"It's me."

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end was feminine and clearly was the girl from the cashier earlier.

"It's me," you say into the phone and hear a gasp in response. Cutting off her hastily stammered apologies, you ask her, "What time do you get off work?"

There are some muffled excuses that the girl makes to someone else on the other end of the call before her voice comes back on.

"Um, I still have a few hours before my shift ends. And I promised you to bring my girlfriend over to your place so she can apologise to you at the same time? I haven't told her yet," The girl said_. _"If you want, I can quit my job and just leave now to go fetch her? We can be wherever your place is in half an hour. Whatever you ask for," she promised. You're actually a little flabbergasted at this point. The email said that you could do what you liked to fuck them, but you never imagined that they would be willing to literally drop crucial parts of their lives just for your sake. Maybe this was an individual thing and not general to all lesbians you would meet in the future? You decide not to think too much about it and puzzle it out later.

While thinking about how to respond to that, you wrack your brain to try and remember her name again and realize soon that it's not going to happen. You decide to just ask her, it's not like you need to care about social norms anymore now, especially where lesbian girls are concerned, right?

"Uhh, that won't be necessary. You can finish your shift on time and tell your girlfriend later. There's no need to rush it. I'll text you my address and you can let me know when you finish your shift and are on your way to pick up your girlfriend," you tell her and hear a sigh of relief along with a murmured thanks, which you supposed is fair given that you can apparently just demand heterosexual sex from gay girls. Any sort of mercy is a gift to them in the face of that. Before you forget, you clear your throat and ask, "Hey, what was your name again?"

There is a pause on the other end, before the cashier's voice comes again in a small voice, "It's Lucy, uh, mister?"

"Mr. John, John Doe," you reply out of habit. Then a thought comes to you and before the pause drags too long, you add, "but you can just refer to me as Sir."

"Sir," Lucy repeats with a long drawn out breath over the call. There is another pause on the line before you hear someone calling her name in the background. "I need to go. I'll see you later John," she says hurriedly, before ending the call abruptly, leaving you staring at the screen.

You muse over the ending of the call. The whole sir thing was a porn trope you'd read about a lot, and admittedly even just saying that line over the call had made you wince a bit at just how cheesy it sounded coming out of your mouth. But Lucy forgetting to use the title at the end did tell you that your orders weren't somehow automatically obeyed and reinforced. They were just instructions that people still needed to follow willingly, and could slip up or make mistakes on.

By now, you've reached your apartment door, and you reach into your back pocket before it hits you how much of an idiot you are. You're still dressed in your pyjamas, because you left Sarah's apartment in a hurry earlier this morning and your stuff is still there other than your phone which you took everywhere, and your wallet which you used to buy those chips.

Goddamnit.