Perspective

by

Camy and Bruin

camy.sussex@gmail.com
bruin@fastmail.fm

Part One: David (The Husband)

We were bickering over the price of pastrami as we left the supermarket, Sean in front, running with the trolley: lifting his legs for a free ride when it was going fast enough.

"Wrong row!" Celia called to him as we approached the section where we'd parked. Sean rolled his eyes, as only a ten-year-old can. I took a deep breath as he nearly ran into a slow moving SUV.

"Sean! knock it off!" I called, putting enough annoyance in my tone to make him realise I wasn't kidding.

"Aw, Dad!" he called back, then clipped the curb, and tipped the trolley and its contents over.

"I'll go," Celia said, patting my arm, "you go and ... oh, who's that standing by the car?"

I looked up: and felt my world crumble around the edges as blood suffused my cheeks.

"No idea," I said in as mild a tone as I could manage. "Perhaps he's waiting for someone."

"Mum! Dad!" Sean called plaintively. Celia patted my arm again.

"Open up, and I'll sort out wonder boy."

"Okay," I said, and with more hesitation than I liked, walked over to the car. He was leaning nonchalantly on the roof.

“Well, this is nice, David,” he said. A slight hint of bitter campness evident as he nervously smoothed his hair.

“What do you want, Jace?” I said, checking to see that Celia was still involved with Sean’s trolley wreck as I fumbled the keys, and opened the sliding door.

“You, silly” he said, reaching over and grabbing my crotch. I hissed, air flooding my lungs at his temerity.

“Fuck right off, Jace!” I was pleased to see his grin vanished, though not so pleased at the expression that swiftly took its place. He squeezed once, his fingers wrapping around my duplicitously hardening cock, then he let go and took a step back.

“Okay, big guy. I will ‘fuck right off’,” he pouted. “But only after I’ve fucked right on!” He licked his lips lasciviously, “if you get my drift, David.” He paused, and I glared at him, the adage ‘if looks could kill’ wailing around and around my head. “Hmm, tonight, I think, David. At nine … in the usual place.”

“Usual!?” I stuttered, “Usual!? Why you little….”

“Your wife and son approacheth,” he smirked. “So…?”

“Alright! but….”

“David, who is this, and what’s ‘alright’?” Celia said, almost in my ear. I blinked, felt my mouth open and shut like a landed fish, knew panic was evident in my eyes as I watched Jace turn to Celia and smile.

“My fault,” Jace said in a mellifluous voice, all trace of his campness gone. “I thought your car belonged to a business associate of mine who I haven’t seen in an age.”

“Oh, dear,” Celia said, passing Sean the grocery bags. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Well, that’s life I suppose,” Jace said, brushing by me, his hand briefly caressing my cock. “It’s hard, but I’m sure I’ll see him soon enough.”

“Yes, no doubt you will.” I said, sighing. “No doubt you will.”

*****

Part Two: Jace (The Lover)

I’d been ripping myself apart for months: devastated that I’d lost him, that he’d walked out of my life, forever.

It had started off as a casual thing. A chance meeting in the park at the end of a perfect summer’s day. His silhouette, backlit by the reds and purples of the setting sun seemed to offer a bacchanal of possibilities, as our dogs made friends.

Six months of memories. Snapshots of the highs and lows: sadly few and far between, but not forgotten. Then he’d vanished, and look as I did, I couldn't find a hide nor hair of him….

Until an hour ago: the supermarket: the weekly shop.

Our times together had always been on his terms, though I didn’t regret a one. He’d never known how hard I’d fallen, how much I wanted it to be real, and not a passing fling. I’d never told him: QED, he’d never known. Love: stupid and meaningless, unless both are party to it.

I turned into aisle four, and there he was. My heart played an instantaneous solo, and I nearly, nearly walked over. Then I saw the woman and the boy. It was obvious what they were, even to me.

Inside I was screaming. SCREAMING! I turned away before he looked in my direction, queued for the till, and left. Oddly, I thought as I put the bags in the car, it was the same kind of weather as on the day we’d first met. I got behind the wheel and was about to leave when something inside me snapped.

Bastard! He was married, and with a son. Yet together we explored every base erotic fantasy either of us had ever admitted to: our seed mingling in moments peculiarly ours.

I wailed, slamming my hands on the steering wheel so hard I knew they were bruised. Sniffing back a long string of snot, I wiped my tears away, got out and locked the door. It didn’t take me long to find his car.

I watched as they came out of the store.

She was beautiful: his son too, and all boy. I smiled as he pushed the trolley until it was racing, then lifted his legs: held my breath as it clipped the curb and teetered: winced as it tipped over, taking him with it.

