Bentley Little - The Store

"And in retail," he wrote, "we are only concerned with the haves."

The man was on to something, Bill thought that night as he sipped champagne and received his massage. The man knew what he was talking about.

He closed his eyes, let the beautiful masseuse do her work.

2

Training ended with a daylong practice session in which he acted as manager over a group of employees in a huge Store mock-up.

The week had been building up to this, with an increasing number of tests and quizzes focusing on appropriate reactions to specific in-store situations.

King's rules were harsh, but within his broad boundaries he provided a lot of leeway for individual managers to assert their own personalities, and it was clear that today Bill was supposed to show King and his corporation the stuff he was made of.

There were no other trainees in the classroom today, only himself, and he was issued a black leather uniform and told to put it on. He did so, and was taken by elevator to a gigantic room that was an exact double for the Juniper Store. For all Stores. He walked slowly up the main aisle, marveling at the thoroughness of the illusion, the extent of the make-believe. There were employees and customers, fully stocked shelves, and piped-in Muzak. Everything, down to the last detail, was perfect. This was all located somewhere within the Black Tower, but it was indistinguishable from a real Store.

He was led by the instructor to the manager's office, was given a Xeroxed sheet that described a short history of the "problems" facing this particular Store, and was left alone to perform his managerial duties.

He loved it.

The power felt good, and he was comfortable exercising it. He found that he liked having authority over people, liked having them answer to him, liked making decisions, and he easily and quickly addressed the problems that had been created for him. He held a meeting with the department managers, went over sales figures, approved exchanges and refunds. While performing his rounds of the departments, he caught a teenaged boy shoplifting, and a feeling of satisfaction coursed through him as he ordered security to detain the boy and call the police. On a monitor in the Security room, he caught something none of the observers did -- a female clerk smoking marijuana in one of the rest room stalls. He fired the girl and was gratified to see her cry.

He was on his feet all day. The experience was tiring but exhilarating, and back in the classroom that evening he was handed a printout that critiqued his performance.

He had received an almost perfect score.

The instructor smiled at him, shook his hand, handed him a diploma.

"Congratulations," the instructor said. "You have successfully completed The Store's manager training course."

"That's it?"

The instructor laughed. "That's it. You've graduated. You are now qualified to run your own Store."

He was exhausted but happy as he returned to his luxury suite. A three course dinner was waiting for him, still steaming hot, and he ate it gratefully, sorting through the new pile of videotapes that had been provided for him. There was no woman tonight, but he wasn't in the mood for a massage anyway, and he didn't bother to call for one. Instead, like the first night, he soaked in the whirlpool bath and watched a movie before crawling into bed and instantly falling asleep.

He awoke in the middle of the night with a woman straddling him.

The room was dark, lights off, doors and drapes all closed, and he could not tell how she had gotten into his suite. He had locked the door before going to bed, thrown the dead bolt, but of course he had always known in the back of his mind that if King wanted someone to be able to enter his room, that person would be able to do so.

He felt soft thighs gripping his midsection, pubic hair touching his stomach.

He was quickly kissed by sweet feminine lips, a warm tongue was lightly flicking against his own, and a few seconds later the pressure on his midsection disappeared.

Then she was kissing him between his legs. Her mouth began working on him and it was the most exquisite thing he had ever experienced. There was no hesitation, no sloppiness, no scraping of teeth, no awkward tongue, only smooth velvety lips and an unfailingly even rhythm that made him hard almost instantly.

He wanted to push her off, wanted to tell her to stop, but he lay there unmoving, saying nothing, letting her continue. He felt guilty, horribly, tremendously guilty, absolutely reprehensible, but, God help him, he did not want it to stop. It was wrong, it was immoral, it was a violation of his marriage vows and everything he had ever stood for.

But it was also the best sex he'd ever had.

Tonight's present, he thought. His reward for today.

Courtesy of Newman King.

He told himself he shouldn't do this, couldn't do this, had to put a stop to it, but in his mind he was already rationalizing the experience. The sex had been forced on him, he'd been sleepy, too tired and confused to react; he hadn't known what was happening, and by the time he did figure it out too was too late.

He'd been tricked, coerced, raped.

He had never cheated on Ginny before, had never even considered it, but he was cheating now and it was too late to turn back and what difference did it make if he finished? The damage had been done.

Besides, there was no way she'd ever know.

The woman's lips slid to the bottom of his penis, taking in all of him, and he came in her mouth, an explosion that never seemed to stop. She did not pull away as Ginny so often did, did not gag and spit out his semen, but continued to hold him between her tightly closed lips, waiting until he had completely finished before licking the final drop off the tip with her expert tongue.

He lay there for a moment panting, trying to catch his breath. He wondered which of the massage women had been sent to reward him, and he wanted to turn on the light, but then she was squatting over his face, obviously expecting him to reciprocate. He could feel the wiriness of her pubic hair against his face, could feel the soft flesh of her sex against his mouth, could smell the muskiness of her arousal in his nose, and he began licking her, his tongue working between her vaginal lips and into her ready opening.

She was quiet, did not moan, and though he usually liked to hear a verbal reaction to lovemaking, there was something sexy about the silence. It allowed him to hear the noises of their bodies more clearly, the harsh raggedness of their breathing, the wet sounds of his tongue lapping between her legs.

She took him in her mouth again and miraculously breathed life back into him. Soon he was hard once again, and she moved off his face and straddled him, taking him deep within her, moving carefully up and down in such a way that he could not even feel the weight of her body atop him. He grabbed her buttocks to help, and then he was coming again, the soft muscular walls of her vagina contracting and expanding, contracting and expanding, pumping out every last drop until his penis was sore and spent.

She rolled over next to him, held him close, hugged him, and he hugged her back, tears silently escaping from his eyes and rolling down the side of his face as the enormity of what he had done sunk in, thinking in the darkness, _Ginny Ginny Ginny_ . . .

The woman was gone when he awoke the next morning, and a moment later the phone rang, an old lady's voice informing him that there would be no breakfast today, that he was to get dressed immediately and then report to Newman King.

The walk-in closet was empty save for the black leather suit he had worn yesterday to the simulation, and he put it on and walked out of the suite. A blond man in an almost identical uniform was waiting for him in the hall, and he was led over to the elevator and back up to the top of the Tower, back to the boardroom. King was alone this time, there were no other men seated around the table, and the guard who had escorted him this far moved back into the elevator.