And then she was in her apartment, laying on her air mattress in the middle of the night. A figure was standing at the foot of it. One that was all too familiar. "You cannot run from me forever," it whispered. "I will find you eventually. There's no use in hiding."
She woke up with a gasp. It was light out, now, and there was nothing at the foot of the bed. Nobody in the apartment but herself. She groaned and rubbed her forehead. Weird dreams. She was probably going to have to look forward to more of those for a while.
But it was already starting to fade. She found her phone and checked the time. 8:42 AM. Might as well get up to start to offset the jet lag. Groggily, she ambled to the bathroom to relieve her bladder, and as she did she felt... Off. As if she had gained ten pounds overnight. And her gait felt weird, for some reason. Her boobs felt tight and sensitive, too. When she had finished her business she figured out why. As she was stepping out of the bathroom, her reflection caught her eye. She looked at herself. She squinted.
She was still in her underwear, so she could see everything, and her hips had definitely not looked like that yesterday. Having very low body fat for more or less her entire life meant that she had never been especially curvy, and she had always been fine with that. Apparently there was some sort of desire for curves rattling around in her subconscious, though, and her pelvis had decided to take matters into its own metaphorical hands.
She still wasn't super curvy or anything, but there was a distinct, noticeable flare to her hips now: enough to make her pants and underwear feel a bit tighter, but not enough that she couldn't wear them anymore. That was good, at least, she wouldn't have to buy new clothes. She turned to the side and... Oh. Yep. There it was. She had a kind of a big butt now. It wasn't huge, like Iris's or Yuriko's, but it was now just big enough to distinctly stand out from her otherwise thin frame. She did a turnaround, craning her neck to look at herself from behind in the mirror, running her hands over them and giving her rear a little slap.
Hmm.
She liked it, she decided. It was basically a foregone conclusion - it wouldn't have happened if she didn't have some desire to look like this - but she wondered what triggered it all of a sudden. Perhaps hanging out with Iris and her prodigious hips had unlocked something in her subconscious. Or maybe the major change in her life in the past few days had flipped a switch in her brain. Or, maybe, both.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden moan from through the walls. And rhythmic slapping sounds. Jeez, again? This was the third time in as many days. Well, the neighbors had a healthy sex life, apparently. Good for them.
She heard Yuriko's voice. The words were mostly muffled, but she caught 'my fat fucking cow tits'. Nice. She couldn't help but picture what was going on over there in her head. She liked what she was picturing, but she also felt a bit creepy, like some sort of voyeur. Oh well, it wasn't like they were giving her much choice but to listen in.
There was more, but it had faded off into unintelligibility. Mélodie was really going to have to talk to them about that. She hoped that it wouldn't embarrass them too much. She stretched a bit and realized, happily, that for the first time in weeks her back didn't hurt at all as she did it. She turned and looked at her wound. It was starting to fade from angry red to more of a pink, and it wasn't as raised as it had been yesterday. She tried a few experimental movements, slowly stretching her back in different directions, and found that it only hurt when she did the most intense movements, and even then it didn't hurt all that much.
Looked like it was time to get back to the gym, then. She felt like she should probably avoid working her back too hard, but she was more or less recovered now, so everything else should be fine, right?
She took her bag of clothing to the larger of the apartment's two bedrooms and upended it on the floor. She had two options when it came to gym clothes: baggy t-shirt and gym shorts, or just a sports bra and tight exercise shorts. The latter were more comfortable, and she was not in any way averse to showing off, but... Her back scar would be clearly visible in them. Better to avoid any questions about how she'd gotten that nasty wound for now. She changed into the shorts and T-shirt and headed out, checking her emails as she walked.
The first one was a message from the car rental company, forwarded to her. She needed to return the car today, or there would be hefty fines. Well, looked like she needed to find some other means of transportation before the day was over, or there would be an awful lot of walking in her future. First, though, she planned to squeeze a bit more use out of it.
---
There were a lot of people in the gym. Apparently Sunday was a popular workout day. Mélodie idly scratched her breast as she parked and hopped out of her rental car. Why did they itch so much today? Weird.
There was a different person at the front desk today: a middle-aged man with a comb-over who looked like he had never touched a piece of gym equipment in his life. When Mélodie asked him about the free one-hour trial, he grunted and said, "Sure. Need your ID as collateral before I can let you in, though. You'll get it back at the end of your session."
