Title: While in a Hurry
Author: oosh@gmx.net
Keywords: nosex,lesbian

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While in a Hurry

by oosh@gmx.net

9 April 2000

I was in a hurry, and by chance I noticed that my fuel gauge was dangerously 
low. A quick change of direction, and I thought that I would find a garage 
shortly on my left.

Yes! My memory served me well, after all these years. I swung the car in under 
the garish turquoise garage lights. They made my head spin. As I fiddled with 
the fuel cap and drew out the pump nozzle, I looked into the brightly-lit 
garage shop. A lovely young girl sat at the till. The garish artificial lights 
confused my eyes, but it seemed that she was a redhead.

Four boys, about thirteen years of age, had gathered on the forecourt outside 
the door, shoving at one another, dancing about, no doubt daring one another 
into some devilment. My eyes refocused to the back of the shop, where there 
were tall chiller cabinets with an illuminated sign above: "Ice-cool food and 
drink to take away".

I almost laughed. Ice-cool food! It was February. The recent rain left the 
roads black and glistening like oiled slate. The dull reflection of the sodium 
street-lights deprived the surrounding buildings of colour, drained them of 
their character, made their old stone look like drab, dirty concrete. On the 
pavement opposite, a gang of about ten young boys swaggered to and fro, jesting 
and boasting to one another. And as I turned and started to fill my petrol 
tank, I saw the four boys on the forecourt enter the shop.

They seemed to swarm up and down the aisles, touching everything. They opened 
the ice-cool food cabinet and reached inside. There was animated conversation. 
I could imagine them swearing at one another. Two of them were anxiously 
looking at the coins in their hands. I saw them turn and ask the girl for the 
price of an item which they held out towards her. She was some distance away. 
She stood up from her stool and craned her neck, curving her back delightfully, 
trying to see what it was. From where I stood, it looked like a piece of frozen 
dung. I saw the boys shake their heads and replace it. Reluctantly they closed 
the cabinet door. Not enough money.

She looked sweet, and very young. She took a cigarette and lit it. Was that to 
calm her nerves? She blew her smoke towards me, looking at me. I was at once 
repulsed and excited. My tank was only half full. Not wishing to indulge the 
ache in my heart, I distracted myself and watched the gang of boys. They were 
now swarming around the confectionery rack, picking off chews and chocolate 
bars like gannets. I watched their hands. By the very way they moved, I could 
sense their dishonesty, their capacity for mischief. They could see me watching 
them. Once or twice, each of them in turn looked out through the plate-glass 
window, saw the expensive car, my impeccable clothes. I was making them uneasy, 
I knew. I memorized their faces. Ugly little bastards.

The pump clicked off. The tank was full.

Uneasy now, I walk into the shop. The boys scatter, half-afraid at my 
appearance, at my cold stare, my bitter, humourless mouth. But to her I give my 
melting smile. It works, as it always does. I put my handbag on the counter, 
withdraw my note-case, extract my gold card. I stand a little sideways, keeping 
an eye on the boys. They are up to no good, I am sure. Filling their pockets, 
maybe, while our attention is distracted.

"Would you like a VAT receipt?" she says with a ravishing smile, in a 
surprisingly clear accent.

"No need, thank you," I reply, giving my smile a twitch, and just a warm 
little wrinkle of the eyes. The boys are smirking. Rage boils within me. I gulp 
it down, trying to look my best in front of this gorgeous girl. Why? Why? True, 
there is no ring on her finger. But then… she is - what? Nineteen at most. 
Once, I might have propositioned her, whispered "Anywhere nice round here where 
a girl can get a drink? Like to keep me company?" But now I'm no longer the 
good-time girl: ten years, ten years of mourning, have made a monster of me, a 
vortex of introverted suffering, a Gordian knot of remembered passion. Look 
into my soul and tremble! I would not be a fun night out for this pretty young 
thing.

