Tableside Manners

“Hello there! Welcome to Bath and Body Works!” a cheerful opossum in black pants and a blue shirt bearing the toiletry store’s branding chirped as she saw Alex approaching the store. Alex smiled wide at her and greeted her, “Helloooo, do you guys have anything mango-scented?” the tigress raised a brow as she set foot in the fragrant store, her nose wiggled and danced as she took in the almost overwhelmingly fruity scent that was typical of Bath and Body Works stores. Dressed in blue jeans and her favorite red turtleneck sweater, Alex adjusted her purse’s position on her shoulder as she waited for the opossum to answer.

“Yes! We have a new tropical fruit collection that just dropped last week! There’s ‘Pineapple Mango’, ‘Mango Mai Tai’, and ‘Mango Extract’, that smell like fresh mango, and we have them in all types, candles, wall plugs, perfume, lotion, hand sanitizer, and soap! Which were you looking to get?” the opossum bounced around, did hand gestures to the different shelves with the different product categories with enthusiasm that Alex almost had trouble keeping up with. Alex nodded along while the opossum spoke, and when she was asked which ones she was looking to purchase, she blinked a few times before she could get her head straight and reply.

“Oh, I’d love some Mango Extract candles, lotion, and soap, please,” Alex smiled softly at the opossum, her teeth showing a little bit.

“Sure! How many? Two of each?” the store clerk raised a brow and tilted her head to the side, eager to assist her customer.

The tigress nodded, “Yes, that would be perfect, thank you.”

The opossum smiled, nodded, and squeaked happily, “Of course! I’ll grab them for you!” She then skipped her way around to the different shelves in the store, grabbing two of each that Alex had specified and brought them over to the checkout counter. She rang up Alex’s total and Alex handed her the money and took the white and blue paper bag with her items inside with a cheerful smile. “Thank you for shopping at Bath and Body Works!”

“Thanks,” Alex said back to the clerk before she stepped out of the store and walked into the main floor of the shopping mall again. “Okay, now we’re done, time to go home, Tashi’s waiting,” she cooed, walking a little bit faster across the mall floor and towards the parking garage. As she made her way across the massive mall floor, a store caught her eye. Alex stopped in her tracks and turned to look at the peculiar store. She was in the part of the mall near the parking garage, the opposite side of the anchor stores, where the smaller and more niche stores were. “Locos,” Alex read the name of the store out loud and continued to just stare at it. The store was the furthest thing from bland, from the outside it looked like a rainforest, messy and lots of deep and dark green tones. It looked like the complete opposite of the Bath and Body Works that she was just in. The tigress had been to the mall many times, but this was the first time she saw this store, was it new? Too curious to continue walking towards the parking garage, Alex changed her plans just a little and marched towards Locos with the intent to just take a little peek, five minutes max!

The bell above the door to the peculiar Amazonian looking store jingled as Alex pushed her way inside. Once she was inside, she was greeted by a large lioness with black hair, filing her claws at the counter. “Hello, welcome to Locos, are you looking for anything in particular today?” She asked, her eyes not even looking up from her sharp claws she was grooming. Alex shook her head slowly as she walked by the counter and her eyes glanced around the store for a moment. She stopped just past the counter before turning back to the lioness, “What kind of stuff do you sell here?” Alex asked curiously. Not even the question from the tigress was able to get the lioness to look away from her claws, but she still answered the question. “Many things, anything, and everything, luv’.” The lioness shrugged her shoulders, “Sex toys, tribal artifacts, voodoo, potions, you name it. All imports from the Caribbean.”

Alex blinked a few times and almost scoffed when she heard the mention of voodoo. “Really?” Alex tilted her head to the side. Suddenly, Alex had a million questions to ask the lioness, she wasn’t one to believe in that sort of thing, but the store managed to lure her in just from how it looked from the outside, so maybe there was something there.

“Yes,” the lioness nodded her head, she pulled her nail file from her claws and finally made eye contact with Alex. She leaned forward with her elbows on the counter and the sassiest look on her face, it looked like she was a little annoyed. “We really sell sex toys,” she gave Alex a toothy smile. Alex shook her head and took a few steps back so that she stood right in front of the counter and across from the lioness, “No, no, no, I meant the voodoo part of that, I know you sell sex toys, yes, the sign outside about under 18s gave that one away.”