There's some unconventional morality here folks. So if infidelity is not your thing, you've been warned.
***
I was walking down the street on a Saturday morning wondering which coffee I would buy. I had a made a killing on a few deals at the end of the week and had celebrated the night before. So I was in recovery mode, a little hazy and slow on the reaction. But I had nothing much to do and a morning to kill. Something was happening in the street. I could sense a commotion coming towards me. I could feel it before I could hear or see it, probably in the stressed faces of the people walking towards me, walking quicker than they usually would. People who would avoid risks in their working lives and try to avoid conflict. Regular people who didn't know what they were missing. Something was approaching, but I reckoned that I could enjoy it if it was just something different. Or I could avoid it if it was truly dangerous. Hopefully, I could join in the fun. I quickly found that it wasn't going to avoid me.
It was a blonde woman in her underwear, she was only wearing pants and a bra. She was lurching at people asking them something. You could tell that she was probably in her twenties, she has the presence of a woman who had been aware of her body and how she could use it for enough years. The people moving towards me - men with women, women with small children, men pushing prams - decided that she had to be a threat to them in some way and veered away from her. I was by myself, alone on the footpath.
The women lurched up to me. I noted that she was a head shorter than me but muscular. "I'm searching for..." she shouted. She shouted what she was searching for but I could not work out what she was saying. She repeated it louder at me since I hadn't dodged away from her. "I'm searching for..." Again that word that I could not work out. She caught my eye, looked hard into me and frustratingly repeated herself.
Of course part of my brain was urging me to get away from her, but seeing that she had caught me, the others on the street were able to avoid her and continue whatever their journeys were in both directions. Their nice, uncomplicated lives. The woman was agitated but, I hastily decided, not dangerous. Although I couldn't say why I thought that I was safe from her. I knew I was safe.
Even when she grabbed my arm strongly and repeated herself.
"Searching for what?" I asked, trying to say it calmly as she gripped my arm in a way that told me that she was not going to let go without some indication from me that I was in on her quest.
She repeated the mush of sounds, so I still couldn't give her any satisfactory response. What if I guessed what she wanted so wrongly that she got wound right up.
No, I took the easiest route out. "I'll help you find it," I offered kind of neutrally.
Her eyes widened. "You know where [indecipherable] is?" I sensed I had given her hope. A little caution was a good idea.
"No," I said, "but I'll help you."
Why did I say that? I was on a coffee strip, in the street with a wild-eyed woman who was wearing only a bra and pants. Close up I noticed that she would be quite a looker if she was properly dressed and groomed. Her lanky blonde hair fell naturally straight, and her figure was trim but with enough plush to make her look enticing. If I was looking at her in any sexual way she did not give me a reaction either negative or positive. She was fixed on finding whatever it was. She wasn't looking for any sort of appreciation. I don't think she was interested in what sort of person I was. But now she had recruited someone into her quest, she was calmer. Her lurching in the street was, I guessed, desperation rather than mania or anything dangerous to her or anyone else.
"You'll help me?" she confirmed almost calm but with no connection or empathy.
"I'll help you," I repeated, still free from wondering why I was getting involved. "Here," I added, and took off the thin jacket I was wearing, good enough to break the cool of the breeze as we were nowhere near the warmth of the day.
Although she didn't seem to feel the coldness of the breeze, she woman let go of me to accept the jacket and put it on in a way that suggested she had no shame or concern at the flesh that she was displaying. She didn't try to button it up. Although the jacket covered her top adequately, it only went about half way down her thighs, so her pants were still more or less visible as were her bare legs.
"Do you know where it is?" I asked her.
She looked at my chest and shook her head.
"Is it near here?" I tried, but she looked at me blankly. "If it's far away I can drive you," I offered.
She gave me a nod in reply to that, and I got the sense that she did not bother to think of me other than someone who would help her.
"The car's at home," I told her. "We'll have to walk there. It's not far." Again she nodded. "This way," I told her, indicating the direction I had come from. Which happened to be the way that she was heading.
We left the coffee strip and had the footpath to ourselves as we walked side by side. She seemed to relax more as we walked although she kept looking straight ahead, never at me. She seemed to know where we were going without me having to tell her when to turn into the side streets. I thought she had calmed right down as we turned into my street but she suddenly became uncomfortable in the jacket, jerking her arms to straighten it or get it to sit right on her shoulders. She gave up on that and shrugged it off. She stopped walking and held it out for me to take back without looking at me or saying anything. I took the jacket and put it back on so that I still had both my hands free.
We walked on, one of us dressed and the other virtually naked yet unconcerned. "Almost there," I told her and in response she started to act uncomfortable in her bra, picking at the strap on her shoulder, flipping it and straightening it, then flicking it off her shoulder.
I had her inside before she removed her bra completely. Unperturbed about her display, she dropped the bra in my hallway and walked on deeper into the house.
"It's not here," she reported from the kitchen.
I followed her in there, to see her checking my cupboards and larder. "Are you hungry" I asked her.
In response she turned around to face me. For the first time I could admire her firm breasts and smooth skin. "Not hungry, no," she addressed me without emotion, "searching." She started to adjust the sides of her pants.
"That's not necessary," I told her.
She dropped them to the floor anyway. "You're right," she decided and walked up close to me. "Hold me here," she insisted.
I held the naked stranger in my arms and she pressed into my chest. I felt her soften and then grip me with her strength and some urgency.
