Safeway

Angel went through the motions of refilling the cubbies with grocery bags, both paper and plastic, for the third time in an hour. She looked busy, and it kept her from staring at the back of Joey’s neck where weedy black hairs stuck up through the top of his shirt like black daddy-long-leg spiders fighting to escape. She wiggled her shoulders at the image; thank god, she had only seen him naked from the front. Joey was one of those sensitive, non-masculine males that it was okay for a woman to be with, and Angel had been seeing him for a few months now. A stimulating conversation to speed the clock would have been nice, but it wasn’t an option; the boy just wasn’t as bright as your average lightning bug. The chimp did have a nice size banana though, and he always did what she told him to do, so he could be considered useful.

The front doors slid open, and in walked this tall man wearing a black leather tuxedo, a mane of golden hair crowning him as the king of his jungle. The man didn’t make a sound as he walked. His face was angular and his eyes made it seem as though everything he saw was commanded by him. The end of a thin leather leash was wrapped around his right hand. At the other end of the thin leather leash was a black leather collar which hung around the slender white neck of a woman.

Angel had been a checkout girl at the twenty-four hour Safeway Superstore long enough that she no longer had to pay attention to her work. She knew how to grab the bags of Green Giant frozen broccoli, the Wonder Bread loaves, and the Farm Fresh eggs in just the right way to get them to scan the first time without even looking at her machine, not that her skill was proving that handy tonight.

It was midnight on a Wednesday, and Angel hadn’t seen a customer since the after church rush. Angel was on register three, and Joey was on register one; she couldn’t explain why management had two checkers on duty. The place stayed pretty much as empty of customers this time of night as the Sonoran desert. There were stockers clicking and popping around in the back with their motorized hand-jacks and cardboard cases of new goods, but they were like the insects you can’t see for all the sand.

The man in leather seemed to sniff the air, and Angel wondered what he thought of the strong odor of Pine-Sol that bound itself around the entire store like a vine. The eyes of the woman on the leash were downcast. Her breasts rose and fell quickly in her black corset. The latex pants she wore were tighter than skin, and her stilettos forced her to step up like a black Arabian colt. She stood just to the right and behind the lion as he paused, for only a second, before heading toward the laundry detergent and toilet paper aisle. The colt moved with him as if a steel rod instead of a leather leash bound her to him.

Joey turned around and faced Angel, “Did you see that?”

Angel was still watching them as they turned down the aisle. “Yeah.”

“That’s just wrong.”

Was it Angel thought? Yes, it must be. The woman was being humiliated at the hands of some male chauvinist. It was happening against her will. This man was using his power, his money, his physical strength against her. He probably beat her.

Angel saw them again in front of the meat counter that ran along the back of the store. They had come around the end of an aisle and were striding down the frozen food aisles toward the registers. The man had such strength. Every part of him oozed with confidence. Angel had no doubt who ruled his world, and she knew that his authority was maintained through will and punishment. But even so, she could see no real malice in him. The lion was regal.

“They’re bizarre,” Joey whispered.

Smiling, Angel nodded her agreement.

As the lion and colt moved closer, Angel saw that the woman was carrying something in her teeth. It was a bag, but Angel couldn’t make out what it was a bag of. The colt was still high stepping, her movements full of purpose and pride.

The manager Debbie hissed from her booth behind Angel’s register. “They’re sexual deviants, perverts, and they can’t come into my store looking like that.”

Angel turned to see Debbie’s head rise above the edge of the booth. Their conversation had coaxed the snake from her basket. “What are you going to do?” Angel asked.

“What needs to be done.”

Angel knew Debbie’s actions weren’t going to be driven by some moral stance against overt sexuality or that she intended to confront the customers because of the way they were dressed. This was going to be about a woman being on a leash.

Angel hoped the lion wouldn’t come to her register. She hated confrontation. But the man did pick her register even though Joey was closer, manning the express lane, and near the exit.

The leather the man wore looked new and as if it had been recently oiled. The smell of it was strong, and it gave Angel the feeling of standing in a leather store. For some reason she’d expected the leather to look hard and unforgiving, but it didn’t. It looked soft, inviting, protective. The man looked right into Angel’s eyes, and she lowered her eyes at his gaze. She turned to face the woman who carefully continued to keep the same distance from her master though now she was standing beside him in the checkout lane. Angel could clearly see the large leather cuffs that restrained her at the wrists. The lion reached up, grabbed the bag from the lips of the colt, and sat the bag down on Angel’s counter. Angel could now see what the woman had held gripped in her teeth. It was a bag of wooden clothespins.

Angel heard the door to the manager’s booth close with a bang.

Debbie was coming.

“You can’t be in here like that," she said to the lion. "I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The man took no notice of Debbie. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thick leather wallet. He slid a crisp twenty-dollar bill out of it and sat it on the counter next to the bag of clothespins.

“Didn’t you hear me?" Debbie said. "I’m talking to you.”

Angel kept her head down in anticipation of a roar, but the lion didn’t acknowledge Debbie. He picked up the bag of clothespins and raised them back up to the woman’s lips. She opened her mouth and took the bag back between her lips with what could only be called grace.

“You can’t treat a woman like that,” Debbie was saying now. “It isn’t right.”

The colt seemed to sniff in defiance at Debbie’s words, and the man gave the woman a quick glance that commanded silence. Angel looked at the woman, this proud colt, in wonder. And then the lion spoke.

“Are you coming?”

It wasn’t really a question. He was looking at Angel, and she couldn’t speak. Adrenaline opened up inside her. The man in leather stepped to the end of the register leaving the twenty on the counter. Debbie stepped back away from him as if she was afraid to be touched by him. Angel reached for the back of her smock and untied it.

Debbie saw Angel removing her smock and said, “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

“Angel? What’s going on?” Joey asked.

Angel tossed the smock over the register and followed the lion and the colt as they walked to the exit. Her heart was beating like a thoroughbred’s after winning the Preakness. She didn’t answer Debbie or Joey. She hadn’t been told that she could.