Mélodie checked her wallet. She still had her EU driver's license, which had her real name on it. She was going to have to get Quick to change that at some point, or get a US driver's license. She realized, suddenly, that she was very lucky that she hadn't been pulled over at any point on the drive here from Kansas City. She was going to have to be careful about that.
She handed over her green card. "Will this work?"
The man took a look at it. "I don't see why not. France, huh?"
"Yes."
She waited, expecting him to say something more, but he didn't. "So, uh... Can I just go in now?"
"Oh. Yeah, sure. I'll come get you when your time is up." He said it without looking up from the computer at the desk, where he was typing something.
She proceeded to the exercise area, where the first thing that she noticed was Vince. He was hard to miss, really, considering that his head was mere inches from the ceiling when standing. He was apparently wasn't here to work, because he wasn't wearing the branded polo and slacks he'd been in yesterday. Instead, he was in a tight T-shirt that clung to his pecs and biceps. In addition to being enormously tall, this guy was strong. He was lifting a pair of dumbbells, each of which was labeled at 100 pounds. That was, what? 50 kilo each? Something around there. It was more than Mélodie could lift, and she was far from weak.
She couldn't help but lick her lips a little as she approached him. "That's impressive," she said, looking up at him with a smile, her hands on her hips.
"Oh." He blinked and looked down at her. "Hey! Good to see you again. Using that free trial?"
"I am. Is that normal for you? You hardly look winded."
"Yeah." He looked down at the dumbbells. "I sort of got a strength boost along with the height thing. It's pretty cool."
When they were both standing, Mélodie's eyes were about level with Vince's navel. Looking at his shoulders and chest made her cock twitch and her nipples itch, and she couldn't help but notice the barest hint of a bulge in his shorts that made some very enticing suggestions about what was beneath it. "Hey, would you like to assure me in a few moments? I'm going to start with weights, but it has been a while since I've exercised and I could use a bit of help."
"Assure you?" said Vince. "Like, what, stand by and tell you that you can do it?"
"I was thinking that you would hold the bars that I lift so that I don't drop them on myself, but I won't mind if you do the other thing too," said Mélodie with a laugh. "Is that not what it's called in English? Assurage?"
"Spotting," said Vince with a smile. "We call it spotting. I can do that for you. What'cha starting with? Bench press?"
"Stretching." Mélodie started doing them right there, beginning with a quad stretch. "Have you ever pulled a muscle? It's not fun."
"Oh yeah, plenty of times. Hey, what's your name? I don't think you ever actually told me the other day."
"Mélodie." She reached down and touched her toes, and grinned when she noticed that Vince was not-especially-subtly looking at her ass.
"Ah, like the English word, but with a French accent. May-low-dee."
"You can pronounce it like melody if you want," said Mélodie, bemused. "It means the same thing. See something you like, by the way?" She wiggled her butt a little. It was a teensy bit heavier, just barely enough to notice. The feeling was odd, but she decided that she liked it.
He laughed. "Caught me. Don't think that I didn't notice you staring at my chest, though. My eyes are up here."
"I'd have to crane my neck to look at your eyes. It's much easier to look at your pecs."
He flexed them, and it was at that moment that Mélodie decided that she liked Vince. "Alright," she said happily. "I'm done stretching. Bench press first, why not?"
They went over to the racks and Vince loaded the bar up, at her request, with 90 pounds. 45 kilos. Ish. Somewhere around there. "This is less than I usually do," she said as she took her position under the rack. "I'm out of practice. I haven't had a chance to work out in a few weeks."
"Hey, you don't have to prove anything to me," he said. "90 pounds is pretty good, for a girl."
She curled her lip. "Put twenty more pounds on."
"Don't hurt yourself," he said, but he did as she asked. Okay, 110 pounds. You can do this, she told herself.
And she could. For a moment the bar felt overwhelmingly heavy, but after a rep or two she felt her strength returning to her. She did four reps. Five... Six...
