Chapter 2

The next day, Brichelle again wore her hair in a long braid and Valerie playfully tugged on it.

“”I want you to do mine like that,” she demanded and pulled her hair out of the thick bun.

Brichelle saw that Valerie had not been exaggerating; her hair reached the floor and trailed behind her a few inches more. Valerie wiggled onto a stool behind the counter and sighed as Brichelle ran a brush through the tousled hair.

Then Brichelle deftly braided a few thin braids, creating nearly twenty long braids. She gathered them all together and joined the thick mass of braids at the back of Valerie’s head. A pink ribbon held all the braids together.

“Oh, I just love it!” Valerie giggled happily.

She even whipped her head back and forth, letting the braids flail out.

“Careful,” Brichelle laughed. “Almost took out the Halloween display.”

“Valerie, need a ‘Get Well but Really Don’t Care If You Do or Not’ card; what you got?” Ms. Baker demanded as she swept into the shop. “Oh my, Valerie, I just love your hair like that.”

“Ms. Baker, you are a horrible woman; these are friends of yours, I would assume?” Valerie smiled as she showed her customer to the ‘Get Well Soon’ cards selection.

“No, they’re just people I unfortunately have to deal with,” the woman smiled.

After their lunch, Brichelle perched on the stool and let Valerie braid her hair as well. Valerie found a lace ribbon that matched the lace blouse Brichelle was wearing.

“I’m sure your boyfriend will think this is just adorable,” Valerie encouraged as she tied all the braids together.

“What boyfriend?” Brichelle said, almost bitterly.

“Oh?” Valerie asked, softly resting her hand on Brichelle’s shoulder.

“Let him have sex,” Brichelle admitted.

She’d not even told her mother that she and Alan had gone all the way, even though Michelle had encouraged Brichelle to be honest and open with her.

Brichelle had wondered what the big deal was. Alan slobbered all over her breasts then grabbed his cock and jammed the latex covered member into her dry pussy.

Three painful strokes later, he was grunting happily.

And since that evening, whenever they were together, Alan expected their evening to end in the rear of his Honda Accord. The few times she’d refused, Alan had sat and sulked.

“Just not worth it,” Brichelle had decided.

Yes, they were using condoms, and Brichelle had been on birth control pills since the eighth grade, but there was still a possibility of pregnancy. Brichelle herself was an ‘Oops’ baby.

And, while Alan seemed to enjoy it, sex just wasn’t all that pleasant for Brichelle.

Bailey Cooper, her former best friend, had been very quick to snare Alan after the break up. And both Bailey and Alan had been happy to let Brichelle know that they were having sex.

Valerie softly rubbed Brichelle’s shoulder as the girl related the story to her

“Men, especially young men can be so foolish,” she advised.

“Yeah,” Brichelle agreed.

Two weeks after walking into Valerie’s Notions, Brichelle was handed her first pay check. Even though the check was only for one week’s pay; Valerie had explained the pay schedule to Brichelle, the check was still a substantial amount.

“Ms. Valerie?” Brichelle asked, verifying again the dollar amount of the check.

“Brichelle, Sweetie, how many times do I have to tell you?” Valerie smiled. “Just call me Valerie.”

“Ma’am,” Brichelle said, holding up the check. “Why’d you hire me? I been here two weeks and this is more than we made that whole time.”

Valerie smiled and rested her hand on Brichelle’s hip. She stared into Brichelle’s soft eyes.

“I just love being around pretty things; I want to surround myself with pretty things,” she admitted.

She gave an affectionate squeeze to Brichelle’s hip.

“And you are such a pretty thing,” she admitted.

She had taken to giving Brichelle a soft kiss on the cheek in the morning when Brichelle arrived for another day of work, and giving Brichelle a soft kiss on the cheek when the girl left in the evening.

Now, she stepped up and lightly touched Brichelle’s lips with her own.

Brichelle returned the kiss, lightly touching Valerie’s lips with her own. Then they shut off the lights and Valerie locked up the shop.

“See you Monday,” the woman smiled.

