AN: So this is just a little bit of fluff. The story starts off with a little Danny/Mindy, because I like her with everyone, so if you came strictly for Minjo, just soldier through. I'm trying something a little different with the structure where the majority of it is a flashback and present tense is actually italicized, while the past perfect – which I am sure I did not write perfectly – is the normal font. - AL
Mindy was lying on her back in the shower, her feet nearly parallel as they rested against the wall, because it wasn't a big shower. But it was good the wall was right there – she wouldn't be able to hold her legs up if there weren't. Her favorite purple vibrator was between her legs and she thought about the first time she met Danny.
"So, I got my undergraduate degree in only two years, but now I don't know what to do with it, so I'm currently working at your neighborhood pharmacy drug store – only not the pharmacy part, not yet anyway – the manager says 'we'll see' which is great because I'm interested in all things medicine. Let me tell you, I have certainly been working here long enough for a little bit a somethin' special extra, ya know what I'm saying? But anyway, right now I'm working in the cosmetics section, but don't worry, I stand up for the little women, the ones who reinforce impossible cultural standards of beauty and not the corporation behind them because I frequently misapply the coupons to get my customers 'the best damn deal around.'" Mindy had finished by misquoting their commercials.
"Look, lady, all I wanted was a pack of a cigarettes." He was a handsome young man, not very tall, but incredibly masculine.
"How dare you call me lady? I am clearly still a miss."
"My cigarettes?"
"Well, why did you come to the cosmetics counter when you knew you would want tobacco, which is very clearly at the register in the front of the store?"
He shrugged and gave a smile that Mindy refused to admit was cute. "There was a line."
"The line is for people who want tobacco."
"Can't you walk and get me some?"
Mindy gasped. "Are you – are you making comments about my weight, sir? That counts as sexual harassment."
The man was flustered. "What? No, I-I-there was nothing sexual-I just want cigarettes!"
"What kind?"
"Pall Mall, unfiltered."
She rolled her eyes over him. "Oh, my god, that is such an old man cigarette."
"No, it isn't!" He shouted, his accent thickening in his frustration.
The argument continued for some while, she learned his name and that he was about as repressed as a Catholic could get. They complained with and at each other until Danny was well late to work at his Cousin's Subs job and Mindy ended up having sex with him on her 15 minute break in the gated dumpster area behind the drug store. She'd never told anyone – especially not Danny – that it had been the loss of her virginity.
It had been sharp and painful, but also really filling, fulfilling, fun. It felt good to finally know what she was missing out on and it also just plain felt good. It hadn't come close to any of her self-sessions.
He'd grabbed her butt and caressed her cheeks and his lips had delivered exactly what their looks promised. His lips! Their mere appearance suggested sin and when he whispered in her ear, his suggestions drove her crazy. If they looked pillowy and soft and perfect, they felt even better.
He smiled when she came first, came quickly, came hard. Mindy's heart broke when she saw that smirk, because she knew she'd fallen into a trap that had claimed many before her – she'd fallen a little bit in love after sex.
They met behind that dumpster time and time again. That dumpster become the symbol of romance and love to Mindy and in those 15 minute stolen moments, they got to know each other better than she'd ever known a man before. It was where she'd learned that he was saving up to go to welder's school so he could design the structures in playgrounds. It was where he'd learned that she was directionless – aimless, even. It was where he, fittingly, dumped her.
He said he didn't want to be with someone who wasn't following their dreams.
After that, she'd given him a breakup blowjob.
She was trying pretty hard not to think about that last dumpster sesh. She frenzied her wrist to distract herself and – unbidden – Jody's face filled her mind as she finally came.
It was better than the time Morgan's face accidentally popped up, but it was still surprising. She was thinking about Jody more and more since their first real conversation and confrontation.
It all started when Morgan hit on Mindy. "Hey, lil mama–" (Mindy thought he might be a pedo – he was always referring to her as 'lil' or 'baby.') "I've got two tickets to a Coldplay concert. You game?"
Usually Mindy ignored Morgan as he refilled the Cheetos rack next to the Revlon display, but that day she was feeling weak because an old guy had just come in to buy Pall Mall's and it was almost time for her break.
"Really, Morgan? That's cool. I love Chris Martin. Are they a good row?"
