Coming Together: With Pride (5 page)

Were the neighbors watching? Would this come up in the next homeowner's association meeting? What can they do to us anyway? At our age, lust is more of an achievement than a vice.

They relaxed against each other, and he slipped out of her, and he felt her arms fall away. He looked into her face, and it broke his heart all over again. She was neither offended nor frightened. Only lost again.

He hugged her and rubbed against her, but she was the lost docile love doll again. He stepped away from her, and she had that worried look, discovering herself nude and wet, while he drew the curtains closed.

"There," he said to her, gesturing toward the bed. "Why don't you just sit a second while I fix all this up? I'll get—aw shit, Aimee. Aw, shit. I'll get your diaper, hon."

She stood still, uncomprehending, and he kissed her on the cheek. He led her to the bed and pressed on her shoulders until she sat. There was a small trail of his spunk coming from her pussy, and he took some Kleenex from the bed stand and offered it to her. She looked at it. He tugged a few more tissues from the box and pulled at her hips to bring her closer to the edge of the bed. She looked down and watched as he wiped away his sauce from her pussy.

After a moment, it was clean. He couldn't resist and kissed her belly, and then got down on his knees and softly pressed his face against her damp delta of wiry hair.

"Where is your wife?"

"Right here, Aimee," he murmured into her cleft. "She's right here, and I love her fine. That's you, Aimee."

"Oh," she said, with what sounded like surprise. "Woo hoo!"

He looked up at her with tears in his eyes. "Woo hoo."

"Yes." She smiled, and for a moment, her eyes were bright with recognition.

"Think of it as a prayer," he whispered. Slowly he rose to his feet again, and his knees hurt, but he felt happy and relaxed and infinitely lonely.

"Diaper time, Aimee," he said, more to himself. "Lay down, please. Lay down on our fine fucking bed, Aimee. Let me look at you laying down for a minute. I just want to see how you look that way."

Aimee sprawled across the bed luxuriously, lifting a knee, letting her legs fall open for him to see, her fine and generous breasts spread out over her chest. He stood over her, enjoying the view, loving her. She saw his eyes on her, raised her arms over her head, and smiled at him, nude, seductive, obscenely pliant and innocent.

In the kitchen on the idiot radio, sang Bob Dylan:

...
with her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls... She takes just like a woman. Yes, she does, and she makes love, just like a woman
...
Yes, she does
...

"Time to rest, Aimee." he said. "Maybe we'll pass through Mobile again in the morning."

"Sure." She smiled wickedly and raised her arms higher, half closing her eyes for him.

He went into the kitchen to turn off all the lights and the radio—and to bring her a fresh diaper.

©

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Customer Service

Eon de Beaumont

Here comes another one. The dreaded soccer mom approaches my counter with a too-big smile and a weird, hungry look in her eye. I smile back because I have to.

"Hello," I say again, because I have to be polite. That's my job. I'm a liquor store clerk.

"Hey, sweetheart. How are you today?" she asks while moistening her lips with her tongue.

Horrible! I'm trapped here day in and day out kowtowing to skanks like you!
Instead, I just say, "Fine."

She keeps talking. I nod and smile as I ring up her expensive wine so she can impress her friends at the party tonight and her cheap vodka so she can get really good and toasted after they leave—or maybe before. I am constantly compromising myself here, but it isn't as bad as it could be. They let me wear my hair long. Sometimes having long auburn hair that's naturally curly isn't as much of a blessing as you would think. It seems to invite conversation about how long I've been growing it and if, indeed, it is natural.

Once in a while, I can even get away with a subtle amount of eyeliner, like tonight. The woman is flirting so vigorously it makes me ill. She puts her hand on mine as she pays. She's staring up at me with an expectant look, as though I should offer her my number or tell her what time I get finished with work. I don't do either. I give her the change from her sale and tell her to have a nice evening.

"If I bring my car up, will you be a dear and load this for me?" she says, way too sweetly.

"I'd be happy to, ma'am," I say but don't mean. It's actually the last thing I want to do. Inevitably, when I bend over to put the case in her trunk she'll
accidentally
touch my ass. I wait on the next person while she pulls her vehicle up. I hand the guy his change just as the shiny, silver Hummer pulls up to the curb. Christ. These people make me sick. I carry the case out and, sure enough, her hand just happens to graze my bum as I put the wine in the back of her gas guzzling monstrosity.

"You have a good weekend," I say as I curse her under my breath. I can feel her eyes boring into me as I walk away. That brings today's count up to three yuppie flirtings, two invitations to sorority parties, and one old dude checking out my package while he signed his credit card slip. My life is a living hell.

I motion to my manager that I am going to walk to the back. I need a break from this drudgery. In the break room, I get myself some coffee and lament the long night ahead. From behind me comes a familiar whine, and I wish I hadn't come into the back room after all.

"Hey, Ian, can I get you to grab something off the top shelf?" It's Janet. I turn slowly to face her scrawny frame. She dresses like she stole her entire wardrobe from an eleven-year-old boy two sizes smaller than she is, talks a mile a minute about stuff I could never care about even if I could understand her, and stands way too close to me while she's doing it. I am only a shade taller than her at six-one, but somehow she always needs me to
grab something off the top shelf
.

