This is the beginning of our story.
I turned the corner around the potato chip display across from the meat counter in the supermarket and nearly crashed my cart into a young woman turning out of the next aisle away from me. In fact, I did clip her heel. It was my fault. I wasn't watching where I was going, but was staring at the t-bone display wondering whether I should grab one to grill on Saturday. I pulled up short and she grabbed her foot, and started to hobble away on one foot while leaning on her cart with a sound of what could have been a string of epithets released at the asshole behind her. She didn't even look around.
"Oh, jeez, I'm sorry," I called after her, but she was already around the next corner out of site. I was too embarrassed to try to run after her and she was clearly not interested in hearing any more apologies.
I finished filling my shopping list at the dairy aisle and headed to the check-out counter. Lane 10 looked like it had the potential to move the fastest based on the relative fullness of the carts lined up and the fewest kids hanging around their mothers. But, I am never good at that and sometimes wonder if I shouldn't take the contrary approach and go to the longest line, because it always seems to be the faster moving line compared to the one I had picked. So, I fall into line and then notice that my earlier victim is the woman directly in front of me in the line – I could tell because she was still feeling her heel with a grimace.
I stepped from behind my cart to her side and said, "I'm not sure you heard me back there, but I really am sorry for running into you. Is your foot okay?"
After an uncomfortably long blank stare right into my eyes, she said, "No, I didn't hear you, and no, my foot is not okay."
"I really am sorry that I wasn't watching where I was going. Is there anything I can do?"
Her blank stare slowly turned into a quizzical look with arched eyebrows and then, "Gene?"
Now it was my turn to turn quizzical and to stare back blankly wondering how this woman would know my name. And, then it hit me. "Kay?"
"Wow, it has been a long time."
"It sure has. Do you live here?"
"I just moved here a couple of months ago. How long have you lived here?"
"Two years."
By then, the line had cleared in front of Kay and I heard an "ahem" from behind me and I saw that the check-out clerk looked annoyed. I motioned to Kay and she hurried over to empty her cart on the counter. It was then that I actually had a chance to look at Kay. The old memories flooded back in a torrent. It was the same gorgeous Kay, the light brown hair and the body; slim waist, tight legs, and breasts just a little fuller than what I remembered from the last time I saw her. I had a lovely few minutes watching her concentrate on removing all of the items from her cart, especially when she bent over to remove the last items and her butt was raised in display in her tight little shorts. It was as if she had forgotten that I was there until she stood facing the clerk to swipe her credit card and then looked back at me smiled. My heart melted and my cock twitched at that old familiar smile.
Kay loaded her bags into the cart and it was my turn to unload, but it was done a little clumsily as I nervously hurried to finish, hoping that she wouldn't get away. But, when I looked up, she was standing there watching me, and still smiling.
I hadn't seen Kay for ten years. We had grown up together as part of a foster family. Well, we had lived in the same house for several years. I was there from when I was 6 until I left to go to college when I was 18. She lived there from when she was 9 until she was 17. She was two years younger than I was and I left a year before she did. Although I went back to see our "parents" a couple of times after I left for college, she was never there and soon left anyway. I had asked about her, but she had sort of disappeared from the radar, as often happens in foster families when one of the kids leave under less than ideal circumstances, which happened in her case, but I never really learned what the circumstances were.
Sam and Mary, the foster parents, were good people and provided a stable and loving home. I had lost my parents in an automobile accident and had no other relatives that would take me in. I don't remember much of my real parents. But, going into foster care can be a real bitch – getting thrown into a home with a bunch of strangers, particularly with other kids who are kind of fucked up because of their past experiences and why they ended up there in the first place. But, I eventually found a way to carve out my niche in the household and didn't really notice much when Kay joined our "happy" family a few years later. Kay wasn't one of the "fucked up ones", fortunately for her. Over time we developed a kind of comradeship that was based partly on our common "condition" and partly on a kind of attraction as if we really were brother and sister. In fact, she started telling people we were brother and sister if they didn't know that we were really a couple of unlucky foster kids with no real family.
It was when I was between 13 and 14 after I started noticing girls that I first started noticing Kay as a girl, especially as I noticed that the shape of her swimsuit started to change shape in places a growing girl's swimsuit should change. Okay, don't get the wrong idea here. This is not a tale about kiddie-porn. Yes, I did have my fantasies as probably any kid might have.
In high school Kay and I were best friends at home. We didn't hang out together outside the house at all, but would spend hours in the family room just talking into the night about what was going on in school and eventually about our respective boy and girl friends. I was her big brother, without all the sibling rivalry bullshit. She was my little sister. I was the first one to know when she lost her virginity and the one to threaten to beat the shit out of the guy who did it. Of course I was jealous for her to go out with any boy and it made my heart ache whenever she told me about some guy and whether she liked him, etc., etc. I did notice she would get a little pouty whenever I would tell her about my latest chick, but I was pretty clueless at the time as to what that meant. I could never get really serious about any one girl, at least after I got into her pants or came to the conclusion that I never would. Hey, I was a hormonally trapped teenager.
In my senior year of high school I learned that I was going to be awarded a full scholarship to Stanford and I could get my high school diploma in Spring and start at Stanford in April. Alright, so I was a horny teenager, but I didn't always think with my dick. So, there was a huge flurry of activity for a month or two and I was summarily shipped off to the University in great fanfare. I remembered walking through the airport with our "parents" on the way to the plane with Kay walking a few steps behind and starting to get this strange feeling about her and wondering why she was so quiet and despondent appearing. But, the press was on for me to get to the plane and my last contact with her was a hug and a good luck goodbye, and I was on the plane.
I remember on the plane having this sudden empty and sad feeling and it wasn't about leaving home, it was about leaving Kay and thinking that I had lost something important and hadn't taken the time to realize it. And, I didn't see her again and thought I never would and so, I forgot about her.
I was flustered as I tried to finishing checking out my groceries and entered the wrong PIN for my debit card twice. Kay remained standing, leaning on her cart, smiling at me the whole time, not saying a word. As I finished loading my bags into my cart and pushed it towards her, she just smiled, turned and headed to the door with the obvious expectation that I would follow.
Following her, I could not help but notice her beautiful bare legs and shorts stretched across a firm appearing butt. How could have I forgotten the butt that I had admired so often years ago.
Outside the store she stopped and turned around. "I have ice cream in my bag and it is probably already melting. I need to take it home to the freezer and put the rest of my groceries away. Do you want to meet later?"
"Absolutely," I said and scribbled my cell phone number on a scrap of paper I tore from one my bags. "Call me when you are ready." I handed her the scrap and our hands briefly, but intentionally touched.
And, that was it. I had no idea whether she would call me or whether I would ever see her again. We went off to our separate cars in opposite directions and I didn't see her leave the lot.
The drive home was interesting and exasperating as memories and regrets and hope tangled up with each as I thought about having seen Kay again after all of these years. I realized that I knew nothing about her now: why she had moved to town, where she had been, whether she was married, had a boyfriend, kids, job ... nothing.
I realized that I didn't really know what to expect now about meeting Kay. As I said, we had lived together as kids and had a very close relationship, but I was now feeling a little awkward because as close as it had been, I basically dumped her when I went off to school without a 'hello, how are you doing?' ever since.
It was 6:30 before my cell rang. It was not a local number and I didn't recognize it and almost didn't answer it until I realized that it was probably her; she probably still had her old number from wherever she had moved.