Page 38 - the NOISE May 2015

Sexx Toyseries
illus by Bubbles Fitzgerald
E verybody needs a time in their life devoid of aims, goals, and ambitions. It was past noon, but the bedroom with west facing windows was still cool and the dark walls gave the room
the feel of early morning hours. Tara looked at the bedside clock again. It was now 12:20PM. Having just finished college, Tara was enjoying that sweet time between graduation and the real world onslaught of job-hunting. Most days she would spend her abundance of free time
drinking copious amounts of coffee, playing music and writing stuff down.
Like any other morning (or for the outside world, early afternoon) Tara dragged herself into
the kitchen to pour her first cup of coffee of the day. she took her regular spot on the sofa, lap- top perched on the arm of the couch to peruse Facebook while Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil, one of them, talked on in the background.
while she scrolled down through the live news feed of her long lost high school acquain- tances’ photos of their lunches, off-spring and daily whine and brag, she noticed the red “1” brightly calling her attention in the top right hand corner of the screen.
It was a message from one of her real-life friends, one she had actually met in person and still spent time with in person. Tara opened it, hoping Laura was planning another oddly themed craft or cooking night (the Pastie-themed party back in December had been sorely misinter- preted. some girls turned up with buckets of sequins and tassels, while the other half turned up with flour, sugar and the required ingredients for baking pasties.)
Instead of an invitation, it was a posting for temporary help wanted at a friend of a friend of a co-workers husband’s business. The local formalwear shop needed extra help during the rush of prom season. “They’ll pay cash!” Laura said.
Magic words.
Tara called the number.
“Hello!” a man shouted into the telephone.
“Um ... hi! I’m a friend of Laura’s. she said that you were looking for some temporary help at
your store today,”Tara said, over-enunciating in hope that she wouldn’t have to repeat herself ... since the rise of cell phones it seemed impossible for people to hear each other clearly anymore.
“Great. I’ll pay you $10 an hour at the end of the day. sound good?” “sounds great!”Tara replied.
“when can you come in?”The man on the phone shouted.
“In an hour ... ”Tara said sleepily.
“Great! see you then!” He said and hung up.
Well, that was easy. Tara thought and began riffling through a pile clothes on the bedroom
floor, searching for an outfit that smelled the cleanest.
An hour later Tara walked into the bustle and whirl of a formalwear dress and tuxedo shop in full swing. High school girls sped around the shop with gowns piled in their arms, they rifflied through racks, they chirped at each other in high pitched voices. young men waited at a table in the center for their tuxedo fittings.
Tara stood in the center of the chaos and waited lamely for someone who looked like they worked there.
“you! Can I help you?” A tall man with a measuring tape around his neck called from across the room.
“I’m Tara!” she shouted over the chatter and movement.
“excellent! I’m Tom!” He called and hurried over. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Here’s what I need you to do. Go around the dress area and straighten things up, but mostly, keep an eye on the clientele and make sure the dresses don’t grow legs.”
“Oh ... alright,”Tara said.
with no further direction she walked into the seemingly endless racks of satin, taffeta and
chiffon gowns and began disentangling the straps from the hangers. At that time in her life Tara’s standards for what she would do for money weren’t very high, and though her dream job wasn’t to organize dresses for high school girls with high pitched voices, it was part of her dream to be paid ten dollars an hour in cash at the end of each day. That and being a Capricorn, organizing was not only easy, but stimulating.
Both Tara and her employer were extremely pleased with the arrangement of her disposable employment.
The hours flew seamlessly by, when one rack of dresses were straightened, disentangled and
properly hung, another rack awaited to what seemed like infinity, it made the ruse of looking as if she really were a staff member believable. By the end of the first day, she had successfully kept an eye on customers, organized half the racks by size and style and left the dress shop with an envelope stuffed full of cash with an invitation to return the next day at 10AM.
It had been a long while since Tara had woken up that early, but she made it to the dress shop by 10AM and even had time to wash her wild, mousy brown hair, and had the foresight to do a load of laundry the night before.
At the dress shop Tara was left alone for the entirety of the day. no one asked anything of her, no one checked on her. The only time she spoke to anyone was at 1PM when she told Tom she was taking her lunch break and sat in her car in the parking lot and ate her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. By the evening, the initial after school rush quieted down to a few lone customers, Tara had exhausted her organization skills on the dozens of racks of dresses.
she wove her way through the racks of dresses to find Tom still knee deep in tuxedo orders. “Um ... Tom?”
“yes?” he asked without looking up.
“I organized all the racks of dresses. Is there anything else you want me to do?”Tara asked. “It’s up to you. you can go home if you’ve had enough for today, or you can start organizing
the other half of the store.” “Oh! I’ll do that,”Tara said.
The other side, she thought. What other side? There’s more? she had been so busy with her dresses and the flurry of girls trying on gown after gown, that Tara hadn’t noticed that there was a second half to the store that was as big as the first half.
It was clear that she wouldn’t run out of things to do as she made her way to the other side of the store, which had been hidden out of sight by the giant display of dresses in the center of the room.
Unlike the first side of the store which held prom dress, brides maid gowns, gloves and shawls, the second side was completely devoted to lingerie ranging from your basic white, black and beige everyday bras and undergarments to crotch-less panties and fantasy themed mini costumes.
Tara decided to start where she felt safe, and began to sort and organize the ordinary bras, girdles and panties. she lingered in the tame lingerie; slowly arranging, neatly tucking bra straps into place. Thanking her lucky stars that there might be enough boring underwear to keep her from the G-strings for the night.
The next day, it couldn’t be avoided any longer. Tara decided the safest bet was to begin in the role-playing costume lingerie, since the items were in neat plastic garment bags. But regardless of the clear plastic boundary, she still felt a blush creeping into her cheeks and cold- ness to her fingertips as the photographs of ginormous-breasted women in too small costumes gazed seductively outward.
Though she was 22, and had gone through college (co-ed college, to be specific,) Tara’s sex- ucation had been completely neglected by her over-riding obsession with maintaining a per- fect grade-point average and being a part of every after school organization that would look good on her post-grad resume.
Just holding the red satin crotch-less panties made her face turn the same color as the fabric.
she just crossed her fingers that no one she knew would come in and find her arms laden with neon colored G-strings.
It was mid G-string over haul when a young woman approached her expectantly.
“Hi, can I help you?” Tara asked.
“I’m looking for something to wear on my honey moon,” she said.
“Oh,”Tara said, since she wasn’t sure what else to say.
“well, he told me he has a nun fantasy,” she said.
“Oh!” Oh my, Tara thought. “well, I think we have a nun costume,” she beckoned her to follow
and led her over to the rack of skimpy costumes ...
... to be continued ...
| C.a. stoeckley makes no bones about underattire. castoeckley@thenoise.us
story by C.A.Stoeckley
38 • MAY 2015 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
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