[color=gray][h3][sup][sup]Simple pleasures make life worth living. Sleeping in, donuts, some weed, a slow morning—breaths of fresh air in the progression of men with more money than hygiene and more lust than sense. Fortunately, quicker and better moves made for less time spent in the mire and more time spent wallowing in the genuine pleasures of life. And whether the random schmucks wandering in on tips or as regulars were ugly as sin or surprisingly handsome, rude or polite—whoever the hell they were—if they had money to spend, just throw mud at the wall, squeeze them dry with a smile, and you’ll get more popular, make more money, and get more good stuff. It’s as simple as that. Sally impressed this upon every newbie that walked through the door. She lived by it. Every day.

Now, the nice thing about doggy style was that there was no expectation of eye contact. The occasional hair pulling wasn’t her favorite, but if it got the job done faster, she’d make the right sounds too. The downside was that adding an auditory component was about the extent of extra things she could throw into the act itself to get so-and-so’s ass in gear. But then, every position took longer than it needed to. To say nothing of when someone wanted to [i]savor[/i] their time, and wouldn’t let her nudge things along. Like this chuj. If he was going to take his sweet time, would it kill him to be good at it?

It usually felt like an eternity. But was it really? That’s why she kept the watch on during sex. She pulled her face out from the frill-coated decorative pillow and glanced at the dinky, well-abused standard-issue secondhand Seiko clinging to her wrist. Only ten minutes? She shoved her face back into the over-fluffed, over-stuffed pillow to smother the groan.

“Why’dya stop?” Fucker’d heard her and stopped to see what was wrong. Like he really cared. If he gave her ten minutes to make a list, she could go on for just as long. She just needed a good look at him first. Not that it’d be worth it. So instead, she jerked her voice into the babydoll range and chirped out a lazy excuse about holding her breath because he was “bigger” than she was used to. Flattery usually worked. And it was the right angle here, too. He got right back to it, and she got right back to daydreaming about when he’d finished his business and she could circle back for one of the chocolate glazed donuts she’d set aside and eat it while listening to the college radio. 

They continued, until a rap on the door sent the man into a conniption. He nearly fell over her. His nails dug into her skin.

“Fuck, man.” Sally pulled forward, away from him, and sat up on the bed as the guy ducked to the floor. “What?” she bellowed. 

The person at the other end fumbled with the keys and slunk on in. Fi slammed the door behind her and leaned in. “Telephone boy’s here.”

Sally dragged her hands down her face and made eye contact with Fi. “Fuck. Already? Feels like he was just here…” “Dunno what to tell you, Sal.” Sally groaned and peeled herself out of bed. She whipped her clothes off the floor. “Fi’ll…finish you…off…‘nless you just…want me,” she offered the no-name she was leaving behind. Without a second look, she left Fi to negotiate with the customer the moment she’d finished hopping into her jeans. 

Just like that, the Sorbian bastards who’d put this whole operation together had once again whipped it out and pissed on her perfectly decent day. As always, Telephone boy hadn’t waited. He’d already ticked off the kids who weren’t working by switching off the radio in one room and the tv in another, taken a donut from the kitchen, and gotten right to turning his usual spots upside-down in his check for bugs. She had the privilege of following, cleaning up after him, and answering questions in Polish while getting insulted for speaking it.

He paused his rampage when he saw her. The only consolation he offered was not pretending to be happy to see her. At most, she gathered he was at least happy to have someone who could, however poorly, make his job easier by bumbling through questions. At the very least, he stood by his stance that she was stupid and actually kept things simple. He spoke slowly and splashed the words right into her face with his overenunciation of them. 

“[i]Speak[/i]” meant he wanted a report. Any suspicious people? Any suspicious activities? He never believed her when she said there was nothing. So lying made things go faster here, too. She kept a running list of some guys whose faces she didn’t like and cobbled together the simplest version for what was wrong about them in advance. For what it was worth, when she could be bothered to, she tried to string together the bungled Polish in advance too, so she could just spit it out and Telephone boy wouldn’t fuss at her. Get it over with, and all. They never found anything. She knew it. He surely did too. This was all just for show, and they both needed to be able to say they tried so it wouldn’t be their problem if something went wrong. Whether or not Telephone boy appreciated that she didn’t actually care to be wasting both of their time, Sally couldn’t say. 

So, she started with the ass-covering. First, she fumbled through an observation about a “[i]tall skinny men, he have black hair[/i]” and who “[i]take too long at potty.[/i]” Telephone boy chuckled darkly as he rummaged through the bathroom. He mumbled some remarks to himself. Sally gathered he thought it was ridiculous someone taller than him and “six times” his weight would be talking like a retarded baby in a language that already sounded like baby-talk. To say nothing of the fact that he had to play plumber for his job well more than he’d have imagined. After all these years, she’d not managed to convince herself that he cared enough to insult her to his face. It always seemed like this was just a job to the guy. Back in the day, he’d seemed almost endeared to the fact that she could help him with a few clues to screen the place down. She was “Girl,” back then. But it’d long “[i]stopped being cute.[/i]” She must’ve still been useful enough that he took the time to bark the only English he seemed to know at whichever kid was near when he came by to have her summoned. And he’d learned another word in those years. Anything to expedite the job he’d wasted years in school to get.

“Fat girl,” he stated, “[i]I’m done here. What else?[/i]”

On to the next thing. “[i]Fat li’l dago in…this room.[/i]” The skinny little mole-man scurried in and jerked his head expectantly for more details. “[i]What? Already say he take long get dress? After he go…I see closet. Closet open. Not open before.[/i]” Telephone boy mockingly returned her impudent expression with an eye roll and got to tearing the closet apart. Sally perched on Miggy’s bed impatiently. Shortly, he flung a follow-up question her way. “[i]So, why was he left alone in this room?[/i]”

Sally fumbled together a series of stalling sounds made to communicate that she was trying to piece together her answer. He continued picking apart the closet. “[i]So? Speak.[/i]” Sally burned a hole in the back of his head with a stare and briefly distracted herself from mustering any words at all. He whipped his head around and pulled his bushy moustache into an impatient scowl. “[i]Speak. Come on, speak. Explain, so I don’t have to get the damn translator in here to speak with your little fag-mama whenever it comes back. Why was he left alone?[/i]”

Sally hissed and shook her fist in frustration, and blundered her way into a response. “[i]Busy![/i] Fucking…[i]very busy[/i], okay? [i]That day?[/i] Uh, [i]Bibi…[/i]” Sally gestured vaguely towards the door, “[i]Need run. Wash ass…for next guy. He wait already. Guy have wait? Is bad, yes? Just very busy.[/i]” Telephone boy sighed. Sally knew it was a sigh of disgust, but what about, she could never put her finger on. The easiest guess was that he hated these lapses. Probably true, but the way he reacted to things like this more viscerally, the way he seemed so unshakeably impatient—something in her gut told her he had a more general disgust. Like the whole thing was a job he only did because he was the guy who did it everywhere, and had to do it to keep his money flowing. Either way, it wasn’t exactly like she wanted to be doing this either. So if he was gonna give her attitude, she’d give it right back.

He could have made things go faster. He could have learned English, or stopped insulting her, or for a moment reflected and recognized that she wanted to be doing this even less than she did—and if he’d been normal and reasonable, she could share a joint with him and they’d half-ass this whole thing together, and that would be it. Then after the check, Klimant could swing by when Sunny got back from the store, he could skim the books, they could have a quick chat, and then everyone could just wipe their hands of the whole thing. No need to be all pissy about it. Just get it over with, and we could’ve all gotten back to doing something we like.[/sup][/sup][/h3][/color]