Amazon Next Door: Chapter 2

Another day at the office, or in this case, the music store. ‘Here at Tune Goons, we specialize in having exactly what you’re looking for!’ That was our motto. We had an extensive music collection, and a supplier that could get us any cd or record a person with discerning musical taste could want. Most our patrons went straight to the pop section or the latest releases though. We aspired to be hip, capitalism made us whipped. Almost rhymed, best I could do, sorry.

It was a local chain, and I requested a transfer to this store and it was granted, which was awesome. The new location was certainly a lot more colorful than the quaint store I was used to working in. And the clientele was so much younger, so much more attractive. A woman was chatting on the phone near me, couldn’t have been much older than me. She was decked out in all kinds of fancy clothing that looked to be priced somewhere between two to three months’ rent. I couldn’t help but eavesdrop on her conversation. “Girl, how could you not come here, all the models live here now… well tell him you don’t have a choice, it’s your career… leave his ass then, he should know this is important to you…”

Did this town somehow become a Mecca for models, and I just lucked into it just in time? As an eighteen year old male, I stood only to gain from this scenario. She turned towards me. Granted, she was probably wearing high heels, but she still managed to peak just above me in height, her waist long hair extending below what I could see from my view from behind the counter. “Ew, short. Excuse me, do you have the latest Spice Boys record?” Copyright infringement be damned.

Despite this slight against my height, I remained polite (makes up for the rhyme earlier!). “Sorry, that one comes in…” I perused the list of incoming albums. “…ah, next Tuesday. Want me to hold a copy for you?”

“O M G, that would be fantastic!”

“Sounds good, just give me your name and number, and we’ll call you when we get it in,” I answered.

She scribbled it down on a piece of paper. “This is a clever way of getting a girl’s number, but just so you know, I’m taken.” I gave her a smirk, and she turned and left the store. Are models really that vain? I mean, I wouldn’t say no but…

I looked across the street, it was the gym, where Tasha probably worked out. I daydreamed thinking about how she was probably there now, running on a treadmill. Her boobs, bouncing. Her ass, jiggling. Her abs… abbing? I’d have to work on that one. I imagined the sweat glistening on her tanned skin-

“Hey bruh, you got that Spice Boys CD yet?” It was a big bodybuilder, a little bit taller than me, a lot wider than me, and a lot tanner than me. He had a skinny blonde chick at his side. I mentally sighed.

“Name and Number.”

I took a trip to the local department store, let’s call it Bull’s Eye. Today, I was in the market for the little things. I needed some of everything; the kitchen was empty, the bathroom needed everything, and some nice trinkets would be nice to give the house a little flavor.

I hunted the aisles, checking items off my list. Soap. Check. Dishwashing Soap. Check. Frozen Food. Check. Body wash? Let’s go.

I headed over to look at the men’s body wash. I never really thought about what kind to get. My mom used to get some generic brand and I had used that all my life. But now, I was an adult. I could now make my own decisions. And what a decision it was, there was a plethora of choices before me. So many brands, then between those, so many scents. For one reason or another, this felt like a momentous occasion. I now had the opportunity to create my own persona, to establish my brand, in one way or another. I was, at this moment, declaring my common scent, how I would smell when I wasn’t wearing cologne (now that would be the day) and was just out and about in life. People would catch a whiff of me and say ‘Luke is here’, and hopefully for good reasons, or at least, one good reason: I smelled good.

“Luke!” Came an all too familiar voice to my left. It was that sweet voice that helped me yesterday with my bed. It was Tasha.

“Oh hi Tasha!” I responded cheerfully. I couldn’t look nervous around her, I had to be cool.

“Getting some body wash? What kind of scent are you?” She approached me confidently, but stayed back a foot or so. “I could use some myself, haha! I’m going to keep my distance. I’m just coming back from the gym, and I’m like, drenched in sweat.” Indeed she was, her body glistening just like in my fantasies. Her well defined muscles were enjoying a nice pump, as was I.

“Um… Well I don’t know. I’m not sure which to get.”

“Well, I don’t know if it helps or not, but I like it when a man smells like the ocean. Something about pirates and being on a boat and booty or something.” Just her saying booty, even in the wrong context, made me think of the killer booty she was packing.

“Something like this?” I asked, grabbing a bottle of Ocean Breeze off the shelf. I popped the top and gave it a whiff. It smelled good enough to me, so I passed it over to Tasha. She smelled it as well, closed her eyes and smiled with delight.

“Mmm, yeah, this is good stuff,” she replied. She squeezed the bottle into her chest and rocked it back and forth. My eyes immediately focused on her massive breasts, and how the bottle managed to disappear in her cleavage. Being absorbed into her bosom, it was a testament to how perfect her breasts were that the bottle didn’t completely pop and explode all over her, which, in and of itself, would be incredibly hot to see from like a porno point of view. As she squeezed the bottle, her biceps bulged, truly emphasizing just how strong she must be. The mass popping out of her arms were already thicker than my arm at it’s thickest point. She opened her eyes, and I was quick to pretend to be looking anywhere else. Apparently I was really interested in the other scents.

“I take it none of these are going to beat that kind of reaction…” I muttered.

“My boyfriend uses something like this,” she replied. My heart took a nose dive. Not sure what I was expecting, I mean look at her. She was perfect, beyond perfect, actually. Her body was everything any man could ever want, cranked up to eleven.

I tried to recover. “Well, if it works for him, maybe it will work for me,” I stuttered, trying to regain my balance after almost falling over.

“I guarantee it will,” she said, winking at me. “I’m actually surprised to hear a cutie like you is single.”

“Maybe it’s the body wash!” I joked. We both laughed. I couldn’t help but notice her large breasts bouncing up and down as she gave her hearty laugh. I was mesmerized for a second, but I didn’t want to be creepy and ruin the moment, so I diverted my gaze.