Pretty indeed: red-haired indeed, pale of skin, weak-mouthed, innocent-eyed. 
God, what pleasure I could give her! How lovely she would look, gasping, her 
back arching, her breasts swollen and pointed! A gift indeed, but she will not 
take it from me. Perhaps yes, from her own sweet fingers; perhaps yes (oh God! 
How unjust!), from some loutish, sweaty, heaving brute of a man, tearing her 
frail hymen, defiling her purity. But not from this waspish woman bowed by her 
bitter, bitter past.

The boys are queuing up behind me now, pockets doubtless bulging. The credit 
card machine whines as it smoothly spits out my receipt.

"Your card and your receipt," she says to me with another delectable smile. My 
heart leaps in absurd, irrational hope. But in an instant she is looking at the 
boys. And I can understand why.

The first boy holds out two cheap sweets.

"That's eightpence," she says, no smile this time. Her eyes are alert, bright.

She holds out her hand for the money. Her forearm is bare. Her skin is without 
blemish, almost frighteningly white: milk-white. I want to take that hand and 
kiss her arm right up to the elbow: it is absolutely perfect. And I cannot be 
the only one, not by far. Does she know this? Can she feel my longing, as she 
extends her hand to this grimy, smirking schoolboy?

He disgorges some coins from his sticky palm. They fall slowly into her slim, 
clean, white hand, defiling it.

I am fiddling in my handbag, putting my card away, groping for my pen. I keep 
the receipt in my hand.

The next boy reaches the front of the queue, just as I find my pen. In his 
hand, he holds two even cheaper sweets. Clearly visible, tucked under his 
backward-curled fingers, a pair of chocolate bars worth - I don't know - at 
least fifty pence. He can see them: I can see them: she can see them. But she 
pretends not to.

She flicks a glance at me, then back. "That's sixpence," she says dully, not a 
quaver in her voice. He has enough money in his hand to pay for all of it, but 
he decants exactly what she asks for the sweets he's holding out in front. I 
glance at his face, afraid to see what it holds; and I am sickened by his 
bright-eyed triumph.

I find my pen, uncap it and, holding my receipt up to my breast, I pretend to 
write on it, flashing my glance from one boy's face to the next, trying now not 
to see their impudent smiles. I cannot fight them; we cannot fight them. These 
little urban rascals always win.

But I am gratified to see them look anxiously at me, turn away, make for the 
door. I follow them determinedly, as if herding them out of the shop. I am 
boiling with useless anger. What sort of proprietor would leave a shop in the 
care of a young girl like this?

One of the boys lingers by the pumps. As I walk round to my car, he smiles at 
me cheekily. He is gloating, knowing that my silence makes me complicit in his 
villainy. My unblinking, hostile stare freezes him out, but it takes a good 
second. Perhaps it is my pen, still poised to write on my receipt, which 
unsettles him: I don't know. I hate him too much to care. He turns to rejoin 
his companions; they scamper across the road to rejoin their gang and brag 
about their dishonesty.

I drop the pen in my handbag and reach for my car door, determined to get out 
of this hell.

I feel base, pathetic. I saw the deception, yet said nothing. I gave her no 
support. I am not worthy of her. I can imagine how splendid those boys feel. 
They are learning how to dominate women, how to trick, smirk, deceive, smile, 
flatter, smooth-talk, rape. Yes, they have raped her, and we did not cry out.

Is this how the meek are going to inherit the earth? It is with a grim and 
involuntary smile that I remember the wag's rejoinder: "That is, if it's all 
right with everyone else."

I look back at the lovely girl in her brightly-illuminated shop. God! She is 
looking at me! As my eyes meet hers, they seem to plead: "Rescue me."

Abashed, I look down. As if I could! I have not even the courage to sweet-talk 
her. I get into my expensive car and start the huge engine running, taking 
false comfort from my cocoon of steel. I glare at myself in the mirror. I am 
rotten.

The least I could do for that sweet girl was to get out of her life. And so, 
abruptly, I swung the car out of the garage and fled the town.

I was in a hurry.
