Tampons Aisle Five

by Rae Matthews

  I manage to pull my right foot from its frozen position and lurch it forward, my left foot follows my right’s lead, and I am on the move. My feet move quickly but I am not sure I will make it past her, she saw me start to move forward and has quickened her pace. I brace my body for her fury should she catch me.

  I keep my eyes locked on her and I breathe a sigh of relief when I watch as she fumbles her steps, giving me a bigger window of opportunity to slip past. Or so I thought. As I take two giant steps past her, I am only about four feet away from my retail sanctuary when my right foot lands on a now partially-thawed, but still half-frozen chicken nugget. My right foot sildes sideways and I lose my footing, followed by complete loss of balance. I try with all my might to stay upright by flinging my arms wildly in the air, but I fail and fall face first onto the hard concrete where I lose any dignity I had left.

  One good thing that comes from me taking a nose dive to the ground is that the sight of me flailing around trying to maintain my balance apparently causes the crazy woman to stop charging at me long enough for her to point and laugh hysterically, along with forgetting her desire to hurt me.

  The man bursts into a genuine belly laugh, and I watch from the ground as he wipes tears away from his eyes. Still laughing, he uses my clumsiness as an opportunity to apologize to the woman again, this time in baby talk.

  I listen as he tells her how sexy she is, and how much he loves her, and that she is his whole world. She, in turn, apologizes for throwing chicken nuggets at him, then they kiss, but this is not a normal kiss. They collide against each other with the force of a tornado, their hands everywhere and tongues moving all round, in and out of each other’s mouths.

  I want to vomit or hand them a paper towel, I’m honestly not sure which I want to do more. When they come up for air, they continue speaking in baby talk to tell each other how much they love one another.

  They stop for a moment, just long enough to give me a dirty look, then they walk toward the parking lot arm-in-arm and exchanging continuous kisses.

  I keep my eyes focused on them, in case they decide they want to come back to finish what they started with me. They are soon on the other side of the parking lot crosswalk and I slowly lift myself off the cement. Once upright, I begin brushing off the dirt from my shirt. I can’t help but feel a little—Nah, make that a shit ton!—irritated with my vagina right now. I look down toward my lady parts like a crazy person who thinks her vagina can hear and understand her.

  “You couldn’t have waited eight more freaking hours? What the hell did I ever do to you?” I yell louder than I should have.

  I finally pass through the sliding doors and manage to brush off as much irritation as I can except I wonder how in the hell I turned into the bad guy in the domestic drama one of the players forced me into. I have been involved in some crazy shit before but I will never fully understand how I managed to pull this one off. I shake my head again as I grab a small shopping basket from the stack on the floor just past the security detectors.

  Finally clearing my mind of all the crazy, I remind myself I just need to get tampons, chips, and chocolate, then I will get my ass home and crawl into my bed, cuddle with Bella, and forget this night ever happened.

  As I head toward the feminine products aisle, I pass by one lonely cashier who must be bored silly manning her empty lane. She is an older woman with short brown hair with lots of grays showing. She politely offers me a smile and small nod as I walk by her. I smile in return and think to myself how nice and sweet she looks. Her smile is inviting and kind. She looks like the type of lady you could sit and talk for hours with. In a weird way, she reminds me of my grandma, well a much younger version of course, which in turn reminds me I should call my grandma since it’s been a few weeks since we talked.

  Looking around the mostly-empty store, I feel like I’m walking through a ghost town. You know, like the ones you see in old westerns where the hot cowboy is walking down the middle of the dirt street alone, prepared for the dirty, ugly toothless man to come around the corner looking to pick a fight. The images of Kurt Russell & Val Kilmer walking down the dirt street on their way to kick some Cowboy ass rushes into my mind. Maybe I should ditch the romantic comedies and watch me some Tombstone when I get home. Nothing says hot bad boy like Kurt Russell, or so my mom would say.

