bathroom those hours ago.

She'd removed her panties. Now when she bent over, I could see everything, the smooth line of her going between her legs. Her bare buttocks, smooth and inviting. Then, in shadow beneath, her lips.

I went to her, leaning past. I cupped her cheek, my pinky running up the crack of her ass, pausing at the puckered opening I was growing obsessed with. I moved between her legs, unable to stop myself or even disguise the motion. Only the angle of the counter kept us hidden. She soaked my fingers.

"A-a-a-and oh..." she faked a sneeze. "Sorry, allergies."

She pushed back onto my hand, but I moved it away, bringing my fingers to my nose. That scent invaded my senses, insisting that I find the source and make it my own. I needed her more than I had ever needed another person. It was all of my willpower to return to my seat.

The next customer came in on the heels of the last. I was up immediately. My vision was hazy. I could barely concentrate on anything other than her. I went through the motions of taking the dummy box and swapping it for the clamshell. This time, I cupped her sex. She was hotter than an oven, and when she moved, it was a shimmy designed to worry my fingers between her sopping folds. I wanted it as much as she, and my middle finger slipped into her. She gasped, rocking against me, the heat overwhelming.

"I'm okay, sorry, stubbed my toe. If you c-c-could...thank you." The customer walked out the door with his movie, a confused frown on his face. Mia didn't get up, her knuckles white as she gripped the counter.

I pulled away, inspecting fingers shiny with her juices. The scent was strong, coiling about my synapses.

"N-n-n-no," she stuttered, her hips still working in a circle. She looked over her shoulder, her eyes smoldering. "Please. I'm close."

I stuck my thumb in my mouth, then sucked her off my fingers, one by one. Her taste was as I'd hoped, a deeper version of the scent at the edge of my sensing. "You want this?"

"Yes. Please, papi."

I couldn't say no to that. I reached between her legs and began to massage. She chased the sensation, swirling her hips, trying to compel me deeper inside of her. Outside, in the gathering dark, I watched pedestrians walk by on Fairview. I wondered what would happen if any of them turned their head. If there could be any doubt of what we were doing. Her eyes were closed, her brow furrowed, her mouth open, soft moans escaping. I would have to finish her quick.

Only I didn't want to. I wanted to make this last. We'd been fucking all day in our way, and this would bring it to a crashing close. At least for now. I felt myself pulsing along with her, and I knew that when she came, I likely would as well.

As her grunts reached a fever pitch, I pressed my thumb against her asshole, and with a pop, I was inside. She let out a ragged moan, collapsing onto the counter, shuddering helplessly. I saw white myself, and felt a warm wetness explode over my thigh. Almost doubled over, I made my way back to my stool.

She sighed, looking over at me, her head now pillowed on her folded arms, her face flushed and relieved. "Well, that was fun."

"Yeah," I said, my voice ragged. I crossed my legs, trying to hide the wet mark on my jeans. It was growing colder.

"It's just about closing time," she said. "Guess I could do that."

"Thanks."

She stood up and looked over at me. Her eyes fell to my pants and she giggled. "Did you cum? Oh, fuck. That's funny. And to think, I was gonna jack you off."

"You still could."

"Right." I'd never heard a more sarcastic reading of that word in my life. She sighed, getting down and turning the sign over from OPEN to CLOSED. Just then, the door rung and Luis poked his head in.

"You ready to go, babe?" he asked.

I froze. All I could smell was arousal, mine and hers. If he caught a whiff of that, realized what we had just gotten up to, well, he was a cop built like a football player.

"Yeah, we can get out of here." She turned to me. "Close for me?"

I nodded, knowing there wasn't a damn thing I could say or even get up. "No problem."

"Thanks pal," Luis said, giving me a wink.

I watched the two of them go, and with the light on inside and the darkened street, they were shadows. My reflection was clear, and I looked at my horny, terrified face and burst out laughing.

I locked the door and turned out the lights, then jerked off in the employee bathroom. My hand was still wet from her. When I was finished, I noticed her thong sitting on the top of the towel dispenser. I pocketed it and went home. I still have them in a drawer in my office. Something to remember her as I once knew her.

Work was like that for another week. I would spend the day teasing Mia, and right before closing, I would finish her off. Sometimes Luis picked her up, and sometimes I would give her a ride home. Either way, she would leave me hard and hurting. I walked around constantly ready to explode, a hazy, sticky sensation that dogged me day and night.