Vince's crotch was really close to her face. He had to kneel to bring his hands low enough to keep them under the bar, and his shorts were hovering just at the topmost edge of her field of vision. Seven. That bulge that she had seen earlier was a little bit more... Pronounced now, too. Was he...? Eight. Maybe he had a thing for watching girls work out? She couldn't really blame him, she could see the appeal. She wasn't wearing anything remotely revealing or sexy, though. Nine. Her arms started to shake, and she noticed that... He wasn't actually looking at her. He was looking at something over on the other side of the gym. Ten. Okay, yeah, he was definitely getting a boner. And jeez, it was a monster, too. Apparently that had been scaled up along with the rest of him. Eleven. She was reaching her limit now. She pushed at the bar for one last rep, but her strength began to fail her. Come on... Where was that motivation that Vince said he'd give her? Oh well, at least his hands were still in the right place.
Her arms gave out, and Vince caught the bar like it was nothing and re-racked it. "Not bad!" he said. "Fourteen reps. That's pretty damn good."
"Eleven," said Mélodie as she sat up and stretched her now-aching arms. "Were you paying attention? What were you looking..." She trailed off, because she found the answer to her question before she had finished asking it. Across the room, on the other side of the gym, there was a woman who had a small crowd of people around her. It was pretty obvious why. She was pretty thin, much like Iris. Unlike Iris, her hips were not extraordinarily wide, though they did have a nice curve to them. She was also pretty big up top, but not in the same way that Iris was. Iris was busty. This girl was astounding.
They weren't as big as Yuriko's, but she was easily the second-bustiest person that Mélodie had seen since arriving here in Blanchepierre. They were bigger than her head, and stuffed into a sports bra that looked like it wasn't going to do a damn thing to keep her from bouncing all over the place if she tried to run. It was slightly too small for her, which only emphasized them more by way of her slightly-muffining cleavage, which there was an absurd amount of. What was more, one of her breasts was glowing. She had a Gift that Mélodie had seen before: there were tattoo-like lines that flowed in sort of a spiral pattern around her right breast, over her shoulder and down her arm. They were pink, and they were also emitting a gentle but persistent light of their own.
She was wearing nothing but the sports bra up top, and nothing but a pair of tight and very short workout shorts below, showing off miles of leg down to her sneakers. She was basically in her underwear.
Mélodie was a little miffed that Vince had been staring at her, but she couldn't be too mad, because damn, she thought she was hot too. "Does she come here often?" she asked him.
"Hmm?" said Vince. "Who?"
"Oh, come on. You know who."
He gave a little half-grin. "Yeah, alright. She doesn't come here often. Like, maybe once a month. To be honest, I'm not actually sure how she keeps getting in, because I know that she doesn't have a membership."
"Mm. Isn't it your duty to throw her out, then?"
"I'm not on the clock," he said. "I don't have to do a thing. She pretty much always dresses like that. I think that she's more or less just here for the attention."
"Does that not bother you?"
He looked at her. "Why would it?"
"Fair enough. Oh, look! She's coming this way."
"Aaand, that's my cue to leave," said Vince. "It was nice talking to you, Mélodie!"
"What? Why? Where are you going?" But he was already gone. Mélodie blinked in surprise. That was sudden!
And then she turned back around and busty glowy-boob girl was there. "Hey," she said. Her voice was low, almost sultry, and she was wearing an easy grin that Mélodie couldn't help but find charming. She was also really pretty, with bright blue eyes that contrasted sharply with her dark skin, several piercings in her ears, eyebrow, and below her lower lip, and long black hair that was accented with bright red streaks. Hey, wait a second...
"You're the girl from yesterday," said Mélodie.
"Yesterday?" She looked confused. "Have we met?"
"No, but you almost ran me and my friend over. You should watch where you're going when you zoom around on your moped."
Mélodie could see the light of recognition in her eyes. And then, a tired wariness. "Oh, yeah. You. Word of advice, don't stand around in the middle of the crosswalk when the 'Don't Walk' sign is on. It's not good for your health."
"You're not going to apologize?"
She raised an eyebrow. "For driving under the speed limit through a green light? No. Are you going to apologize for standing around in the middle of the road?"
Mélodie crossed her arms defensively. Ouch. Why did it make her boobs hurt? "You should have watched where you were going."
"I did. That's the only reason I didn't hit you two." Her marking was starting to change color, slowly fading from pink to a deeper red. She looked down, noticed this, and rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Enjoy your gym time."
She wandered off in a huff. Jeez. Maybe that was why Vince had run away from her - she was kind of a bitch. Apparently not even the calming effects of Mélodie's Gift had quelled her temper. And now Vince was gone, and Mélodie was in a sour mood.
