As the front door of the shop creaks open, you hear a female voice.
“Ugh! Either fix the damn lock or get me a new key! Cheapskate,” you hear her angrily muttering to herself, followed by the thud and clatter of a bag and keys dropped to the floor.
Carefully, you begin to make your way through the aisles to the front of the shop to observe your new visitor, listening to her exasperated tirade. As she goes around flipping on lights and shuffling through papers and drawers behind the front counter, she continues muttering.
“…takes a last-minute cruise and expects me to watch an empty building at the drop of a hat… No apprentices my ass… just didn’t want to pay for two. He could at least pick up a bit before…” she trails off.
You finally peer around an aisle to see a pretty redheaded woman angrily shuffling papers into drawers behind the front counter. She’s definitely younger than your uncle, likely not far off from your own age, and dressed much more normally.
You try to remain as concealed as you can, leaning one eye around the corner as you lean against a cardboard display. However, without hands to grip with and your plush body not providing much friction against the surface, a slight shift in position leads to you sliding down the cardboard, falling out from your hiding place with a soft thump. Unsure of what to do, you freeze, sprawled on the ground.
The woman looks up from her work towards the noise. She notices you on the ground, frowns, and walks over to you. Not wanting to startle her, you continue playing dead as she picks you up.
“Hmm, it doesn’t look like you belonged up there anyway,” she says, examining the shelves above. “Someone must have dumped you on the way to the checkout. Let’s get you back where you belong.”
She then takes you through the aisles, thinking out loud about where you must have originally gone.
“I would assume that you’re part of a costume, but I don’t recall any with a teddy bear in stock. Though we did have some old plush costumes towards the back. Let’s see…”
Soon, you find yourself carried back to the aisle where you found the costume in the first place. The woman’s eyes are stuck to the merchandise as she walks down it, too focused on her quest to notice the pile of clothes down at the other end. Not having any luck, she looks down at you.
“Hmm, I’m stumped. Do you have a label or anything? Jack’s always on my back about making sure that we’re using his stupid branding. Of course, this would be the one that got missed.”
Searching for any kind of tag, she suddenly begins handling you much more roughly, flipping you about in her grasp. Her hands rub across your plush skin and squeeze and deform you in ways that you hadn’t yet experienced in your earlier self-inspection, and the pleasant sensations produced are much more than you were ready for. Overwhelmed, you can help but jerk at a sudden squeeze of your stomach. Your twitch is followed by a shriek and a sudden fall as the woman drops you to the ground.
“OH WHAT IN THE SHIT GODDAMN IT JACK THAT’S NOT FUNNY!” she yells followed by a further string of curses. It’s not quite the introduction you’d hoped for, but if this woman is Jack’s assistant as you assume, then she may be the only person who can help. Hopefully she’ll understand.
You scramble to your feet as best you can. The woman steps back and watches warily as you plod down the aisle toward your clothes. She follows you to the pile, at which you point and gesture as best as you can manage. To your relief, it only takes her a moment before her eyes widen and she puts it together.
“Oh, shit. Are you John?” she asks. You nod vigorously. She lets out a big sigh.
“Oh. Ooohhh, okay. I thought it was weird that Jack talked all last week about his nephew coming to hang around the shop only for you not to show. He should have realized what happened, but then again, he really wanted to go on that cruise. He can be a bit… well, you’ll probably understand as you get to know him. Oh, I’m Jillian, by the way,” she said, offering a hand. You return a stumpy arm, which she shakes as if this whole situation is normal.
“I’m Jack’s apprentice, though I’m sure he forgot to mention me. Now, let’s see about this costume. Which one was it?”
You find the label on the ground where you left it and point. Jillian picks it up and groans.
“Come on, Jack, this is why you need to listen to me.” She turns to you to explain. “This costume is crazy old and hardly works right. It’s one of his earlier testing models where the wearer can’t even take it off themselves. I keep telling him that we can’t put these out with the other merchandise, but ‘merch is merch, Jillian,’ or ‘do you know how hard these are to make? I can’t just throw them away!’ But then this happens. Well then…”