Traveling down the busy city sidewalk I was keeping an eye out for any place that might be in need of new workers. I've had been at this for a few days at this point and I was nearing a breaking point. My mood was in the dumps from the multiple rejections I had gotten. That's when this shop I hadn't noticed before caught my eye. It was a media rental store, Silver Screen Rentals. I thought all of those had shuttered by now. I decided to waste some time inside in hopes of lifting my mood. Behind the counter was a calico cat with a white curved bob wearing an all black uniform whose name tag read "Lynx." She was stacking the returns, a mixture of VHS, DVD, and video games.
"Oh, hey. You're a new face," she said when she spotted me approaching the counter. The place was packed with shelves. It was impressive how little space was left for you to walk between them. "You must be a tourist, no way I'd miss a local as cute as you." My lack of dating experience up to that point left me uncertain how to respond to something like that.
"Uh, thanks? I actually just moved here just a few days ago. Is this place for real? Like you guys actually still rent stuff out?" I was in awe at just the raw amount of titles on display in the store. I wasn't looking at her as I talked as my eyes kept wandering around looking at the many different cases.
"You guys? It's just me here sweetheart. I open and close this little shop every day." She continued her work while she talked. "Technically this place is owned by a larger company but they never really fuck with us. They just sorta bought the place and told me to keep on keeping on. It was weird as hell but I couldn't say no to that kind of money."
"You don't seem very busy here," I noticed as I was the only person in the store besides her. The amount of returns she was handling wasn't even in the double digits. A few horror movies and a couple of retro games.
"Yeah," she snickered, "surprisingly people don't really rent shit anymore." Her voice was dripping with playful snark. She grabbed the pile of returns and started putting them back. "That being said, it would be nice to have an extra set of hands. I got this side thing going on and it'd be nice to have more time to put into that. This place more or less runs itself; just needs a person to type the numbers and stock the cases." The gears in my head started to turn. Looking around it hit me that this place was the perfect place for me to work. The low foot traffic, the simple tasks, and if anyone actually did stop in they'd probably be cool.
"Uh," I cleared my throat and tried to exude as much confidence as I could, "And if someone wanted to work here, what would they have to do?" She stopped and looked at me with a sly smirk.
"Well," she said as she lowered her voice to a soft seductive tone, "They'd have to be dependable, available, and most importantly, cute." I felt a blush creep up on my face. She took a couple small steps towards me and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. She pulled me in so she could whisper in my ear. "Can you start today?"
"Y-yeah," I nodded, "I got nothing else going on." She giggled as she let me go. She beckoned me to follow her as she sauntered over to the backroom of the store. When I entered the room she lobbed an apron with the store's logo on it at me. Soon after she would do the same with a name tag and marker. I got dressed up with my name tag attached to the apron.
"Onyx," she read from my name tag before booping my nose. "So that's your name. You know, you never did introduce yourself."
"Yeah, I'm not really used to people taking an interest in me." I recoiled a bit as I realized I said a little too much. Thankfully she either didn't catch it or was just nice enough to not pry deeper. "So, what's the first thing I should do?" She snickered and handed me a broom.
"Just sweep the place and if anyone walks in make your way to the counter. Don't worry about the checkout system. All you do is scan the case, it'll tell you how much money it is, and after you take the money you press enter to mark it as checked out or escape to cancel." She opened the door for me, "and if you have nothing to do just watch a movie or some shit. You don't gotta worry about looking busy." I nodded before making my way back to the main area.
"Okay, yeah, I think I can do that," I said enthusiastically as I started working. Lynx gave me a playful smirk before closing the door behind me. I swept the entire store without a single customer. I sat behind the counter and popped in a random horror movie that seemed interesting. The movie played on the small TV hanging from the ceiling. I got half way through the movie before the door finally opened. It was the first time since I walked in. It was a couple of people, A yellow wolf and a brown hare. The wolf was wearing a black dress shirt, black chino pants, a silver watch on one wrist, checkerboard wristband on the other, and a hat that read "Gaymer." The hare wore a green turtleneck sweater, beige khaki pants, and silver glasses. The hare was taller than the wolf and they seemed to be together.
