After AnimeCon 2: Comparison is the Thief of Joy

    “Kitten?” Kelly grumbled, grabbing across the covers. “Emily?”

    Her fumbling hand grasped the folds and wrinkles of blanket and eventually found an errant pillow. Turning onto her other side with a huff, Kelly blindly groped for Emily and found nothing but twisted sheets and a spread of empty mattress. There was morning light coming in through the window, so with great reluctance Kelly cracked open one eye to squint around the bedroom.

    “Emily?” Kelly sighed. “You had one job. Cuddle your boss babe girlfriend before she has to go wageslave away and be the breadwinner. But noooo.”

    She closed her eye and sagged back down into the plush comfort of her pillow, satisfied that being sassy out loud would summon her cute girlfriend from wherever she was in the apartment. As moments of waiting stretched into a sleepy minute without any response however, Kelly tossed aside the covers and sat up with a groan. The bed felt enormous and lonesome when she had it all to herself—for the past month they had shared it with Brian while he was stuck in his healing coma.

    “Emily?” Kelly called. “Brian? Fuck. What time is it?!”

    The phone she had been borrowing from Christine wasn’t on the nightstand, and so Kelly spurred herself on with some urgency, hopping out of bed and hurrying out into the apartment’s kitchen. A half-naked Brian was dozing on the sofa nearby, the whiteboard was propped up on the counter and dense with messages written all over it, and the digital clock on the oven read 10:15. Relieved at least that she wasn’t late for work, Kelly first checked on Brian.

    “Babe?” Kelly dropped her voice to a whisper. “Brian Bear?”

    He didn’t rouse at her words, so after realizing that her hand had started to stretch out to reach for him, Kelly pulled back and forced all of those feelings down. Standing vigil over him for a month while he was in stasis had been a wretched time just waiting and waiting and never knowing for sure how things would play out. Even now that he seemed fine, she just had an urge to shake him awake to make sure. 

    Chill Kelly, just chill. He’s fine. Everything’s fine!

    Turning her attention to the white board propped up on the counter, Kelly saw that the two absent girls had left missives in blue dry erase marker.

     OKAY HEY, SO I CLEANED UPPA BIT FROM U GUYS LAST NIGHT (OMG LIKE A GALLON OF CUM!!!) AND I’M FUCKING VIBRATTING WITH MAGIC ENERGY. MY EYES HAVE A BLUE GLOW IN THE CENTER AND IT LOOKS SUPER FUCKINN BADASS MAN. SUPER BADASS. IT’S SO COOL I TOOK A BUNCH OF PICTURES BUT THEY DONT SHOW UP ON CAMERA. JUST IN THE BATHROOM MIRROR. LAME! STILL IM SUPER FUCKNG SUPERSUPERCHARGED WITH MAGIC THO AND I THINK I HAVE MY POWERS FIGURED OUT. FOR SURE THIS TIME. HEADING OVER 2 MY OLD PLACE FOR A FEW DAYS 2 PRACTICE IN SECRET. TOP SECRET!!! 

PS. LOVE U ALL!!!

PSS. I DIDNT SLURP STUFF DIRECTLY FROM CHRISTI’S MUFF OK LOL. (SORRY CHRISTI!) BUT CAME CLOSE LOL. (NO OFFENSE LMAO) LOLOL. WANT THE FIRST PUSS I ACTUALLY GO DOWN ON 2 B KELLYS? SORRY IVE BEEN WEIRD ABOUT IT KELL BUT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT AND THINK IM PROB READY SOON. READY FOR THAT. U KNOW WHAT THIS ISNT REALLY STUF I SHOULD BE PUTTING ON THE BOARD 4 EVERYONE TO READ. NOBODY ELSE READ THAT PART ITS PRIVATE OK

PS.PS.PS LOVE U ALL!!!

    Hey everyone,

    Sorry for also writing in blue if we’re color coding our notes. There wasn’t a gray marker but I’ll try to pick up a bigger set while I’m out today. I was going to make breakfast but there wasn’t much in the fridge. Calling a rideshare so I can get groceries and some other essentials. I should be back in a few hours. Thank you for last night.

