It's a Tuesday afternoon, a few weeks into the mass quarantine.  I'm a divorced guy, and living alone I haven't had actual physical contact with a fellow human in a long time now.  No handshakes. No hugs. No high-fives.  No fist-bumps. No brushed shoulders. No accidentally bumping the cashier's hand when she hands me back my card.  No nothing. At least I get to video-chat every day with my coworkers, friends and family, but that is no substitute for the real thing. Human bodies were meant to be close to each other.  To touch each other.
  
My afternoon runs in the park, and my biweekly trips to buy groceries, are the only times I'm even in proximity to another person.  A little thing like making eye contact with others is a huge deal these days. And so many people seem to be socially cocooned right now, avoiding even eye contact or conversation when they do go out.  So even my trips to the grocery store a couple of times a week are suddenly a big event.

I grab a wipe from the dispenser, clean the shopping cart handle and my hands thoroughly, and carefully drop it in the wastebasket. The standard ritual. We've all learned it.

I start in the produce section. About three weeks in, I really started craving produce.  Grateful it's still coming in to the stores.  Can't live on pasta, frozen meals, mac-and-cheese and soup alone.  I grab some apples and oranges to snack on, and some broccoli, greens and expensive out-of-season tomatoes.  Oh yeah, I need a couple more onions and some potatoes, so I grab those. The onions remind me I'm going to actually cook tonight and make myself a Taco Tuesday, so I head back over to the greens for some cilantro.

A woman is already over there, so I wait a moment, standing at least six feet back.  By now, most of us have figured out this social-distancing business. As she grabs her parsley she sees me waiting, she says, "Oops, your turn," and quickly moves away a few steps with her cart so I can get into the space where she had been.

"No rush," I offer in a friendly tone, no big deal. The usual social lubricant for interaction between human molecules, now cooler and more distant than we used to be.  

To be honest, on a lot of grocery runs, that's as many in-person words as I manage to get out before I hit the checkout. Hey, at least I usually get to exchange a few words with the cashier, though they're less chatty these days too.

A few minutes later I work my way down the aisle of pastas, sauces, condiments and soups.  Back in the old-normal days (which may never fully return), not the most exciting aisle in the store.  Now it's fairly picked over, second in popularity only to the cleaning-supplies and paper-products aisle. Still gotta wipe our asses, and ever more important to clean our hands afterward, right?

Anyway, I pick up some more pasta and sauce from the limited selections still available, and start trying to choose the salsa for tonight's tacos.  My usual favorite is sold out, so I spend a few minutes browsing what's left, trying to decide between a couple of affordable options that I know to be kinda boring or a massively overpriced high-end one that this week sounds more appetizing.  All the while keeping one eye on everyone coming down the aisle, in case they might need to enter the six-foot bubble I'm currently occupying.

I finally decide to splurge on the overpriced mango-pineapple roasted-tomato salsa, which does look damn good.  It fucking better be, for nine bucks a jar.  At least I'm still working for now, so ... I guess I can afford it? Like everyone else, I might lose my job next week.  No one is safe.  But I count my blessings.

I head down towards the soups, which I can see from the other end of the aisle are still decimated.  Remember the prefix in "decimated" means one-tenth?  Yeah, one-tenth is about what's left of the soup section. Aren't people getting tired of soup yet?  Well, it's not like I can complain about people stocking up on it: I'm still eating the stuff, too much in the doldrums most nights to be more adventurous in my cooking.

As I head towards the shelf where - yes! I see there is still some of my favorite soup! - a cart comes around the corner.  It's the same woman I bumped into in produce.  I'm there first, so she waits.

"Gotta maintain that social distance," she offers with a slight smile as I grab a couple of cans, leaving two left.  I'm past stocking up anyway, just maintaining my stock at this point.

"Yep," I say as I move away.  Probably the most original thing I've said to another person in weeks. Like everyone else, I'm so numbed-out, and out of practice, I can't even make intelligent conversation in the grocery store.  Wake up, man.

"Even if it sucks," she adds wistfully, her smile widening a little; she moves in to take the other two cans.

We smile at each other, and I get a closer look. I'm so out of practice with the social graces, I'm probably checking her out too obviously. "That it does. Gotta keep our distance, like it or not."

"Not," she mutters slyly as we move away in opposite directions.

