I like to walk through the shopping district near where I work during my lunch breaks. Sometimes I stop in the upscale coffee shop where the attractive baristas flirt for tips. Other days I just walk from store to store for something to do.
It was a cool early-spring day, and on my usual lunch break routine and I found myself in the boutique book shop, perusing the eclectic book collection with little interest in actually buying anything. As I strolled from one aisle to the next in the small shop, a wave of surprise rolled through me as I spotted Gina looking in the store window from the outside.
Gina. How can I even begin to describe who this woman is, and how I came to be under her spell? I first encountered her several weeks prior to this day when a lost bet and a simple dare took me into the nearby homeless encampment on a mission to buy pot. Strolling into the tent city that day, I had walked right into her spider web as what started as a simple kidnapping and robbery of a clueless guy in the wrong place at the wrong time had turned into me, tied up on the floor or Gina's tent and used for her sexual gratification in the most profane ways. Thus began the unlikely tryst between Gina, the homeless dominatrix, and me, reluctant at first but enraptured nonetheless.
That encounter and those that had followed had taken place wholly in her world. So it was with no small measure of surprise that I noticed her through the bookstore window during my lunch walk, staring back at me with just the faintest hint of a smile on her face.
You might not guess Gina is homeless by looking at her. She stood there looking sporty as usual with her dirty blond hair in a tight ponytail, wearing black yoga pants and a pink tank top over a sports bra. She could easily have come from the gym, on her way to get a kale and acai smoothie before getting cleaned up for book club. But I knew better; that she probably slept in those clothes, and most of her worldly possessions fit in the corner of her dome tent and the back seat of her old beat up hatchback.
What's your story, Gina?
I often wondered, though I doubted I would ever know for sure.
I realized too late I had stared a moment too long, and looked down at the bookstore floor. Would she walk away, each of us going back to our respective worlds? After a moment of trying to resist the temptation, I looked up again to find her still staring at me, her smile replaced by a slight frown, as if she had sensed my contemplation about her history and disapproved. She slowly lifted her hand and beckoned to me with one finger, the way an angry parent might summon a misbehaving child.
Shit.
I broke eye contact and looked down again, making a quick decision on what to do. I slowly looked up and began to make my way out of the store. I crossed the threshold of the store entrance and turned toward where Gina was standing. She had turned to face me, the smile returning to her face. "Hey, shithead," she began, "funny meeting you here."