A little slice of my first completed novel, based almost entirely on my own experiences...
I finally call. “Yes, my name is Peter. I received a phone call from you this morning regarding employment,” I say, all formal. I can turn it on when I want to. Much more so on the phone. I hope against hope. This is a pretty big deal, this conversation. The woman on the other end, Irene, asks if I can come in for an interview this afternoon as they are very interested in my resume. “This aft is fine,” I say. “Sure thing. See you at two.”
I have an interview in a few hours. Maybe I should just smoke a small one now. I won't be high by two this aft. Nah, I'll save it until tonight. I come around the corner of the kitchen to tell Cleopatra the good news. She is looking out the window from her perch on her end of the couch. “I go in for an interview at a cheque cashing place, Sweetie,” I say. Cleo does not even look over at me. I consider calling Jimmy again. He's busy. I decide on a nap for a few hours instead. I'll be bright eyed and bushy tailed for my big interview.
One hour and fourty minutes later I wake up to the alarm clock. God, what a nasty ass sound that thing makes in the afternoon when you're trying to sleep. It slowly dawns on me that I have an interview. I get into gear. Need to shake out the cobwebs. I shower and shave quickly. In my room I am deciding on my clothes for the interview. It is a quick decision. I only have one dress shirt, one tie, and one pair of suitable pants. That was fast. After a quick coffee and smoke on the balcony I head out to take on that world. I end up sprinting the last few blocks to the interview as I underestimate the time involved in getting there. I walk up and down the block a couple of times to try and get my wind back and stop sweating.
I enter the cheque cashing place. I am greeted by an attractive young woman standing behind bulletproof glass. “Hi, may I help you?” she asks.
“Yeah, Hi, I'm here to see Irene. I have an interview,” I say. The woman's eyes go a little wide.
“Oh, you must be Pete,” she says. “Interesting resume you handed in. I'll go get her. Hang on.” She goes around a corner. I can hear women laughing hysterically. Good sign. They like me already.
A woman I assume to be Irene comes around the corner to greet me. “Hi Peter. Please come in,” she says. She is indicating a door to my right. I turn the knob but it won't budge. I hear a buzz and the doorknob loosens and turns. I pass through the door and close it behind me. There is a door in front of me and one behind me. I try the door in front of me. No go. A buzz sounds and I try again. Success. I walk into the back area of the cheque cashing store where I will spend the next eight months of my life.
Irene, the woman who greeted me, and two other ladies are working in the area in the back of the store. “You already met Paula,” Irene says. I put out my hand to shake with Paula.
“Nice to meet you,” I say.
“You too,” Paula says. Her eyes sure are smiley.
Next Irene guides me further into the back of the store. “And this is Kim,” Irene says. “She handles all our accounting.” Kim stands to meet me.
“Pleasure to meet you,” she says. She extends her hand and we shake. She's hot, too. If you're into that sort of thing, hot women.
“Me too,” I say.
Irene goes, ”And finally we have Sandra.” I shake Sandra's hand without either of us speaking. Yeesh, but I'm nervous all of a sudden.
“Please have a seat,” Irene says. She sits on her side of her desk. “Would you like something to drink?” Irene is pretty hot herself, in a gorgeous kind of way. And they all smell so damn good, these women at the cheque cashing place. Why do they have to smell so good? Suddenly this is wracking my nerves, meeting all these women. I should have smoked one before the interview. I sit and try to focus on the task at hand.
“I enjoyed reading your resume,” Irene says. All the women chuckle at this.
“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” I say. Something seems a little off with this interaction. The women have all stopped working and listen intently to my exchange with Irene.
“Good education qualifications, relevant work experience,” Irene says. “But it's the 'Hobbies and Interests' section of your CV that really caught our attention.” The other women laugh even harder at this part. I try with all my might to recall what I wrote on my resume in that section. I draw a blank.
“I'm glad you feel I'm qualified in that area,” I say. I can come up with nothing else.
Now Irene loses it. She starts to keel over with hysterical laughter. “Never... seen... anything quite like it,” she manages.
“I don't follow,” I say. This is fucked, right here.
Irene can't speak from the laughing. She hands me my resume and points to the 'Hobbies and Interests' section. I read: I truly enjoy gobbling large penises wherever I can find them. My second favourite pursuit is licking hot women, if they deserve my tongue. This is written on the resume I submitted to these people.
“Christer!” I say. I punch one hand into the other. “I didn't write that.” Freaking Jimmy. Boy's going to get a smack when I see him next. “My roommate has issues,” I go.
“That's OK, Pete,” Kim manages. The rest of them are pretty much hysterical by this point. I'm red as hell. I can feel it.
“You...got the job, my...little licker,” Irene says. Paula actually goes down on one knee from laughing. The rest are a blur to me now. Sam pops in my head. In the middle of the weirdest job interview situation I ever experience I wonder how Sam is doing right now. Sam smells even better than this bunch.
