"Adam," Delilah's voice on the phone was in my ear, the memory of her naked beauty in my head: the little gold cross between her breasts lying on a tiny bed of freckles. I'd counted each one, there were twelve. "I can't do this. I'd never thought I could do without people."
I never thought I could do without you.
"Can we go shopping?" she asked. "I need some groceries and I'm sure you do too."
I did: milk and bread, fruit and vegetables. A small basket of groceries, not much. Luckily, I had plenty of toilet roll as I had a habit from my mother to always pay attention to specials, and had bought two big packs a month earlier, before the run on the shelves. Another jar of honey too, would be nice.
I remembered the taste of Delilah. Her honey was darker, bees landing on red velvet roses, her lips a dark pink. In the morning light two months ago I'd finally seen the colour of her nipples, big dark-brown circles on her breasts with a small darker nub at each centre, when she lay back and looked at me. God, those eyes. The way she looked at me like she did that first time, on the bus. Her slightly crooked teeth, her smile. Perhaps I loved her. I didn't know. I knew longing, that's for sure. Maybe I even knew lust, or couldn't tell the difference in the warm light of morning.
Take me again, Adam, love me twice. She didn't love me, Delilah, but she'd taken me into her house, she'd welcomed me into her body, she'd let me sleep by her side. We still met from time to time on the bus, each with our own timetables; but late meetings at work meant we didn't see each other every day, or even every week. We weren't committing to each other, nor committed, but we were still commuting, on and off, into each other's lives. It was all very gentle and slow, two people becoming more intimate, becoming quieter together.
We weren't rushing. Because of that, our sex was the same, slow and gentle, neither of us in a hurry. We both got to know each other's body very well, and slowly we were finding what was inside us, what made our bodies work with the other. She'd discovered that place, just inside my hip, where a touch on my skin made me tremble; and I discovered a smooth place in the hollow of her thigh where she nearly died. That's what she sighed, anyway. Adam, I'm dying. Do that again.
We were both insular, both alone with ourselves, and when we invited each other in, our love was gentle and slow. Perhaps she did love me. I didn't know.
"I'll meet you in the car park, outside Coles, about three."
The car park was a quarter full, cars parked with a space in between, as if they too might be contagious. I turned the engine of my car off, the tick, tick, tick of the cooling block quite loud in the empty space. I stood on a small pathway waiting, and after a few minutes I saw Delilah's little car, dark blue, move slowly up an adjacent bay. I raised my arm in greeting and the car's indicator flicked, on off, on off. Delilah was such a careful driver, it was automatic. Some habits never changed.
She pulled up on the other side of the roadway, turned off the engine and got out. Her striped blue and white skirt rippled beautifully as she turned and I knew she'd worn it just for me, the skirt she'd worn the day it rained and the lights went out. Like a late summer breeze she walked towards me and stopped, the requisite distance away. Some habits had to change.
I couldn't reach out, not until we'd taken more care. It didn't matter - I was used to seeing her from a distance, travelling apart on the bus. She was still very beautiful, even in a suburban car park on a late summer day, standing a metre and a half away. Distance didn't dull her.
"Adam," she said in her low husky voice. "How have you been? Working from home these very changed days? I thought I could do it, but sometimes I get so very sad, by myself."
"Me too," I said. "I make myself follow a routine. Even shopping, I write myself a list so I can be quick."
"Yes, I do that. I go anti-clockwise around the aisles so I know where everything is, and save the fresh things till last."
"Oh no. I go clockwise. We'd meet in the middle."
"No," said Delilah, "that won't do. I'll read my list from the bottom, so I can walk ahead of you." She smiled, looking at me with her candid appraisal. "I know you like the sight of my bottom."
She turned, and on the pathway ahead of me I watched her delectable sway as she walked towards the shopping mall. Ten metres up the path, Delilah looked over her shoulder to make sure I was looking, a cheeky smile on her face. As she walked, she deliberately bunched up one side of the skirt in her hand to show me the top of her stocking, the pale skin at the top of her thigh.
She let her skirt drop as she went into the mall, the automatic doors sliding open long enough for me to follow, without them closing first. Delilah always did wear beautiful clothes, and the memory of her swaying breasts under a soft woollen jumper jumped into my head, as she came down the stairs in her house.
Ahead of me, she took a paper towel from her bag and picked up a red plastic basket, the paper between the handle and her fingers. She pushed against the gate with her hip and entered the super-market. Delilah turned left to go clockwise.
On the floor of each aisle, isolation zones were marked with red lines, a pair of feet painted right in the centre of the square. At the entry to each aisle and each open space, red words on white signs asked shoppers to keep their distance, 'Please be patient and respect everyone's space.'
Delilah walked ahead of me and stopped in front of the garlic and onions, brown and white, and a single tray of red onions with their flamboyant purple and red patterns for twice the price. She stood looking, as if she couldn't make up her mind. She made a play of looking at her list, glancing at me as if I was a stranger, and she slowly placed a hand inside her collar as if it was a subconscious thing she might do when thinking. She adjusted her bra-strap as any woman might when she was uncomfortable, to pull the strap up and slide it sideways, to adjust the weight of her breasts. The thin strap was pale blue, the colour of the late summer sky outside.
I didn't really need onions, so I watched her do it, saw how the curve of her breast rose slightly up. The deliberate way she did it, ignoring me now, just a stranger... my cock felt heavy in my pants. With an exploratory squeeze of my core muscles, I made myself pulse twice. I waited, and squeezed two times more.
Delilah eventually chose three red onions, her fingers still on her neck having got my attention. She moved to where vegetables were kept cooler so they didn't perish. I stepped into her space and chose two brown onions, dropping them into my basket, even though I didn't really need them. She was by the mushrooms now and crouched down to see them on the bottom shelf, and I knew under her spread skirt her sex would be opening, the rounded bulbous head of the mushrooms quite obvious.
Standing up, Delilah took two steps to the right to inspect the zucchinis. They were long, some narrow ended, others quite rounded, many different sizes like a handful of penises, only green. She looked back at me, down the aisle to the left, and at first held my eyes then slowly drifted her look down my body to my groin. She held her eyes there for a moment, then nodded twice as if confirming her memory was true. She selected a single zucchini, the length and thickness of my erect prick, only green.
Delilah's eyes sparkled with glee as she looked across to see me watching. She stroked the vegetable, just the once, her long fingers sliding off the end. She dropped it into her basket. Good god, am I jealous of a vegetable? Or was it a promise?
She moved up the aisle to the fruit - pomegranates, peaches and apples: fruit which, when split open, looked like cunts. She grinned to herself and smiled wickedly back at me, and dropped a hand of baby bananas, five fingers, into her basket. Delilah was preparing a feast. I pretended to look at apples and chose a glossy red one whose juice would drip from my lip when I bit it. Delilah's skirt flared as she turned quickly to the meat counter, where she selected two small medallions, perfect little circles of meat. I dropped spring onions into my basket, together with some snow peas.
Turning in to the jams and spreads aisle, where the bread was, further down, Delilah went to the second zone marked on the floor. She put her basket down, then turned around to face me. I stood in the centre of my square, she stood in hers, and we looked at each other. Down at the farthest end of the aisle, an old woman was staring at bread.