  A few moments later, I turn down the shampoo aisle and head toward the back wall. As I approach my salvation, I notice faint sounds of heavy breathing and soft moans. My gut tells me to stop, turn, and run and, if it wasn’t for my dribbling vagina, I would follow my gut and run. Instead, I am forced to keep moving forward toward to the wall of tampons and pads. When I get to the end of the aisle, I peek my head around the wall of overpriced shampoo to see a guy and a girl doing some heavy petting in front of the condoms and lube display.

  The girl is petite long-haired blonde wearing skinny jeans and a ripped blue tank top. The guy appears to be a few inches taller than her as his neck is bent over to meet her. He is wearing jeans with a slightly oversized shirt, and his short brown hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed in a few days.

  The girl’s back is to me and she is oblivious to my presence. The guy, on the other hand, spots me almost immediately. To my surprise, he stops ramming his tongue down her throat just long enough to give me an acknowledging nod then returns his full attention back to the girl, if you call grabbing-her-ass-and-nibbling-her-ear-while-she-bites-at-his-neck ‘attention’.

  I call it unnecessary, however, it could be the hormones talking.

  Not wanting to get involved in any more couples drama, I turn my body so my back is to them as much as I can then tilt my head down to examine the floor while continuing my trek to the back shelves and the box of tampons I so desperately need. When I am close to the menstrual merchandise I don’t stop to contemplate my choices or seek the lowest priced box, I walk to the wall of cotton plugs, bend down just enough to grab the box I normally buy, and toss it into my basket, all while keeping a quick, steady stride to avoid interrupting the couple.

  I am a few steps away from the safety of the shampoo aisle when I hear the girl speak in a low, embarrassed tone to the guy.

  “Just ask her. Maybe she’ll know where we can get some.”

  In my haste, I hadn’t noticed they paused their little make-out session long enough to have a conversation, one that I am sorry to say seems to require advice from a third party, meaning me. I pretend not to hear any and continue walking at a normal pace.

  “I’m telling you they just don’t make them in my size, I’m cursed to ride bareback for life baby,” he responds in a cocky way as if he’s trying to be sweet but sounds like a giant douche.

  You have got to be shitting me! I want to run over and punch him. He is pulling the old "I’m too big for condoms" scam on this poor, naive, shouldn’t-be-having-sex, should-be-at-home-scrapbooking sweet girl, and she really has no fucking clue he is full of shit. I will never understand women like that. How can she be so naive? Whatever... I don’t have time for this crap.

  “Excuse me!” the girl shouts.

  Damn it! I was so close. I was just about to take the last step I needed to hide in the shampoo aisle when she decides to speak up. I’m too close to them to pretend I didn’t hear her, but far enough that I could make a run for it. I want to run, run as fast as I can to avoid having to deal with Naive Nelly here but instead I hear my mother telling me to help her, so turn my attention to them and see her walking toward me.

  “I’m sorry, I really am, but can you help us?” she asks, her face turning a bright shade of red.

  My Mind is screaming no, no I can’t, yet my sense of female camaraderie insists I help this poor, clueless, foolish, girl.

  “Sure, what’s the problem?” I ask with the biggest, fakest smile I can muster.

  “So my boyfriend and I are going to… well, you know… for the first time, and, well, I want to be safe and use a condom, but he says he needs extra-large and, well, they
don’t have any here. He thinks we’ll be ok if he just pulls out before… well, you know, but I really don’t feel comfortable with that. Do you know where we can get extra-large condoms?” she asks with naive puppy-dog eyes.

  I look over to the guy and he is just staring back at me with a shitty-ass, joker-style grin as if, in some way, I should be jealous of this poor girl or ... worse offer to join them. Gross.

  “Um, how old are you?” I ask trying to hide the annoyance from my tone.

  “I just turned nineteen last week,” she answers proudly.

  “Didn’t you ever take a health class in high school?” I ask her while shooting the guy an evil glare.

  “Oh, of course I did, we learned CPR and about the human body and—” she starts to tell me.

  “Didn’t they teach you sex-ed in that class?” I interrupt, still shooting daggers at the guy.