His parents conferred. I saw his wife point at me: saw David's shock: saw him blush. And I knew. I knew we weren’t finished … yet. Peripherally I was aware of mother helping son, but I had eyes only for him. Thoughts of us together again making me steel.

“Well this is nice, David.” I said, smoothing my hair to cover my nerves.

“What do you want, Jace?” his expression belied his tone. I watched as he licked his lips, then, making sure he was shielded from his family, I reached over and cupped his crotch.

“You, silly!”

He hissed, his cock jumping, swelling under my palm.

“Fuck right off, Jace!” He snarled.

“Okay, big guy.” I countered, “I will ‘fuck right off’ … but only after I’ve fucked right on! … if you get my drift, David.” I paused. He glared at me, the adage ‘if looks could kill’ coming to mind. “Hmm, tonight, I think, David. At nine … in the usual place.”

“Usual!?” he stuttered, “Usual!? Why you little ….”

“Your wife and son approacheth!” I tried not to smirk, but frankly, I was fed up. “So …?”

“Alright! but ….”

“David, who is this, and what’s ‘alright’?” she said, arriving next to us. He blinked, and as his mouth opened and shut like a landed fish I knew he was close to panicking. I had to take control otherwise he’d lose it all, and even through I hated him, I loved him too and I didn’t want that. Smiling, I turned to his wife.

“My fault,” I said politely. “I thought your car belonged to a business associate of mine who I haven’t seen in an age.”

“Oh, dear,” his wife said, passing his son the grocery bags. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Well, that’s life I suppose.” I said. Brushing by him my hand briefly caressed his cock. “It’s hard, but I’m sure I’ll see him soon enough.”

“Yes, no doubt you will.” David sighed. “No doubt you will.”

*****

Part Three: Celia (The Wife)

As we turned into aisle four I was busy thanking the God of shopping that David hadn’t pitched a hissy fit. The weekly shop was normally Sean’s and my exclusive territory, but for once David had deigned to leave his computer, saying something about ‘responsibilities’. I’d laughed.

Our marriage wasn’t good. It wasn’t rotten, either, but I was aware that for the last few months David had had something on his mind, and, since he was seeing a therapist, I didn’t think it was anything good.

Sean was also aware of our problems, and had started to wet the bed again, which for a ten year old is a pretty major problem.

I sighed, winked at Sean and pointed to the packet of toilet paper. He scampered away to get it, and I took a moment to look at David. He was miles away examining the dishwashing liquids, and I was about to poke him in the ribs to bring him back, when I saw a young man at the end of aisle staring wide eyed: as though David were the messiah. He then turned around and hastily pushed his trolley away. I poked David. He frowned.

“What?”

“Nothing my sweet, just wondering where you were.” His frown turned into a wan smile, and he patted me on the shoulder. It was familial: not loving, and for a split second I felt like bursting into tears.

“Sorry, sweetheart, you know how I get when shopping,” he said, as Sean arrived back with the wrong paper. It was my turn to frown.

“Sean, you know the brand we use,” I said in best mother’. He rolled his eyes and giggled.

“Dad says it doesn’t matter what paper you wipe your arse with!”

“Sean and David Dyer!” I said firmly, wanting to laugh.

“What?” They said with wide eyed innocence.

“I’m shocked!”

The levity of the moment evaporated as we queued to checkout. The shop was full of people seemingly unable to control their trolleys or their children. I was tired, and wanted to get home.

It seemed to take forever, and then, as we were leaving, David took the till receipt and started picking at it.

“Pastrami! Since when have we liked pastrami? have you seen the price?”

“Yes, David,” I snapped, “but you saw me put it in the trolley. That would have been the time to mention it, not once we paid.”

We’d reached the carpark and Sean had run on ahead, pushing the trolley until he had enough speed, then lifting his legs. I smiled, then realised he was going in the wrong direction.

"Wrong row!" I called to him as we approached the section where we'd parked. Sean rolled his eyes, then nearly ran into a slow-moving SUV.

"Sean! knock it off!" David shouted, sounding really cross.

"Aw, Dad!" he called back, then clipped a curb and tipped the trolley and its contents over.

"I'll go," I said, touching David’s arm, "you go and ... oh, who's that standing by the car?"

He looked, and I’d swear he blushed.

"No idea," he said mildly. "Perhaps he's waiting for someone."

"Mum! Dad!" Sean called. I patted him on the arm.

"Open up, and I'll sort out wonder-boy."

Briskly, I walked over to Sean, helped him right the trolley, then knelt down to re-pack the bags.