"Sure," I say with no enthusiasm at all, "What do you need?"

"The Waiters' Corkscrews. So the other night at the bar—"

And she's off. Janet's already three days into her story by the time I reach the corkscrews and standing so close that I bump her in the head with the box as I bring it off the shelf. She melodramatically falls to the floor and her glasses skitter away. I set the box aside and watch Janet grope blindly. Her straight, boring, mouse-brown hair is in her face, and I have to stifle a chuckle at her sudden resemblance to Cousin Itt. She's nowhere near her glasses, so I lean over to pick them up when I feel an odd squeezing sensation on my crotch.

"Hey!" I scream, jumping out of Janet's grip.

"Ohmygosh! I'm so sorry, Ian. I can't see a thing without my glasses!"
Yeah right.
I hand Janet back her glasses and she's still apologizing. Her beet red face and shitty smirk undermine her attempt at sincerity.

"It was an accident," I say dismissively as I hand her the corkscrews she needed so badly. She's still talking as I walk away from her. I'm furious and disgusted, but there's nothing I can do. No one saw anything and who would believe nerdy, naïve Janet would ever try something like that?

I realize that I'm grinding my teeth, and I need to calm down. I head for the men's room in the vain hope that I can get a minute or two to compose myself. I wash my hands even though I didn't use the bathroom. I close my eyes and just feel the water spilling over my hands. If only I could wash the dirt of my life away so easily. I turn off the water and dry my hands. I don't want to stay in here too long or my hilarious fellow employees will be sure to remind me that "shaking it more than twice is playing with it."

As I walk out of the restroom, I notice my manager approaching me, so I brace myself for some reference to bodily functions. But he just cocks his thumb toward the front of the store and says, "We need somebody to ring."

That means I'll be standing at the counter waiting on customers the rest of the night while he and Janet smoke cigarettes out behind the store and bullshit. I grab my coffee and trudge to the register.

The local college has resumed classes, and there is an endless parade of underage and barely legal students trying to buy alcohol. I card one after another and have to deny half. After the last girl, an eighty-year old woman complains that I didn't card her, and I want to tell her what a shriveled, decrepit antique she is and that she hasn't seen twenty one for the better part of a century.

"Uh-oh. Don't tell my manager I let you slip by. I'll be out of a job," I say instead, smiling like I mean it and making her blush ever so slightly. I hope she isn't having a heart attack.

I get to help a few people pick out wine, which is what I truly love. We speak for awhile about the type of wine they enjoy, and I make suggestions. The last couple I assist are fond of the deep, inky reds of the real winemakers of Australia. These are the big, bold dry reds that I especially like, and I point them toward
Seduction
, a blend of Cabernet, Merlot, and Shiraz.

"It's almost black in the glass," I tell them as they examine a bottle. The bell above the entrance rings, and what I see there knocks every coherent thought from my mind. It's a guy. He's beautiful. He's Asian and tall, thin but not sickly and he moves with a casual abandon into the store. He has the adorable spiky hair of an anime character with frosted tips. My heart speeds up. He's wearing a little salmon colored T-shirt that just covers his obviously muscular stomach above a pair of tight, slightly tatty jeans that ride low enough to accentuate perfectly formed hipbones. His black eyes meet mine for a split second, and I feel something stir that shouldn't be stirring at work. I suddenly realize that the woman in front of me has asked the same question twice, and I force myself to look away from this beautiful creature to answer her.

Minutes pass, and the Asian boy continues to shop. I help other customers and make sales, but always my eyes are drawn back to him. He stands so comfortably with his vintage leather jacket draped over one thin, olive-skinned forearm. I am pulled back to my job by a pair of college students obviously not old enough to buy that bottle of Mad Dog. As I take the bottles off the counter and send them out of the store, I feel the Asian guy looking at me. As soon as I look up, he looks away. More customers come and go, and the boy is still browsing, glancing over at me and glancing away.

He finally picks up a bottle of
Seduction
and looks as if he's reading the label. I try to imagine his lips stained purple from that sublime elixir. He has been here over an hour, and I finally realize if he wants to buy that wine, I'm going to have to wait on him. I am going to have to ask this amazing being for his ID. I'll be able to find out where he's from, where he lives, maybe even what he's doing later. It suddenly occurs to me I'll also have to talk to him. My throat dries out instantly. I swallow and hear a click. So I take a sip of coffee while I observe him over the top of the mug.

He walks slowly up and down the aisles while I wait on more customers, carry wine out to cars and point them in the direction of the Bourbon section. He's dragging this out so long. I can't stand it. I'm going to walk over there and talk to him. I'll ask him if I can help him find something. It won't seem suspicious. We ask people that question all day.

I'm just working up the courage when a fat lady decides she just has to have a pint of Nikolai now. I take her four dollars and twenty three cents—It always amazes me they aren't ashamed to have the exact amount in hand.—before telling her to have a nice night, silently adding 'passed out drunk on the couch,' and move around the counter. An elderly fellow intercepts me, and I lose sight of the pretty Asian.