—Christine

    Kelly’s eyebrows rose at seeing that Emily was finally coming around to some of the intimate bits that had been outside of her apparent comfort zone, and then she smirked at seeing the difference in Emily’s blocky manuscript and Christine’s small, precise handwriting. Although that last thank you for last night was written overtop a smeary smudge of blue where Christine had obviously erased and rewritten her words several times.

    Selecting the red dry erase marker, Kelly drew a heart in after Emily’s paragraphs, paused, and then put a check mark after Christine’s message, to at least show some acknowledgement there. She honestly felt peeved at Christine for taking the phone with her, because part of her morning ritual had been checking in with Stephanie’s good morning texts for that instant sugar-sweet rush of dopamine—but, she had to remind herself that it was Christine’s phone to begin with. Kelly wasn’t entitled to use it whenever she pleased, anymore. Seeing that everyone was writing in pretty large letters, in the space left over at the very bottom, Kelly wrote:

    WORK UNTIL 6.

    —K.

    She pursed her lips for a moment, comparing her writing to the others and deciding it looked pretty good. Christine penned in neat script, and Emily seemed to chicken scratch scrawl in a manic mess, while Kelly’s own letters were simple, neat, and to the point. Hm, we’ll need to pick a special color marker now for Brian though, won’t we?

    Despite the warning Christine had left, out of habit Kelly padded over and checked the refrigerator anyways—it was indeed pretty empty. A listless sigh escaped, she closed the fridge door, and Kelly shook her head. Checking the clock again, she started the coffee maker, put her hair in a quick ponytail, shimmied into her work slacks, and retrieved her green Dollarydoos uniform polo. It was… nice.

    What a weird thought, Kelly shook her head as she listened to the coffee maker burble away. My work polo is nice.

    When she’d taken the shabby old uniform shirts from her old inner-city Dollarydoos to where she worked now at the Seneca location, her new manager Patricia had given her a sympathetic look… and immediately prepared a set of brand new ones. These were comfortable, pristine in appearance and rather sharp looking, a far cry from the ill-fitting, previously-used, and outdated polos from her old place. Even her scuffed up old blank badge with Kelly appended to it with a label-maker sticker had been retired, and a snazzy new one with her name machine-engraved into the plastic was issued.

    Kelly dumped the fresh coffee into her thermos, immediately scalded herself trying to take quick sips, stooped over the back of the sofa to give Brian a very gentle kiss on the head, and then she quietly made her way out the door. The sunlight was glaring bright, and for once she walked right on past Brian’s car. Now that he was back amongst the living, he would be needing to use it to get around. She took all of these inconveniences in stride, because she’d been reminding herself throughout the past month that she was basically borrowing someone else’s phone, car, and living space.

    The caffeine infusion allowed her waking mind to begin to focus with clarity as she left Altamonte Apartments behind. She had walked to her shifts before, and could make it in twenty minutes so long as she kept up a brisk pace. Unlike living in the sketchy part of the city where she had been with Chelsea, this wasn’t an area where she had to keep her head on a swivel and her purse tucked in tight under one arm.

    Hell, Seneca itself just isn’t THAT big, not compared to what I’m used to, Kelly thought, Emily can get across town to her mother’s place in like, fifteen minutes? The restaurants are close, the college is pretty close, so once Steph is here she’ll be able to get to and from on her bike pretty quick. I’d say the only place of interest that ISN’T in walking distance are Brian and Emily’s friends—that place from last night is way out in the fucking sticks, outside of town.

    She passed along the sidewalks of a suburb, and then a shopping center, and then crossed a busy street at a crosswalk. From there, heading across just a few more parking lots led her to the strip mall where her new Dollarydoos was—rather than squeezed in between a shady cash advance place and a liquor store, this storefront shared space with a high-end beauty salon catering to rich kid tweens named Radiance Select and an upscale bulk sporting goods retailer for school teams and little leagues called Academy Outfitters.

    Dunno what I even thought back then, when Brian said this store was in a nice area, Kelly mused. I figured HOW DIFFERENT CAN THEY BE? It’s Dollarydoos, they’re all the same franchise stores, right? Well—WRONG. Really fucking wrong. Always remember, Kelly. Always.

    Comparison is the thief of joy. The store’s automatic doors slid open for her.

