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She pretended to be interested in pre-Christmas placemats as a distraction. She held up the packages for ostensible comparison—to scan the market unabashedly. She already had a rough idea of what she was looking for.
Such a heavily tattooed broth of a man was usually associated with equallyinkedladies. Their hair color ranged from bright purple over azure to pink. In addition, they usually wore half a toolbox of irons in their faces and dollar coin-sizedplugsortunnelsin their ears.
She didn’t know what was worse: if the girls had a super physique and a pretty face? Or if the body modifications were accompanied by an otherwise unkempt appearance? Did she have prejudices plaguing her?She sighed.Unfortunately, they were all too often confirmed by reality, not that she was fond of it…
Here in the discount store, too, there were a few of this kind walking around. But none of them seemed to belong to the hunk of a dad and his cute baby. They were all busy filling other shopping carts and didn’t give the cart and its baby seat a second glance. But they did, of course, take a closer look at the matching hunk of a man.
Well, that was it.She was about to tear herself away from him with a last admiring gaze and head for the queues in front of the cash desks.
Then a smile made his handsome face glow from within. He leaned forward, down, and tilted his ear to pick up the words addressed to him in the flurry of shopping. Nodded, pulled a mischievous smirk. Then he opened his mouth to his reply to a…
She gripped the handle of her shopping cart tighter, blinking.This… can’t be! The full-body tattooed—well, she couldn’t swear to it, but please: Who tattoos his neck before every square inch of skin is drenched in ink?—hunk of a man and this… this…?
They don’t fit!She blinked again, a second, third time, but the image before her eyes did not change.
Mr.Tattooedwas hanging on the lips of a personifiedsweetnessthat barely reached his shoulders.
She fit him perfectly—and at the same time not at all!
Already just the clothing style alone:
He was casual-sporty, wearing jeans with decorative holes, the T-shirt under the vintage canvas jacket marked with some martial motto print.
She, on the other hand… Starting with the shoulder-length, perfectly coiffeur-streaked blond hair and the short coat, equally immaculate as bright red. From the black business stretch pants that peeked out from underneath to the ankle boots with office-appropriate 2-inch heels: the sweetness represented the personified antithesis of those ladies who are usually found in the bodymod scene.
Did the two really belong together, or had she just happened to approach Mr. Tattooed?She noticed that she was staring at them in an unseemly way. Indiscriminately, she grabbed one of the placemat packs in her cart and began rummaging through some pile of clothing for cover.Men’s boxers, she realized, and felt her cheeks begin to glow.Well, never mind, the main thing was that she could find out if…
Yes, the elegant angel belongs to him!She not only breathed a casual kiss on the adorable baby’s forehead.No!But she also plucked a shopping list from the jacket pocket of the broth of a man as routinely as is possible only after years of partnership.
Prejudices are useful, she whispered to herself, almost inaudibly, the quote from her former lecturer.They keep us from going insane. But the intelligence of the individual is measured by whether he or she is able to revise his or her bias in individual cases.
It was incredible that she had so stubbornly fallen for this pigeonholing!She snorted her amusement about this off her chest. Then she pushed the shopping cart in stalker manner and with sufficient safety distance behind the two, who filled their cart in a perfectly harmonious teamwork.
At some point—unfortunately—the line in front of the cash registers was reached.
She wrestled with herself.Should she ask?“Would you mind telling me how you two met?” Or should she not? Or could she? Would it be rude? Violating boundaries? Even bold? A fat lot she cared!She straightened up, smiled tentatively and simply spoke it out: “Excuse me for asking, but…”
Mr. Tattooed turned his head, looked down at her. Scanned every square inch of her face. It felt like an X-ray beam was shining through her to the core. “Yes?”
The courage in her shriveled up like a mummified mouse in her cats’ prey stash. She swallowed and cleared her throat. Scorned herself for her cowardice. “Are you in line for the checkout—or can I put my purchase on the belt?”
“I’ll have to wait.” He made an inviting hand gesture, a step aside, and let her go ahead.
And even as she piled purchases into her cart at the checkout line, her brain’s head cinema started up:
Maybe I should dress up like this more often?he thought. With a smile, he toasted his slightly distorted reflection in the windows of the entrance with his coffee mug. Then he took another deep breath and pushed the door open.Welcome to the lion’s den…
A sign on the counter of the Chamber of Commerce and Industries said the receptionist was out sick. He peered at his cheat sheet and cursed himself.Of course, I forgot to write down the room number of that Mr.… What’s-his-name.
Clasping the cardboard rim of the coffee mug between his teeth, he balanced the cell phone on the folder in his hands and searched for the number so he could quickly ring through—
“Whoa!”
—when something or someone hit him in the back.
Fucking hell!
The coffee spilled over, pouring a light brown stain over his classy turtleneck and the documents.
He was almost glad that his cell phone had fallen to the floor before it could take a bath in the milky broth. Struggling to breathe calmly, he turned around.
“Oh my God!” a woman’s voice squeaked. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”
E. N. D.