“Who’s that with Daddy?” he asked, thinking I didn’t see him pocket a chocolate bar. I glanced over, reaching for a can of peach slices, and blinked. From where we were it looked as if the man had his hand on David’s crotch.

I really needed to get my eyes tested. I knew I needed glasses, but this was ludicrous. We got the last of the bags in the trolley, and pushing together, set off.

“… Alright! but ….” I heard David say.

“David, who is this, and what’s ‘alright’?” I interrupted.

“My fault,” the man said, “I thought your car belonged to a business associate of mine who I haven’t seen in an age.”

“Oh, dear,” I said, passing Sean the grocery bags. “Sorry to disappoint.” I was almost sure it was the man I’d seen standing at the end of aisle four, so surreptitiously, I watched them.

“Well, that’s life I suppose,” he said, brushing by David.

I felt, and heard my teeth clack, as I snapped my mouth closed. I hadn’t been mistaken, and I couldn’t believe it. The man had brushed his hand against my husband’s crotch, and if I wasn’t very much mistaken David was….

“It’s hard, but I’m sure I’ll see him soon enough.” The man said.

“Yes, no doubt you will.” I heard David say, sighing. “No doubt you will.”

*****

Part Four: Alternative Perspective

A wave of irritation hit me forcefully and I reeled. So I knew I was in for a tour of the aisles. The woman was having trouble fitting the coin in the interlock so she could separate me from the others but I knew there was more to her irritation than the fiddly mechanism. She was with a child, a boy, and she felt protective love for him, but also anxiety. The boy's mind was full of excitement, anticipation, and mischief, and I could see her point.

They were joined by another adult, a man, why was her irritation directed at him?

Humans have speech, and I'd give anything to be able to talk, but they seem to be unable to read each other's emotions at all most of the time. Now emotions I can do. I can see emotions like an aura around people, but I can't make sense of the sounds they make to each other. I wish I could, because a lot of the time I get the impression that they're saying stuff that contradicts what they're feeling. That can't be right, but it sure seems like it, sometimes.

Now, for instance, the woman looked across at the man and smiled, but her irritation level rose. She didn't want him there but she wanted him to think she did. What is it with humans?

I felt sorry for the poor woman. She's arrived irritated and it was getting worse. The fiddly coin-operated interlock that released me from the stack didn't help, of course. She had to keep a close eye on the boy, and then there was the man she wasn't being honest with — the man who she didn't want to know that she didn't want him there. And to my shame I wasn't helping: one of my castors binds, and it makes me difficult to steer. I've been taken around by people who've started serene and happy and ended frustrated and angry. I'm sorry, I can't help it. The castor would be easy to repair, it's just a length of packing twine that's got caught in the ball race. But we don't get maintenance.

She shops like most women — she chooses carefully, taking advantage of bargains and offers, not buying luxuries, not buying anything that's not on her list. But she zig-zags across the shop, visiting aisles several times and wearing her retinue out. The man isn't playing an active part, he's just tagging along, lagging further and further behind. He is beginning to show irritation, which rises each time they re-visit an aisle they've been to before. He would have done it differently. He would also have done a lot of impulse-buying, and would have spent much more buying expensive equivalents of cheaper staples, ignoring offers.

Then I was witness to a tableau which really had me interested. The man suddenly registered surprise and fear, and something else more difficult to define. Another man had stopped in his tracks while walking across the end of the aisle and I read sudden shock, and pain, and... love? Yes, there was lust in there too, but definitely love. And directed at the man, not the woman. The little boy was unaffected, didn't notice, but the woman saw the eye contact between the two men.

The other guy walked on and my lot continued their shopping. The man forgot his irritation, consumed now with fear and anxiety. He was checking other shoppers in each aisle warily.

There was another episode between the two adults at the checkout, and then they were out. The boy took over pushing me and I hate that. Riding me, balancing his weight over my handrail, my jammed castor bit and we lurched to one side and toppled. A lot of my chromium plate ground off against the tarmac and now I'll go rusty. Drat. I was so annoyed I almost missed the big emotional aura coming from across the roadway beside their car, where the man and the other guy he'd seen in the shop were standing very close and... both of them becoming sexually aroused, would you believe? Right there in the car park! The emotions were very complex, lust very much to the fore but a whole web of other stuff underneath. Guilt, fear, shame, deception, need, anguish, despair, longing, and it wasn't easy to separate the two men's feelings. But I reckoned the deception was all coming from the man who was with the woman, while the emotions of the other fellow were more open, clean even.

What really surprised me, though, was the woman's aura. Anger I could understand, and pain. But relief??