"Well, actually, it's two bus tickets to downtown so we can stand outside the stadium. You can hear the screaming and sometimes even the bass lines."
Mindy looked down. "No, Morgan."
"Mindy, they're nonrefundable," he complained.
He'd bugged her all day until he finally convinced her to hang after her shift, but she'd refused to go on the bus with him. She was contentedly licking her cookie dough cone when Morgan yawned and tried to put his arm around Mindy's shoulder. "Ew! Morgan, no!"
She batted his arm away, but his fingers got trapped in her hair. It took him a while to detach himself. "I said you could buy me ice cream, that's all!"
Morgan bowed his head. "That's enough," he said reverently. "I don't know why they call you inappropriate. You are as pure as the sled-dog driven snow."
Mindy's face scrunched as she imagined slushy dog piss snow before she realized what he'd said. "Wait, who said I was inappropriate?"
"Jody was telling your manager that you couldn't be trusted because you were loud and always making people feel unsafe with your inappropriate sexual remarks. It's why he keeps you in the back of the store." His hands went up as if to proclaim how little he had to do with it. "Allegedly." He eagerly sloshed his malt, in his element now that he was gossiping.
"Ex-squeeze me?! I am so not inappropriate. And people should be flattered!" Mindy angrily clutched her cone and stomped all the way back to work. Morgan delightedly followed. "Wow, that was cool! You looked just like Godzilla!" He mimicked her gnashing teeth and stomping feet.
She ignored him and slammed into the pharmacy where Jody was sitting in his chair flirting with the Serbian girl getting her herpes meds. She fled when she saw Minzilla.
"HOW DARE YOU BLACKBALL ME?" She yelled at him, towering over his calm and sitting self.
"Oh, Mindy. So nice to see you," he said blandly.
"Don't 'oh, Mindy' me! We've hardly said two words to each other before and you have the gall to tell my boss not to promote me to the pharmacy?"
"The medical profession is a very serious undertaking and you hardly exude the confidence or the competency," he said easily.
"Oh, please. You're a pharmacist, not a surgeon."
Jody didn't rise to the bait. "Mindy, you are too…" he paused to search for a word. "Indecorous to be entrusted with our patients' delicate needs."
"When have I ever–?"
"You consistently flirt with your manager–"
"I do not flirt with Jeremy. He's, like, a father to me. And you're like a grandfather. And not a cool one, like that guy from Dallas. You're a really lame one, like Abe Simpson."
He flushed. "I'll have you know I am very much like J.R. Ewing–"
"And you have no business effectively clam-jamming my career!"
"I don't know what that means, but you, young lady, are rude, obnoxious and completely incompetent –!"
His voice dropped off suddenly when Mindy's hands dropped low to touch him where he was sitting. She began to rub and his mouth fell open.
"Mmm," she taunted. "You like that?" She skillfully stroked him with varying pressure from her fingers and thumb.
"Lord help me, you have the ball–!"
"Mmm, yeah. I'll bet that does feel good, doesn't it?"
His head fell back and his eyes closed as he groaned. "Don't stop," he begged.
"Am I competent now?" She asked sweetly, putting a little bit more force than pleasurable into the squeeze.
"Yes, you're – yes! Just please-mmmm-don't stop!" he exclaimed. "Ah," he sighed as she kept going and he finally relaxed. "How did you know?"
"I see you walking around the store. You're always going into the candy aisle for more Werther's. You limp a little. And everyone knows old people are notoriously susceptible to arthritis."
"It's early-onset." He defended. "But, uh, thank you."
She removed her hand from the knee she'd been massaging. "You're welcome." She turned to go, but before she left she said, "You can stop pretending you don't like me now. And ice packs are in aisle 8." She gave his lap a saucy look before disappearing, leaving him staring in surprise at the tent in his pants.
Jody had retracted his complaints to her participation in the pharmacy and became much nicer to her. She got the job soon after that and not much later Jody asked her out for coffee. They'd ended up making out, of course, but Mindy stopped before she went too far. She wanted a relationship and a career, and rushing into things with Jody would make that much harder.
She used her foot to turn the water off. Yes, she would take things slow with Jody – and torture him with erotic arthritis knee massages in the meantime.