it's been six months since I was made redundant from my previous job; I had worked in expenses for a shopping company. At first, I worked from home but as my workload decreased rapidly I knew the possibility of redundancy was not far off.
Without my regular income, I retreated back to my parents' for lockdown, back to my old bedroom. My girlfriend soon followed my job in disappearing as the time apart gave her thinking space about our relationship. In that, she did not miss me and would be better off without my Zoom calls.
I wallowed in self-pity and internet porn for the next few months. Staying up all night watching Netflix, getting up late, and vegetating in my room. My only excitement was the daily wank to porn, some days more than once. It took the constant shouts of my parents to even get me to start to exercise.
By the time the lockdown started to ease I was at least running on a more regular basis, which made me feel a bit better about myself, burning off some of the lockdown gut I had grown, and I counted down the days to the barbers reopening to rid myself of my moptop hairdo.
As I returned from my run I noticed my local grocery was advertising for staff; normally I wouldn't have seen myself doing this but circumstances had most definitely changed. The chances of an office job seemed far from possible right now and my cash flow was nonexistent. As I've now received my first jab, I popped in and I received a form to complete from the girl behind the counter and I returned later with the form.
The interview, if that's what it was, was very brief. The woman, who I later found to be Mrs. Kabak, the wife of the owner, was an attractive brunette in her early thirties. The usual questions of work history, why do you want the job, what can you bring to the job and some personal information were flown through. When she shook my hand and congratulated me on getting the job with a very alluring smile, I was speechless.
She showed me to the door and leaned in close, " You will start on Monday at 8.00 with my husband, he will show you the ropes." As she closed the door I was sure that she winked.
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By the time Monday came around, I had procured my hair cut and now I possessed a much more manageable cropped crewcut and was ready to start my new career. The man who opened the door was as handsome as his wife was attractive. I looked up at the towering figure before me, well over six feet and his muscles tightly packed into his white T-shirt.
"You must be Liam, come in." His large hand squeezed mine as he welcomed me in. His perfectly groomed beard complemented his slicked-back black hair and his smile showed his gleaming white teeth. Slapping me on the back, he explained my daily routines as we explored the shop. "I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon, no worries. I like the hairstyle," he laughed as he ran his hand through my cropped hair.
I'm sure I must have blushed and jumped several times during this meeting. Working in an office with an almost entirely female team, there had been none of this sort of touching. I'm quite sure anything like this and I'd have been to HR. I guess working in a shop is entirely different as Mr. Kabak did not seem worried in the slightest.
As the day went on and I got used to working the till, I started to feel much more at ease. When Mr. Kabak would check over at me and wink I would happily grin back in the knowledge that I was learning the job. I got to see him up close, flirting with all the ladies who shopped there. By the time he flashed that smile, even behind his mask, they were crumbling before him. I wished I had that gift.
By the end of the day, he gripped my shoulder and leaned in, "You've done very well, I knew you would." There was that smile again, and I left the shop grinning like a Cheshire cat.
The week flew by and between customers, I got to know him better. He'd been keeping in shape in his home gym and was aching for the gyms to reopen. His physique certainly backed that up; he hadn't gone flabby in lockdown. Mrs. Kabak, he explained, was the brains of the setup and he was better with people although she took over the running of the shop on Saturdays.
The only quibble I had with the job was the butt slaps; to explain every now and again, Mr. Kabak would slap my butt in passing and grin. I probably should have complained the first time but I was a little shocked and just blushed and continued working. A few weeks in and this was a regular occurrence, gladly though when the shop was empty.
"You need to keep running, it's getting rounder," and he'd smack my butt and it would be bouncing as I tried to fill the shelf. Smack as he squeezed past me, "I can barely get by with that bubble butt." They were always accompanied by his laugh and cheeky grin.
I started to check my butt out at home to see if was true, had it got bigger, was it that round? No girls had mentioned my butt at work before and previous girlfriends had not paid this much attention to it. It might have got some weight on over lockdown but I must have worked that off by now. Looking at it in the mirror it did look rounder than most guys; lads I'd see in the gyms had more muscular butts than mine.