400 Words


About 400 Words

400 Words is a storytelling project. It is a print magazine and a website, consisting of true stories, none over 400 words, by ordinary people on assigned themes. It's about the documentation of everyday life, saying a lot by saying a little. You can learn more, or order a copy, or tell a story of your own.

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Blow/Job

by Alexander—Age 25—Brooklyn, NY

The nice thing about flirting with the checkout girl at the movie rental store is that, so long as you don’t return your movies on time, she’ll call you. And she did. And a month or so later we were in love, I was working next door at the take-out pizza place, and she would drive me the mile and a half home when I worked late with a blowjob pit stop in the church parking lot between my house and the strip mall.

So it blows. She went to military school and I got a new job. This time a bookstore, no apron required, and no girlfriend either. A hearty half-hour from my house, my own car, girls from different schools and older women, plenty, who liked to tell me, I suppose because I knew something about books and their husbands were all fat, that I’d make someone a happy wife someday.

One day I sold some books to my father’s ex-wife. I didn’t know he’d had one, but according to her, we’d met before and my, had I grown up. The look in her eye. My last name on her check. Not sure which one of us was more uncomfortable.

Nonetheless, a new blowjob in a new parking lot, and a very new car. She had more work experience than I did so we tried a three way with my best friend that didn’t work out so well and then she told me she was seeing a married man and he was going to leave his wife for her and I was just a seventeen-year old kid who worked in a bookstore and she used to schtup my father. So it blows.

After college, in debt, I got a new girlfriend and a new not-for-profit, save the world kind of job. This was it. Finally, a bit of humanity and as for the job, I could do worse. Both lasted for three years. My debt ran out and so did she. She gave me bookends for my last birthday. My parents divorced and now my mother is blowing a guy who writes books on personal finance.


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