Whenever she left, she would flash me beneath the short skirt and shoot me a triumphant smile. She'd even do this with Luis standing there, putting an icicle through me even as I craved one last glimpse of her soft flesh. But Luis never seemed to notice. Or at least he never shot me.

Mia had the both of us exactly where she wanted us.

I decided that I would have to be the one to escalate. Put her on her back foot. Otherwise I was nothing more than her personal masturbator. Fun yes, but I needed my own relief or I was going to lose my mind.

I readied myself for it Saturday. It was almost a scientific experiment, and I could only hope that it didn't end this thing we had going. Whenever I was alone, all I could imagine was being inside of Mia, her mouth, her pussy, her ass. Her body was a temple and I was ready to kick down the door and make my offering.

I went in for an all-day shift. Mia sauntered in from the street mid-morning, so she must have taken the bus. She strutted in like she knew what was going to happen, wearing her skirt so short it barely covered her ass, her knee-high boots, and an Ultraman t-shirt she'd cut up and turned to a V-neck babydoll. She wore a red Alice band in her hair, matching her red lipstick.

She walked up behind the counter, swaying her hips, and the only customers in the store, a pair of high school guys, checked her out with all the subtlety a pair of high school guys would muster.

I stayed by my end of the counter, staring at the paperback I could now no longer read. I waited until the guys picked their movie. Mia turned to me, a sparkle in her eye and a grin on her lips, wordlessly inviting me over to pick the dummy box off the counter. She stood and bent, showing me that she was indeed without panties. An invitation and a challenge all in one.

I stood, and I watched her shiver as I approached. She arched her back subtly as she talked to the two guys on the counter. She could keep them there forever if she wanted to. I leaned in, plucked the dummy box off the counter, and went to the back to get their movie. I never touched her. She looked back at me and shot me a saucy wiggle, a light frown creasing her forehead and a confused smile touching her lips.

I returned, set the copy of Commando on the counter and returned to my seat without a touch. She was so flustered that she asked them for their card twice. She stared at me as they left, but I never looked up.

Then when the next customer came in, we repeated the dance. I learned what true willpower was then. Her scent called to me, angrily demanded for me to work my magic on her. But I didn't. I wouldn't. I pressed down on the panic that I was ruining a good thing, telling myself that this would move us in the right direction.

But what was that? I was already walking a dangerous tightrope, fingerfucking a cop's girlfriend. I wanted more. I needed more, no matter how bad an idea that was.

Another customer came in, and we repeated the dance. Now she was glaring at me as the woman left with Kindergarten Cop under her arm. Mia was so angry, that someone rented Kindergarten Cop and she didn't say a single thing about it.

A fourth customer came in, and I readied myself to do the same thing. This time she got up without a word. I figured she was heading off to the bathroom, maybe to get herself off. That at least would be something of a victory.

I got up and took her stool. It was warm amd damp. She'd been sitting barebacked here for over a week, her juices permeating the wood. I wondered if years later other employees would tell stories of the stool that smelled like pussy.

The customer came up to the counter and I stood to make it easier to talk with him. "Hey, what's your policy?"

"The usual. No renting more movies without returning the ones you have. Each rental is for three days, then two bucks a day late fees." I kept going, rattling off the rules that I knew by heart. I heard Mia behind me, but it wasn't until later that I registered how different her footsteps sounded on the thin gray carpet. Of course they sounded different.

She was on her hands and knees.

I didn't know that until I was watching the customer fill out the paperwork for a membership card and I felt hands on my jeans. I glanced down to find Mia kneeling in the little alcove below the register, industriously undoing my pants and tugging them down to mid-thigh. She pulled my boxers down next and I popped into view, swelling redly. Her eyes grew and her smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

She barely hesitated, wrapping a hand around my shaft, then leaning in, passing her tongue over my swollen head. The touch left a trail of raw sensation, and I swooned, grabbing the counter to keep myself up. Something I never dared even to fantasize about was coming true.

"Are you okay?" the customer asked.

"Sorry, I have v-v-vertigo."

"That's a bummer." He nodded and went back to the form. Not for the first time was I grateful for that high counter. As that thought passed through my overheated mind, a sultry embrace enfolded my head, and she began to suck. Her big brown eyes stared into mine, alight with aroused mischief, as she swallowed me inch by aching inch.

I let out a ragged sigh, already fighting the burgeoning orgasm boiling inside me. The customer looked up into my face.

"Sorry, I just... I was stretching," I said. And I stretched.

He frowned. "Why do you need an address?"

