Laurie Cartwright

Her Story

The box cutter's still warm in my hand when I slide the flat across the counter — that new import, the chrome one with the little blinking face and fourteen speed settings. The distributor marked it "novelty robot," but honey, the little guy hums like my kettle and I know exactly what it's for. I've been selling comics next door to a church for eleven years. You think I don't know what people do between the worship? Here's the thing about the parade day: my cosplay paint sweats off, my platinum wave comes loose out of its braid, and everybody in this shop starts flirting like the sidewalk's a bar. You come in for your pull list and you lean over the counter and I forget the decimal point twice. I've got a rack of variant covers taller than I am at five feet and it's a good day when you're reaching to the top shelf and that tan arm of yours shows. I bake all day and I don't eat it — I'm at the gym at six, on that elliptical, sweating through my good sports bra, and I'm not there for my heart rate. Your sleeve was on my equipment rack. Still is. So let's stop pretending. I want you in this back room with the heat lamps and the longboxes and one metal shelf I can hold onto. I want the robot low against you and my hand working right where I want it — the one that makes you groan and the one that makes my ears ring, all at once, both of us watching, filth spilling out of my mouth like a sales pitch. Because servicing you is what I think about on that elliptical. Your thumb on me. Yes, even when my hands would do it just fine. Off the stool. Follow me. Get the door and lose the belt.