Back Room Threesome

“Back room. Door’s unlocked.”

I kept the phone in my hand while I finished the cooler. The last two cartons of milk went on the bottom shelf. I closed the door and listened to the compressor start. The sales floor was empty. The register light stayed on. I walked past the mop bucket and the stacked crates of returned bottles. The back-room door was already ajar. I pushed it shut behind me.

Inside, the fluorescent strip hummed on its timer. Ann stood at the metal table. Debbie was between two towers of flattened cardboard. Neither spoke. Ann looked at me, then at the shut door, then back at me. She stepped forward and took hold of my shirt at the waist. She pulled once, steady. I moved with it, and for a second I thought about stepping back instead — the memory of another night, another hesitation that had left the three of us circling each other for weeks afterward. I didn’t step back. Debbie’s hand came to the same place from the other side, fingers spread flat against the fabric.

The light clicked once, lower now. The aisle between the boxes left no room to shift weight without touching. Ann’s grip stayed where it was. Debbie’s hand did not move. I could hear the cooler running on the other side of the wall and the faint scrape of cardboard under someone’s shoe.

I shifted my weight to keep my balance as Ann’s hands moved upward under my shirt. Her fingers found my belt a moment later, working the buckle loose without hurry, and the waistband shifted low on my hips before she let it settle. The metal table edge pressed against the back of my thighs when she guided us sideways in one short step, a crate corner catching me hard behind the knee. I bit down on the sound that wanted out.

We paused there, the three of us adjusting our feet among the crates until no one blocked the narrow aisle to the door. Ann lifted her own shirt only far enough for it to clear her waistband. She turned and leaned back against the table, and the cold edge met the small of her back with a sharp breath she didn’t try to hide. She rested her forearms on the table at her sides and stayed there, elevated, watching.

The cardboard underfoot gave a low creak when Debbie lowered first, knees bending, one hand still on me until she settled on the flattened stack. I followed her down, going to my knees in the same motion, the table’s edge sliding away from the backs of my legs. Ann stayed where she was above us, forearms braced on the metal, her knee coming over mine and holding there, locking the three of us into a single shape.

Debbie’s jeans opened at the button and zipper once we were on the floor; the denim stayed bunched at her hips, and she reached down once to guide me before her hand returned to my shoulder. The only sounds were the drag of fabric and the measured pull of breath through closed mouths. The light dimmed another notch, and Ann’s eyes cut toward it, then toward the door, a half-second of stillness passing between the three of us before anyone moved again.

Ann’s grip tightened first, fingers pressing hard into my shoulder in one sudden motion, like she’d decided something, and then let go all at once. Debbie’s hand found my other shoulder a moment later, the tension building slow in her forearm, holding, releasing by degrees rather than all at once, her breath catching high in her throat and staying there, swallowed before it could turn into sound. My own release came after both, marked only by the sudden slack in the hands that held me, and I held my own breath until it passed, eyes on the thin door across the room.

We stayed still until the cooler compressor cut off.

Ann pushed off the table. She smoothed her shirt down and reached for her phone, thumb finding the screen, and for a moment she just looked at the time without speaking. Debbie shifted beside me, still catching her breath, and glanced at Ann before either of us moved further. I put a hand against the table and pushed myself back, clearing the space between the boxes, my legs unsteady enough that I braced twice.

Debbie stood and fastened the button and zipper of her jeans, tugging the denim back into place before she bent for the fallen crate and set it upright against the wall. I righted my own waistband and worked the belt buckle closed again, cinching it while I stood. The door to the sales floor remained shut. Each of us took a separate aisle and began restacking the returns that had been left on the floor.