“Well good luck, and I’ll be seeing you around,” she said. Indeed she would… I thought to myself.

I had the essentials. A bed, some water, some food, a small table. Now I needed the main thing that made me ME. I pulled into my house and scoured my room for the nerd essentials. I had a mountain of video games, which I shoved in a few garbage bags. I carefully consolidated my consoles in a box. Luckily, my TV wasn’t a giant one, so it was easy enough to maneuver into my car. Once all of this stuff made it’s way into my apartment, I would finally feel like I was home. I had games from 20 years ago (yes, before I was born). I had games that came out yesterday. I loved all games, regardless of console, company, or type (well… maybe not sports). Video games had been a part of my life since I could remember, since I could pick up a controller and understand that the buttons would do stuff. My friends looked at me as somewhat of a historian on the subject.

I had to cram my PC and chair in the car as well. That would round out what would fit in my car. Looking at everything I was taking, I was starting to understand why I was single. The conversation with Tasha had etched its place in my head. Did she really think I was cute? No, I thought, she was just being polite. What was she going to say? ‘I could see you being single because you’re tiny, weak, and unconfident’ was such a rude thing to say, but was also the truthful part. Shame coursed through my body. I was getting an erection thinking about her talking to me like that. I had never been attracted specifically to bigger, stronger women, but imagining Tasha talking to me like that was sending me up a tree. Picturing her looking down on me, her broad shoulders blocking out the sun, and talking to me like I was nothing to her, was actually kind of… hot. Ironically, she was nothing like that. She was legitimately one of the sweetest people I had ever met. Granted, I wasn’t mister popular and hadn’t met many people (being a gamer does that to you), but the warmth of her smile and her willingness to help me with anything even though we just met was something I had hardly experienced.

And yet, she was taken. By the luckiest man in the world. What would it take to date a girl like Tasha? Should I just live at the gym and get huge? I was 5’5, I would NEVER be that big, or at least be big enough for a girl like Tasha to even consider me as a suitable mate. Her brain probably sees me as a wart, something in the way of something else. Like if she saw me in a crowd, her first reaction should be to shove me out of the way in pursuit of something grander, bigger.

But Tasha didn’t do that…

It was around 7 PM when I finally made my way back to the apartment. I had a big bag of video games, and I was nervous it was going to rip and fall on the floor, so I was carrying it with both hands. This worked fine for the stairs, but not so fine when I was trying to open the door to my apartment. I fumbled a bit for my key, which was lodged in my pocket that was now apparently a mile deep and a centimeter wide. I felt like I was going to fall over then the door behind me opened and a familiar voice soothed me.

“Need a little help?”

“I’m sorry to constantly be a burden to you, but yes…” I replied.

She lifted the bag from my hands and freed my arms to do the door opening. “It’s no burden, it’s nice to feel useful for a change…”

Tasha’s voice actually sounded kind of… sad. I had only just met her, but I could already tell that was out of character. I pushed open the door and held out my hands, and she dropped the bag back. “Are you okay, Tasha?”

“Me? Yeah, I’m fine. Just one of those days, you know?” She took a sip of water from her bottle. She looked like she was about to go to the gym. She had already gone though.

“Are you going to the gym… again?” I asked, stunned.

“Yeah, working out is my therapy,” she laughed. “Lifting weights and killing myself with cardio helps blow off major steam. Man that bag was a lot pointer than I thought, what’s in that bag?”

I was nervous to respond, but it was pointless to lie. “Video games, lots of video games,” I said, bashfully. “What can I say, I’m short and I don’t get out much.”

“No way,” she encouraged me. “That sounds cool! Can I see?”

My heart stopped. She wanted a peak into my nerdness? Tasha, the hottest, most physically dominant girl I had ever seen, wanted to look into a bag that was pure gaming not hotness. She was stronger than me, so it wasn’t like I would be able to stop her anyways. Might as well help her out. “Yeah,” I stuttered, opening the bag. As I did, she dug her hands through it and looked at all the games, as if she was looking for something. Small grunts escaped her gritted teeth as she forced through the junk, until, fascinatingly, she seemed to have found something she was looking for.

“Here it is, you totally have it!” She exclaimed, pulling out a game from the bag. I looked on in disbelief. It was a game called Shada the Barbarian (technically the game she picked out was Shada 3: The Darkness Beyond Apocalypse, but who’s counting), a famous action game series starring a barbarian princess fighting off the evils of the underworld. That was all well and good, but Tasha’s interest in it was bewildering. What interest did she have in Shada the Barbarian?

“This is the game! My modeling company is asking me to cosplay as her for some Pictagram posts and for the gaming convention coming up. I had never heard of it, so I googled it and it looked pretty cool.”

“Oh ok,” I replied. Of course she was a model. Everyone here was, I had just never seen one of her… proportions. “Yeah, this series has been going on for a while now. It’s super popular, I guess you’d be a perfect fit.”

“Really, you think I could be Shada the Barbarian?”

“I mean, honestly,” I stopped. Use your words carefully. I almost said she was bigger than Shada, which she was. I wanted to say she was hotter than Shada, which she also was. “Honestly, you look like you could beat her up.” I was happy with that.

“Haha! I don’t know about that,” she chuckled. “Maybe I could pick your brain on the Shada character? I like to know a little more about these characters when I cosplay, so when people ask me about them I don’t look like a huge poser.”

“Oh that would be fun, I can tell you all about her!”

“Sounds great! Um… can I get your phone number? We’re neighbors now, it would be nice to be able to get a hold of you.”

“Sure thing,” I replied. Wow. Just… wow. This was all happening so fast. My knowledge of video games actually helped me talk to a hot babe! “Enjoy your workout!”