Brichelle was a natural salesperson. When a customer came in, looking for this or that, Brichelle suggested that or this to go with the purchase. If they’d had more foot traffic, Brichelle would have doubled or even tripled Valerie Simpson’s profits.

On Thursday morning, Valerie was lightly giggling to herself, humming happily… Brichelle smiled at her boss’s antics.

“Okay, out with it; what are you bouncing all over about?” she demanded after Ms. Baker, their most frequent customer left the shop.

“Oh, I can’t tell you; I’ll have to show you,” Valerie tittered, hazel eyes glowing with excitement.

She bustled toward the stockroom.

“Give me three minutes, no, yes, yes, three minutes, then come back here,” she called out from the door of the stockroom.

Brichelle watched the hands of the grandfather clock, and just as it reached three minutes, walked toward the stockroom. She rapped softly, then opened the door.

“Isn’t it just beautiful?” Valerie asked.

She was wearing an embroidered corset of light lavender color, which pushed her large breasts up. Brichelle blinked; half of her boss’s areolae were visible, her light pink nipples were fat and poking out over the lacy material.

The corset ended at Valerie’s slim waist with a flourish of lace, and three garter straps hung down, holding up sheer lavender stockings. And the matching panties tied to her hips with lavender bows.

“And I bought it in white and pink as well,” Valerie tittered, turning to show Brichelle the back of the outfit. “Isn’t it just perfect?”

“It’s gorgeous,” Brichelle admitted, noticing that the panties were a thong style.

She also noticed that her boss had a nice, tight backside. She had no idea of her boss’s age; if she had to guess she’d say Valerie Simpson was close to thirty five, and Brichelle just assumed that all thirty five year olds had saggy, wrinkled backsides. Their next door neighbor, Mrs. Olsen was thirty six and both her large breasts and large backside were sagging, wrinkled lumps of graying flesh. As was Mr. Olsen.

“And I feel so naughty wearing it!” Valerie confided, grabbing Brichelle’s hands in excitement.

She nodded with her chin toward her nipples.

“It leaves my nipples out in the open,” she whispered, even though they were all alone in the dimly lighted stockroom. “All I can think of is how everyone can probably see them right through my blouse!”

“It’s gorgeous,” Brichelle repeated.

Throughout the day, all Brichelle had to do was look pointedly at Valerie’s substantial chest and Valerie would blush prettily, then giggle. Her giggle would cause Brichelle to giggle as well and then the two women would laugh out loud.

“Stop it!” Valerie demanded, convulsed in laughter.

“You stop it!” Brichelle demanded, trying to catch her breath.

Once safely in her room, after enduring dinner with her step-father and mother, Brichelle logged onto a national lingerie outlet. She blinked at the cost of the corsets and bustiers and decided instead to buy a few more lacy bras; this site seemed to specialize in larger cup sizes.

And the corresponding email said that she’d earned twenty credit points so she put that toward two garter belts and some sheer stockings.

“Need you to open up tomorrow,” Valerie told Brichelle as they ate their lunch the following day.

“Oh?” Brichelle asked, suddenly apprehensive.

“In fact, you’ll probably have to be here the whole day by yourself,” Valerie went on. “Kendra’s got a field trip and I’m one of the field Moms.”

Kendra was Valerie’s youngest; there was a framed photograph on the counter of three smiling girls, all with long blonde hair.

Kendra was the baby at six years old.

“Six, and a half, don’t forget the half,” Valerie smiled.

Alexandra was the next in line, at nearly eight years of age.

“On the first of October,” Valerie said as she showed Brichelle that the alarm code reflected that fact. “See? It’s one zero zero one.”

And then Holly was the first, at eleven years of age.

“Her birthday’s February twenty seventh,” Valerie smiled as she showed Brichelle the digital code for the large floor mounted safe was 0227.

“You’ll do fine,” she encouraged and kissed Brichelle on her lips.

And Brichelle did do fine in the morning, she unlocked the store, feeling quite grown-up, quite mature as she used her very own key to unlock the door, then marched to the beeping keypad and punched in the code. Then she opened the safe and pulled out the cash register’s drawer.

