The sound of fluid contacting fluid, and the sight of a perfectly white existence drenched in yellow disregard stood as a solemn testament to greatness. Scott grunted loudly in satisfaction as he finished using the urinal. One of the few legitimate pleasures he could derive from his work, the freedom to stand up and pee in a public place was a man's romance, he did his best to use his bathroom breaks as often as he could while still performing his duties. For a brief shining moment, he was free from his work-life, a respite from retail hell.

He was tired, exhausted really. Despite the fact that he had gotten well over eight hours of sleep per night, every night, for the last few days all of the energy that he stored up was spent throughout his work day. Going for a jog earlier that morning did not help that lack of stamina any at the moment, even if it promised to ameliorate the situation in the future.

How he could be so depleted after working a mere four or six hours was anyone’s guess, but it never failed. Scott flushed the urinal by waving his hand across the little sensor thing then gave it a quiet nod. It was only right to be respectful toward a thing that only existed to witness people urinate and clean up after they were finished.

A slight smile crossed his lips as he washed his hands. His nightmare would soon be over. Only one hour stood between him and freedom from the darkness and despair that was retail work.

Scott bent down under the sink and pressed the little bottom that would clear the bathroom sensor then walked over to the door. He signed his name and made little check marks on the bathroom checklist. Every hour on the hour he needed to make certain that his guest services team member did this, but it was easier to do it himself when his sole staff member was a girl.

Eren performed the bathroom checks in the women’s restroom, and he did the men’s room. Otherwise it would be inevitable that someone of the opposite gender would pop up at the last minute just to take the foulest and lengthiest shit imaginable. People were nasty bastards in public as far as he was concerned. Some people actually flung their poo all over the place, and even smeared it on the bathroom walls. He refused to use a restroom, unless it was a urinal, in any retail establishment again after having worked for Archers.

“Hey, Scott. How we lookin’ on carts?” called out the one voice he hoped not to hear that day. Ashton's voice proved to be strangely cheerful as she went about upwardly inflicting the ends of her sentences.

Scott momentarily thought of events form earlier then forced them down. It was not really any of his business, even if he sincerely disliked the guy. Instead of mentioning what he had seen, he glanced over to the cart corral and noted only one row in residence. There were about forty carts remaining, out of the two hundred or so carts they stored there for customer use. “I need to go get them in, but there are probably a lot floating around inside the store.”

“Can’t you, like, send Eren?” asked Ashton. She blinked at him slowly, her eyes widening as she did so.

Scott tried to ignore the fact that he had literally seen her douche fiancé trying to make up with his side-chick earlier. Instead he focused on the things that generally annoyed him about his store team leader. For instance, she literally just graduated from college and looked more like a slutty sorority girl than someone who should be in charge of a multi-million dollar retail operation. It was especially true today, for some reason. She'd left several buttons undone on her work shirt and stood at a ridiculously fortuitous angle. He could see the barest hint of a perky pink nipple riding just above her bra bra underneath as it struggled to support her mighty bosom.

“Eren’s on break,” he said while he made a concerted effort not to stare at the boss's breasts. Nothing good could come of it when he wasn't alone at home, the voices were already rising up to torment him as well. No, the best way to handle the cleavage crises was to act professional and pretend her saw nothing. If he even made mention of it, the situation could only end badly. Let someone else bite the bullet and tell her that she was showing off the goods to the world.

Ashton unleashed a petulant pout toward him then took a step forward and inhaled in such a way that Scott's entire plan to ignore the situation was nearly derailed in a most visible manner. Thankfully, he was able to smile pleasantly and soldier on.

“You’re the GSA, you shouldn’t have to clean toilets and get in carts. Why aren’t your other people doing that?” she asked him softly. She tilted her chin up and shifted position slightly, causing even more problems for the already beleaguered man.

'The hell is up with her today?' he asked himself internally. It was almost like she wanted someone to notice, but she didn't even seem to be aware of it.

Choosing to change tactics, he opted to defuse the situation with his customary attempt at inappropriate workplace humor. “They’re lazy assholes who don’t know the value of hard work?” replied Scott with a smile.

Ashton snorted then pressed her fashionable glassed back up her nose. She clutched her clipboard a little tighter then shook her head. “You shouldn’t say that! I might have to write you up...”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” said Scott lightly. Was today the day? Would he finally get fired? Would he be free? Oh, please, let today be the day...

Ashton bit her lower lip and snickered slightly. Not long after she seemed to laugh in spite of her attempts to stop herself, “You’re so funny. Uhm, but what happened here?” She gestured to the top of her head and pulled her hands upward.

“Oh, my bunny ears? I took them off to check the restroom,” said Scott.

She pouted at him again then widened her eyes gently. “They look super adorable on you though, the guests are always talking about it.”

Scott was not fooled. For a small portion of the day he actually felt bad for her due to her home-life situation, but he never forget the truth. That pout, the whiny upwardly inflected tone, those innocent eyes, and her absurdly big tits... Those were not lucky accessories born from the genetic lottery. They were her weapons. She knew that no one took her seriously. She used those tools to force the rest of the store, surprisingly even the womenfolk, into doing what she wanted.

Scott’s eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips lightly. “You win... this time.”

She grinned at him. “Excellent! I enjoy winning.”

Ashton immediately dismissed him from her notice with a sharp turn of her heel. Clipboard firmly clasped in hand, she wandered off to her next encounter. After getting what she wanted, she was done with him.

