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Placing his basket on the counter, he stood patiently whilst the cashier began to check his items. A name tag declared him to be Marcus and his opening gambit was:
“Had a nice day today?”
“Yeah, not bad,” Nicks tossed back as part of his warming up exercises.
“The weather’s been good, hasn’t it?” Marcus said as he scanned a bottle of bleach.
“Yes, it has.” Nicks was on a roll.
Marcus re-scanned the bleach. “They say it’s going to stay dry for the next few days at least.”
Nicks began packing his carrier bag. “Really?” He was beginning to tire already.
“Yeah.” Marcus passed him the bathroom cleaner and sponges. “Do anything interesting at the weekend?”
He’d been doing his best but felt this an intrusion too far.
“Did I do anything interesting? Let’s see... Oh yes, I read my mail-order copy of ‘Naked and taking it up the arse’ and spent the entire weekend masturbating.” It had been Nicks’ ambition to use this answer for a long time.
Clicking back to reality, he found himself saying: “Well, yeah, actually I went to...”
“That’s £7.32p,” Marcus interrupted, holding his hand out having exhausted all the interest he was paid to dispense per customer.
Nicks received his change in silence. He didn’t bother to bid Marcus farewell. He could see he was otherwise engaged with his next victim.