This choice: Pay for the hollowed book like a responsible adult. • Go Back...Chapter #6Pay for the hollowed book like a responsible ad... by: Unknown Of course. Carol defeats the devilish impulse to rip those fetching purple panties right out of the hollow book and try them on. The young woman snaps the book shut and tucks it under her skinny arm and forces herself to browse a little longer. All the while her mind is circling relentlessly around her recent find.
Carol pauses before the bathroom door and put a finger on her lower lip. It was so tempting to just... but then a large man with an unpleasant odor strode up behind her and asks,
"You gonna use the restroom, sweetheart?"
Carol is startled from her own private thoughts, turns and frowns. She flips a dangling lock of her brown hair behind her ear and adjusts her glasses, collecting herself.
"No. No, all yours," she manages, reluctantly walking off toward the desk at the front of the store.
Mr. Jaspers is a severe older man with a gaunt face and the pale skin of somebody he keeps his nose in a book at all times and rarely ventures forth into the light of day. He is dressed in a tasteful dark suit and has on a bow-tie. Mr. Jaspers has always liked the shy brunette who pops into his store every few days or so even though he doesn't know her name since she always pays in cash. Not that he would ever show the slightest bit of interest in the girl--that would be unprofessional. No, Mr. Jaspers treats Carol like he does all of his customers, with an icy contempt. As if every purchase is the wrong one, everyone has terrible taste, that the real treasures will forever sit on his shelves.
Little does he know what treasures have been found.
Carol walks bravely to the front with the book under her arm, wedged way up to her armpit which to her horror has started to sweat. She is nervous. Not that anxiety doesn't normally plague the shy girl, but this shop was as close to her 'home turf' as any, she'd never once felt nervous here. Carol pauses to reach into her backpack for her purse and then remembers old Mr. Jaspers makes customers check their bags at the counter to avoid shoplifting. Gathering her courage, she steps forward.
"I see you found something young lady," Mr. Jaspers says with a grim face. He looks down his long nose trying to make out the name on the books spine still wedged in the slightly damp crevice of Carol's armpit.
"Y-Y-Yes, sir. But I will need my bag back to pay for it," Carol says, looking at her feet. She likes Mr. Jaspers, even appreciates his curt and businesslike manner, but right now she is understandably preoccupied.
"But of course. The, uh, red bag with the... uh, buttons on it," Mr. Jaspers says, rummaging under his desk. Carol's backpack is festooned with pins. Anime, internet memes, inside jokes, stuff she just finds cute.
"That's the one," Carol says, grabbing the bag rudely from the counter. She immediately begins to dig for her small brown purse to find the ten dollar bill that will let her get out of here as soon as possible.
"If you'll just hand me the book, I can then begin the transaction," Mr. Jaspers says dryly.
It is of course this moment where Carol realizes that the price is always written in pencil on the first page of the book. That if Mr. Jaspers so much as flips the book open a little too far he will undoubtedly find the curious contents and then what will he think? Well it was in his bookstore wasn't it? But that wouldn't solve her embarrassment at an old man selling her a pair of underwear. Ack!
Carol has to make a decision, whether to sling her bag over her shoulder and run out or hand over the book and hope Mr. Jaspers doesn't scrutinize it too heavily.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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