Sex and the Stranger

Justine Elyot

By the time I’ve crossed the disabled parking bays I’m already nagged by a sense of disappointment, convinced that he isn’t here, that he’s changed his routine or left town or, worse, he’s avoiding me. But that’s a tad dramatic, not to mention self-centred, when I’ve no evidence that he’s even registered my existence.

I take myself to task in the trolley park for building this minor twice-weekly frisson into, well, a thing. It’s a silly piece of self-indulgence to get me round the aisles in one piece. Magically, it deafens me to the shrieking demands of toddlers, the grumbling trolley-barging of pensioners, the general miasma of despair that hangs around the comestibles of my local BargainBuy. It isn’t a thing. It’s a nothing.

The trolley doesn’t want to leave its rank and I rattle the handle a bit, yanking it back from the close embrace of the one behind with more force than should be necessary.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ I say under my breath, releasing it from its trap. Preparing to direct it towards the automatic doors, I look over my shoulder, suddenly worried that some arbiter of good shopping behaviour has witnessed my outburst. It’s worse than that though. He is standing behind me and I can’t avoid meeting his eyes during the re-orientation of my face.

This has happened before, this meeting-of-eyes scenario. It goes like this: eyes meet, they drop immediately, heads turn away, then quickly turn back, eyes meet again for a fraction of a second before contact is terminated. This is the eighth time. Would a small smile of recognition be appropriate to celebrate the occasion? No, it wouldn’t. He just heard me swearing, for fuck’s sake. He’ll be disgusted and appalled by me.

Also, he might have noted that I’m wearing lipstick and a skirt today and wonder why the hell I’ve dressed up to go to BargainBuy … but no. Of course he won’t have noticed that. Of course not, stupid.

I wheel away at a brisker than brisk pace and take refuge in the fruit and veg. My tactics are the same as ever. I enter the shop ahead of him and time the negotiation of each aisle so that I can watch him advancing towards me, stopping to pick things up, frown at labels, drop things in the trolley, flick his eyes up to the end of the row where I am ‘absorbed’ in checking the sell-by date of whatever happens to be the last product on the shelf.

How’s he getting his five a day today? Courgette, aubergine, honeydew melon, coriander, tomatoes. Moussaka? Ratatouille? Then he picks up strawberries and I frown, picturing him dipping them in cream and feeding them to a girlfriend.

He looks up at me then, from about three feet away and holds the look.

This is new.

He’s warning me. Stop stalking me. I’ll call security.

I grab my handle and flee to bread and bakery.

‘Hang on.’

I look back. Is he talking to me? I think he is. I edge back towards him, liking the sound of his voice, which is exactly as I imagined it. The fact that I’ve imagined it suggesting that I open my legs and take it like the whore I am causes me to flush and swallow nervously, as if he can hear my fantasies.

He’s holding out the punnet of strawberries.

‘Do these look ripe to you?’ he says.

I look up at him. He looks … sane. Sexy as ever, with an earnestness in his eyes that could be real or a ploy. I peer into the box.

‘I suppose so. They aren’t green or anything.’

‘It's just that I can’t smell them. There’s usually a smell with strawberries, isn’t there? Kind of fruity and lush. Can you smell anything?’

The way he said fruity and lush definitely sounded suggestive. Or is this just a wish-fulfilment dream?

I bend and take a lungful of air.

‘There’s a hint of strawberry,’ I say. ‘But I don’t think they’re properly ripe, no.’

‘Hmm. Shame,’ he says. ‘I like them really, really ripe. Bursting with juice, y’know, so it runs down your chin and you have to lick it off.’

There’s not much I can do in response to that but stare, through half-closed eyes, and try not to let my tongue hang out. He has the kind of low voice and drawly northern accent that can make anything sound filthy, but even so, that had to be a come-on … didn’t it?

‘I prefer cherries,’ I say, trying to prolong the conversation.

‘What kind of cherries?’ he asks with exaggerated interest. ‘The dark, intensely flavoured kind or those sticky bright red ones that look as if they’ve been smothered in lip gloss?’

At the mention of lip gloss, he looks at my lips. I press them together and plump them up. I’m pretty sure I run my tongue along the lower one. He’ll be asking me my going rate in a moment.

‘Oh, all of them,’ I blether. ‘Any cherries. Especially on a cocktail stick.’

He chuckles at that.