"We don't really. The owner keeps making noise about a newsletter, but it's never haaaaa...Sorry, happened. I sprained my ankle the other day and put my weight on it weird and..."

"Yeah, whatever. Phone number fine?"

"Yeah, it's no problem."

She was nearly silent as she worked. Her mouth was warm and wet around me, her tongue slithering in blissful counterpoint. I looked down and found that she had swallowed me, her lips touching my abdomen, a single tear in her eye. Mia retracted, sucking hard, her tongue dancing over my overheated flesh. She moved with torturous slowness, easing off her suction at the end of her stroke, relenting with a wash of her tongue. She was nearly silent, merely making soft, wet noises that still sounded impossibly loud to me, with a customer not three feet from me.

Though I was the one in in the commanding position, her supplicant in front of me, she held all the power and the humor dancing in her dark eyes said she knew it. She would decide when I finished, and she would devour me whole if it amused her for even a second. I could only hold on, pops of bright electricity bursting all around me.

The customer handed me the form and I did my best to enter the information into the computer while just below the counter Mia relentlessly blew me. I nearly swore when she took me to the root again, a gagging shudder at the climax of her stroke nearly touching off the spark that would finish me.

The printer squeaked, the laminator whirred, and a moment later I handed over the card, the whole time with Mia's hot mouth consuming, retreating, consuming, retreating.

"Thanks. Are you okay?" the customer asked.

"Yeah, I'm good. Allergies." I managed. I wanted to shut my eyes as Mia was building to a crescendo. The customer walked away, back to browse.

Mia picked up speed, bobbing her head over my length. Her hand, soaking from her own spit, followed her stroke. I was moving now too, unable to stop myself. She was too eager, and after a particularly enthusiastic thrust, popped off the end of my cock with a loud pop. The customer looked over with a frown. I coughed and stuttered, "Excuse me."

I felt a throaty chuckle below that ran from my electric head down into the root and into my belly. It played over my skin like the hiss of static, pulling me in to a rush of white noise. Her hands, wet with us, gripped my hips and drove me deep. The static engulfed me. My body seized, shuddered, went boneless as I emptied myself into her throat. The ecstatic bliss of her mouth consumed my whole body. She held me close, swallowing every thread.

I nearly fell, holding myself on the counter. Below, Mia moved away, her tongue running over the milky surface of my cock, taking with her the few dangling scraps of my pleasure.

The customer came to the counter and put a copy of Close Encounters of the Third Kind in front of me. I coughed, "Will this be all?"

"Yeah."

My pants were bunched up around my thigh, and the smell of me hung heavily in the air. I couldn't pull them up without him seeing. I was trapped.

Mia rescued me, squeezing past me and crawling on her hands and knees out of sight behind a shelf. Then she emerged, standing, where the customer could see her. She came up next to me, her hand brushing my bare ass. She smiled at him and took the dummy box. She looked at me, her tongue moving to the corner of her mouth, finding a speck of something as yet unswallowed. Her eyes sparkled. "I'll be right back."

I watched the customer watching Mia go back into the shelves with a look of longing that was halfway between sad and hilarious. Then he looked at me with concern. "Hey, buddy. I don't mean to be rude, but maybe you should call in sick."

"Not a bad idea."

This became the new equilibrium. After she blew me, I went back to servicing her, and the two of us enjoyed ourselves for a wonderful week. While I only ever finished her off after closing, she refused to blow me unless someone was in the store. When Luis picked her up that week, I couldn't look at him.

I could tell that we were heading for a cliff. That was apparent. Probably from the moment we started this, but now there was no escaping. I could do nothing else but slam on the gas and hope we would make it to the other side, but knowing we wouldn't.

The day things broke without repair started like many of the others. I had fingered Mia a half dozen times, and though she hadn't cum yet, she was shiny with sweat and moved with a noticeable tremor. She hadn't yet given me my turn and I was as jittery as a junkie on Sunday morning. Night fell and we started our preparations to close while I still hadn't felt her hot breath on my sex. She deliberately bent over the counter with the seductive laziness of a cat, but I just went into the back to do the last bit of refiling.

She followed me. "Where the fuck are you going?"

"I'm closing."

"The fuck you are. Come on, get me off."

"You have to give a little to get a little."

"My jaw's sore, I'll do it tomorrow."

"Well, I'm getting carpal tunnel."