"Woah, check it out Minnet. Lynx finally talked someone into working here?" The yellow wolf said as she nudged the hare next to her.
"You're saying that way too loud Tia," the hare replied in a softer tone. She walked up to the counter first while pulling out her wallet. "Hi uh," she started before checking my name tag, "Onyx. I'm here for my reservation. It was season 5 of that old detective show, Columbus." She slid a membership card across the counter. It was just my luck that the first thing I had to do was something I wasn't told about at all. I saw a the card had a barcode on it so my first instinct was to scan it. The machine beeped and displayed some information. I saw her name, Minnet Valentine-Cortez, and her reserved title. I had no idea where this title was. My confusion was apparent on my face as Minnet let out a chuckle as she pointed behind me.
"The reservations are behind you, Onyx." I turned around and just like she said I saw the case she asked for. I gave her a wordless nervous smile as I grabbed and scanned it. The data came up automatically. The price of the rental, discounted due to the membership and asking to confirm once I took the money. Before I was able to open my mouth to tell her the price she had already put the money on the counter. "Don't worry, I know how much it is," she said with a friendly smile on her face. I took her money, which is when I realized that the yellow wolf was no longer next to her. I pressed enter on the machine and gave Minnet the case. Suddenly the wolf appeared as she placed three cases onto the counter.
"I found some good ones this time," she said to Minnet with a grin. "I can't believe I hadn't noticed they had Legend of Barbarians for the Mega CD. Absolute dogshit FMV game but the devs would later go on to make such classics like Speedsnatcher: Relinquished and Seven Circles of the Beyond." She talked with a beaming smile on her face before winding down. "Oh, I also got some more horror movies for the movie night with Juniper," she mentioned as she held the two cases up to Minnet. She placed the cases back on the counter as she gave me her own member card. I repeated the process and saw her information. Tiana Valentine-Cortez was her name. The computer showed in red text under her name that she had some outstanding late fees."
"Tiana?" I said hesitantly. She looked at me with a smile and nodded. "The computer is saying you have some late fees." Her expressed didn't change as we stood there for a few seconds. My eyes darted from the computer and her face as I waited for her to do something.
"Oh!" she finally spoke, "Right! You're new here. Lynx knows about those. It's all kay, don't worry. My eyes slowly moved from Tia to Minnet as I looked towards her to confirm. She gave me a couple of quick nods. I started to scan the cases but the computer refused to let me check her out with the late fees. I tried to not let my confusion show on my face. I'm sure I failed at that as I started to move to the backroom.
"Hold on, let me get Lynx," I said took long strides towards the door. I quickly opened it and entered the room, closing the door behind me. "Lynx, how do I check someone out that has late fees?" I asked before observing my surroundings. Lynx was nude with her phone pointed at her from a table. She quickly grabbed her clothes from the ground and covered herself with them. Her face was a very bright red as I stood there motionless in shock.
"Control, shift, enter," she said bluntly as her eyes avoided mine.
"Cool, thanks," I responded in the same manner as I quickly left the room. I sped back to the counter, punched in the combination, and gave Tia the cases. "Thanks for stopping by Silver Screen Rentals," I mustered to say with a fake smile. The two knew something was up but didn't speak up about it. They slowly left the store.
"It was cool meeting you, Onyx!" Tia said before she opened the door to the shop. As the door closed behind them as I could hear Them say, "What? am I that obvious?"
"Extremely."
I was left in the room by myself once again. The movie I had been watching was playing quietly in the background as I sat back down behind the counter. After a while I was able to relax once again. The movie had hit its credits. I stood up and stretched with the intent of finding something else to occupy my time. It was around that time that Lynx opened the backroom door. She was fully dressed again and skittishly walked over to sit next to me.
"So... do we have to talk about what happened?" Her eyes didn't dare look in my direction and her tone was quite small. I sat back down and tried to find the right words.
"I only have one question; was that connected to your side thing you talked about?" Her shoulders slumped as she let out a deep, almost annoyed sigh.
