Caleb tries it on

This chapter originally written by BiBiComte, minor edits by Samus1001

Caleb shrugged and, probably out of the boredom, he tried on this 'watch'.

For a brief moment, he waited, like he expected something to happen. Then scoffed.

"Well, at least it's comfortable enough," he observed, shaking his wrist side to side. What an antique, watches were, hey? As he took another look at the watch, however, he noticed there were four 'N''s, one for each 3-hour interval. And right now the watch seemed automatically set on them.

The big hand was set to the N on the top. The small one, on the other hand, also pointing to the N on top.

And there also seemed to be some weird thumbnail-sized images next to each letter. Caleb laughed and shook his head.

"Yep. Children's toy alright."

Then again, what was wrong with toys? He was a fully-grown, steadily blooming young adult male, right?

He was about to remove it when he subconsciously stepped back to leave the racks, and pushed onto the same young woman from earlier behind him.

Whoops.

"Oh, crap," he muttered. He decided to show remorse before a misunderstanding arose. When he turned around to mumble a quick apology, however, his right hand fell downward and instead of swinging through clean, non-controversial air, it was a bit closer to her than he anticipated and gonged right against the soft bend of her left butt cheek. He had meant to just bring it to his side, not take it to the next goddamn stage. "Oh crap," Caleb muttered again. "Hey, look, I'm so, so -- "

However, the girl didn't seem to give any sign that he did anything, her two hands pulling apart a v-neck shirt as she looked it over, for who knew who she was shopping for. Her head tilted to the side, studying it thoroughly, and Caleb could hear her mumbling something.

"Uh. Hello," Caleb prodded, then subsequently questioned his mouth. He should've just left. What was he thinking? A second later the girl's ears seemed to perk and she turned towards him.

"Yes?" she asked politely.

"Um, er," the teen looked around for something to say, and decided to settle on diplomatic -- he was used to keeping the act like this around people, after all. Besides what if someone saw and thought he was some creep? Just 'cause it was true didn't mean they had to know. "Just wanted to say sorry about... bumping into you and stuff, that's all."

"Oh?" The girl said, a strange, light expression crossing her features, then looked back at the shirt as she chatted on, "Are you going to apologize for trying to slap my butt too, then?"

Caleb froze. Aw crap. Aww crap. Here it comes.

"Uh, yeah, really, I didn't mean it! My hand just came down as I was turning and brushed up against your ass, I mean butt, and -- "

"Oh hey, hey, take it easy." The girl was giving him a curious look as she pushed the palm of her hand forward in the air. "I didn't mean," she sighed, not an inauthentic bone rattling in her body. Then continued, "I was just saying that if you were going to apologize for bumping into me you might as well apologize for that too. You know. 'Ha-ha', jokes."

Blinking, Caleb only looked at her and said, "What?"

But the girl just returned to looking at the shirt, her eyes once again giving it a considerable assessment before she slid it back with the rest of the clothes.

As if he wasn't even there.

They stood there unremarkably for a few seconds, and after a couple seconds had passed Caleb realized he had been staring at her for all of that time. Even still she didn't ask him to stop, or look the least bit uncomfortable. While she flipped through the forest of clothes, his eyes studied her. Her own top consisted of a black long-sleeved shirt that she had tucked into her jeans, and her hair fell in a slight set of fringes over her forehead. Caleb licked his lips. She was really attractive indeed -- even better with a prolonged look at her.

Caleb stepped forward.

"So this..." he spoke, only midway realizing what he was going to do before throwing caution to the wind and continuing regardless, "...this is okay?" As she looked at him, he brought his hand down and gave her ass a strong clap. The sound of the slap was something he enjoyed immensely. Even with those jeans in the way.

Just like before she didn't move a muscle, standing where she was. She just rolled her eyes and laughed a little. "You must really like my butt, do you?"

Caleb looked at her then brought both hands together as he drummed them against her butt cheeks while she stood there, looking through another generic row of shirts.

Slap slap slap slap slap slap slap! went his hands.

"How's that?" he asked when he'd finished, standing upright.

She just shrugged, eyes still in front of her. Distracted. From him, slapping her ass, rapid-fire style.

She didn't look like some slut either. In fact, the way she carried herself and dressed, you could feel a certain, self-dignified air in it. Not to mention, that glare she gave him just for bumping into her earlier was as effective as a restraining order; let alone now, when he actually slapped her ass right in front of (or behind) her, and even talked to her about it like the store's opening hours on the weekend.

"Can't believe it," he murmured, and shook his head, "is it normal for guys to just slap and cop feels of any girl's ass whenever they want to now?"

Suddenly a pair came walking past, a dark-skinned man with an Asian girl at his side, their intertwined hands making no secret of their affiliation with each other. As they approached, the man brought his left hand down and very generously, without any attempt at tact or natural wariness, slid his hand from the other girl's hip horizontally across her ass cheeks. While passing her, he gave her right butt cheek a hard squeeze and a wiggle, before finally letting go. The young woman only seemed to turn her head barely a centimeter sideways before another shirt caught her eye and she went for it.

Caleb watched, brow raised.

"Did you just squeeze that girl's ass, Frank?" he heard the Asian girl say as they walked past him.

"Shit," Frank's voice replied, "was it that obvious?"

After a sharply held breath, it quickly turned into butterflies in Caleb's stomach as the girlfriend laughed and the teen turned to see her snuggle up closer against his arm. "Waay too obvious, baby."

On they went, Caleb looking back with more wrinkled brows. Curiouser and curiouser.

He looked back to the young woman searching through the circle of clothes before him, wondering if he should try to ask her about this. 'Cause something definitely seemed to be off. After a small sigh, she stopped her perusal, and following one final look, began to walk away, to another set of articles. Busy people in busy days -- he, too, had a place to be after all. He was supposed to meet up with the rest of his crew at the skating rink in a few minutes. But whatever that was supposed to be, that thing with the woman, and that thing with the couple, awkwardly it made him harder than he'd been in public in a while. Maybe he should try to assuage that.