*****

Part Five: Sean’s viewpoint

Yesterday we did the weekly shop. All three of us. Why do they always drag me along? I’m old enough to stay home but No, I have to go too. They don’t need me with them, I don’t think they really want me with them but I’m made to go. It’s boring. BORING!

Well, actually, yesterday it wasn’t quite so boring, stuff happened.

In sex-ed Mrs Pringle said relationships often don’t last. We call it sex-ed but we don’t get sex until secondary school. For us it’s just relationship-ed. She asked the class to put our hands up if we live fulltime with both our parents. Mandy Trotter put her hand up but she’s got a stepfather. She’s a bit dim. I put my hand up and so did Tariq and Beth and three more. So that means most of the class have parents who don’t live together, doesn’t it?

I wish mine didn’t.

In the car on the way to the supermarket they had this big row. I have no idea how it started, could have been any small thing. But by the time we were in the car they were going at it hammer and tongs. Mum was driving, which is always a bad start if Dad’s in the car. It’s his car and he criticises her driving. She gets nervous and crashes the gears and in no time they’re both red in the face and they’ve forgotten I’m in the car at all. It isn’t his car, it’s our car, and that’s what he tells other people but you know it’s his car really.

He was yelling at her and she was yelling back as she parked the car, I was worried for a moment she was going to scrape it on the trolley park railing. But when we all got out of the car, as always, something magical happened. They both shut up and started pretending everything was alright.

Usually Dad doesn’t come shopping, it’s just Mum and me and it’s better, although she does her Mum thing, asks me stuff, cringe-y stuff like ‘Are you happy at school?’ and ‘Have you made any new friends?’ and she doesn’t give up until I give her an answer. I don’t wanna talk about that stuff.

When it’s just Mum and me at the shops, we always end up at the cafe, and I get to choose a cake. Her friend Martin often turns up and joins us, and that makes Mum happy. Makes me happy too because she won’t be asking me any more embarrassing questions. The two of them talk and talk and forget about me so I can get my phone out and message Tariq.

I was telling you about yesterday. In the shop they were still cross with each other, they weren’t showing it but I knew. Mum sent me off to get loo rolls and bit my head off when I got the wrong ones and I told her what Dad says about loo rolls. That was bad of me because it made things worse between them. Part of why I wish they would separate is it’s doing my head in. Sometimes I wake in the night and I’ve had a real bad nightmare. It’s always about grownups arguing.

It feels like it’s my job to keep the peace and it’s not fair. Tariq doesn’t have to referee his parents, they like each other. Why do I have to? I wish things were different. If they separated, Mum could go and live with Martin, and Dad and I could have the house. I could stay with Mum and Martin every other weekend, like Mandy Trotter does. Her real Dad lives in a bedsit so when she visits him she has to sleep on his sofa but she likes it, she says. Martin has a whole house to himself, I expect he’s got a spare bedroom I could use.

In the car park on the way back to the car, I rode the trolley. I’ve done that lots of times before but this time for some reason it tipped over. Mum came over to help me right it and put the shopping back in, and I thought I’d be in big trouble, one of the eggs had cracked and all. But she just put it all back and didn’t speak. Weird.

So, the shopping was yesterday, and when we got home nothing much seemed to have changed. After I went to bed I could hear them talking downstairs. It got a bit shouty but I don’t think it was an argument. And today they’re not talking to me about it but something has changed. Dad left for work this morning with his briefcase, as usual, and a suitcase which is not usual at all.

--__--

Epilogue

I’m at my Nan’s.

So, the parents have separated. After everything I’ve said I should be glad, I suppose. But it hasn’t gone the way I expected. Mum didn’t go and live with Martin, she got to stay in the house and Dad had to leave. So he’s gone to live in a bedsit like Mandy’s Dad, and Mum and Martin each have a whole house to themselves. Well, she shares with me. Martin came round and gave Mum a cuddle on the day that Dad left, but they don’t seem to be getting together. Maybe I got that wrong.

Mum and Dad seem to be getting along much better now that Dad has moved out. They’re both worried about me for some reason, and they’ve sent me to stay with Nan and Grandad, Mum’s parents, for a few days. Nan and Grandad are both quite deaf so they talk to each other really loud, and I can hear what they say even through the wall. I heard Grandad say my Dad’s a poof which I think means he’s gay, but Grandad might just be being abusive. He’s a bit old-fashioned like that. Still, I hope Dad’s gay, that way I’m not about to get a second mother. I only want one of those. But an extra Dad would be cool. Frankie at school lives with two Dads and she says it’s great.

Hey, I just got a text from Dad. He says he won’t be staying in the bedsit, next week he moves out and he’s going to share a house with a friend of his. I’ll have a bedroom of my own there for when I stay. How cool is that?!