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Even when I managed to navigate through the store like an art thief dodging lasers, I couldn’t get everything I needed. Many of the shelves were empty, especially in the dry goods section. The pasta aisle was totally wiped out. A single box was open on the floor, dry macaroni scattered in all directions like a crime scene.
My grocery list quickly became unrealistic, so I changed my game plan. I grabbed whatever food I knew I could use to make a meal. Canned tuna. Two packs of ground beef, and one of ground sausage. A head of broccoli that had seen better days. I was in emergency mode now. We had to eat to survive, not just for pleasure.
The store was out of oranges, so I grabbed a bag of apples instead. I knew it would be heavy to carry back to the hotel, but if it put a smile on Molly’s face? It would be worth it.
The check-out line was extra unnerving. The cashier had to pick up every single item, scan them, and then place them in a bag. I wondered how many other objects she had touched today, objects that had been touched byotherpeople. She rubbed some hand sanitizer between her palms when she was done ringing me up, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was carrying a bag full of tainted items.
The fresh air outside felt good on my skin. Little was known about the virus so far, but that was something everyone agreed on: outdoors was safer than indoors. I breathed a sigh of relief through my mask as I made the long walk back to the hotel.
When I walked through the front door, I was greeted by a surprising sight. A figure stood next to the concierge desk, decked from head to toe in a yellow hazmat suit. The face was hidden behind a plastic window in the suit. In front of the suited person was one of the coffee tables from the lobby, and a bucket of water.
“I found this in the janitor’s closet!” Molly said from inside the suit. “Does it make my ass look big?”
She turned around and shook her butt, which was just a shapeless plastic bump.
I laughed. “You’ve never been sexier.”
“Ha ha, very funny,” her muffled voice said through the suit.
“You’ve actually stumbled upon my kink,” I teased. “Dressing up like astronauts is the only way I can get hard.”
She giggled inside the suit. “I knowthat’snot true. Shut up and start unloading the bags. I have a process for cleaning everything on this coffee table.”
So she’s acknowledging what happened last night, I thought.
Molly had me place each grocery item on the table one at a time. She then sprayed it down with a can of disinfectant spray, then used a big pair of tongs to dip the object into the bucket of water. Then she placed the clean object to the side where it could dry.
“No oranges,” I told her when we got to the bag. “But I got apples instead.”
“I like apples too,” she said, but I could tell she was a little disappointed.
It took ten minutes to individually clean every grocery item. “Okay, your turn,” she said, when the last one was done.
“You’re not spraying me with that,” I said.
She laughed and said, “No, we’re getting you clean another way. Come on!”
I followed her suited shape down the hall to the pool. The hot tub was bubbling gently. Next to it was a towel.
“Youwalked into the pool room?” I asked. “Woah now. You’re breaking the rules, Feisty.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “Theclosedsign fell off the door, so technically I’m not breaking any rules by being inside.”
“So you’re excusing your criminal behavior based on a technicality. I see how it is.”
“Get in,” she insisted. “Scrub yourself clean!”
I smirked at her. “You just want to see me naked, don’t you?”
“I already saw you in your underwear when you were swimming laps,” she said curtly. “This is just like that.”
“You mean when you were so embarrassed that you ran out of the pool room?” I asked.
“It’s different now,” she said. “I’ve gotten to know you better. Strip down to your underwear.”
Molly turned away from me slightly to give me a little bit of privacy, but I could tell she was looking at me out of the corner of her eye.You just gave me a way to get even,I thought while removing my shirt, then my shoes. I scrambled out of my jeans until I was only wearing my boxer-briefs.
“Good,” she said, like a nurse giving instructions to a patient. “Now jump in the hot tub and—”
