While the woman with the oversized Prada bag inspected the pre-made sandwich selections, Mercy took a moment to pop another Altoid.  The penis was long gone, but all she kept thinking was dick breath.
.        “How fresh are these?” the woman asked.
.        Mercy cleared her throat.  She hadn’t swallowed, but still it felt slick with cock snot.
.        “They’re delivered daily,” she answered.  She swiped invisible man- dribble from the corner of her mouth.  She’d never done anything like that before.  She was sure now that she had, everybody could tell.  Like coming in from the rain.  Even the best of umbrellas couldn’t keep all the drops off you.
.        “How about these?”  A manicured to a Witchiepoo point red acrylic nail poked the refrigerated case right in front of the cheesecake slices.
.        “Same,” Mercy said.  The Altoid–her fifth since returning from the ladies’ room–was strong, but she still tasted him.  In reality there had been barely any taste at all, a little salty, the smell of soap and  freshly laundered underwear overriding any sense of taste.  But to her he tasted of dark roast coffee, licorice biscotti, the thumb that used to soothe her as a baby.
.        “What do you do with them if you don’t sell them all?”
.        “We throw them out.”
.        The woman tsked, shaking her head.  “Such waste when people are starving in the world.”
.        Mercy stared pointedly at the Prada bag, big enough to fit the ten remaining sandwiches and the starving people who would never get to eat them.
.        “Would you like to have one?” Mercy asked pleasantly.  “One less sandwich in the trash can.  Your good deed for the day, and all you’ll have to do is eat lunch.”
.        Her sarcasm was lost on the woman.  “It’s well past lunch, and I can’t afford the calories.  I’ll have a skinny latte with caramel drizzle, no whipped cream.”
.        Mercy went about making the latte, and the five other orders that followed, finally receiving help from Pete on the last one.
.        “What can I do?” he asked, coming behind the counter, still tying his apron.
.        “I need a harvest pretzel in the oven,” she answered, making change for the last customer in line, smiling and wishing him a nice day.  Was it really four o’clock already?
.        “Do you mind staying back here for a while?  The tea and cookie display is a mess.”
.        Pete smiled.  He knew how neurotic she was about the displays, always filling them up, alphabetizing, making sure no berry blends were mixed in with English breakfast.  What he didn’t know–unless he could see or smell it on her–was her anxiety concerning what had happened little over half an hour ago in the handicapped ladies’ bathroom stall.  That was what she needed to get organized, settled in her head.  She’d be of little use to him or anyone else at The Novel Cafe until that occurrence was fully processed.
.        “Go ahead,” he said, aware that this time of day saw a decline in business until about seven.  “Otherwise we’ll both be back here, wiping off the counters and equipment.”
.        She would have asked him if he minded covering for a break, but she’d already taken it at three when Vivvi watched the cafe while she gave head to Keene.  She shivered thinking about it now, kneeling in front of him, bringing down his zipper, eager to finally get her hands, and her mouth, on him.  She’d swallowed him the minute she saw skin, tilting her head and opening up her throat to take him all in.  She kept going until she felt his torso on her lips; he groaned and she gagged, embarrassed at her freshman over-enthusiasm.
.        “Just go slow,” he whispered, stroking her hair.  “It’s not going anywhere.”
.        She never got him very deep again, but he didn’t seem to mind.  He held her head, moving it gently, guiding her back and forth, up and down, telling her what he liked, how to use her hands and her tongue.  At a certain point he eased her away, turning toward the toilet and manipulating himself.  She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, her hands reaching for his penis.
.        “Let me help,” she cooed, and he put his hands over hers and together they pumped fast and hard until he reached full release.   He leaned back against her and she rested her head on his right shoulder-blade, her hands still enveloping him as he wilted, loving the feeling of him in her palms, his juices on her fingers.  She felt a pulsing between her legs, the area hot and vacuous, weeping to be gored.  She felt it now, while she moved the packages of shortbread biscuits into the slot next to the boxes of vanilla tea bags, and she mashed her thighs together, willing her tingling clitoris to behave.
.        After her shift she sat silently in her car, the windows rolled down, thinking of Keene and his penis.  It was funny how the mind did that.  First there was just Keene, the frequent customer with the brown curly hair and adorable smile, and now there was Keene and his penis.  They were separate to her, just as they separated her into two parts:  the woman who was obsessed with Keene, and the woman who was obsessed with Keene’s penis.
