I slowly craned my head and narrowed my eyes as I slowly shuffled my way towards the source of the sound. My head was throbbing in sync with the moans coming from the changing rooms.

While I would’ve loved to leave the lovebirds to their business, whatever mess they ended up making would be on my head to clean up! And that made it my business!

“Hey, assholes! Find a room that I don’t have to clean up afterwards! You’ve got cars, dontcha?!” I shouted while violently slamming my fist into the cheap plywood door.

“Oh shit!” whispered a voice from inside. I recognized it as belonging to the customer I’d given directions to earlier. That was probably why he was so excited about ‘shopping’.

“If you two ‘finish up’ first, I swear I’m going to grab whatever spunk you leave behind with my bare hands and throw it at you! And I’ll be aiming for your mouth!” God, I hope that didn’t come off as kinky to them. I had no intention of following through with that threat.

Luckily, I didn’t have to. Within a few seconds, the door unlocked and out walked the unfortunate couple, the man from before with a woman I didn’t know. As they passed me, the sensation in my mind reached a crescendo.

[Skill Level Up! Detect Cheating lv 1 -> 2]

The words flashed in my vision, forcing me to take a step back in surprise.

Oh, so that must’ve been what that feeling was. I was thankful for it not being something like a migraine or an aneurysm, but it still didn’t make it any less annoying.

With that mystery out of the way, I took a quick peek inside the changing room and confirmed that it was clean, save for a few neatly folded articles of clothing placed on a bench. I sighed in relief at stopping trouble before it started and was greeted with an entirely different surprise.

“Mike! What the hell are you doing?!” shouted Judd from behind me.

“Stopping a mess before it happened.”

“Why did you do that to our best customer? She comes here several times a week to buy clothes and you just chased her away!”

“She was having sex in the changing room!” I replied indignantly. “Was I just supposed to let her continue?”

“Yes!” he shouted back, not entirely making eye contact. ”She uses this place for her rendezvous, and it’s a different guy every time who always buys her something expensive when they mess their own clothes up.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I leered at his response, [Detect Cheating] going off even harder all of a sudden. Wait… “You want to be one of those rendezvous partners! And I just ruined those chances for you, didn’t I?”

“I… what?! I’ll have you know I’m married, Mike!” he exclaimed, lifting up his hand to show a gold wedding band. That didn’t stop the strong red blush from covering his cheeks or the stutter in his voice. Yeah, sure buddy. Sure.

“Mr. Wheldon, I finished taking stock of the returns. I heard screaming, is everything alright?” asked Trisha, another employee. Unlike the others, she was only 16 years old, and as far as Mike could tell, much more innocent. I believed it too, seeing as how I didn’t feel that same sensation when she showed up. That was a first for today.

“Oh, Trisha,” replied Judd, eyeing the girl intently. “Just take over at the register, the early rush should be starting soon.”

“Alright, I’ll get on that now!” she replied cheerily as she walked away.

Judd kept his gaze focused on her, which I would’ve normally dismissed, but with how his eyes lingered downwards and how he licked his lips with that smile…

“She’s sixteen, you know,” I replied disgustedly.

“And legal in a few months,” he replied back.

I stared at him dumbfounded. People said working retail was hell, and now I knew why. The droning feeling in my mind was starting to take its toll, and combined with the experience I’d had today, I was done. After taking a long, drawn out breath, I turned around and began walking.

“Hey, where are you going?” asked Judd.

“You’ll see!” I replied cheerily. My giddy smile only gave a glimpse of the manic energy flowing through me. It was time I turned in my resignation in a way that would make Judd think twice about pulling the same stunt again.

It wasn’t long before I was interrupted once more.

“Hey Mike,” came a familiar voice as I was headed to the main till. I turned to see Cathy calling me over alongside Andre. The two were close enough to be touching shoulders, and [Detect Cheating] went off again. “We need to talk.”

“We’ve been talking, and you’ve changed,” added Andre.

“For the worse,” concluded Cathy.

“What’s up?” I asked, mildly annoyed.

“You’ve been acting up today and treating us pretty badly, so we decided to let you know,” replied Cathy, grabbing Andre’s hand as a symbol of their solidarity against me. Or was it that they were together now? Who even cared at this point?

“And the first step of that is to get you to start back on the right path, and that means doing what we told you to earlier today,” said Andre, now with a firm glare.

“Start tagging the other sets of shirts and restocking the blouses, or we’re going to tell Judd that you aren’t being a team player,” concluded Cathy.

I stared at the two dumbly. After standing up for myself as Mike Smith, this was how they decided to respond. With blackmail. You know what? This just made what I was about to do even more fun!

Time for some scorched Earth, motherfuckers!

“Alright, sure! But first, let me just take care of one more thing,” I said, as I continued towards the register.

I reached the intercom unmolested and cranked the volume high enough to broadcast throughout the entire store, and hopefully into the mall outside. The initial static and feedback of the electronic setup got everyone’s attention, and my co-workers walked over towards me with curiosity.

Scorched Earth, motherfuckers.