Scott snorted then shook his head. It was an easy win for her, anyway. He walked over to the guest services desk then collected his headgear. He twisted it just right then placed the rabbit ears back atop his head. From then on, he walked around the front-end of the store, and asked his fellow employees to hop to it.

The hour passed quickly after he went outside to bring in the carts. The store was too cheap to hire a proper cart attendant outside of the holiday season at the end of the year, and most people hated having to go out and deal with all of the stray carts. Scott loved it, however. It was mindless work outside the store. He could kill an hour easily by just pushing carts around and the rest of the store could go to hell and kiss him right on the ass before doing so.

By the time he filled the cart corral inside the store, he only had ten minutes left. “Damn, too fast today.”

Eren ran over to him. “Scott! Ashton was looking for you.”

“What did Tits Mc Pouts want this time?” asked the man.

Eren giggled at him, that nickname had made it all over the store. “She was all pouty and whiny.”

“Oh?” That was hardly news. He already knew what she was going to ask. It happened nearly every time he worked a non-closing shift.

“Yeah, she wanted to know if you would work the closing shift since the GSA called out.”

“Dammit, Bigness...” Scott grumbled. How did that woman still have a job? Hell, how did he still have a job for that matter? He did not exactly hide his disdain for the store and he was about as politically incorrect as it got. For that matter, he’d been somewhat trying to get fired for months. Well, he did not try that hard as he needed an income, but he truly disliked the place.

Eren shook her head. “Hey, I can try it if you want.”

Scott reached out and gripped her hands. He unleashed a wide-eyed and hopeful expression upon her then exclaimed, “Do it. Do it!”

She shook her head. “I don’t think they’ll let me. You know what happened last time...”

Scott’s memory of what he had seen when he had come in that night was quite vivid. He had been off that day, but wanted to use his employee discount to pick up a few groceries. He had walked in only to discover Eren bawling her eyes out while she tried to change the printer paper for the baby registry kiosk. She’d had a hard shift as far as he could tell, largely due to the training skills of Bigness.

“Maybe they will. The kiosks are offline anyway,” said Scott. Both of the registry kiosks had gone down the day before and the repair technician had not been able to fix them yet, for some reason.

“Hey, that’s right!” said Eren brightly. She hated those stupid things. She did everything right, but they always seemed to go haywire whenever she was near them.

“Let me ninja-sneak my way to the time clock and you can tell Tits that you never saw me come back inside. It’s time for me to go anyway,” said Scott.

“Right!” said Eren cheerfully. She would make GSA soon, she could feel it!

“Damn, a lot of people called out today...” said Scott. He had been down two cashiers all afternoon. They’d had to call someone else in and pull another team member off the floor. The ladies working soft lines were bitchy all day because of it.

“Yeah, the backroom is screwed,” said Eren. They only had the one guy who worked there and he did not come in for his shift. Hard lines was forced to give up someone and now both the backroom and the hard line section were a cluster fuck. There was no way in hell Scott would work till closing. They would shut down at ten o’clock that night, but he knew they would not be done till midnight at the earliest due to the backup.

Scott started to say something, but blinked. “Better go!”

He would come up on the five minute after mark soon. If he did not clock out, he’d have to deal with his department manager. She was nice enough, but it would be hard for him to keep his tongue when speaking with her. Half the extra crap he did was her job to do. She mostly sat in her office and played games on her smart phone.

Honestly, the job he was supposed to do was not that hard. If he only did his specific work, it would be a decent gig.

Unfortunately, he did the work of several people because the main office claimed that it would cost too much money to hire more people. The profit margin for the store alone was millions per year but they could not afford to hire five or ten more people, or just give the rest of the employees more hours to work.

It was ridiculous. If he actually gave a damn about his job, he’d be quite pissed about only working thirty hours a week, on a good week. As it stood, he was glad of that fact as it allowed him to avoid the place as much as possible, and opted out of staying late every chance he got.

While he did his level-best to avoid Ashton on the way to the time clock, he was nearly caught. Rather, he thought that he was about to be caught. However, it soon become apparent that she was lost in her own little world. She had squatted down for some reason and held a partially open bag. On the floor there was a bit of random debris.

'Wait, is that... catnip?" he asked himself quietly. He briefly marveled as she drew the bag to her nose and sniffed a little. Her eyes closed slightly and she made a weird murmuring sound that almost sounding like a whining puppy. The bizarre scene intensified as she bit her lip then began to lightly rub the side of her face against the sack and lightly caressed the side of her breast with her forearm.

The hair atop her head began to act strangely as well. In two spots on either side of her head, her hair began to move a bit. It was as though something were hidden slightly from view and had begun to move.

"Mmmph..." she whimpered sweetly before she bit her lower lip a little once again. "Ahn..." she cried out in a strangely erotic and high-pitched tone. For several seconds afterward she nuzzled the sack and slightly caressed her breasts with her arms, all the while she seemed completely divorced from the world around her.

"The hell? Is she getting high off catnip?" he asked himself silently. The voices in his head attempted to make him feel like a terrible person for watching such a thing, but for once they could not find a way to twist his emotions. This scene was simply too abnormal not to watch it.

After that brief, and far too interesting interlude, the strange moment passed. She gripped the bag tight and started to stand up. Scott, fearing that the nightmare would catch hold of him once more, quietly hopped backwards then made a bee-line for the time clock. The sheer strangeness of what he'd witnessed nearly cost him everything.