Oh well. What better way to work it off than with exercise? Since she no longer had a spotter (Vince was nowhere to be seen) she moved from the free-weights over to the resistance machines and continued her workout there. Since she was just getting back into the swing of things she didn't see any harm in just sort of freestyling it today and working on whatever machine caught her eye until she had gotten most of her major muscle groups. She started out with a few leg presses and found that she could still handle quite a bit of weight without tiring all that much. That was good. It meant that her recovery hadn't set her back as much as she had thought.
As she was doing them, she couldn't help but pay attention to what that girl was doing. She was on the other side of the gym, among the freeweights, laughing and chatting with a couple of particularly beefy guys who were doing squats with barbells. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but at one point she laughed and slapped one of the guys playfully on his ass mid-squat. Mélodie couldn't help but roll her eyes. Didn't she know that was dangerous? It could have thrown off his form and resulted in him hurting himself. The guy didn't seem to care, though. He said something to her with a smile on his face.
Mélodie moved on to crunches. She went light on this one since it would involve the use of her back and didn't add any weight to the machine. Luckily, it didn't seem to be an issue. Her scar didn't hurt at all as she did them, so she tried moving on to something a little more intense: an ab machine set to have a bit of weight. That didn't hurt her back either, and when she covertly checked in one of the many mirrors that lined the walls of the gym to see if she had agitated or re-opened it, she found that she hadn't. Good. That meant that she could make this a regular thing.
She also couldn't help but notice, in the mirror's reflection, that Boob Girl was now on the other side of the room talking to a couple of girls on the treadmills. She wasn't using the treadmills herself - just chatting with the girls who were. Again, Mélodie couldn't hear what they were saying, but she had a feeling that bouncing and sports bras were part of the conversation, because Boob Girl's hands were all over her chest, pointing out how incredibly cramped it was in her top. And then she bounced on her heels, which made them jiggle and wobble. It kind of turned Mélodie on, which was annoying.
Whatever. She had better things to focus on. She was starting to work up a nice sweat, and a nice burning feeling in the muscles she had worked so far. What next?
She surreptitiously grabbed her own butt. Was it still mostly muscle or did she have a bit of fat there now? Her hips seemed to have widened as a result of her actual pelvic bone getting a couple of centimeters wider, which she would have thought would hurt, but the magic of self-realization apparently made it painless. Her butt, though... Hmmm.
Nope, it was still mostly muscle. There was a bit more padding there than she was used to, but it wasn't a lot. Mostly it seemed like her actual gluteal muscles had simply gotten bigger. She wondered if she got a strength boost as well? Did she have a superstrong butt now?
Might as well test it. She was here, after all. She went back to the free weights and found a nice, heavy kettlebell. After testing its weight a bit, she planted her feet and started doing some swings, from down between her legs up to her torso. She thought that she could actually feel a bit more strength in her glutes, but that was quickly drowned out by another sensation: Her nipples were doing all sorts of weird things.
The swings made her chest wobble a bit with every upswing, and her arms were sort of pushing them together with every downswing. She could feel them shifting around a bit under her sports bra, her nipples rubbing up against the fabric. Weird. They weren't normally anywhere close to this sensitive. They were also throbbing a bit. Tingling. What was going on?
She wasn't sure, but what she was sure of was that Boob Girl was headed her way. Well, alright, this was happening. Mélodie set the weight down on the floor as she approached. The girl's marking was now taking on a sort of greenish tinge.
"Hey," said Boob Girl. "I think that we sort of started off on the wrong foot. I wanted to apologize for getting huffy earlier."
"Do you apologize for nearly running me and my friend over?"
Her expression stayed even this time, but her marking, apparently, betrayed her emotions. It was slipping towards red again. "Look, I don't want to argue with you. I couldn't help but notice that you smell like old books, and judging by the fact that you smell like it way more now than you did twenty minutes ago, I'm guessing that it's your Gift?"
Mélodie raised an eyebrow at that. "I smell different to everyone, and it's always a scent that you find relaxing and pleasant. You find the smell of old books relaxing and pleasant?"
"It's the best smell in the world. You smell like the University Library, which is one of my favorite places."
"Really?" Mélodie couldn't help but say as she looked her up and down. "I would not have taken you for a library-going type."
"Don't judge a book by its cover," she said with a charming grin.
