Women in Uniform V
The fake fur annoys my pits, and the oversized rabbit head sits heavy on my shoulders like a punishment for every bad decision I've made since turning nineteen.
I adjust the elastic strap under my chin, feeling sweat already gathering at my hairline despite the shop's aggressive air conditioning.
Three weeks. That's how long my bank account has been gasping for air. The rent check bounced on Tuesday.
Maurice stands behind the glass counter, arranging truffles in neat rows with thick fingers. He's got that silver-temple thing happening, dark hair streaked with grey at the sides, and a belly that strains against his white shirt. Shop owner. My potential employer. The man who controls whether I eat next week or not.
"The ears need to stay up," he says without looking at me. "Parents complain when the ears droop. Makes the kids think the bunny's sad."
I reach up and adjust the wire frame inside the fabric. The right ear keeps flopping forward.
"Is this better?"
He glances over. His eyes travel down the costume—the white bodysuit, the pink satin vest, the puffy cottontail pinned to my lower back—and something shifts in his expression.
A pause. His gaze sticks on the tail for two seconds too long before snapping back to the truffles.
"Fine," he says.
"Start handing out samples by the door. Smile. Don't talk—bunnies don't talk."
Right. I grab the wicker basket of foil-wrapped chocolate eggs and position myself near the entrance. The shop smells like cocoa and sugar and something caramelised.
Outside, the mall foot traffic moves in clusters—mothers with strollers, teenagers with shopping bags, and old couples walking slowly. I hold out the basket and smile behind the mesh mouth of the rabbit head.
The morning crawls. Kids grab chocolate with sticky fingers. One toddler screams when I offer him an egg—apparently, I'm terrifying—and his mother shoots me an apologetic look.
My feet ache in the cheap white boots. The tail keeps brushing against the doorframe when I turn, and I'm hyperaware of it, this ridiculous puff of white that draws eyes every time I move.
Around eleven, Maurice brings me a water bottle.
"Hydrate," he says. "You'll pass out otherwise."
I drink through the gap in the mask, water dribbling down my chin.
He watches. Not my face—lower.
The way my throat moves when I swallow. The costume is unflattering, shapeless, but his attention doesn't seem to care.
"Thank you," I say. "For the job. I know it's just seasonal."
"Everyone starts somewhere."
He takes the empty bottle from my hand. His fingers brush mine. Dry skin, warm. A wedding ring indent on his left hand—no ring, just the ghost of one.
"You're doing fine."
Lunch is a ten-minute break in the stockroom, sitting on a crate of cocoa powder, the rabbit's head off for the first time in hours. The air con hits my damp hair.
Through the doorway, I can hear Maurice helping a customer, his voice low and professional. When the customer leaves, his footsteps approach.
"How's our bunny?"
He stops in the doorway. His eyes find my face—bare, flushed, hair plastered to my forehead—and something passes over his features.
Recognition, maybe. That I'm not just a costume. That there's a girl inside.
"Better now." I wipe my forehead with my paw. The absurdity of it makes me laugh—a small, exhausted sound.
He doesn't laugh with me. He looks.
Then: "Five more minutes."
The afternoon crowd is thicker. Easter is in three days, and impulse buying is in full swing. I hand out eggs until the basket is empty, then return to the counter for a refill.
Maurice is boxing a huge, special handmade chocolate rabbit for a woman in a tennis skirt. His hands move efficiently, tucking ribbon, smoothing tissue paper. Competent hands.
"You need more eggs," he says when the customer leaves.
He reaches under the counter for a bag of foil-wrapped chocolates, and when he straightens, he's closer than necessary.
I can smell his cologne—sandalwood, something leathery underneath. The cottontail brushes his hip as I take the bag.
His breath catches. Barely. A slight hitch I wouldn't have noticed if I weren't standing this close.
"Careful with the tail," he says. His voice is different. Lower.
"It's... prominent."
I don't know what to say to that, so I say nothing. Bunnies don't talk.
The hours blur. My lower back aches from the weight of the head.
The costume's interior is damp with sweat, clinging to places I don't want to think about.