She stared at me for what felt like forever. I could see her calculating, her tongue running over her teeth. Then, with sudden violence, she slammed into me, carrying me hard into the shelves behind. The movies rattled and a few of the clamshells toppled to the floor. "Wha--" I managed, before her mouth was on mine.

She tasted like her lipstick and the sweet coffee drinks she bought from the place next door. Her tongue pushed into my mouth and I felt her hands at my pants. I kissed her back, my anger burning into desire without the slightest hesitation. She yanked my pants down, and I felt myself painfully hard, longing for the warmth of her mouth. I waited for her to drop to her knees and the instant she was finished, I would do my part.

But she didn't do that.

Instead, she planted her booted foot on the shelves next to me, gripped my shoulders, and leveraged herself up. I felt her pussy against the head of my cock, hotter than anything I could imagine. She put more of her weight on the shelves, prompting another snowfall of movies around our shoulders, freeing a hand to grip me, guiding me to her center. Her eyes were on fire, her face alight with malicious desire.

Then she let gravity do the rest.

I was buried in her to the hilt. The pleasure crashed over me in a staticky wave as she enfolded me. She kissed me hard, then I felt her teeth nibbling at my lip. She parted, and all I could see was the lenses of her glasses, turned opaque by the reflection of the fluorescents. She was inhuman, a force rather than a woman. But what I felt where we joined was so alive, red and warm and hungry.

"Fuck me papi," she purred.

With strength borne of passion, I gripped her under the ass. We stumbled across the aisle, still intertwined and she slammed into the shelf behind her. More movies rained down around us. I threw my cock brutally into her, again and again, wanting to cause her pleasure and pain in equal measure. She gripped me around the neck, writhing against me, grasping and milking. Her pussy was shockingly powerful, and as skilled as her mouth had been, it was the palest echo of her sex.

I held her, each violent thrust rattling the shelves and dropping more movies. We were surrounded now, the fallen clamshells littering the floor. She gasped for breath, uttering yelps that turned into moans as I drew out for another thrust.

The bell rung. "Babe?" It was Luis. Luis the cop built like a linebacker. Whose girlfriend was impaled on my cock. His presence burned through the animalistic haze that had consumed me. I was feasting and now here was danger.

I looked at Mia in terror. "Don't stop," she mouthed, slowing her movement but not stopping. Then, louder. "Just a sec, babe! Got a little mess back here!"

I obeyed. I couldn't do anything else. The pleasure had built in me to the point that I couldn't resist it if I tried. It would spill from me and my only voice in the matter was precisely how. I wanted an orgasm worthy of Mia. She sped up again, but this time the both of us were slightly more careful. With impressive athleticism, she pulled herself up on my neck, then let herself fall, swirling her hips, her incredible pussy gripping my shaft. Over and over she went, her shuddering breath coming faster and faster. Her face was shiny with perspiration, her eyes still invisible behind the reflection in her glasses.

"You need any help?" Luis called.

"It's all good," she called back, bouncing on me. I don't know how he missed the gasp in her voice, right on the edge of crying out. Then she raised herself to the apex, my head only slightly inside her, and let herself fall.

Tremors consumed her body, her spine going straight, her head thrown back, crying wordlessly to the sky. It wasn't my cock that did it, as much as my ego would like to pretend. No, it was knowing Luis was in the room while another man filled her, helpless against her power.

I lost myself too, the static consuming my body, my vision going snowy. I shuddered, emptying myself into her with great, heaving bursts. She wrapped her legs around me, her pussy a vise. Only when I was utterly spent did she disengage, lifting herself up and off me. She smoothed down her skirt and pranced up the aisle.

"Hey, babe. Give me a sec?" she asked, her voice shockingly casual.

I stared in wonder at her. She was filled with my cum. It had to be ready to drip down her leg and she was talking to Luis like nothing had happened.

"Yeah, no problem," he said.

She went into the bathroom. I heard Luis's heavy tread making the wood underneath the carpet groan. I quickly did up my pants, and just as he was coming around the corner I dropped to my hands and knees and started to pick up the fallen movies.

"Whoa, she wasn't kidding. Was there an earthquake or something?"

I looked up. Luis eclipsed the aisle. The guy was absolutely huge, his uniform ready to burst off his superhero muscles. Then there was the little matter of the gun on his hip. "Uh yeah, I think so," I stuttered.

The scent of our fucking hung in the air in a sultry cloud. How could he not smell it? Maybe he was too far away. He took a step toward me. "Hey, can I talk to you?"

"Yeah, of course," I said, moving to him, blocking him from stepping into the miasma of fuck that hovered in the aisle.