Damn it. She hated to admit it, but that was good. And she was really pretty when she smiled like that.
"Hey, if you don't mind my asking, where are you from? I'm picking up French as your first language, from your accent? Or maybe German?"
"I'm French," Mélodie admitted.
"Ah, j'aime beaucoup la langue française. Je voudrais visiter la France un jour. Aimes-tu le Missouri? Depuis combien de temps as-tu habité ici?"
Mélodie blinked. Her pronunciation was clearly not native but still surprisingly good, as was her grammar. "You speak French?"
"Un peu. J'ai une amie qui est une francophone. Elle a la même... Comment se dit 'Gift' en français? 'Gâteau'?" Mélodie could swear that she detected some smugness in her voice as she spoke, but... Damn it, she had kind of earned it. She was really quite fluent.
"You're thinking of cadeau. Gâteau is 'cake'. But the word you're really looking for is un don."
"Ah." She rapped her forehead lightly and stuck her tongue out. "Silly me. I always get those two confused. Them and 'bateau'. Elle a le même Don que toi."
This girl was charming the pants off of her, and she didn't want to admit it. "Alright, so you can speak French. You're still not going to apologize, though?"
She frowned. "You were standing in the middle of the road and it was a green light."
Mélodie sighed. "Alright, tell you what. Let's have a contest."
The expression on Boob Girl's face was half amusement, half confusion. "What sort of contest? And why?"
"I want to see you do at least a little exercise while you're here." Mélodie pointed to the kettlebells on the rack behind her. "Do some swings with me. If I do more than you, then you apologize to me. If you do more, I will apologize to you and then we never have to speak of it again."
She laughed. "Alright. That's weird, but alright. You're on." She went over to the rack and, to Mélodie's surprise, grabbed a 25-pound kettlebell, the same weight that Mélodie had.
"You may want to go smaller. I'm much stronger than you."
"When you assume you make an ass out of you and me, friendo. Swings are easy. I can do 25 pounds, no problem."
Mélodie rolled her eyes. "Suit yourself. Ready? Get into position, like this. Okay... Go!"
Right on swing number one, her competitor very clearly realized that she had made a mistake. While Mélodie made her swing clean, Boob Girl grunted with the effort of bringing it up. There was a weird creaking noise - Mélodie wasn't sure where it came from - and she only just barely managed to raise it above her navel before it swung back down.
"You're lifting it with your arms. Lift with your legs and your butt. That's the whole point." Three swings in, and Boobs was already huffing and puffing with exertion, while Mélodie was fine. Her own boobs felt weird again, though. What was with them today? She ignored it. Or, at least, she tried to. It was getting worse, and it actually kind of hurt now. She looked down, and...
What the hell? There were two wet spots on the front of her shirt, and they were definitely not sweat. She was so surprised to see them that she actually dropped her weight on the mat, stumbling backwards as she touched them lightly with her fingers.
"Hah! I win!" Boobs's victory was punctuated by a loud snap. Her sports bra, working so valiantly to contain a load that was too much for it, finally snapped under the pressure. Literally. It broke in the worst possible spot, too: right at the front, at the seam where the two halves of the bra were connected between her breasts. She dropped her weight too, as they settled heavily against her chest.
And suddenly, all eyes in the gym were on the two of them. Mélodie's strange predicament could probably fly under the radar, if she sort of hunched and crossed her arms over her chest, which was exactly what she did. Boob girl, on the other hand, put her hands on her hips triumphantly, not even trying to cover her breasts. Her marking, it turned out, swirled in a spiral pattern around her nipple, ending at the edges of her dark, palm-sized areola. "And you didn't think I could do it! Now, where's that apology?"
Before Mélodie could say anything at all, the middle-aged man who had let her into the gym came bustling forward. "Ma'am! Ma'am, at this point I'm seriously starting to suspect that you're doing this intentionally! Once is an accident, and I could even believe that the second time wasn't on purpose, but three? Please, put a shirt on!"
Correction, all eyes in the gym were on her. That was perfectly fine. Mélodie had some things she needed to deal with. Taking advantage of the moment, she slipped away.
---
Swole's wasn't a bad gym, but its locker room left a lot to be desired. There were no showers, first of all. That was pretty weird. It was more or less an oversized bathroom with lockers on one side and stalls on the other. She sequestered herself inside of one them and quickly wiggled out of her shirt and her bra.
