We have a standing date every Saturday night. I go out for ice cream with all of the fixings: chocolate sauce, whipped cream, jimmies. Even those little marinated cherries. Grayson stays home and preps the house for us. Dims the lights. Puts on the movie. Starts the fire.
But when I get in line tonight, a man steps behind me. I feel him before I see him, sense his presence out of the corner of my eye. I scan the conveyer belt to see that he has a six-pack, a steak, and a bottle of whiskey.
“Bachelor’s dinner,” he says motioning to his groceries.
“Old married couple’s dessert,” I say, indicating mine.
He looks me up and down, slowly. I’m wearing my beat-in Levis and my riding boots. A t-shirt so old and thread-bare you can see the color of my bra underneath—lemon yellow, with lace on the edges. I have to use a safety pin to make the clasp hold. No mascara. No eyeliner. The blush on my cheeks is for real.
Once upon a time, I dressed up for Saturday nights. I wore flirty sundresses and strappy sandals in the summer, velvet slacks and silken turtlenecks in the fall. I washed the barn smell off me at the end of the day and spritzed green tea perfume at the nape of my neck, under my long dark hair.
Now, I zip up the cornflower blue hoody so that I’m less exposed, and the man gives me a cocky grin and says, “I liked it better the other way.”
My turn to pay saves me from having to respond. I fumble with the crumpled twenty, stuff the change in my pocket, and head out of the store as quickly as I can. Home to safety. To one big bowl of ice cream that we’ll share together on the sofa with two cold silver spoons. To a movie so old and familiar we can say the lines out loud. We used to fuck in front of the TV, matching the actors move for move.
Now we watch them fuck.
And we eat dessert.
But when I reach the old Buick, I can’t find my car keys. I set the paper bag of groceries on the ground so I can pat my pockets, turn my sweatshirt practically inside out. My nerves are so rattled that when the stranger comes up behind me, I bite my lip to stifle a scream.
“You left these on the counter,” he says, dangling my key ring in front of my eyes like a hypnotist with a pocket watch. I grab for the keys, but he holds them out of reach. He acts as if he’s going to hand them over, and then taunts me once more, so I go up on tiptoe, but still can’t grab the ring.
“Ask nicely,” he chides, and I catch that cocky grin once more. He’s toying with me, his groceries tucked into the crook of his arm, his body all long and lean in a denim jacket and faded jeans. He’s not breathless the way I am. This is a game to him. But I feel the wisps of hair pulling free from my ponytail, feel the back of my t-shirt damp against my skin.
“Please,” I say, as nicely as I can. Even though I know in my head, in my heart, that what I ought to do is return to the brightly lit store and get help from the manager. Why am I playing games with a stranger? He could be dangerous. He could have a knife, or a gun. He could have dark sinister plans for me…
“Please what?”
Like that. The tone in his voice. I can hear exactly what those plans are. He wants to fuck me. He wants to take down my jeans and push me over the hood of my car, drive his cock into me so that I cry out. I know he’s thinking of the way that old metal will feel on my skin, the way his hand will find my hair, tug on it, pull my face up, make my body arch.
I look into his eyes. They’re a blue that’s nearly silver, like that eerie light you see both at dawn and dusk. I can’t get a read from those eyes.
“Please, Sir,” I say, trying my own little half a smile, “Can you help a lady out? I seem to have misplaced my keys.”
I watch, a bit shell-shocked, as he slides them into his front pocket.
Does he want me to put my hand down there and reach for the keys, brush the tips of my fingers against what I can guess is the rock-hard ridge of his cock? I take a breath. I lean against the solid frame of my car. I bring one hand up to my mouth—nervous habit—and bite at my knuckles.
“You shouldn’t do that,” he says. “Your hands are too pretty.” And he takes mine in his and pulls me to him, like we’re dancing.
Jesus, I think. How’d I get here? From Old Married Couple’s Dessert, to a Bachelor’s dinner. He drops his bag of groceries through the open window of the truck parked next to mine, a dark gray pick up truck that somehow suits him perfectly. Then he spins me and pushes me up against the hood. There is nothing to think about now. I know what’s coming. I know what his hands are going to feel like as he pops open the fly of my 501s, yanks them down to my thighs with my panties in one single motion. I draw in my breath as he presses against me. He’s still clothed, but I’m exposed. His jeans rub against my ass, and I bite down on the words that want to escape my lips. Begging words.
Please fuck me. Please, fucking god, just fuck me.
I push from my mind the fact that we’re out in the open. In the middle of a popular grocery store parking lot. Because we’re not really that exposed, tucked off in the corner. And it’s that empty hour, when most sane people are home or out on dates. Not shopping for groceries, and certainly not getting fucked in grocery store parking lots.
But I’m not getting fucked either. Not yet.
“Tell me you want this,” he says, and I feel his big hand close on the back of my neck. I shudder all over. I can’t speak. I’m so damn wet, and so damn scared, and every dark desire, every unspoken fantasy I’ve ever dared to have seems to be poised right here, on the tip of my tongue.
“Say it.”
His hand tightens, but I am frozen, speechless. A car sweeps by. Keeps going. We’ve gone unnoticed. Or we’ve passed as a couple of lovers out kissing in the dark—except we’re not kissing. He’s got his cock pressed against me through one layer of denim, and he’s waiting for me to speak.
At least, he was.
He’s not waiting anymore. The man pulls back just enough to pop his own fly, and then I feel the heat of him against my naked skin. I’ve waited too long to say what I want. Now, he’s going to take what he wants.
The head of his cock presses into me, and he feels the instant wetness envelope him. His groan makes me shiver. He doesn’t loosen his grip on my neck, but now his hand slips around, so he’s holding the front of my throat. Oh, holy fuck, I’ve never felt anything so sexy.
He thrusts into me once, twice, hard and fast, and tears leak from my eyes. But I am not prepared for what he does next. With his cock all glossy and wet from my pussy, he pulls back, and then I feel the pressure at my asshole, and I stiffen, but he doesn’t hesitate. There is no “Tell me you want this” now. There is only his cock, driving in hard, not waiting, not going slow.
He’s fucking my ass in the parking lot of a Lucky’s and I am going to melt into an oil slick like the one right next to my feet. Rainbow lit and shimmery in the halo of saffron from the streetlights.
The safety pin holding my bra together digs into my back as he slams into me. the car metal bites my skin. I am demolished as he lets go my throat, as he grinds one big hand down my body and presses his thumb to my clit. So I come when he comes. So I come as he empties himself into me.
There is the smell of exhaust. And dark wet asphalt.
No perfume has ever smelled sweeter.
“They were out of jimmies,” I tell Grayson when I get home. Rumpled. Breathless. Does he notice? “I had to drive to two other stores.”
He pats the sofa at his side. There in the den of darkness. Waiting. Fire crackling.
I breathe in deep. He’s got steak cooking. I can hear the sizzle.—By Alison Tyler for BastardLife
