An Idiot in Love (a laugh out loud comedy) (12 page)

              Dad groaned. ‘Looks like there has been an accident,’ he said casually.

              ‘Just my luck!’ I spat.

              They both turned to look at me.

              ‘What?’ I snapped back. They shrugged and turned away.

              ‘What now?’ I wondered.

              ‘Now, we wait,’ Dad said. He leaned back on his chair, turned up the radio slightly and settled in for the long wait.

              ‘But I need to get back.’

              ‘Sorry son,’ he said.

              ‘This is your fault,’ I told him, annoyed. ‘If we’d have left earlier we’d have missed it.’

              ‘You’re probably right,’ he said. He turned around to look at me over his shoulder. ‘Sorry kiddo.’

              I felt a cauldron of frustrated anger boiling up inside of me. I felt a strong urge to unleash it on him, but the sincerity in his eyes turned that boiling rage down to a simmer. I slumped back in my seat and groaned heavily.             

              It was after 17:00 when we arrived back at the caravan site. I rushed to the park, holding onto the slithered possibility that her parents had withheld their journey, and Lizzie would be waiting for me.

              She wasn’t.

              I waited in the park until the light had been sucked completely out of the day, then I trudged back to the caravan.

              ‘She left,’ I told my parents.

              ‘I’m sorry son.’ My mother put a sympathetic hand around my shoulder, I shrugged it off.

              ‘It’s okay,’ Dad said merrily. ‘You can see her again in a week or two, you have her number right?’

              I perked up somewhat, he was right. I had been so caught up with my desire to see her one last time that I had forgotten about the number. She was my girlfriend now. I had her number. I could call her anytime I liked, talk to her about anything I wanted to. It wasn’t like when we had first met and she had promptly disappeared out of my life, this time I could get her back. She was just a phone-call away.

              I stuffed my hand into my pocket. The smile that had barely been on my face for a second or two was already slipping away. Where I should have felt cardboard, I felt only mush.

              The card had absorbed the water from the tide-pool and had practically dissolved. My pulled it out of my pocket in bits, some soggy slips fell to the floor, others stuck to my fingers and my palm.

              I looked at the mess on my hand in disbelief. In the background Dad groaned sympathetically. I felt my mother’s hand on my shoulder again, this time I didn’t brush it away.

              The number was unreadable, it wasn’t even clear that a number had ever been there.  My hopes of seeing or hearing from Lizzie again had vanished into a mushy mess of soggy cardboard.

8

Love in the Work Place Part One: Silence

             
After high school my life stagnated somewhat. As planned, I stayed on for a sixth form education but I had no desire to move onto College or University.

              I took a job packing shelves at the local supermarket at seventeen, and although I despised every minute of the job, I was helped through the tedium by two new relationships.

              The first was a friendship with a guy named Matthew. He was a couple of years older than me and had been at the store for the last few months, it was his job to show me around during the first week.

              ‘Been there, done that, would advise against.’

              It was my first day; twenty minutes in I had been introduced to Matthew and advised to follow him. He was slouching at the back of the store, gesturing to the female staff that drifted by.

              He pointed out a scruffy girl of around nineteen who was unenthusiastically helping an old lady with her shopping.

              ‘I chatted her up on my first day,’ he explained. ‘I figured she was the best looking member of staff here, give or take a cougar or two.’ He winked at me, I wasn’t entirely sure why but I smiled back, he intrigued me and I wanted to make a good impression. ‘You like ‘em hairy?’ he asked.

              ‘Hairy?’ I wondered.

              Matthew pointed towards his groin, ‘Down below.’

              ‘Not really,’ I said slowly.

              ‘Me neither,’ he said with a distasteful shake of his head, his eyes back on the young girl who had walked away from the old woman and was cursing under her breath at the experience. ‘Best to stay away from Chewbacca over there then. Never seen anything like it, she could have tied Pigtails on her stomach.’

              The girl came to within a few feet of us. The look of ugly apathy fell from her face and was replaced with a shy smile, her eyes catching Matthew.

              ‘Morning Matty,’ she said happily.

              Matthew held up a hand in acknowledgement and she disappeared around the corner and into another aisle, out of sight.

              Matthew shuddered.

              He wasn’t a particular striking man, but he possessed a certain charm. He was confident, charismatic, and funny. He had the slightest suggestion of dimples which opened up either side of his cheeks when he flashed his cheeky smile.

              Matthew thrust himself away from the wall and laboured forward, gesturing for me to follow as he cut across the top of the supermarket and glanced down the passing aisles.

              The supermarket had been the first job I applied for after leaving school. It hadn’t been my decision. My mother had insisted I continued my studies; my father wanted me to learn a trade. I wanted to do nothing for a couple of years and try to enjoy my youth. Applying for a menial job seemed to be the best solution, that way we were all disappointed.

              My friends seemed to be having a better time of it. Peter had moved onto college and was studying for degrees in philosophy and psychology, with a view to a career as a psychologist or psychiatrist. An academic path was surprising considering he hadn’t been the brightest kid in the class, but it was no surprise he picked one that involved sitting down all day and letting others do the talking.

              Olly had initially taken a job at a fast food restaurant, but had been sacked on the first day after refusing an order on the basis that the customer was fat enough and a hamburger was the last thing she needed. On recommendation from the guidance counsellor he moved onto a training placement on a building site, he didn’t possess any of the qualities needed, but the counsellor decided that even Olly would struggle to find people to insult there.