Her breasts looked redder than normal, and also perhaps a cupsize bigger. Almost as if they were... Swollen? Engorged, even. Her nipples were hard as rocks, and when she touched her fingers to them, even lightly, she gasped at how intense the feeling was. Was this really happening? She had a feeling that she knew exactly what was going on, and there was only one way to test it. Carefully, tenderly, she cupped one of her breasts in her hand and squeezed...
She actually whooped and punched the air when a tiny drop of white milk appeared on the tip of her nipple. Whoa! She'd wanted to do this for years, but she'd always been worried that having to stop and empty her breasts a few times a day, while extremely hot, would interfere with her job in an unacceptable way. That worry had, apparently, been enough to prevent her from self-realizing herself into having milky boobs, but it wasn't a factor anymore.
She tried not to think about the implications of that - that she might never get to go back to her old job, and her old life. It happened to be easy right now, because she was lactating! She giggled in delight as she squeezed them some more, and was a little disappointed to discover that she couldn't do sprays yet. But not that disappointed. Small droplets became big droplets, and soon the milk was running down her hands before dripping to the somewhat grimy bathroom floor. It wasn't a lot, but Mélodie didn't care. It felt good - a wonderful release of tension that was, she discovered, an excellent way to end her workout.
It was also a good way to ruin her underwear. She was rock hard underneath her gym shorts, and she knew from experience that if she kept this up, the precum was going to start very soon. Fuck, it felt so good, though! She pulled her shorts down frantically and her cock sprang out, already dripping. She positioned it over the toilet to catch her spillage as she squeezed some more, gasping with pleasure as yet more plump little white drops appeared on her nipples. It felt so good! No wonder Yuriko was so loud about it. There were wet noises as her precum, flowing freely now, dripped into the toilet. Fuuuck, was she really about to masturbate in a gym bathroom?
Yes. The answer was yes, as it turned out. She grasped her cock in one hand, using her overly copious precum as lube as she began to stroke, and used the other hand to try to lift her nipple up to her own mouth. She'd never been able to do it before - a point of long-standing frustration for her - and she was disappointed to discover that she still couldn't. Her breasts were just a bit too small, her neck just barely not flexible enough. She groaned and continued to squeeze, reveling in each little drop that she was able to produce.
She was already running dry. Or at least, her breasts were, anyway. She was actually squirting little ropes of precum now, which she was able to mostly get in the toilet, but a few of them flew astray, landing on the pipes that connected it to the wall. The drops, on the other hand, were already down to tiny pinpricks. That was it? All that soreness and engorgement for what couldn't have been more than a tablespoon or two of milk? She wanted more! She wanted to spray! To cover the walls with white!
Oh god. That was probably going to happen anyway. She leaned against the stall wall and bit her thumb to keep herself from moaning too loud as she exploded all over the tiles behind the toilet. Her nipples tingled and ached with each heavy burst of cum that hit the wall with an audible splat, rope after rope, until a good portion of the tiles and toilet were covered in sticky whiteness.
She leaned against the wall when it was all over, breathing heavily. That was exciting! But it was also kind of gross. This was a public toilet! She was going to have to clean it really, really well. Chiding herself for her lack of self-control, she started gathering up some toilet paper.
---
Twenty minutes later she emerged from the locker room, still a little flushed. Her shirt had mostly dried - enough that the stains weren't visible anymore. Boob Girl was nowhere to be seen. As annoying as she was, Mélodie hoped that someone had been able to lend her a shirt. She got a couple of looks as she returned to the front desk, but it seemed that she had mostly avoided notice during that whole incident. Good. She didn't want to make too big of a splash here.
The man at the front desk gave her ID back without a fuss. "How'd you like it?" he asked, jovially. "Can I interest you in a membership?"
"Uh, maybe later," said Mélodie. "Hey, do you know anything about that girl who caused the big commotion earlier?"
He rolled his eyes. "The less said about her, the better. She sneaks in every once in a while to schmooze with the other gymgoers. She always dresses like that, too. I think she gets off on it or something."
"Sneaks in? What do you mean?"
He looked at her like she'd just asked something very silly. "I mean she sneaks in. She waits until I'm distracted, or for me to take a bathroom break, and she comes in when I'm not watching the door. I've caught her a couple times, but there've been more times when I didn't even realize she was here until she smiles and waves at me as she leaves. She's real quiet about it."