"In private," he said, pointing to the back door that led out into the parking lot. I quickly went over the list of things that could happen in a parking lot with him and none of them were good.

"Sure," I said. "Just go down the next aisle so we don't step on these." I couldn't exactly say no. I wondered what would go on my headstone.

I squeezed past Luis and felt him lumbering along behind me. I opened the flimsy plywood door, and then the steel security door. We were out in the cool air of evening. After being covered in Mia, it was a relief. Then I turned to look at Luis.

I swear I saw anger in his eyes. The remnants of our mingled juices, mine and Mia, were growing cold on my cock.

"Listen, I got something I gotta ask you," Luis said. "Have you noticed anything about Mia lately?"

"What about her?"

"I don't know. It's probably nothing." He paused. "Has there been like a customer who hangs out here or something? Maybe goes to lunch with her?"

I realized what he was asking, and the ice crawled from my crotch up my belly to find a home in my heart. "You think she's cheating?"

"Nah," he said, meaning Yeah. "It's just...something's off. And I was thinking that could be it."

"There's nobody like that," I said. Then, and I don't know why, I added, "I'd tell you."

"Yeah, I know you would," he said, clapping me on the shoulder. His hand was like iron. "You're a good guy."

I was most definitely not, but in that moment I felt truly powerful. Gross, but strong. This man, nearly a foot taller and hundred pounds heavier than I, and I had just fucked his girlfriend and likely would again. "She's not cheating," I said.

"Yeah, I know. It's a stupid thought. But, you know, if you see anything, let me know, okay?"

"No problem."

"Okay," he said, and went back in.

Mia was waiting by the front door, smiling ear to ear. "We can go, babe."

"What about the mess?"

"You'll take care of it, won't you?" she asked me, batting her eyes.

"Yeah," I sighed.

"Can't say no to a pretty face," Luis said. "That'll get you into trouble."

"You have no idea," I muttered as I got to work.

Escalation doesn't go backwards. Now that we'd broken the seal, sex was the only thing that would satisfy us. We fucked in the back of the store. We fucked in the front seat of my car. One time we fucked under the counter while customers browsed the shelves. We couldn't be alone together before we were trying like mad to be one person.

At the end of the day after we'd closed and she rode me hard on that thin gray carpet, we sat against the back counter, me holding her. Sometimes she let me hold her after. Sometimes she left immediately. I could never predict which would be the case. If I understood Mia I wouldn't be the trouble I was in.

That day we held each other in the aftermath, my pants still down to my midthigh, my cock, soft now and glistening, Mia with her skirt casually flipped up, her lipstick smeared over her cheek.

"Hey, what are you up to Sunday afternoon?" she asked.

"Nothing special."

"Having kind of a party thing at my place. You should stop by."

"Is that a good idea?"

"No. But I want you there."

"Okay then. I've been there enough times."

"Yeah...it's a new place." She rattled off the address.

"You moved?"

"This is kind of a housewarming thing."

"I'll be there."

I drove over to Mia's new place Sunday afternoon not knowing what to expect. She'd moved out to the suburbs, a neighborhood pressed up against some hills with wide streets filled with dead lawns and ranch-style houses.

Cars were parked end-to-end on her street, and I knew which house was hers because it was the one with the Morrissey music blaring from its open windows and the people filing in and out.

Inside, the house was hardly furnished, looking more like a model than a place people lived, but there were people everywhere, talking in a mixture of English and Spanish. I caught a few stray looks before I spotted Mia and Luis.

Luis was pressing flesh and grinning widely, acting like a man who'd just summited a particularly treacherous mountain. Mia was tucked under her boyfriend's massive arm. I'd never seen her look so small before. She was as far from the demon I knew in the store, who was so powerful she felt like she pulled my spirit out through my cock.

"There he is!" Luis boomed as his eyes fell on me. He crossed the room, Mia following in his wake. "Thanks for coming, man."

"Yeah, happy to."

"Come on out back, let me get you a beer." I followed him and Mia fell into step next to me. I felt that same electrical charge I always did when we were close. Our bodies called to one another, even here, surrounded by who I could only assume was her friends and family.

The backyard was surrounded by a cinderblock wall and a single sad orange tree, its branches bare, was the only thing against the sun. A pool, the water sparkling, took up most of the patio. Kids of all ages screamed and frolicked in the water. Luis stopped by a cooler and pulled out a sweating bottle. "Modelo okay?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

The beer was as cold as the persistent feeling in my belly. "Hey, I want you to meet somebody."