              Max had tried and failed to get into college, in what was perhaps the only placement to ever be refused in the history of a college whose doors were open to everybody. No one understood why, but he
had
filled out his name and age incorrectly on the application form. Deciding the responsibility was his, Max’s dad had then taken him into the family business. For eight hours a day it was now the job of everyone else in the printing firm to make sure that Max didn’t touch anything.

              ‘You see Michelle over there,’ Matthew gestured down to the end of the frozen food aisle. A bubbly woman in her mid-twenties was chatting loudly to a male employee who was anxiously playing with his hands and looking around for the exit.

              ‘Her as well?’ I asked.

              ‘Yep, I’m afraid to admit it.’

              I doubted that he was afraid to admit it. He pointed her out after all. I was confident that if Matthew had drunken sex with a horse he would still brag about it.

              ‘She looks okay,’ I said genuinely. The girl was curvy, had a suffocating pair of breasts and short shiny hair. She looked the sort who had conversations
at
people rather than with them, but she seemed pleasant.

              ‘That’s what
I
thought,’ Matthew said. He nodded slowly at me, as if recalling the death of a loved one. ‘But she’s fucking nuts. You ever heard of a fetish where the girl squeezes the guys’ balls until he passes out?’

              I recoiled. ‘God no. Do people really do that?’

              Matthew shook his head solemnly. ‘I don’t know, if not then she tried to start a trend. Don’t get me wrong I like ‘em kinky, but there’s a line. She picked up that line and crushed the fucking life outta it.’

              ‘Ouch,’ I said through gritted teeth.

              ‘Took me a fortnight before I could cum without screaming.’             

              We both looked quietly down the aisle at Michelle. The target of her talking had managed to worm his way out of the conversation and was backtracking down the next aisle, prepared to run if she followed. Michelle waved him away pleasantly and then turned down the aisle, towards us. We scuppered quickly out of view, a blur of colour in her eyes.

              The next female employee we saw was the assistant manager. She was in her fifties. She was well dressed and well presented, but she looked her age. Her face was lined with stress and fatigue, her skin leathery from years of beach holidays and hard living.             

              I was not surprised to hear that Matthew had had sex with her as well. Apparently on the assumption that she was the senior manager, but also because she was available and he was horny.

              If anyone else had professed such sexual conquests I would have doubted them, but Matthew was charming and he wasn’t choosy.

              After an hour of loitering and avoiding work I began to earn my pay. Matthew showed me into a large storeroom which housed all the stock for the supermarket. He told me to stack DVDs, Games and CDs whilst he headed back into the store to clear up outdated perishables.

              The storeroom was dark and resembled a bleak warehouse. Everything the supermarket stocked was in there in its packaged form, stacked on massive shelving units which stretched to twice my height and ran in intersecting lines over the black linoleum floor. Florescent lights had been fitted in the ceiling above the shelves, lighting the stock but providing a dim gloom for the alleyways in between.

              It was dark and musty. The only sounds were the intermittent creaking of plastic and cardboard as the products shivered in the darkness.

              I found the multimedia section after a few minutes and set to work pulling games from a bottom shelf and checking them against a list Matthew had given me. A sound from over my crouched shoulder interrupted me and nearly gave me a heart attack.

              I turned to see a petite blonde standing over me, her hands clasped together behind her back. She peered down at me with amusement in her eyes.

              ‘You scared me half to death,’ I said, holding my chest as I clambered warily to my feet.

              The smile remained on her face, she didn’t say anything.

              I held out my hand. ‘Kieran McCall,’ I said proudly.

              She looked at the extended appendage but didn’t grasp it.

              ‘And
you
are?’ I wondered. She hadn’t been in the store when Matthew had been running through his little black book.

              She lifted her eyes to mine again. My hand was still outstretched.

              ‘Are you okay?’ I asked in lieu of anything else.

              She pulled a right hand from behind her back, but instead of shaking my hand, she grasped my wrist and tugged it to her chest. Then she thrust my hand onto her breast.

              She lowered her hand. I kept mine where it was, it felt right.

              The smile was still wide on her face.

              ‘Very nice,’ I said, nodding. ‘Do you have a name at all? I mean this feels a little we--’

              She dived forward and clasped her lips onto mine. As her tongue worked its way over my teeth she thrust her pelvis forward, connecting with my groin.  Then she took my hand again and moved it around her back, allowing me to grip her backside, firm and teasing underneath her trousers.

              At that point I was still a virgin. If she had thrust any closer or for any longer then I would have had to read up on the technicalities of my virginity whilst I walked ashamedly away and tried to never look her, whoever she was, in the eye again.

              I had prepared myself mentally for the first moment I had sex. I reasoned that I would be anxious and scared, but knew I would have to take control, to act like a man who knew what he was doing and to not make an idiot of myself. It never occurred to me that my first encounter would be with someone who guided me every step of the way.

              She took control of everything and used me like an anatomically correct puppet with lock-in appendages. She stripped me naked and then took her own clothes off. I forced myself to think about something unsexy whilst I watched her tease her way out of her uniform and expose her tanned flesh inch by inch.

              I waited for her and she guided me to the floor. The linoleum was cold against my bare buttocks, the bottom of my spine clicked and cracked on first compression against the solid floor. I ignored the discomfort and concentrated on her, on us.

              She stayed on top. She didn’t look at me much during, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Not because of her evident beauty, but because I wanted to make sure she was enjoying herself. She seemed to be.

              She seemed to be lost in her own euphoric world. She grabbed her own hair, closed her eyes and rocked her head back and forth, using my body like a fairground ride.