by
Brown Curiosity
I've worked at places like this before. Retail, it's a drag. They show the same old boring CD-ROM's or videos during training, the over loyal employees with permanent smiles and are so cheery it's unreal. "Hi! Welcome to Galilee's, We love it here!" So fake it's almost parody.
For a cynic like me, I didn't know if I wanted to laugh out loud or to cry, whether this was funny or sad. I could give a damn about a Galilee, I was just a poor kid who needed money. It's a wonder how an antisocial introvert like me conned the managers into giving me a job. It's a wonder that I even showed up to training, like I said, I know how these retail operations work. Mind numbing racking, stacking and asking people "Do you need help?". I was an artist, a writer, I didn't need this dammit. But I had been looking for a job for months, besides temp work this part time sales position was the only one that turned up in one of the branches in this little department store chain. And since I dropped out of college, my moms made it very clear that I had better do something with myself besides sit around the house and mope. So here I am in front of a computer, watching a happy toothy grinned actor explain the policies and procedures of safety ("Because being safe is cool!") with headphones on trying not to a) laugh out loud, b) cry at how sad life has become, c) go to sleep, and d) try my hardest not to be brainwashed, lest I walk out of here chanting the Galilee tagline.
I sat at the screen, eyes glazed over and sighing, until Timira walked in with the staff supervisor.
"Hi Gina..." I took off my head phones to look up as the staff supervisor, (whose name I couldn't even remember) called my name.
"Gina this is Timira, she's gonna share a computer with you..." The staff supervisor chick said as she plugged in another set of headphones in the computer.
I looked up at Timira. I could tell right away she was Trinidadian. There was a beautiful lilt in her accent when she said hello, and her face was broad with big brown eyes that were slanted, her skin tone brown, if not true olive, her hair jet-black and straight, styled into a short bob. She wore a casual suit and couldn't have been much taller than me and my five-five caramel colored frame. She seemed to be sporting a pair of nice b cups, and she had a very womanly shape. Hips flared out a little, and the curve of her back graduated into a shapely backside. I looked at her pleasant face as she smiled. She seemed plain, but exotic. I knew she was older than me, (most of the people here were older than my twenty years) but she had a very young face, fresh and innocent. There was something sexy about her, yet sweet.
Now I've been bicurious for sometime now, that's why I'm describing and noticing every little womanly becoming detail of Timira. I didn't do that to most women, but something about her presence made me think of her this way. It's strange how I didn't exactly feel lust, but I just wanted to be her friend.
When the staff supervisor lady left, I asked her after staring at her nametag again, "How do you say your name again?" Knowing damn well that I knew. I just wanted to hear that sweet accent again.
"Tee-mee-rah."
"Nice name."
"Thank you. And yours is too...Gina?"
"Well its short for Regina. But this is what I put on my tag. Its what everyone calls me."
"That's a pretty name."
Normally this is the kind of small talk that made me puke. But this was different. It wasn't forced or faked. Timira was sincere. I stared at her full lips and quickly turned away back to the video. Instead of paying attention to the Do's and Don'ts of customer service, I was imagining what it would be like to have those lips sucking her juices of my fingers. For someone who had absolutely no sexual experience with women, my thoughts got very kinky.
I tried to focus instead, and tried not to be distracted by the sweet subtle perfume that made me light headed, or the way she inched closer to me to get a good look at the monitor. Or the fact that she was there. I hated having dirty thoughts about people when they were right there. It didn't seem right. I kept stealing glances at her though wondering what she thought of me.
I was five-five and in good shape. Curvy round sista booty with c cup breasts. I didn't flaunt my femininity like other girls did. I was shy and a late bloomer, so I never tried to look sexy. The closest I ever came is looking cute, and that was when I was with my last boyfriend. I started wearing cute girly things while maintaining my tomboy look. Like today, I had no idea we were supposed to dress up, I was wearing loose charcoal colored parachute pants that hugged my hips, and a tight hot pink baby T-shirt. Every time I shifted a certain way a bit of my navel would be exposed, and I often caught the guy next to me staring.
I guess I was a nice looking girl. I just never thought of it that way before. Until now, wondering if Timira thought I was pretty. What was wrong with me?
