It was the middle of June, and the coffee shop had just re-opened after the first Covid lockdown. We were only serving takeout. The seating area was closed, marked off with yellow police tape, and we hung a stiff sheet of clear plastic over the counter, to protect us from the customers, and the customers from us. Naturally, the everybody had to wear a mask. Most people were OK with it, but there were a few who insisted on being assholes. One guy went off about how Americans were losing their freedom, and something about cancel culture, and some Karen kept saying she had a medical condition that prevented her from wearing a mask and we were discriminating against her on the basis of her disability. She demanded to speak to the owner. Kaitlyn said she was the owner, but the Karen didn’t buy it, I guess since Kaitlyn’s only twenty-eight, and way too cute for an entrepreneur.

Speaking of discrimination.

Anyway, one of Kaitlyn’s arguments with the cancel-culture guy was that the law required him to wear pants, and it required women to wear tops, and no one ever objected to that. What’s one more piece of cloth, especially if it can save your life?

“So you’re telling me, if I showed up naked, that would be OK?” the guy said.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all,” Kaitlyn replied.

The guy left finally, giving us the finger and swearing he’d never buy coffee from us again, but the blowup gave Kaitlyn’s husband Geoff an idea that made me love my job. He printed out a sign on his home computer — 48-point Helvetica, on an 8 x 10 sheet of white paper— and taped it to the glass inside the front door:

— Calico Coffee

“Are you serious?” I said.

“Of course not,” Geoff said. “There’s no way to enforce this, and you’re not going to try. Understand?”

“Darn,” I said.

“But some of these people aren’t too bright. They might think it’s real and walk away.”

He was right. Over my next few of shifts, I saw two people without masks — one old man, one younger- looking woman — walk up to the door, squint at the sign, and turn around. I guess they thought their precious American freedom was safe as long as they were being given a choice — even if the choice was bogus.

So, like I said, it was the middle of June. It was Saturday, our slowest day, about fifteen minutes from closing.

I was wiping down the counter when she rode up on her bike.

She was dressed for speed, in skin-tight black shorts with teal stripes down the sides, and a teal biking shirt. She was fair-skinned and blond, and teal was definitely her color. Pink or red would have been good, too, or green, or purple — anything really, except maybe orange or yellow. That is exactly what was going through my mind while I watched her through the door, crouching next to her bike and chaining it to the 2-hour parking sign at the curb. Her hair hung in a braid from the back of her helmet, and her sweetheart butt looked like it was hovering over her ankles.

I didn’t even have to touch myself. I’m 19, and I’ve come to think of my dick as an independent entity — a Trill symbiont with a will of its own. Given the right stimulus, it’ll stand up by itself, with no prodding from me. And this girl was the right stimulus.

I guessed she was my age. Maybe a year or two younger. Not a day older, anyway. She was slender and lithe and willowy and all that, with long legs and a long waist and high little titties, and I made up my mind I was going to ask for her number if she gave me half a chance.

She came into our short entryway, between the facing display windows, and unzipped the fanny pack she had on (teal, too) just as she got to the door. She groped through it, looked, groped some more, looked closer, groped a last time, and looked up, mouthing the word shit. I knew what she was thinking, because I’d seen it before. She was pissed at herself because she’d forgotten her mask. I was all set to make an exception in her case, ride to the rescue, tell her she could stay outside and I’d bring her whatever she wanted, but it’s a long walk around the end of the counter and back, and before I could make up my mind, she’d noticed Geoff’s sign.

She was the only person I’ve seen yet who smiled when they read it. She glanced over her shoulder at the street, and when she faced me again, she had this weird grin. It was hardly noticeable, but definitely wicked.

The way our entrance is set up, you can’t see the door unless you’re going right past it. The girl was out of sight from the sidewalk, more or less, and there’s hardly any foot traffic in town on a Saturday, anyway.

She was halfway done before I admitted to myself that what was happening was happening. When she took off her helmet and put it on the ground, I thought maybe she was just uncomfortable, or hot, or she didn’t think it looked good. The same with her fingerless riding gloves, which she peeled off, tearing at the Velcro tabs, and dropped into the helmet. Even when she took her shirt off, she was so calm and deliberate I couldn’t quite believe she had anything illegal in mind. And she was wearing a gray athletic bra, which was modest enough that she could have worn it as a top. She held the shirt at arm’s length, like she was inspecting it for wrinkles, folded it twice, and laid it in the helmet, too.

But then she unclipped the fanny-pack and rolled her shorts down, and my dick knew what was going on a second before my brain did. The shorts wouldn’t come off over her shoes, so she knelt and unlaced them. She took off her socks, too — the sign does say all your clothes — and stuffed them far down into the shoes. When she stood up again, the shorts were left around her ankles. She stepped out of them, dropping them into the helmet from one foot. I saw she was color-coordinated all the way down. The panties matched the bra. It surprised me — and I was thinking about it clearly — that she took them off before she took off her bra. I always thought they were the last thing to go when a girl stripped. But in a second they joined the pile in the helmet. At this point she was standing sideways to the street, so all I could see of her ass was a single delicate curve. It was an angle I’d never really appreciated before.

OK, enough, I thought. I should have jumped over the counter and stopped it. No, I screamed inside, we’re kidding. Don’t do this. I’ll bring you what you want. If anybody sees you ... But who in his right mind tells a girl not to take off her clothes? Especially if she wants to? And this girl did. There wasn’t a bit of hesitation in what she was doing.

So I stood there and watched her bra come off over her head. Her little tits popped out jiggling when she pulled it up in front. With nothing to keep it stretched out, it snapped down to a tiny scrap, no bigger than a limp rubber band when she dropped it on top of her other stuff. Then, as easy as you please, she bent down and picked up her pack.

We have an electric bell that dings every time a customer comes in the door. This time it went off like a cannon.

“Sorry,” Nude Girl said. “I forgot my mask.”

“No worries.”

“Nice, that you give us this other choice, though.”

“You know it’s a joke, right?

“It is?” She pressed a finger to her lower lip. “Gee, I feel so silly.”

“I’m Matt,” I said, trying to act like this was a regular thing. “What can I get you?”

“I’m Danielle,” Nude Girl said. “I’d—”

“Welcome, Danielle.”

“Huh? Oh, sure, thanks. Do you have any sparkling water?”

I did hear the question, but it kind of got lost. I was rather preoccupied. I have to describe her exactly, or as much as I can, because I need to fix the image of her in my mind. She had long legs — slender, like I said, though not so skinny that the thighs didn’t touch. She was thin, but healthy-looking, with a slight tummy and a subtleness to her pelvic bones. She had the cutest outie, like a knot in the end of a clothesline. Her hips had a definite girly flare, but they were slim, too, not as wide as her chest, even. It was the dip in her waist, I think, that made them look as round as they did. And her breasts — you couldn’t even call them that yet. The Audubon Field Guide to North American Mammaries (which I just made up) classifies them as “itty bitty titties.” They poked out like sugar cones with a spot of creamy pink frosting on the end of each one. Finally, I studied the fuzzy blond valentine between her legs, and the plump lips underneath, thinking what a shame it was that I wasn’t kneeling in front of them, probing them with my tongue, reaching around and cupping that soft ass in my hands.