"I see. Do you know if there's anything between her and Vince? He seems to not want to talk to her."
"Vince and I work alternating shifts. I hardly ever see the guy. Hey, why do you want to know so much about this girl, anyway?"
"Curiousity. She seems like an interesting person. If a frustrating one."
He snorted. "Frustrating ain't the half of it. She's a gigantic pain in my ass. Anyway, come back any time, but especially come back in the morning, when I'm working. I get a bonus for every fifty memberships I sell and I'm just three away from my next one."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Mélodie left the gym, still feeling an odd mix of emotions from what had happened in there, all punctuated by the mellowness that followed a particularly intense orgasm. Her boobs were still a little tingly. She liked how it felt, but she sort of hoped that wouldn't be a constant thing, because it was distracting. She drove back to the apartment and took a shower (she hopefully tried squeezing her breasts again while she was cleaning herself and got nothing. Apparently it took them a while to refill), and changed into the nicest, most professional outfit she was able to scrounge up out of the clothes that she had: jeans, flats, a loose tank top, and cardigan. It wasn't the nicest thing she had ever worn, but it would do in a pinch. She had plans for what she was going to do for the rest of the day, and first up was trying to charm her way into an interview. She had to look presentable for that. She even bothered to comb her hair - something she almost never did.
She decided to start close to the apartment. Downtown was full of prospects, but it was also a two-mile walk and she didn't know what sort of transportation she was going to have access to after today. She was perfectly capable of doing four miles of walking every day, of course, if it came to that, but if there were other options, she wanted to explore them first.
And it turned out that there were! She drove around a bit, making a circle around her apartment, and found that there was a shopping mall directly to the north, not half a mile away. It was decently sized, too: not huge, but bigger than she had expected for a relatively small town like this. The façade was mostly dull and utilitarian, like so many malls in America, except for the area right around the main entrance, which was festooned with large, panoramic windows that gave a view of a lively food court. She parked and headed inside, and immediately did a circuit of the place.
The mall had only a single floor, and it was home to perhaps sixty or sevently shops. Of those, only three had 'Now Hiring' signs up. Not a portentious start, but it would have to do. One of the three was a busy restaurant called the Coalstone Grille. Very busy. So busy, in fact, that the first thing that Mélodie saw when she approached it was a man loudly complaining that he and his family had been waiting an entire hour to be seated. Mélodie hung out for a bit and observed the staff as they worked. The waiters were disorganized and frantic, and because of that, several of them were cracking under the pressure and trying to seat and attend to customers very quickly, and making mistakes because of that.
She could handle that, she bet. There wasn't a person in this mall who could intimidate her, and compared to the pressures and stress of her last job, this looked like a light jog in comparison. Also, she had a plan to nab an interview and make herself look really good in the process.
The second of the three was something of an oddity. It was a little shop crammed into an out-of-the-way corner of the mall called Mysteria's Books and Oddities. The place had an interesting aesthetic - the walls, floor, and pretty much all of the shelves were painted black, and the lights all had blue filters on them, casting an odd hue over everything in the place. The books were, almost exclusively, about magic. Or, at least, what most folks thought that magic was. Most folks, it turned out, didn't really know that much about it. The Oddities section of the store consisted mostly of witchy bric-a-brac: crystal balls, ouija boards, charms and talismans that Mélodie was certain were fake, etcetera.
This place was certainly interesting. The fact that she actually knew about real magic could probably get her an in here, but she would have to be very, very careful about not revealing too much.
The last of the shops that was hiring was a larger one, called All Shapes and Sizes. It apparently specialized in clothing sized for people whose Gifts gave them nonstandard bodies that wouldn't fit into the kinds of things you could get in most clothes shops. Mélodie didn't have any need for that and she didn't know all that much about fashion or clothes, but this shop was the only one where the sign said 'Walk-in interviews today!'
-~o~-
The poll is now closed! What've we got?
All Shapes and Sizes
61.54% (8 votes)
Mysteria's Books and Oddities
15.38% (2 votes)
The Coalstone Grille
0.00% (0 votes)
...Are those percentages correct? It should be an even 80%-20%. Oh well, All Shapes and Sizes won by a bunch, so it looks like that's where Mélodie's going!
No comments:
Post a Comment