I'd always have fantasies about girls but in that anonymous, chicks-are-sex-objects sort of way. (Who knew another girl could be a little misogynist too?) Those fantasies and sexual thoughts weren't attached to the same kind of feelings I had when I fantasized about boys. Like, Does he like me? Does he think I'm pretty? And the usual anxieties. I was actually getting nervous and giddy sitting next to Timira. Who probably would run away mortified if she knew what I was thinking and feeling. Sex is one thing but was I actually developing a crush for this woman?
During our break I found myself sitting next to Timira in the breakroom. Don't get it twisted y'all, she sat next to me.
She had a bag lunch whereas all I did for lunch was raid the vending machines: a can soda, bag of cheesy puffs and a pack of M&M's.
"Is that all you're having? Do you want some of mine?" Timira offered with concern as she unwrapped her sandwich.
"No thanks Timira. I'm cool." I said smiling back at her.
I learned that Timira was a pro at packing lunches. After all she had a young son and a husband to send off to school and work. And I was right after all, the princess was Trinidadian or "Trini" as she liked to put it. She was shy but very sweet, as she shared little details from her life. I was very quiet, just listening since I wasn't the type to talk about myself, or anything unless it was dripping with sarcasm. But I was too afraid that Timira would be turned off by the smart-ass in me, (most people were) so I just kept it down to coherent sentences and head nods as best as I could. Little did I know that we would have such good conversations. And about little things that I would've considered faked or forced with someone else, like the weather or favorite foods. Timira also shared her dismay for Galilee's and how she was only in it for extra money too.
"Yes the videos are so fake!" Timira said in her charming lilt.
Its funny how I made her laugh with the smart ass inside me that I was trying to hide, and how she got every joke and didn't think I was weird.
We became friends as we began working in the department store over the months, we were from different backgrounds and different stages in our lives yet we had this connection. I had few friends, but I considered Timira one of them. Who would've known?
She worked in houseware and I worked in menswear, but we would often have lunch together and sometimes she gave me a ride home after work. This made the mindnumbing rack stacking and "How are you today"'s much more bearable.
One day in the break room Timira approached me beaming, "Guess whut hoppen?" She sometimes got directly into her dialect with me, becoming more and more comfortable around me, but forgetting that I was still a stupid American and sometimes didn't understand.
"What Meera?"
"Girl, they transfer me to your department!"
"Word?" Now see, that was part of my hip-hop American dialect.
Timira always wanted to be in menswear but there was no room initially. But I finally got the picture when I remembered we had lost one woman last week to maternity leave and another guy the month before since he transferred stores. We were understaffed and she had dibs on any new positions opening up.
"Yeah, now I can shop for stuff for my husband while I'm working!"
Her husband, was a contractor who was very busy running his own new business. Timira and he needed her to get this job until work started to pick up and his business got off the ground. She would complain how he had very little time for her lately with him being so busy and all.
"Meera, that's great!" I said to her. Very rarely do I speak in explanation marks. The tone in my voice barely permits it, but with Timira, anything was possible.
She giggled with joy, "Yes it is!"
I smiled at her face, I liked when she got this happy. I was glad she'd be working with me. I'd become quite the veteran in menswear over the past few months that id been there. Most of the workers there now were really new, so it seemed I was the one who'd been there the longest with previous people leaving the store and all. I just knew the manager would have me show Timira the ropes and that we'd be paired up together. I loved being around her.
"When are you starting?"
"Oh this week. Its gonna be very busy huh?"
"You know it, the spring sale...its gonna start tomorrow and last this week."
She nodded her head and I took in every detail about her. If she knew that at night I touched myself to images in my head of her sitting on my face I don't know what she would do. But I thought everything about her was incredible, and I never felt so strongly like this before. As I matter of fact I never felt so strongly about anything before. I was used to being numb and sad, and oh yeah I wanted to keep that demeanor up for my own defense purposes, but around Timira walls came down and smiles found their ways upon my lips. Feelings, real feelings coarsed through me, and desire, the kind that only exists in movies emanated from my hips and stirred in my pussy. I wanted Timira, but it could never be. I just left her to my mastubatory fantasies and that was that.
The following week was warm and pleasant. More people were out shopping so it was very hectic. People flocked in droves to the sale, leaving the selling floors a wreck. In menswear we had our share of customers, and thankfully Timira took to the new department like a pro. She was such a big help that the manager often paired her and I up on different projects to work without supervision. The extra time we spent together only brought us closer. We talked about our lives more than ever. But this time, she got me to talk more than I ever had.
"Why you always look so sad all the time?"
I laughed, "What? I do not."
