A Short Erotic Encounter by Endura Glass
The little Toyota pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store and came to a stop under one of the tall streetlights casting a dull halo in the night onto the sparsely filled lot. Cecilia emerged from behind the wheel and started for the market, taking in the smell of wet pavement, result of an unexpected rainfall about an hour earlier in the evening.
Cecilia preferred going to the market at night to avoid the crowds, to wander the barren aisles wonderfully devoid of people and congestion. She'd always been a night person, a habitual night owl born of concert going in her youth, and now working as a waitress in a series of upscale Italian restaurants. There was perhaps also the comfort of the night staff of the market, they seemed friendlier. Being alone now for more than a year, Cecilia sometimes wondered about the seven year relationship that had ended so sadly and abruptly.
Having pulled a cart from the wedge of units collected from the day, Cecilia strolled into the store, one of the wheels wobbling in a vibration that vibrated up through the steel framework. Among the aisles she carefully gathered the items she needed from the shelves, crossing them off as she went, the Musak being piped in over the sound system conveniently blotted out by the sounds and talk of the night stockers.
Rounding a corner Cecilia saw a man she had worked with several years previous, at a high-end bistro not far from there. He was standing there, deeply enthralled with the offerings of jarred pasta sauces, his basket hanging from his arm. She enjoyed one of those private moments when you are able to watch someone before they are aware of being watched. This was the younger man, a fellow waiter, who had deeply flirted with her. She had been flattered because he was somewhat younger than she—younger meaning that he was perhaps late twenties to her early forties at the time. He heaped a great deal of attention on her back then. He was good-looking—a man who could have had his pick of the other nubile waitresses there. However, any notion of a romantic entanglement were quashed by the fact that Cecilia was living with someone, and she held firm to a code of ethics that prevented her from dabbling in wanderings of the flesh outside her relationship. That hadn't curbed her wonderful imagination with all the "what ifs?" that arise in such situations.
As she crept closer one memory in particular was dredged up. There had been a night, back in the Italian restaurant days, as she was collecting up freshly laundered napkins in the linen closet, that he had crept into the room and closed the door behind him, the latch resounding just loudly enough to turn her around to see him standing there with a mischievous look on his face. As the muffled sounds of the restaurant were heard just beyond the closed door, he had approached her and pressed himself up against her, pinning her against the shelf. As the two of them laughed, her hands bound by his, she had felt the unmistakable presence of his hardening cock through his thin black slacks. The moment didn't go any further, Cecilia shooing him away after he planted a kiss on the softness of her neck. That had been the extent of their physicality. All the rest of their flirtation had been merely talk and innuendo.
A short time later, frustrated by the management and lack of shifts, Cecilia had decided to quit. The young admirer had actually exhibited a bit of sentiment when she informed him she was leaving and gentlemanly shook her hand with a fond farewell. And she had left.
Creeping along the aisle, watching him, the squeak of the misaligned wheel of the cart announced her approach and he arbitrarily stepped closer to the shelf to allow her to pass. Then looking over, he made eye contact, doing a double take, recognizing Cecilia.
"Hi," he uttered, his normally cool persona momentarily upstaged by genuine excitement to see her. "How are you?"
Cecilia smiled with the same excitement, "Good. Haven't seen you for a while. Still at the restaurant?"
"No, I quit about a month after you," shifting the basket to the other hand. "Well how have you been?"
"Working at a little bistro."
"Yeah, after you left there just wasn't anybody any fun there," he said, taking quiet stock and remembering her slender figure.
They chatted like that for a few minutes, the usual loose and somewhat cordial banter between people who know one another. However, during that brief exchange, all the dormant attraction began simmering in each of them. He was absent his former robust forwardness and treated her with respect. However, Cecilia's thoughts were already racing well ahead and, no longer tethered to a relationship, she entertained some wickedly nasty thoughts of what she would like to do to him—perhaps the coolness of the evening and the recent rain having plied some erotic notions. She was enjoying his slightly timid conversation as he tried to drum up topics to hold her there, unaware that Cecilia was already conjuring copulations, only half hearing what he was saying as her needful libido was charging her with increasingly vivid visuals of touching; her of him, and him of her.
As women are prone to do, Cecilia didn't offer any updates on her relationship status, enjoying too much his boyishly vague inquiries—to which she was not about to divulge too much, and leave him stewing as to her possible availability. Planning her move carefully, she told him how nice it had been seeing him and took leave, pushing her cart on down the aisle, knowing full well the poor boy was watching her, longing after the move of her hips, the bounce of her butt through her jeans.
As Cecilia checked out she drummed up her line of action. His basket had been empty, so she assumed he had just begun his shopping. So, after paying, she exited the market through the sliding glass door, a slight chill hitting her as she entered into the night air. She took quick inventory of the parking lot and saw his Jeep parked out near the edge of the parking lot. He always parked his pride and joy away from the risk of swinging doors of careless drivers.
After placing her groceries in her car, Cecilia took a quick look in the mirror, fluffing her hair and licking her lips. She then locked her car and headed across the parking lot, into the shadows of where his Jeep was parked, and lied in wait.
She could see him at the checkout counter through the large glass windows of the market. She had little tremors of excitement shooting through her as she thought of how the next few moments, perhaps hours, might play out. As she waited for him to emerge from the market she took note of the relative solitude of where the Jeep was sitting in the parking lot. As the sliding doors swooshed open and he emerged, Cecilia leaned against the front fender of his Jeep and crossed her arms. She watched him as he crossed the parking lot, reaching into the front pocket of his jeans to take hold of his keys, pulling them out with a rattle. When he looked toward his Jeep his stride slowed slightly. A smile came to his face. It was a lifted and genuine smile revealing a sea shift in emotional charge following what he had believed to be a good-bye, now reclaimed as a possible evening encounter.
"Still have the Jeep, I see," Cecilia said as he came closer.
"She's my girl, you know that."
He arrived at the Jeep, face to face with Cecilia. "What a nice surprise to come out and see you standing here."
"Do you need to be anywhere?" Cecilia coyly asked.
"No place at all," he said, as he unlocked the door and placed his bag of groceries in the Jeep. He asked, "Would you like to go somewhere, maybe have a cup of coffee?"
"Coffee? At ten o'clock?"
"Not very imaginative of me, I suppose. Okay, maybe a drink somewhere?"
"Why don't we just sit here, and talk."
"You at least want to sit inside?" he asked.
Cecilia tacitly answered by walking around the front of the Jeep to arrive at the passenger side door. He slid behind the wheel and reached across to unlock her door. Cecilia hopped up into the jeep and settled into the passenger seat.
When he shut his door they found themselves in a private little world of quiet and stillness—the outside world, with the occasional passing car on the boulevard, and the infrequent clamor of a shopping cart being pushed through the parking lot was muffled through the windows of the Jeep.
The two of them sat there, chit chatting about things, laughing at the recall of an incompetent manager or some surly customer. As the silences between their various chitchatting increased, he turned on the radio to fill the void. Not an unpleasant or awkward void, more a tentative silence punctuated by the inherent electricity of two people coupled together in a private moment. He fidgeted somewhat, as if trying to assess if a pass would be rebuffed or not.