  “Well they did talk to us about STI’s and if we are going to have sex the best way to avoid an STI was the use a condom, but what does this have to do with where they sell extra large condoms?” Her puppy dog eyes now look confused.

  Are you freaking kidding me? Am I really dealing with this right now? I realize I am not much older than she is, but this is insane. Is this what the world is coming to? Am I being punished for something I did or didn’t do in a past life?

  “Ok, listen. He’s jerking your chain and just doesn’t want to wear a condom. There is no way in hell he is too big for any of the condoms on the shelf over there. If I were you, I’d keep those legs closed until you get home and have a long conversation with your mother or, I don’t know, maybe a doctor about the real-life version of the birds and the bees.”

  The words fly out of my mouth and I am powerless to stop them. I don’t even try to hide my irritation hidden between the lines. Nope, it is right out there in the open for both of them to hear.

  The guys cocky grin turns to dust as I speak and his eyes harden once he realizes his night is not going to go as planned. I wish I could say I felt sorry for blurting it out the way I did, but I don’t feel sorry at all. This fucking guy is taking advantage of this poor girl and couldn’t give two shits about her. Sorry buddy, no easy lay for you tonight.

  “Lady you got no clue what you’re talking about,” he snaps at me.

  Lady? Lady? How old does this fuck-face think I am. I’m like five minutes older than he is, which only irritates me more.

  “Oh, he wouldn’t lie to me, we are in love, and you don’t lie to the ones you love,” the girl confesses as she grasps his hand in hers and tightens her fingers around it. I watch as his cocky grin starts to make another appearance.

  “Whatever.”

  I roll my eyes, turn my back to them and start to walk away when I hear the doe-eyed girl tell her boyfriend “Well if you really think pulling out will be ok, then I guess I am ok with it.”

  What in the ever-loving fuck? I assume that means she isn’t even on birth control. My blood begins to boil and I can’t help myself. I whip back around to see he is kissing her once again. The smug bastard is probably already thinking he is getting what he wanted, how he wanted it, and doesn't care about any consequences. Seeing them like that I know I can’t leave now or my Membership to the Secret Order of the Ladies Club would be revoked for sure. I take a deep breath and walk back toward them. The guy spots me first and his face turns to stone when he meets my eyes.

  “Listen here you little shit bag, don’t you dare play your fucked-up little games on her. You want to plant your seed somewhere then go jerk off in the shower like the rest of you idiotic crotch goblins do.” I pause to take a deep breath, then turn my attention to the now wide-eyed girl before I continue. “And as for you, no guy who loves you is going to make you do anything you are not one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand percent comfortable with! You need to get off this losers train and go home, bake some cookies or make a quilt or something. He’s just looking to get in your pants, that’s it. This is not love, this is a fucked up game for him.” I finish by waving my finger between the both of them so she is not confused by who I am talking about.

  “Yo, who you callin’ loser. You just jelly that my girl got a real man, with a big dick. So why don’t you get your nasty, bleeding ass out of here,” he roars, pointing at the tampons in my basket.

  I have no choice but to stand there, shake my head, and laugh. Does he really think that he sounds smart by trying to insult the most natural part of being a woman, and that I honestly could give two shits about how big his dick is? But let’s have some fun.

  “Ok, homeboy. Tell you what, I will get down on my hands and knees and suck your huge dick like it’s never been sucked before if you can prove to me one thing,” I say with a teasing smile.

  His eyes widen as the corner of his lip curls up.

  “Wud you got in mind?” he says as begins to molest me with his eyes.

  I smile and turn my back to him; I quickly set my basket down on the floor and pull open my purse. I dig around for a few seconds searching for my emergency condom. Don’t judge, a girl always has to be prepared.

