"I got you movies," he said, and held up a stack of DVD rental boxes from Martian Signal. "We got *Pretty in Pink*, *The Blues Brothers*, *The Princess Bride*, a Robin Williams stand-up tape and a really funny-looking porno called *Edward Penishands*." I had to smile in spite of myself, in spite of the pain. He stepped into his kitchenette and came back with a box of chocolates. "Truffles," he said. "So you can laze on the sofa, eating bonbons." I smiled more widely then. "Such a beautiful smile," he said. "Want a cup of coffee?" "No," I said, choking it out past my raw-from-screaming throat. "All right," he said. "Which video do you want to watch?" "*Princess Bride*," I said. I hadn't heard of any of them, but I didn't want to admit it. "You don't want to start with Edward Penishands?" # Alan stood out front of the video shop for a while, watching Natalie wait on her customers. She was friendly without being perky, and it was clear that the mostly male clientele had a bit of a crush on her, as did her mooning, cow-eyed co-worker who was too distracted to efficiently shelve the videos he pulled from the box before him. Alan smiled. Hiring cute girls for your shop was tricky business. If they had brains, they'd sell the hell out of your stock and be entertaining as hell; but a lot of pretty girls (and boys!) had gotten a free ride in life and got affronted when you asked them to do any real work. Natalie was clearly efficient, and Alan knew that she wasn't afraid of hard work, but it was good to see her doing her thing, quickly and efficiently taking people's money, answering their questions, handing them receipts, counting out change... He would have loved to have had someone like her working for him in one of his shops. Once the little rush at the counter was cleared, he eased himself into the shop. Natalie *was* working for him, of course, in the impromptu assembly line in Kurt's storefront. She'd proven herself to be as efficient at assembling and testing the access points as she was at running the till. "Alan!" she said, smiling broadly. Her co-worker turned and scowled jealously at him. "I'm going on break, okay?" she said to him, ignoring his sour puss. "What, now?" he said petulantly. "No, I thought I'd wait until we got busy again," she said, not unkindly, and smiled at him. "I'll be back in ten," she said. She came around the counter with her cigs in one hand and her lighter in the other. "Coffee?" she said. "Absolutely," he said, and led her up the street. "You liking the job?" he said. "It's better now," she said. "I've been bringing home two or three movies every night and watching them, just to get to know the stock, and I put on different things in the store, the kind of thing I'd never have watched before. Old horror movies, tentacle porn, crappy kung-fu epics. So now they all bow to me." "That's great," Alan said. "And Kurt tells me you've been doing amazing work with him, too."