"Yeah. What, gonna judge me for it? If so I don't wanna hear it." Her embarrassment was still there but now mixed with a very defensive tone. "It's my body, I can do whatever I want with it." The way she talked felt like she had this conversation before. I mulled over what to say for a moment before finally blurting something out.
"Are you talking to me, or someone else?" Her head snapped to look at me with a look that read like a mixture of shock and confusion. She crossed her arms and looked away from me again.
"It was my boyfriend, well, ex-boyfriend," she said with a sadness in her voice. She pouted and shook her head. "The shithead was so possessive, a total control freak. I brought up the idea with him, set clear boundaries, and reassured him. He wasn't hearing any of it and just immediately accused me of wanting to cheat on him. At no point did I even suggest I was going to fuck other people." She slumped down in her chair as tears welled up. "That whole fucking fight just to discover he was cheating on me. God, I was so stupid. Of course he is fucking cheating on me. He'd stay out late 'with the boys' or some other fucking excuse." She kicked the counter before curling up in the seat. I slowly reached a hand out and placed it on her shoulder.
"Hey... don't be so tough on yourself." She slowly lifted her head to look at me with tears and mascara running down her face. "I don't know who he is but he sounds like a real dipshit. Sounds like you're able to make some money off something you enjoy doing. I can't see anything wrong in that." She wiped some of her tears with her arm, smudging the mascara across her face.
"You don't think I'm just some worthless whore?"
"Lynx! Oh my goodness, no," I said with a shocked tone. "Did he say that?!"
"Not directly, but how he looked at me said it all." She grabbed my wrists and pulled them up to her cheeks as she closed her eyes. I felt her tears as they ran down her face and past my hands. Her distraught expression slowly softened into a slight frown as my hands gently caressed her. Her breathing was shaky as she began to speak. "It's been a while since someone touched me. Even longer since I felt seen by someone." Her eyes slowly opened to look at me. "I'm sorry Onyx. This is a fucked up first day." We both let out a quiet chuckle.
"It's definitely not how I thought it'd go."
"Oh? How did you think this was going to turn out?" Her breathing started to steady and she began looking at me with the same eyes she did when we first met.
"I don't know? We'd just work until closing and you'd give me your number or something." She put her hands over mine and slowly moved them off her face.
"Funny... that's what I was hoping too." She held my hands, gently rubbing them with her thumbs. "Do you still my number?" I gave her a slow nod.
"Yeah, I'd like that I think." She released my hands as she turned her attention to a pen and paper on the counter. She wrote her phone number on it and then slipped it into my pocket. While her hand was in my pocket she leaned in and kissed my cheek.
"I hope to hear from you soon, Onyx." I felt a blush creep up my face. She stood up and started walking towards the door of the store. "Time to clock out newbie. Well, figuratively anyways since we don't do that here." I shook my head a bit as I looked at her.
"Wait, what? What time is it?" I pulled my phone out to check the time. "Oh! Shit!" I jolted up as I threw the apron off my body. "I can't believe It's that late already." Lynx watched me with a confused expression.
"What's wrong? Got somewhere to be?"
"I live with my sister and I'm sure she's freaking out by now." I started to punch in Lupe's phone number to call her. Before I could even press the second number I got a call from her. I answered it and without any delay I heard her speak.
"Onyx?! Where are you?! It's almost dark out!"
"Yeah, I know. I mean I know that now! I was literally about to make my way back home." I headed for the door but was stopped by Lynx who was watching me.
"What's her name?" Lynx asked without even whispering.
"Who is that?" I heard Lupe ask before I covered my phone.
"Lupe, my sister," I told her with a quick whisper before returning to the phone call. "That was Lynx, my new," I paused to think for a second, "Boss? Co-worker? Listen, I got a job at this place nearby okay?"
"You got a job?! ...oh! Wait, that's good actually! Tell me all about it!" Her mood instantly shifted from concern to elation. I sighed as I made my way to the door. I gave Lynx a wave goodbye before scurrying out the door. "How was it?"
"It's nice, can't complain. I'm not sure about my benefits yet but so far I think I'll like it here."
- Onyx