I puttered around the 7-Eleven store where I worked, fronting shelves. Business was slow that afternoon. Country music played on the radio.

A woman came in that I knew only from the brief conversations we had at the cash register. I called her Saucy.

“Hey Saucy,” I said.


I was eighteen. It was the early eighties when I worked at 7-Eleven and I was obsessed with sex.

In my waking hours I would imagine a porn film being projected on a screen inside my head. If something turned me on my imagination would create new footage that the projectionist would splice into the loop.

Saucy was on that loop.

My imaginary projectionist was a serious guy with black horn rimmed glasses and a white smock. He operated a sixteen millimeter projector with big reels at the front and back.

The film projector reminded me of high school when we’d get to watch a movie instead of doing work. The lights were turned off, the reels would clatter and I would be mesmerized.



I used nicknames for the regulars that came into my store because I could never remember their real names.

I only used the nickname if we were alone because, one day during a rush, I greeted a regular with, “Hey Wildman.” After checking out a few more customers another one of my regulars said, “I thought I was Wildman.”

He wasn’t mad, he was amused, but it embarrassed me. It made me want to be more creative. Or more discrete.


Saucy was in her twenties. She was thin with dark wavy hair and pert, compact breasts. I flirted with her though I figured she wouldn’t be interested in a guy like me because I was only eighteen and worked at a 7-Eleven store. She looked like she had a checking account and a car payment. Maybe even a credit card.

I called her Saucy because of how she dressed. She wore halter tops and Daisy Dukes when she visited my store, but she was very shy. So ‘Saucy’ was a little ironic as a nickname for her but she seemed to like it.


The 7-Eleven where I worked had a shopping cart. Just one. It had a 7-Eleven logo stamped into the plastic handle to prove it hadn’t been stolen from a grocery store. Other 7-Elevens had one as well.

Most of the time the shopping cart wasn’t used as a shopping cart. We would fill it with sale items or stuff it with boxes from the cooler and push it outside to the dumpster. Sometimes a little old lady would use it as a walker.

Saucy had grabbed our shopping cart and pushed it up and down the aisles, as if she was in a real grocery store. She was filling it with all kinds of stuff. A dusty can of beans, a two-liter bottle of soda, a bottle of whiskey and paper plates. I was gonna have to use the big grocery bags for all that stuff.

It looked like Saucy was planning a party. It was strange to come to a 7-Eleven to buy party supplies. We were expensive.

When she came to the counter she glanced up briefly and said, “Hey there,” and started lifting items out of the grocery cart.

I picked up each one, looked for the price tag, punched the number into the cash register then put it in the bag. I filled the bag, pushed it aside and reached for another. I opened the next bag with a snap and flattened the bottom by running my hand around inside it. I grabbed things and punched in numbers until I came across a small box.

On the side of the box was a picture of a Roman soldier wearing a bristle brush helmet and the word Trojan.

The porn projected in my head paused and the light bulb burned the film in two. The naked actors disappeared in a blinding white light. The reel spun and the broken film slapped against the projector. The projectionist stood frozen. We investigated that little box together.

Slap, slap, slap.

In my hand was physical evidence that sex was going happen. I knew it happened all the time. I had had sex myself and it was wonderful. But, to see evidence of sex at large: out in the wild, was fantastic!

A man buying condoms is thought of as hopeful. He is hoping to have sex. He is preparing himself in case he finds himself in the presence of a willing partner who wants to go all the way.

A woman buying condoms? Somebody’s gettin’ some.

I’ve seen this before in movies set in the fifties, when condoms were kept behind the counter at the drugstore. A clean cut kid would come in and ask an older man behind the counter for things. Rapid fire.

The old guy would bend down to grab one thing then be reaching up high for the next. The customer would keep the old man busy and then throw in, “A box of condoms,” and quickly move on, thinking the old man wouldn’t register his request as unusual.

I thought I was a nice guy. The problem was that in my mind, along with a porn projectionist and an overactive imagination was a clown. That damn clown always got me into trouble.

My imagination had already created new footage for the projector. After my projectionist spliced in the new footage I could see Saucy taking off her clothes. I could see her belly button, the mound of hair pushing out the front of her panties (it was the 80s) and her little nipples denting the front of her bra.

In my head the clown pranced out and handed the projectionist a note with a flourish and we read it together.

“Must be somebody’s birthday,” I said. I held up the box of condoms so Saucy would know I’d seen it, then tossed it in the bag.

She blushed. Her nipples stiffened. I ignored her reaction and kept ringing up the groceries and putting them in the sack.

I told her the total, she handed me money and I gave her change and a receipt. I asked if she wanted help with her bags. Still red in the face she gave a curt shake of her head as she scooped up her groceries and skedaddled.

I went back to fronting the shelves. I hummed along with the tune playing on the radio. The projectionist in my head was still splicing new material into the everlasting porn projector when he was handed another note.

“She thinks you’re an asshole,” it said.

“I know, I know,” I said.