Irene pulls herself together. She dabs at the corner of her eyes with tissue paper. With one last sighing 'ah' she starts back to my employment process. The other women take to whispering about me and my situation. Women do that sometimes I notice. They whisper about a guy. I wonder what they talk about. Note to Self: ask Sam the next time I see her. “Ok there, penis gobbler, let's get started” Irene says. This sets the other three off even louder than before.
I stand and start for the first exit door. “Screw this. Thanks anyway,” I say. Paula notices through her tears and comes to stand in my path so I am blocked from leaving.
“Hang on, Hon,” she says. “We's just having a little fun with you. Have a thicker skin.” I stop. No choice.
Irene is now composed. “Ok, enough. This teasing may go on for a while. Just to warn you,” she says. She is guiding me around the wall to the counter where the cheques are cashed. The first thing I notice is the bulletproof glass. There is a mark in the bottom left corner of one of the panes of glass. It looks remarkably like someone tried to shoot through the glass. The glass held.
“We'll start you for real tomorrow morning, nine A.M.,” Irene says. “Paula here is going to train you for real.” Paula looks over at me. She reaches down in front of me to get something she must have dropped on the floor. I see some mighty fine cleavage when she does this. Paula never loses eye contact the whole time she is reaching forward like that. It's kind of sexy.
“I'll show you the ropes,” Paula says. Her voice has gone low and gravelly. She seems like a cat to me just then. Not like Cleo. Feline, is what I mean.
“Sounds good,” I say, is all I can say. Irene and Paula exchange a look. I pick up on it.
Irene goes, “Paula's boyfriend does sound check for some major bands in the area. She'll have to tell you all about it tomorrow.” Paula looks pissed towards Irene for just a moment.
Paula goes, ”Oh, I'll keep him posted on all that, for sure.”
There is an odd silence for a sec after this. The two women stare at each other, personality conflict. I wonder if Cleo has enough water. She's fine. The stare down ends and Irene gets back to walking me through things. “You're the only guy employee working here, by the way,” Irene says. “There are at present seventeen employees, all female. You're the only guy that applied. So, even with your hard core resume, you were in.”
Excerpt II:
I would stand, but I'm obviously aroused. Sam senses something. “You're cute when you're horny,” she says.
“Then I'm pretty much cute all the time,” I say. She laughs at this. And then there's the look. Sam gives me a look that would charm the green off of a toad, horny toad or not.
I go, “It's like there's a party in my pants and you're invited.”
Sam goes, “Are you TRYING to be lame?”
“Whatever,” I say. I stand and walk to the kitchen, trying to hide my erection as I do so. “You want some water?” I ask.
Sam stands beside me in the kitchen as I pour two glasses of water. It's all we have to drink in the apartment. She puts her arms around my waist. “Hey, don't get tiffy,” she says. “I was only teasing. And you were being lame.”
We go back to the couch. The waters sit on the coffee table. This time it's her turn to lean in and plant one. I don't push her away, for obvious reasons. I am back up again in no time. Sam slowly reaches her way down. She touches me there, oh so gently. Suddenly, life gets good.
I have an idea. I pull away from Sam's glorious kiss. “Hey,” I say. “Do you know how to drive a standard?”
She gives me her 'The hell is wrong with you?' look. She starts to kiss me again. This time I do pull back, a bit. “No, really,” I say. “Can you drive a stick?”
Sam stops smooching me. “No, Pete. No,” she says. “I can't drive a stick.”
I pull my pants below my utensils. I'm rock hard and standing straight to attention. Just like a stick shift on a car.
“Well, why don't I teach you tonight?” I ask.
Sam giggles, so sweet. She kind of covers her mouth with her hand for a sec, shy like. “You're a clever boy,” she says.
“Two birds with one stone, is how I figure it,” I say.
I sit up a bit. There is paper and a pen on the coffee table. We keep them there in case someone gets inspired one night. I grab the pen and make a diagram of your basic gear location on a car. Five gears, plus reverse.
“Ok,” I say. “Here's what we're looking at. Five gears on most cars. The middle is neutral. The R is for reverse.”
Suddenly Sam is interested. She sits up to check the diagram. “Can you jump up more than one gear?” she asks.
“In certain circumstances, yes,” I say. “But let's just stick with the basics for tonight. To shift gears you push in the clutch with your left foot.” I fake like I'm pushing in the clutch. Sam mimes me. “Then you give it a bit of gas with the right. Vroom, vroom,” I go. We both pretend to be gassing an engine. I'm still sitting there with my pants at my knees and a rock hard Johnny.
“I think I got it,” Sam says. “Let's start.” She grabs me and starts shifting madly, making vroom noises.
“A valiant first effort,” I say. Smokes, this is turning me on. “But let's try and actually do this, huh?”
“Ok,” Sam says. She grabs hold of me.
“Land ho!” I say.
Sam lets go of me, all embarrassed. “Shut up!” she says.
“Oh, come on. I'm teasing,” I say. She grabs me down there again. “Good stuff. Now, put me in first.” She shifts my business over and to the left. “Let the clutch out gently.” Sam pretends to let the clutch of a car out with her left foot. We make it to third gear and then take it to my room.
