Encounter 13

I first noticed him as soon as I entered the store. He was standing in the fruit and veg section, squeezing the honeydew melons to find a good firm one. It was late into the evening -- past ten o'clock -- and there was hardly anyone else in the shop. I was only there because my bloody in-laws had called half an hour earlier: they'd be down from Dundee tomorrow on their way to Heathrow Airport, 20 miles from our home. If I'd taken the call I'd have made an excuse, telling them we couldn't possibly put them up at such short notice; but it was Rob who answered the phone. So instead of curling up in my bed with a cup of hot chocolate and my new Kathy Reichs thriller, I'd slammed into the car and driven down to the Tesco 24-hour superstore to stock up the fridge. Leaving my husband and my three year old son back home. I was pissed off with Rob -- unreasonably so, it's not his fault his parents are thoughtless, inconsiderate bastards -- but maybe that explains what happened. I can't think of anything else that does.

The man was quite striking looking. He was a god six inches taller than me, over six feet, with a trim, well-toned frame. His brown hair was cut unfashionably short; I vaguely wondered if he was a police officer or a soldier. He was dressed quite simply, plain blue shirt with the top two buttons undone, exposing a few tufts of hair, and blue jeans, but the clothes looked nicely cut, expensive. Top of the range Nikes on his feet, that kind with the sort of rubber springs built into the heel. I guessed he was in his late 20s -- I'm 35 by the way. At first I could only see him in profile -- high cheekbones, strong jaw, seven o'clock shadow -- but when the front wheels of my trolley went the wrong way I swore, and his head swivelled towards me. His eyes were the deepest brown, almost black, and seemed incredibly intense. As they fixed on me I felt a jolt in my belly and my breath caught in my throat. That had never happened to me before, and I didn't quite understand it. He held my stare for a couple of seconds, then turned back to the fruit.

I grabbed a bag of boiling potatoes and some carrots and moved on. For a couple of minutes I forgot all about him as I concentrated on the shopping list in my head. Then, as I passed one of the cross-aisles between two blocks of shelves, I just happened to glance along it -- and he was standing in the next aisle, looking back at me. I registered it, but no more. Took a couple of items off the next shelf, and moved on. At the next cross-aisle, there he was again, eyes fixed on me, face expressionless. With a gasp of surprise, I dragged my trolley back, behind the cover of the shelves I'd just finished with. Silly cow, I told myself, it's nothing, just a coincidence. Why would a good looking you've never met be following you round the store, an older woman a couple of stones overweight, tired and looking it, and with unwashed blonde hair piled on top of her head in a careless bun? It was hardly surprising he was going the same direction as me: he'd obviously arrived in the shop just before me, and people do shop along an aisle, from front to back.

Aware of my heart rate pounding, I walked back across the cross-aisle and casually glanced down it -- oh shit, he was still there! Wire basket dangling from his hand, just one melon in it -- he hadn't bought anything else. Was it my imagination, or did his thick eyebrows twitch as he looked at me, in acknowledgement, or recognition -- or invitation?

Ducking into the shadow of the next block of shelves, I leant against them, feeling my face flush and pressing a hand to my racing heart, like some histrionic Jane Austen heroine. What should I do? Approach a member of the shop security staff and look like a fool when the guy said I was a nutter? Give him a withering look then just ignore him? Stomp up to him and confront him? I've read that most sex pests are cowards. I glanced down; why the hell hadn't I changed out of my short denim skirt before I came out to the shop? In my head I could hear some perverted prick of a judge: "in that tiny skirt, showing off her long legs, out on her own so late at night, she was virtually asking to be raped". Oh fuck, in my annoyance at Rob's parents I had parked in the first space I came to, right at the far end of the large car park, not near the shop in the arc lights, like any woman with a brain would have done!

At that moment he appeared round the shelves, probably wondering where I'd got to and if he'd lost me. He almost went head first over my trolley, but swerved smoothly round it and carried on down the aisle without so much as glancing at me. That was when I could have changed things, of course. With his back to me I could easily have wheeled back up to the checkout, paid for my purchases and dashed out of there. I actually told myself that was what I was going to do: I'd bought enough to feed Jack and May, and I could always nip out during my lunch hour the next day and top up. Why, then, was I turning my trolley in the other direction, and hesitantly following him, deeper into the shop?

He had stopped at the back wall, in front of the freezer cabinet. I pushed my trolley to one side and stood alongside him, maybe a foot away, my bare knees pressed against the cool wall of the cabinet. We both stared vacantly into the cabinet, not exchanging a glance, a word; my circulating blood roared in my ears, and I could scarcely breathe. Slowly I leaned forwards from the waist, slightly across him, reaching for a pack of frozen peas. As my fingers contacted the cold bag, his arm moved lazily, his hand resting gently but firmly on mine. I turned my head towards him, and his black eyes met mine. Try as I might, I couldn't look away, couldn't break the almost physical contact between his eyes and mine. We stood like that for, I don't know, seconds, hours, my fingers beginning to turn white from contact with the frozen pea bag, his big, warm hand laying across mine, our eyes locked. My breath was coming in short, shallow bursts, like a terrified rabbit, and I could feel my face flushing and my nipples twitching into gradual hardness. That was the moment when I knew, when I think we both knew: this total stranger wanted to have me; and I was going to let him.

He withdrew his hand and, some time later, turned his eyes from mine and sauntered away, back up the shop. The next few minutes were like a game: watching each other down the cross aisles, standing facing each other across two feet of boxed cakes, still not a word exchanged between us. And all the time, somewhere in my head, I kept asking myself, what the fuck was I doing? I love Rob. We've been married six years, and we have a good sex life. In all that time it had never occurred to me to even think about what it would be like to have an affair with another man. Yet, here I was, staring at an attractive man I'd seen for the first time barely ten minutes before, a man whose eyes seemed to be able to sear into my soul, and thinking about whether I was going to let him screw me; whether I was capable of stopping him from doing so.