“Valerie, need a ‘Happy Birthday, Why Are You Still Alive’ card, got anything like that?” Ms. Baker announced as she strode in. “Where’s Valerie?”

“Kendra’s got a field trip,” Brichelle explained as she helped the woman locate a birthday card.

“Tell her that’s just unacceptable,” Ms. Baker smiled and told Brichelle to keep the twenty eight cents change.

Throughout the day, her feeling of being grown up, responsible, mature, did not fade. She helped the four walk-ins and when there was no one in the store, walked around, straightening up things. She even ran the carpet sweeper over the plush carpet.

At closing time, she ran the cash register’s close out sequence, then locked both cash register drawer and register tape into the safe. She punched in the alarm code, turned off the lights, and then locked the front door.

The next morning, Valerie was not there to let Brichelle in, so Brichelle used her key, punched in the code, then got the cash register drawer out of the safe.

“I hate these Saturdays,” Valerie said as she stepped into the stockroom.

“What? Why?” Brichelle asked.

“Oh, Roger has the girls,” Valerie sniffed. “Then I got to go home to a great big old empty house.”

“Aw,” Brichelle commiserated.

Oddly enough, it was a busy Saturday so Valerie had little time to slip into gloomy reflection. But as they locked the door behind the last customer, Brichelle saw the smile slide from her boss’s face.

“So, what you doing tonight?” she quietly asked.

“Hmm? Probably send Kim away and fix myself a big old bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and a box of Girl Scout cookies,” Valerie confessed.

“Oh, I love mint chocolate chip!” Brichelle said. “And who’s Kim?”

“I knew it!” Valerie actually laughed. We MCC girls have to stick together, don’t we? And Kim’s our housekeeper. Her name’s actually Tanen Kimatsuri but Holly couldn’t pronounce all of that so it just got shortened to Kim.”

She then checked the tally on the register against the total sales and nodded in satisfaction.

“So, what about you?” she asked as she pulled the cash register drawer out. “What you got going on?”

“Absolutely nothing; pre-season’s started so Stan’s going to have his fat butt in front of the television,” Brichelle groused.

“Want to come over?” Valerie asked, grabbing Brichelle’s hand. “We’ll destroy a gallon of ice cream and then sit up all night and be miserable?”

“Sure!” Brichelle agreed. “Let me just go home and get something to change into and…”

“I’ll follow you home,” Valerie decided.

Brichelle introduced Valerie to her mother and to her step-father. Stan reminded Valerie that they’d met before and Valerie did smooth any formerly ruffled feathers by complimenting Stan on his workmanship.

In her bedroom, Brichelle went through her sleepwear, finally selecting a soft pink shift. And matching string bikini panties. She rarely wore it anymore; it was just a little too short to wear in front of Stan. She also selected a pair of denim shorts and a snug tee shirt and her tennis shoes. It would be Sunday and Valerie couldn’t dictate to Brichelle what she could or could not wear on her day off.

A pair of thong panties and a clean bra, as well as toothbrush, and Brichelle was ready.

“Your boss tells me you’re under strict orders to help her eat a whole gallon of ice cream,” Michelle smiled when Brichelle stepped into the living room.

“And a box of cookies,” Valerie smiled.

“I’ll do my best,” Brichelle mock-sighed.

“Do y’all go to church at any particular time?” Valerie asked.

“No,” Stan interrupted before Michelle could answer. “Church is nothing but a bunch of Holier-Than-Thou ass holes trying tell other people what they got to do or not do.”

“We’re not religious,” Michelle said, her embarrassment evident.

“I’m not particularly religious either,” Valerie shrugged. “Had just about all I could take of my Daddy and Reverend Jim Grayson telling me I was doomed to the fires of Hell.”

Brichelle had never noticed before, but Valerie’s car was a light pink Lexus. The interior was a soft tan leather and Brichelle suddenly felt a little out of place. The overnight bag she’d packed was fraying around the seams, and her purse was also beginning to show signs of wear.