Touching Like Candy from a Baby

Ginger Stanley in the grip of the Creature, Silver Springs, Florida Memory, state archives

I did something this week I never imagined myself doing. I touched a man I didn’t know. It happened in the theater, and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to do it. But I haven’t touched a man in four years. Maybe it was like going to the grocery store hungry.

He was a big man, not totally my type, and he seemed intensely clued in on his food. But he was the only man in the whole dark room. Don’t get me wrong, I like them tall and beefy, but he was a bit extra horizontally. Still, he seemed kind of innocent, unfazed, just out for a flick.

I got brave when we started laughing at the same things, the same stupid ads and previews. I tried to laugh as loud as he laughed, louder, so he might turn to see me. He didn’t. He was engrossed in his system of consumption. He had a huge popcorn to his left, a box of candy in his lap, and a tub of soda to his right.

When the dark, atmospheric film began and the actors in period costumes started wandering fields with torches, I moved a seat closer to him. (We were seated on the same row, at opposite ends.) He never looked up, never registered any sign of his surroundings. 

By the time the slimy, hungry monster on the screen was moving in on the human kill, I was sitting midway in the theater. Only a few more chairs to go. I marveled that the man kept eating with no breaks.

I waited until dark scenes engulfed the theatre to move closer to him. The only lights showing were the exit signs and track lights on the stairs. 

When we were sitting elbow to elbow, he looked over at me and smiled. I took this as ascent and so I took his popcorn and fed it into his mouth while we watched the show together.

I felt his soft lips slobber on my fingers. I felt his tongue. 

That was all I wanted. 

When the credits rolled, he took his empty food boxes. He didn’t thank me or ask me my name. He didn’t acknowledge me. It was as if I were part of the theater, like the workers who tore tickets and swept up popcorn.

I wonder if I see him again if we might hug. I wonder if he might allow that. 

Maybe I had been too hasty in breaking up with my Greek, my steady from before the pandemic. But what’s a lady to do? And how much can one take? Men don’t know what they need, what they want, what’s good for them. We ladies have to show them, and risk not getting so much as a thank you and kindness for our service. 

My Greek had started neglecting me. Maybe I should have allowed it.