There was only one extremely bored teenage girl on the checkouts, and as she rang through my purchases the man stood three yards behind me, gazing distractedly at the range of chocolate bars and magazines displayed by the till. I walked out of the shop without glancing back. As I left the bright lights which surrounded the front of the store, and moved into the less well-lit area of the car park, I could hear my breath rasping, and my low heels clicking across the tarmac. After perhaps thirty seconds I paused and looked back. He was standing in the doorway of the shop, watching me, fifty yards away, making it clear he meant no threat to me. I stared at him for a long time, then turned and began to continue to my car. When I turned my head a few moments later, I saw he was heading after me, slowly, confidently.

Reaching the car I packed my three bags of shopping into the boot, then wheeled the trolley to the nearest storage point. The car was in a little pool of darkness; there was nobody else in sight, and not another car in a hundred yards. The man stopped about ten yards behind my car and just stood, watching me, waiting to see what I would do next. It would have been so easy: just get into the car, lock it, and in ten minutes I would be back in my brightly lit home, with my husband and my beloved baby boy. Instead I placed my hands on the bonnet of the car and braced my weight on them.

I didn't hear him move, and I shuddered when I felt his hands in my hair, letting my handbag fall to the ground and spill its contents. A moment later my hastily constructed bun fell apart, and my blonde tresses dangled on my shoulders. I closed my eyes and gasped as he ran his hands firmly down my body, across the jumper covering my small breasts, then took my hips in his hands and pulled me back towards him. I felt his lips on my throat, and his hands slip under my short, tight skirt. I moaned in anticipation as one squeezed round the front, and into my panty briefs. His fingers tangled in my pubic hair for a moment then one slipped inside me, another brushing against my clitoris. I bucked back against him and gasped wildly. If he had intended to prepare me for what was coming, he needn't have bothered, I was already damp and ready for him. A second finger slipped inside me, and I heard a small squishing noise as he twirled them around, making me writhe my backside against the hardness in his jeans.

Still playing with me with one hand, with the other he firmly gripped the waistband of my pants and pushed them down to my knees, then placed the hand on one of my tits and began to squeeze it, in time with his fingers stroking my insides. He raised a foot and used it to push the pants the rest of the way to my ankles, then I stepped out of them. My skirt was tight enough that he had to roll it up out of the way, like peeling the skin off a banana, leaving me naked from the waist down in that cold, dark car park. I heard the sound of a zip, then his warm, hard cock contact my buttocks. He rubbed it across one then the other, rubbed it gently up and down the crack between them, toying with me, chuckling in my ear as I whimpered and pushed back at him in frustration and hissed, "Oh God, please."

Finally, he gripped my hips in both his hands, pulled me back and I felt a momentary pressure then a surge as he pushed into me. Christ, he felt big inside me. That small, resistant part of my brain still couldn't quite believe it. Like some cheap streetwalker, I was being fucked by a man I didn't know in an open-air car park, where anyone could see us, and probably under the watchful eye of the store's security cameras. The rest of my brain, though, dismissed such thoughts as it burst into flames. Shamelessly I leaned across the car bonnet, pushing back at him as he thrust in and out of me. There was no playfulness in his movements now, just hard, deep strokes as he fucked me with everything he had. I could hear my breath rasping out of me with each fierce push, and feel the tops of my thighs begin to tingle with discomfort as he slammed me against the vehicle with each jab at me. I was aware of a welcome, familiar heat beginning to spread up from my pussy, through my tummy and my boobs, and into my face. I tried to be quiet as I came, but I couldn't prevent a gasping, wailing sob escaping my lips as I exploded, my cunt walls tightening around his big, wonderful cock.

He hadn't finished, and kept hammering at me. I could already feel another orgasm building in me, and bit on a knuckle to try to control the next eruption. When it came, though, I actually screamed around my hand, and my knees buckled; it was only his burning prick deep inside me, and his hands fiercely griping my naked hips, probably leaving bruises, which kept me from falling. Moments later he gave a long sigh and pounded into me to the hilt, squeezing me hard against the car. I thrust back at him again and he began to wriggle his hips in small circles, stirring his cock inside me as he made sure he squeezed every drop into me. Even after it was clear he'd finished he continued to gently prod at me for a minute or two, as he stroked his fingers across my silky pubes and slipped a hand up inside my jumper, cupping a bra-clad tit..

Finally he pulled out of me and I heard his zip close. I stayed spread across the bonnet, recovering my breath. After a minute or so he took me by the shoulder and turned me around, leaning my cold, bare bum on the car. With a smile he handed me my handbag, the contents recovered. Then he placed his hands on my shoulders, gave me a chaste kiss on my cheek and walked away without a backward glance. Later that night, as I lay in bed, Rob gently snoring next to me, I wanted to cry but I couldn't. I felt shrivelled with guilt; yet at the same time, I could still feel the excitement of the instant attraction, his big, powerful cock stretching my vagina, his hands grasping my hips. Without conscious thought, I reached a finger down and slipped it into my wet, welcoming pussy.

This morning, shortly after I got to work, my mobile phone buzzed; a text message. Number withheld -- 'Next week, same time, same place, Steve'. He must have taken one of my business cards when he picked my bag up. What a smug, arrogant, bastard, just assuming that I'll come running at his command, like his personal whore. I mean, I don't know a damn thing about him. So his name's Steve. I wonder what excuse I'm going to give my husband, when I go shopping alone at Tesco again next Thursday night?