There was a dildo on the counter in front of me, and there was no fucking way I was touching that thing.

"I told you, man, it's not working," the customer was saying. "You're going to give me a refund."

"Respectfully speaking sir, get the fuck out of the store."

"I have rights! I'm your customer dammit! You don't get to swear at me! Where's your supervisor?"

"I'm the supervisor. I'd call the owner but after getting a call at two in the morning, he's going to tell you the same thing I just told you, but much, much meaner. So please do us all a favor and get the fuck out of the store."

The big problem here wasn't the dildo. Nor was it that fact that we test every single dildo that is sold in the store, according to basic company policy and the powerful human need to not touch any returned merchandise. The problem was that this particular dildo, like most dildos that people have tried to return, had most definitely been inserted into one of many orifices in the customer's frail body. In fact, it was still sticky, and there was the strong raw stench of fecal matter that was currently assaulting my senses and making me want to commit murder, mainly because the stupid fucking customer had reached into his pants and somehow pulled the fucking dildo out of his ass before slapping it down on my fucking counter.

What the fuck is wrong with people?

I'd spent the evening immersing myself in the mundane rhythm of reality and I'm not ashamed to say that I had hated every second of it.

It's only after you return to what most people consider "normal" after going through some extraordinary event that you realize you'd do anything to not have to deal with the ordinary anymore. The rush of the concert that had transported you for a few hours to a state of euphoria, or the excitement of waking up to a new place every morning during your vacation, or even the heightened sense of self and frenzied activity that comes from being on a mind altering substance for days at a time, those were all glimpses into the awesome and the profane, a reminder that life was anything but ordinary. Ordinary was the grind, the day to day interactions of being stuck doing the same thing in different ways while your brain shut down out of boredom or desperation.

You want to know why so many retail workers end up smoking crack or doing meth or whatever drug is reasonably available? It's not because they have no direction in life or anything that simple. They get into drugs because their brains are bored from being mired in the ordinary and the drugs allow them to take a break away from the ordinary. That glimpse is enough to keep them going, keep them from getting too bored and getting up to no good, at least until they either accomplish what they needed and can escape or until they settle into their reality of having to survive from paycheck to paycheck, waiting to get their next hit. After all, drugs are more immediate and cheaper than a concert or a vacation, and you have to take your euphoria wherever you can find it.

That used to be my reality, and now my eyes were opened. As the night ground on I settled into the groove at work way too easily. For a while, everything felt normal. Working in the porn store was reasonably mundane from a certain perspective and after working someplace for a year, I'd gotten used to almost anything. The store had its own rhythm and flow that shifted and morphed according to what was going on in the city.

You could tell the mood of the city by what people bought, who was actually coming in to look or buy, and how many minor crimes were committed.

People stole different things at different times of the year or even when the economy sucked. It was predictable that if the dollar was down we'd be seeing a huge number of pocket pussies go missing. We got all types in the store. Sixty year old grannies who insisted in leaving the batteries in the vibrators after we turned them on to test before they left the store, because they wanted to use them on the way home; straight men in their twenties who came in to buy amyl nitrate on the way back from clubbing, who thought they had discovered the newest drug craze and had no idea those "poppers" were used to relax the muscles for anal sex; gay men who knew exactly what the amyl nitrate was for and often bought lube and the occasional toy to go along with it; the occasional couple with one person more into sex than the other more prudish partner who considered sex to be dirty and looked at me like I was a peddler of smut (which I was) and was personally responsible for their spouses' particular choice of kink (to be clear, I totally wasn't) instead of me just doing my damn job; the occasional joker who would try to embarrass me by asking loud idiotic questions designed to embarrass me (they didn't) and who would then be puzzled when I refused to sell them their "tobacco" pipe or "decorative glass stem" and had zero qualms about calling them on their shit.

The Boss had one rule about the customer, and it wasn't anything to do with them being right. If you really want to know his opinion, which should have been printed on our staff t-shirts, it was simply "Fuck the Customer (just not literally)." It would have been nice to have that exact phrase embroidered on a doily or something hanging in the store so I could point to it whenever some asshole would inevitably start yelling at me about customer rights and what did I mean no refunds, even though we clearly and loudly pointed it out to them with the sale of every sex-toy.

By the time the new guy (no, I didn't bother to learn his name) had finally clocked out around 11 PM and left me to my own devices before Sammy was due to show up at 3 AM, I was already regretting my return to reality and remembered how much I fucking hated our customers.

Claude texted me around midnight, just when I was wondering if he was still talking to me.

-Dude I'm about to get on a plane to South America. Don't ask for details. Will be gone for a week. Stay out of trouble.

I stared at the phone for a long moment, trying not to feel disappointed or irritated at the sudden turn of events. Claude's particular expertise had unpredictable travel arrangements and he had a tendency to vanish at times, so this was hardly surprising. I had just been looking forward to talking to him about different theories on blood and vampires and shit.

The phone buzzed as another message came in.

-Call your mother dammit.

And now there was a shit covered dildo on my fucking counter, and I could feel the rage building in me, but with the rage, there was something else that had been lurking through all of my customer interactions over the past hours. A violent urge to rip this douchenozzle's head from his shoulders and guzzle in the spurting blood from his neck—

"GET THE FUCK OUT!" I yelled, and the customer yelped and jumped away from me, scared shitless. He hadn't been expecting that kind of reaction and to tell you the truth, neither had I. He tentatively reached out to grab the offensive dildo from the counter as if I was going to jump over the counter and bite him, then he scurried out of the store.

I took a deep breath, calming myself down as I sprayed the counter with the Lysol we kept under the counter. I wiped up the slimy leavings, utterly grossed out that we actually had to have Lysol and paper towels handy for this exact reason. I was glad that I only had an hour left before I could go home. Maybe I would even swing by HTDK on the way home for the after-hours party if I could manage to avoid the Ugly Twins on the way in—

THWACK! A red dildo smacked me right in the side of the face. I jumped back, getting ready to freak out since I was convinced that the customer had returned and had thrown the used dildo at me, complete with fecal matter. I took another look, remembering that it had been a pink Tantus Eaze 5 inch model, and what had thwacked me so solidly in the face was clearly an 8 inch Flexible Jelly with Vibrator which was currently turned on and throbbing its way across the counter towards me.

What the fuck?

I turned—

Sammy was standing by the door, methodically and angrily unwrapping a Doc Johnson Double 12 Inch Black Dildo, which had been marked down to only $19.99 and was destined for an appointment with my face.

Can I mention exactly how happy she did not look?

******** AUTHOR'S NOTE **********

The book is now AVAILABLE in Hardcover, Paperback and Ebooks. It's going to live here free on Wattpad, but if you love the story and want to support your awesome author (me), grab a copy from one of the lovely retailers below. Who knows: maybe it can become a bestseller with the help of you lovely WattPadders

Amazon - http://bit.ly/Amazon-SIMBAV

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Indigo - http://bit.ly/Indigo-SIMBAV

Check out the website: http://www.bobthevampire.com