"Luis," Mia complained.

"Come on, what's the worst that could happen? Grace!" He beckoned to the far end of the pool.

I followed the gesture and I saw a young woman approaching. She looked a lot more my speed than Mia, if I'm being honest. Instead of the pinuppy sexpot that had held me in her carnal spell, she was smaller and more slender, a petite willow. Her glossy black hair was done up in twin buns, and she wore glasses like Mia's, though her makeup was almost entirely absent. She wore mary janes, blue jeans ripped at the knees, a thick belt, and an L7 shirt, and her wrists were covered in bracelets.

"What's up?" she asked.

"This is Mia's cousin Grace," Luis said to me, a shiteating grin over his face. I realized what he was doing and the cold spread out over my limbs. I looked to Mia who looked away, her face stony.

"Hey," Grace said.

I took her hand and introduced myself.

"Grace is starting college next fall," Luis said, prompting us along.

"Where?" I asked, my mouth dry.

"UCLA."

"I'm at SC," I said.

"Then I'll spill your blood on the field of battle," she said archly, and I fell in love with her a little bit.

I glanced at Mia again, but she was moving off. Luis, his job done, left as well, shooting me a wink and a grin. I felt like an even bigger asshole than before. I fell into conversation with Grace the way I never did with Mia. I drank my Modelo, and she was nursing a pink lemonade, and we chatted about movies and books and what college was like. The more I talked to her, the more I wanted to talk to her, and before I knew it, I was writing her phone number down while she recited the digits with an excited tremor in her voice.

"Hey, can I see you inside?" Mia was just there, at my shoulder. I had only finished writing Grace's number down in that instant, and I pocketed it like a dirty secret.

"What's up?"

"It'll just take a sec. Grace, you can hop in the pool with the other kids if you want."

Grace blinked in surprise and I watched her give her cousin the finger before realizing she was surrounded by authority figures and holstered it.

"I'm sorry, would you excuse me for a minute?" I asked.

She nodded and I allowed Mia to lead me back inside. We passed through the living room, stuffed full of people, then down the empty hall. Mia knocked at a door and when no answer came, opened it up to the bathroom and dragged me inside.

"What the fuck, Mia?" I hissed.

"You're flirting with my little cousin now?"

"Did you miss the part where this is a fucking housewarming party for a house that Luis fucking bought you? If I'm supposed to be faithful this is the first I've heard about it."

"She's too good for you."

"But you're not."

Her eyes blazed in fury and she swung a slap at my face. I caught her wrist. We stayed like that, fire between us as each tried to decide what was next. Then, roughly, I spun her about. She was already yanking her panties down. The electricity between us had its own demands, and we were at its mercy. Even now, in a house full of her friends and family, we could do nothing else.

I gripped her haunches and impaled her, punishing her with hard, vicious strokes. She was bent over in the same position she used to tantalize me so many times before, her arms outstretched, palms pressed on the door. Each thrust sent a rattle through it, and pulled a grunt from each of us, bestial and crazed.

This wasn't even fucking. This was rutting. We were savage I think because we knew this was the end. It wouldn't be the last time we were together, but in a way I could never truly define, it was The End for the two of us.

We could only find those slivers of comfort in this animalistic coupling. When we finished, she gave me a sad last look, and for a moment, I thought she was going to kiss me. Instead, she merely pulled her panties up and smoothed her skirt, leaving me in the bathroom alone.

I slipped out of the party moments later.

A month later, Mia came into work wearing jeans. They hugged her body but they were a clear barrier between the two of us. I knew what that meant the instant I saw them, confirmed when the first customer came in and she processed the rental with the officiousness of a bank teller.

And then I saw the ring. Not a big stone, but it glittered on her left hand, saying everything I needed to hear. Yet I still had to hear it out of her mouth. I felt she owed me that much.

I waited until the place was empty to break the heavy silence between us. "So it's over."

"He proposed. I said yes."

"And that means it's over."

"This is a vow before God," she said, holding up the ring. "I can't break that."

"You believe in God?"

She stared at me, incredulous. "You don't?"

And that was the end of whatever was between us. I worked there until it came time to go back to school, and the rest of the summer we kept our distance. The electricity was there, but it was muted, the barrier too high to traverse. We were cordial, but never friendly. Never again.

Mia got married at the beginning of autumn. I still saw her from time to time, but we never once mentioned our summer together. It was a secret, existing only in the unspoken electricity between us.