The scene is a Laundromat. A lone man is flipping absently through an outdated magazine, waiting for laundry to dry.
Enter overburdened woman. She is trying to balance two full baskets on top of each other while she props the door open with her foot. She is not young but still trim and pretty in jeans and a white t-shirt. Flip flops on her feet. Her shoulder-length brown hair is a muddle of disheveled dark waves but is thick and shiny. She has attempted to pin part of it back with what looks like a child's barrette but the hair has rebelled and the barrette hangs limply just above her left ear.
The man looks up, bemused, at her struggling silhouette in the doorway. But before he can rise to help, she is already in, intent on her task. Taking note of his presence without acknowledging him, she strides to the center row of washers, plops down the load, and filches a plastic bag of quarters from her pocket. She is completely focused as she clinks quarters into each of three machines. While they fill, she deftly sorts the contents of the two baskets into the washers, clanks the lids shut, and positions the empty baskets, at the ready for transport to the driers. All of this, the notices from the corner of his eye, is accomplished with practiced ease, within minutes, and without looking him.
He is about to return his gaze to his magazine when the woman turns toward him to survey the room for a reading spot. In that brief moment, as she stands facing him in the mixed glare of linty sunlight and fluorescents, a book in her hand, the shock of recognition hits his brain and cock with simultaneous force and he suppresses a cough to avoid calling out. My God, he thinks, his brain spinning. It's her. Standing not six feet away is the woman whose image has hovered before his closed eyes more than any other as he stroked himself, time and again, into oblivion.
He had met her only once, briefly, and she was no celebrity. Still, he knew her by heart: smooth, pale belly, small dark nipples like ball bearings, long legs, trim auburn bush. And those eyes: wide and blue and captivating in their intensity. True, she had technically never been anything more to him than a set of anonymous nude photos on a computer he'd been hired to fix. It was also true that, as a technician, he'd seen his share of private porn. But somehow these amateur images, and their subject, affected him differently. They were just so raw, so blatantly sensual. His mind flashes to an image of her entwined in green satin sheets, dark hair spread like a fan; on all fours on an oriental rug, peering over her shoulder, tempting the lens with her naked ass; draped in an overstuffed chair, a leg thrown casually over the armrest, reading a book; sprawling in the grass, milky thighs spread, lips curled, smiling eyes looking right through him.
It was impossible to tell if they were self-portraits - perhaps taken for a lover? -- or photos taken by a lover, just for fun. In any case, they had stayed with him... literally. In a weak (and undeniably horny) moment, glued to the screen in the back room of the shop, he had saved them -- all 16 of them -- onto his keychain flash drive, marveling even as he did it, that the folder wasn't even password-protected. It was almost as if she wanted to be seen. Their presence on his keychain burns a hole in his pocket even now and he feels himself lurch against it.
Oblivious to his mental acrobatics... and his increasing state of arousal, the woman kicks off her flip flops and seats herself along the top edge of the connected plastic chairs with her feet on the seat in front of her. Resting her arms on her knees, she opens a ragged copy of The Poetry of Emerson and appears to be instantly engrossed.
His mind still reeling, the man clears his throat and shifts position, to gauge her reaction. There is none. So he moves to his drier and opens the door to check the contents. She may be single-minded, but she is a woman, after all, and a woman with a photographer's eye. Her eyes can't help but flit from the book to his ass, his long legs, his well-muscled arms. As he squats to reach into his drier, she can't help wondering ... boxers or briefs?
A second later, there's the answer. The man is facing her with his underpants in his hand, a strange expression on his face. Oh God, the barrette! She realizes she must look like a lunatic and plucks the clip from her hair, pocketing it hastily and offering a weak smile. That's when she realizes that she knows this guy. The computer guy! In desperation, she had taken her laptop for repairs when the screen went out. But the man had acted strange when she'd picked it up a week later and she knew then that he must have seen its contents. Her face goes hot as she silently prays that he doesn't remember... but she feels a strange thrill at the thought that he might.
The man speaks.
"It's wet," he says.
"Wh- what?" She hears her voice catch.
"The stuff in my drier. Still wet and this is the second go-round. Looks like I'm going to be one quarter short...You wouldn't happen to have an extra..."
She thinks, Is this conversation for real? But she says,
"Oh! Oh sure, yeah."
Nervous laugh. She leans back on her seat, straightening her legs to dig in her pocket for the plastic bag, keenly aware of the picture her body makes as she does so. She fishes out a coin and extends her hand.