  I quietly rip open the foil wrapper and unroll it just enough to allow for a good grip. When I’m ready, I turn back around to face him as I put on my best seductress face. I slowly saunter over to him keeping the condom hidden in my right hand. Once I reach him I extend out with my left hand and place it behind his neck in order to pull him close to me. I have him right where I want him. I can feel his body tighten in anticipation. I pull my right hand up from my side to also curl it around the back of his neck. I push my body close to his and bring my lips close to his without paying any attention to the girl.

  “Now, do you want to experience the best blow job of your life?” I whisper slowly.

  He nods his head and with my body so close to his I can feel some movement between his legs against my thigh. I pull away slightly so I can look down and give the appearance that I am impressed with the small tootsie roll growing into a slightly larger tootsie roll between his legs.

  “Well, now if you could just prove to me that your dick is bigger than your head I will drop down to my knees and give you pleasure you didn’t even know existed.” I smile.

  “What?” he asks in confusion.

  “You heard me, show me that your dick is bigger than your head.” I repeat.

  “Doe, you crazy. Ain’t no man’s dick bigger than his head.”

  “Well stud, if you claim to need an extra-large sized condom, yours would have to be.”

  “Please, ain’t no condom gonna fit on no head.” He laughs pointing at me like I have lost my mind.

  “I’m so glad you said that,” I smile, eager for what is going to happen next.

  In one ninja-like move, I grab the condom I have been hiding with both hands and stretch it as wide as I can before pulling it over this dick-for-brains head. I pull it down over his eyes and let it snap into a tight hold once I get past his nose. I might have been doing the world a favor if I had covered his mouth too, however, I wasn’t convinced that using the I am on my period dealing with a fucking idiot would be a good enough defense for attempted murder.

  The once lovesick naive girl looks at what I hope will be her ex-boyfriend in horror. He is clawing at the latex condom wrapped around the majority of his head, screams something about sperm juice, and crazy bitches.

  I return my attention to the girl and see her jaw laying on the floor. “This is a regular sized condom,” I say. “So if some guy tries to tell you his dick is too big for a condom, you better fucking run because that means it’s bigger then this idiot’s fucking skull and no vagina wants that shit crawling up in there. Now, please, go home, find a nice guy who can speak correctly, and never have sex until you are married.”

  The guy is still trying to get the condom off when I finish. The girl just looks at me, nods and allows me to pick up my basket and walk away without another word. That is until I hear her find her inner goddess and that goddess is not happy.

  �
��You asshole! You piece a shit liar! She’s right, isn’t she? You don’t love me, you just wanted to deflower me didn’t you! Well, you can’t have my flower!” she shouts and finishes by throwing up her right hand in the air to meet his cheek with a fierce slap.

  I want to invite this chick to join the Ladies Club right then and there. That slap was impressive as hell.

  “Ouch, that fucking hurt,” the guy squeals.

  I turn my back to them and start heading down the shampoo aisle, convinced my job here is done, when I turn my head just in time to see the chick thrust her right knee into his crotch with all the anger of every woman on earth, sending him holding his dick and groaning to the floor. I don’t every try to hold back my laughter as I continue to watch the shit show. She pulls her cell phone from her back pocket and snaps a few pictures of him laying on the ground, the condom still covering his forehead and part of his ears. His face is a great shade of magenta with a beautiful purple undertone. I can only assume she plans to show the pictures to all her friends and hopefully a few of his too. When she seems to be done she looks over to me.

  “Thank you!” is all she shouts before turning the opposite direction and stomping away.

  All I can think is I really hope she is the one who drove.

  Walking down the aisle, I can’t seem to shake the smile from my face but, at the same time I cannot believe I freaking did that. What if he calls the cops and wants to press charges? I will be so incredibly screwed if he does. How would I explain shoving a condom over a guy’s face to the police? The vision of the police laughing at me then putting me in cuffs to haul my ass to jail fills my mind. How would I tell my parents? As an added bonus, my imagination throws in just how embarrassing it would be if I were to end up staining the upholstery of the cop car because my one and only tampon overflowed. I cringe at how that would only increase my level of humiliation this evening from a five or six to a nice round ten. I’m gonna kill Sue if I go to jail!