.        She supposed she could consider herself a woman now, even though she was technically still a virgin.  At nineteen, she was  considered by most to be a girl:  specifically her work supervisors, college professors, and anyone else in the g-pop over forty; and especially her mom and dad.  Christ, if either one in that latter group could have seen her at three-fifteen today.  She smiled, and not just from the hypothetical looks on their faces.  She smiled now, as she always did whenever her thoughts traveled anywhere in the vicinity of Keene Forbes.
.        Often after her shift she would come out to her car and sit there for a good half hour, thinking about her most recent interaction with him, mentally reliving some of her other favorite moments if there was nothing new to dream about.  She fantasized about what their life could be like together, the kind of house they would live in, the children they would have, the colleagues they would entertain, the friends they would travel with.  She imagined lounging on the deck of a yacht on some exotic, turquoise waters.   Almost always she drifted back to the day she’d first seen him eight months ago, when she’d been sitting in the cafe, filling out her job application.
.        Located in a shopping plaza less than a mile from where she was enrolled in classes at the community college, The Novel Cafe seemed a perfect place to work for a girl who spent more time in Starbucks and Barnes and Noble than a classroom.  One of a small but growing chain of bookstores in central and western Pennsylvania, this particular location was the most recent to open its doors.  Considering she patronized them on a virtual daily basis, securing a job there was more than just logical; for Mercy it was a no-brainer.
.        She’d been occupying a table by the window, sipping an iced mango tea limeade and transferring onto the application the names and numbers of personal references from her iPhone address book when a man approached, excusing himself for interrupting and asking if he could use the plug behind her chair.  She placed him in his late twenties, with chestnut curly hair and brown eyes.  The smooth directness with which he spoke, the way he enunciated his words, was executed with such subtle confidence she instantly pegged him for some kind of English teacher.  Later she would discover she wasn’t far off the mark; Keene was actually a writer, and had been published in several literary journals as well as a number of Internet magazines.  After a month of interacting with him, and garnering his full name from his credit card, she looked him up and ordered several back issues of the magazines that contained his work.  From his articles and stories she would cobble together the man for whom she would develop and all-consuming love.
Her first day of work had her on the floor, re-stocking books and becoming acclimated with the many categories of literature.  She ran into Keene in the teen section, his arms full of vampire sagas.
.        “Don’t judge,” he said with an embarrassed smile.  “It’s research for my work.”
.        Between then and now, not an entry in her journal went by without her recording a snappy comeback she could have made.  What she came up with that day was by far the most forgettable.
.        “Campaigning to become president of the Ian Somerhalder fan club?”
.       Lame as it was, it earned her a smile and a chuckle.  She was still appreciating the magic of both when he left the aisle.  Before he did, however, he said to her, “Congratulations on getting the job.”
.        The rest of her shift was spent with the goofiest of smiles on her face, she was so tickled with the idea that he remembered her from two weeks ago, from the smallest of encounters.  It was true she remembered him, but only because she had been instantly attracted.  Obviously he was too, and that fact caused her to not only grin like a simpleton, but bust into a giggle here and there throughout the night, causing one of her grumpier co-workers–an overweight thirty-year-old woman named Sheree with Chucky doll hair and a nose ring that made her resemble Elsie the Borden cow–to mumble miserably, “Weird-o.”
.        But why wouldn’t he find her memorable?  She was young and bubbly, blonde and wholesome, resembling Cheryl Ladd the first time she’d bounced onto the screen as Charlie’s newest angel.  Mercy had her banging body, too, with plump perky breasts, flat stomach and lady shaver advertisement-perfect legs.  Legs she wanted to fling over his shoulders, thighs she wanted to squeeze and lock around his neck, drawing his face into her wetness.
.        She’d never had these kinds of dirty thoughts before.  Keene awakened them in her, and once they’d been animated, there was no silencing them.
.        He came to the counter the first day she’d worked the cafe.  She was learning the register and he spoke to her in his silky voice.
.        “Hello, Mercy.  How’s the job going?”
.         Her heart leapt that he had addressed her by name; then she realized she was wearing a name tag.  Still, it felt great to watch his mouth form her name, to hear it roll off his tongue.  She tingled in her private place.
.        “I love it,” she said with an enthusiastic smile.  “It’s a great place to work.  And seeing people like you make it better.”
.        He’d blushed slightly.  “Thank you.  You’re a day-brightener yourself.”
.        “Thank you,” she responded.  “What can I get for you today?”
.        He got a large coffee and peach danish, and she asked how his research was going.
.        “On to the next project,” he answered.  “Thanks for asking.”
.        Oh, hadn’t they been so polite back then.  Who could have seen that many months down the line they’d be in the rest room, his dick in her mouth?
.        Mercy.  That’s who.