"Well when you not talking to anyone and I see you starin' out you look so sad. Why?"
I sighed as I folded denim jeans, "I don't know that's just me." I looked at her and noticed that she was even shorter than me, about five-three at the most.
"I'm unlucky.
"Unlucky?"
"Yeah, seems like I can never get what I want, no matter what it is...nothing goes right. I cant be who I want to be."
"Well you're a lovely girl. Lovely and smart. You should have everything that you need right in front of you. And you are everything that a lot of people would want to be."
That was the first time I've ever heard a compliment from Timira, or the first time I actually noticed. I smiled as I looked at her, and she didn't even know how ironic those words she spoke were. Everything that I needed was right in front of me.
"You think I'm lovely Meera?"
"Oh, you're beautiful Gina."
I started blushing and Timira laughed, "I cannot believe you, are you so shy?" she said in her island lilt. She giggled when I grinned sheepishly.
The last evening of the sale, Timira walked into my department all dolled up. Her hair was in an up-do, she was wearing make up to accentuate her pretty shaped eyes, she wore a black form fitting dress, that clung to everything, from her breasts, to her hips, to that nice rounded ass. She didn't have on pantyhose but her legs were smooth and shiny, by the sheer luster alone I could tell that they were baby smooth. She wore strappy high-heeled shoes that showed off her lovely feet. She only wore clear natural nail polish on her fingers and toes. For some reason that was sexy as hell to me. She had demure ankles and shapely calves attached to the pretty feet. She was very sexy, however she had kept it conservative by wearing a black suit jacket with the dress. But even with that jacket on I saw everything.
Here at Galilee's we had to sort of dress up, but not too dressy. I was a jeans and sneakers kind of chick, but I had to dress up myself. I was wearing a black skirt, almost of the same material as Timira's, and a bright pink blouse with three-quarter sleeves.
"I like that color on you." Timira said, motioning towards my pink shirt.
"And I like that dress on you...where you going tonight after work?"
Timira laughed, "The husband he say he gonna take me out for dinner. Real fancy like."
"Word?"
"Word."
I laughed.
"We never go anywhere or get to be alone anymore, I'm so happy for this..."
"Yeah but why now?"
"Me anniversary girl!"
"Oh, I forgot! If I remembered I would've gotten you something." I said slapping my forehead. This would make six years for them, and Timira was still young at twenty-six.
"Well don't worry about that, I just can't wait for tonight when..." Timira was cut off by the manager yelling for us while striding across the floor. We walked to her and met her halfway.
"Can you two hold down the floor tonight? I have an emergency at home and I absolutely need to leave now."
We quickly agreed.
"But there's something else," she got a pained look on her face, "Tonight's inventory night."
Its true every Friday night, someone from our department had to take notice of stock and put the information in ledgers and put it in a drop slot to the main inventory office. Sometimes it would take an hour past store closing to do all of this.
"So I need you girls to close as well as do inventory...you're the most experienced ones I have in this department...and I'm hard pressed."
I've done inventory before with the manager, it was tedious, but I could handle it.
"Sure I'm down for it." I said.
"But I have to be somewhere, I'm supposed to be leaving early tonight, remember?" She said to the manager.
"Oh that's right your anniversary! We talked about this...well can you handle it by yourself Regina?"
"Sure." I said smiling, while cursing on the inside that id be all alone to close and take stock by myself.
"Oh wait, I could get someone to help you? I mean Lisa's never done inventory before but it's a snap..."
"I know I can do it quicker alone. I'll show her how to do it another night. She can close the registers if she wants though."
"Good idea." The manager said. "Well I'll go and tell Lisa the deal and then I'm out of here." She touched Timira's shoulder, "You have a good night honey...and you..." she pointed at me, "You are a lifesaver." She said as she strided away over to the cashier where the new hire Lisa was standing.
"Ah, me sorry you gotta be alone."
"Its cool, I just hope you have fun."
The night went on as we started helping people, and cleaning up our floor. Despite the amount of traffic we were getting things seemed to go smoothly. Timira and I were both at the register's ringing up peoples' purchases when the phone rang. Timira picked it up, "Hello, Galilee's...oh...okay...tell him I'll call him back in two minutes."
Timira hung up the phone, finished ringing up her current customer, and waved for Lisa to take over as she walked away from the counter and over to another phone near the elevators.
I wondered what all that was about as I rang up my customers.