Every time I pass Maurice, I'm aware of his eyes tracking me—specifically the tail. The way it bounces when I walk. The way it sticks out, round and white and ridiculous.
At three o'clock, the shop empties for a lull. I'm restocking the display shelf near the counter, reaching for the top row, when I feel him move behind me. Close. Too close for an employer. His breath stirs the fur at the back of my neck.
And then his hand finds the tail. Not adjusting it. Squeezing it. His palm pressing the puff of polyester against my lower back, fingers curling under to graze the curve of my ass through the fluffy costume fabric.
The shelf is in front of me, the counter behind me, and his hand is on my tail like it belongs there.
"Oh," I say.
My voice comes out steady, which surprises me.
"I expected that soon."
A girl has to know and adjust to every guy's kink to move through this world and survive.
His hand stills. I can feel the shift in him—the calculation, the surprise, the decision being made in real-time.
"Did you?"
Not a question. A confirmation.
I turn around. The rabbit head bumps his chin, and he reaches up to lift it off me, setting it on the counter. My face is exposed—flushed, damp, my hair a disaster. His eyes search mine.
His hand swings the shop is closed sign, locks the door, and pulls the blind.
"I need this job," I say. "A real one. Full-time. Not just seasonal."
"I know."
His thumb traces my jaw. The rough pad of it catches on my dry lip.
"We can discuss that."
"After," I say.
His mouth twitches.
"After."
He kisses me like he's been thinking about it all day—since the moment I walked in wearing this stupid costume, since the tail first caught his eye. His tongue pushes past my teeth, and I taste coffee and chocolate.
His hands find my waist, pulling me against him, and I feel it—his cock, hard through his slacks, pressing into my belly.
I fumble with his belt. My paws are useless, the oversized gloves making me clumsy, and he bats them away to do it himself.
The metal clinks. The zipper rasps. His cock springs free—thick, veined, the head already glistening.
"On the counter," he says.
I hop up, scattering truffle boxes. He pushes the costume's bottom aside—there's a seam, thank God, and he tears it wider with one rough yank.
Cool air hits my thighs, then his fingers hook my underwear aside, and he's there, pushing into me with one long stroke that makes my spine arch.
"Fuck," I gasp. "Oh, fuck—"
"Like rabbits," he says against my neck, and then he's moving, pounding into me with deep, relentless thrusts that rock the counter.
Chocolate boxes tumble to the floor. Glass rattles. His hands grip my hips hard, and I wrap my legs around him, pulling him deeper.
"Oohh! Yes! Yes! Oohh!"
The costume is ridiculous—sweaty polyester bunched around my waist, pink vest askew, my bare thighs spread for a man thirty-six years older than me.
But his cock fills me perfectly, hitting that spot inside that builds the pressure to my core.
"Harder," I say. "Maurice—please—"
He obliges. Each thrust punctuated by the slap of skin and the wet sound of my folded, crinkly, flappy shape, with its internal rose petal design, swallowing him.
I'm dripping, soaking the costume fabric, and when his thumb finds my clit I shatter—my bead heads towards its predetermined detonation.
A path I know, but never the exact second of arrival.
All anticipation.
Sweet anticipation.
Bliss in every touch. Sparks in every thumb roll. Thrills in every sideways or upward push.
Heaven delivered by a thumb and a plunging pecker.
"Oohh! Aahh! Mmm, mmm! Aahh!"
How else do we express abso-fucking-appreciation.
The build is there, always there in the touch. The release is the magic, elixir-defining, exhilarating moment.
The alchemy of touch: a thumb, a jelly bean nub, combine for rapture.
"Nnghh!"
My primal, girly proclamation of bodily fulfilment.
I cum with a wail that echoes through the empty shop, my walls clenching around him in spasms.
He follows three thrusts later, burying himself deep and groaning against my shoulder as he spills hot jizz inside me.
My pulse is hammering.
A mess of chocolate and scattered boxes around us.
He pulls back, tucks himself into his slacks, and looks at me—really looks.
Flushed and fucked and still perched on his counter with my costume in tatters.
"Full-time," he says. "Starting Monday."
I meet his eyes.
"Benefits?"
"Full package."
He unwraps and feeds me a truffle.