     Despite still being a generic variety store, the Dollarydoos in Seneca was a completely different experience from her time at the inner city one. The clientele was all elementary school teachers looking for cheap classroom decor and grannies window-shopping for knick-nacks, rather than an unwashed throng of low income single mothers with wailing children in tow. This Seneca location didn’t have ratty old threadbare carpets dotted with black patches of stuck gum that employees had to drag out a beat up old vacuum with an extension cord across at the end of every shift. Here, they had nice new clean carpets, and a little flat disk of a robot vacuum they turned on after hours, which bumped its way around the store at night.

    Rather than send the minimum wage lackeys out to clean the store windows with a spray bottle and some paper towels, Patricia had told her that the plaza owner here in Seneca had their own professional window cleaners which came by every month as part of the lease agreement. At each and every turn Kelly found herself downright bamboozled by how neat, nice, and orderly everything at this location was.

    Where are all the shoplifters? The hood folk and thugs, the junkies and the wannabes? Where are all the SKETCHY MOTHERFUCKERS? Why aren’t there shrieking unsupervised children running amuck through our toy aisle and throwing stuff? Instead, we have little girls and boys using inside voices and saying PLEASE and THANK YOU like some kind of deranged fucking psychopaths. I don’t even think I’ve seen a single person pull out food stamps or a government assistance card since I transferred.

    She’d liked her old Dollarydoos, because the work was simple and straightforward, but her job here at the new one was positively cushy, to the point where it was hard for her to see why they were paying her the same to do significantly less work. Half the time there weren’t even any customers, so Kelly wandered the store looking for items to straighten within their rows or to wipe dust off of or rearrange things to display more aesthetically. What was even more maddening was that Patricia was thrilled with her, and already promised a sixty cent raise.

    In a town like this, she could probably make her way up to shift manager within the year and then just coast without having to toil or stress overmuch. The store here wasn’t busy, and at worst she could see the routine of it all turning into boring drudgery. Kelly found herself hung up on how easy things were here, and in equal parts she welcomed and resented all of the changes after moving into a ‘nice’ town full of wealthy neighborhoods.

    Because on the one hand—THANK GOD, and FUCKING FINALLY, and this is a dream job I couldn’t have imagined. But, then, on the OTHER hand…

    It was hard for her to trust the people around here, especially when they were all superficially nice and friendly. Kelly was mentally acclimated to living around the sort of people who’d lived a hard life and never known any other way to be. The polite smiles she saw around her now seemed to be worn by people who’d never had serious hardship, and she had no way of knowing if they were the kind of people who would fold, or the kind who would persevere when the going got tough. They seemed untested to Kelly, and some bitter part of herself wondered if these wealthy soccer-mom types and well-to-do women coming into her store would retain their carefully curated character should push come to shove.

    “Kelly!” A cheerful voice called. “You have the mid-shift today?”

    “Yeah,” Kelly wasn’t going to put on a false smile, but she did give the woman at the counter a polite wave. “Good to see you, Joy.”

    “You too!” Joy beamed. “I made krispie treats for everyone—they’re in the break room. Help yourself, take some. Please! You’d be doing me a favor!”

    In the past few weeks since starting here, Kelly had learned that Joy of the morning shifts was a bored ex-housewife. She was a few years older, dirty blonde, had a sickeningly-sweet attitude, and apparently the roughest part of her exceedingly easy post-divorce era was that she was incredibly bored now that her son was enrolled in kindergarten. Although Kelly found herself almost despising these upperclass picture-perfect stepford-wive types like Joy and Patricia on reflex, it was also true that they’d been nothing but supportive, patient, and polite to Kelly despite Kelly being rather rough around the edges herself. With grudging sighs, Kelly forced herself to return their good intentions until anyone gave her cause to act otherwise.

   Probably pretty fucked up that I keep fantasizing about getting Joy to hook up with Brian, to be honest? Kelly frowned. Gonna happen more and more now that the library manager chick Candace and Brian had like, chemistry going on. Now that he’s up and about and active again, it’s like I just want to fuck him into a crater in the ground and maybe feed women to him.

    Kelly made her way to the back of the store, where Patricia—a late fifties retired school administrator of some sort—was sitting upright with perfect posture at her manager’s desk while unashamedly playing Candy Cram on her phone with the volume the whole way up. Unlike the bare backroom cinderblock walls of her old Dollarydoos, the break room here had a recliner and couches around a TV and a full kitchenette just beside the desk and filing cabinets—here the stockroom for merchandise was another door further back, and they even had two big carts for wheeling boxes of stuff back and forth.

    “Joy made krispies,” Patricia called.

    “Yeah,” Kelly said. “I was warned.”

    She had been expecting a simple covered dish or baking tray of some sort—but no, it turns out Joy wasn’t really that type. Instead, a large multi-tier pastry display with a big glass dome was occupying the center of the kitchenette counter, and the different levels within featured different colors of carefully cut krispie treats, some ‘plain’ and others made with different bright colors of cereal. All of the treats were topped with a drizzle of icing, as well as sprinkles.

    Maybe Joy does just need Brian to pin her down and stroke some tension out of her? Kelly thought with a frown. Seems only fair. Emily has Rebecca coming into the harem, Stephanie’s soon-to-be-boss Candace seems like she’s fair game. Christine could have Brian giving Monique a proper attitude adjustment, maybe fix her face with magic while he’s at it. Does that mean I get a plus one to bring in? C’mon, yeah Kell. Everybody’s doing it.

    “Joy was married, right?” Kelly asked as she stepped over to the computer to sign into the timesheet.

    “Joy? Sure,” Patricia answered. “Her husband was a manager at… at… you know, I don’t quite remember where? A manager somewhere. I hadn’t actually met him. Joy mostly goes on and on about her boy. You’re not married, right?”

    “I live with my girlfriend and our other friend,” Kelly reminded her.

    “Ooh, right, of course,” Patricia nodded. “Thought so! Should have known. Well, some guy was in this morning, asking for you.”

    “Some guy?” Kelly paused, turning to look. “Who?”

    “I—I’m sorry, I don’t remember his name,” Patricia admitted, still playing her game. “Joy might. Guy your age? Skinny guy, he seemed… nice?”

    “Hmm, skinny?” Kelly frowned. “Asian guy, dressy? Or stoner guy, white?”

    “Err—” Patricia chuckled. “The latter? I suppose? Hah. New friend of yours?”

    “Maybe a friend of a friend who can’t take a hint,” Kelly said, pursing her lips. “Think I met him last night at this bonfire thing. He was bothering Joy?”

    “I’m sure she was stonewalling him!” Patricia said. “She knows you have a girlfriend.”

    Kelly couldn’t help but roll her eyes. The ladies who worked here were incredibly fickle, with their opinions and stances and memory on everything advancing and retreating dependent on the attitude of whoever they were currently speaking to. This was one of the few areas Kelly was much more comfortable with her old Dollarydoos—her last manager Janet was a brusque old broad who didn’t give a damn about mincing words or stepping on toes. Kelly’s patience for girl politick had never been strong in the first place.

    Moving here to Seneca had Kelly thinking about that kind of thing a lot.

    Because—I AM rough around the edges. Or… I WAS. The charm uh, I guess SMOOTHED some of that edge away to make me compatible with Brian and Emily and them. I knew that happened, and I thought I was okay with it. I AM okay with it. Mostly. Steph had my cold dead heart opening up to actually falling in love and everything. Brian has me legit trusting a guy and feeling all submissive and shit, which is getting weirdly hot. Emily and I are like, WORKING THROUGH relationship bullshit, like we’re a couple. Which isn’t something I do.

    What’s the END RESULT of that? Kelly found herself staring with a frown at the ostentatious glass dessert display occupying the kitchenette counter. Am I gonna wake up some day and realize I’m baking krispie treats for my coworkers? Some docile and obedient airheaded bimbo, like Em and I joke about? I know we were all sick of Brian getting hung up on the mind control thing, but every once in a while I stop and think about it all… and it’s all just really fucking scary. 

    Smoothing some of my rough edges? Yeah. Sure. I basically scored BIG with everyone, I love them to death. But—did this process or whatever STOP there, or am I still actually tumbling and tumbling in the rock tumbler that is this harem magic nonsense and getting my personality polished into someone I won’t even recognize? Fuck, going without my morning fix has me all crabby. Need to get my phone fixed. Need some of that Stephie fire coursing through my veins and making me feel invincible. Feeling out her uhh, her PINK makes my RED feel more RED. Everything makes sense and fits into place with her—even my attitude adjustment.

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