It's not like I should be thinking about sex - or women at all - when I have absolutely no chance of even holding hands with someone for the foreseeable future.  But I'm a man, and I can't help noticing.  She's medium-aged like me, medium-sized, medium looks, brown hair, brown eyes. Perfectly medium.  Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Put another way, to me she's hot enough to light the toilet paper section on fire, if there were any of it left on the shelves.

Hey, even in normal times I think ordinary, average women are hot.  They have all the same equipment as the beauty queens, with a lot less competition, and often they're nicer.  And to be clear, when I say equipment I don't mean just tits, ass, pussy and legs - although I do like all those things.  The most important part on any woman is her smile.  A friendly smile from any woman can melt me. Right now, I feel like a puddle.

By the time I'm a couple more aisles over, the encounter has slapped me fully awake, out of the zombie state I've been in too much of the time lately.

And then the same thing happens.  Heading towards tortilla chips to go with my tacos, once again I find myself waiting as this same woman grabs a bag of another brand.

"We keep bumping into each other," she murmurs in a low voice.

"Remember when people actually bumped into each other?"  I keep my voice down too.  It feels weird carrying on a conversation in public, like we're not supposed to.

She winces. "Right? And then you'd maybe actually touch their dirty shoulder as you said sorry? Oh my God, the germs! I can't believe we used to do that!"

"People even used to shake hands. Remember that?"

"Filthy! Do you think we'll ever go back to it?"

"I don't know.  Hugs?"

"Naughty. Ha, forget my nonexistent sex life. I'd be thrilled if a strange man just came home with me and gave me a hug."

"That does sound naughty."

"It's forbidden."

"Would literally be a crime."

"What can they do to me? I'm already locked up, in solitary confinement."

"I'm a strange man, you know."

She whispers, "Oh my God, you wouldn't, would you? I'm serious. If I don't physically touch another human body, living or dead, soon, I think I'm gonna die. Just a hug, that's all I need."

"I'd kill for a hug right now.  Okay ... uh, sorry, that sounds terrible out loud.  Anyway, conspiracy is a crime. We're already guilty, right?  Better make our jail terms worthwhile," I say with a smirk. My mind is definitely working faster than two aisles back.  "Which end of the lot did you park at?"

"Far corner, street side, right next to the cart corral."

"I'm not too far from there.  Why don't we check out in separate aisles ..."

"... you can put your groceries in your trunk, return your cart and hop in my car, strange man with hugs. You better not weasel out of this, stranger."

"Believe me, I won't."

"All right, I still need to swing by the deli, but I'll be at the checkout in eight minutes," she says, looking at her watch. "You go there in twelve, then proceed with the plan.  I'll be in a blue Camry, motor running, pretending to look at my phone."

Christ, I feel like we're bank robbers planning a caper. Is this really happening? What if she is an undercover cop, luring the unsuspecting John? Hey wait, I am neither paying nor even expecting sex ...  but still, she is asking me to violate quarantine, which is a crime and could theoretically land me in jail. Shit, I'm so desperate for human contact I'd probably resist arrest, just to force the arresting officer to physically touch me.

I finish my shopping and hit the checkout line right on time, watching my new friend's shapely ass disappearing out the door as I enter the line.  Dammit, stop thinking about sex, I tell myself.  She's not going to fuck you.  She just wants a hug.  And even that would be the most human contact I've had in a month.

As I walk out the door I immediately spot the blue Camry far away, parked to the left of the cart corral.  I walk to my car and set my bags in the trunk.  As I'm walking over to the cart return, the Camry's engine starts.  As I drop off the cart, she's reaching across to open the passenger door.  I hop in.

The car is rolling backwards the instant my door closes.  As she puts it in Drive she grabs my hand.  It feels like a current is flowing between us.  Not like a jolt of static electricity - winter's over anyway - but more like a warming flow coursing from her hand all the way through my body.  Her soft hand wraps around mine, skin touching skin for the first time in what seems like ages.  I try to tell the rest of my body to behave itself as my penis involuntarily fills and stiffens at her touch.

She says, guiltily, "I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Me neither.  Even this feels amazing. And I'm going to get a hug out of it too?" I joke.

She giggles, then turns serious.  She drives quickly, efficiently.  Not racing the engine, not screaming around corners, not enough to get us pulled over, but cornering precisely, building up some real speed between the red lights and watching the timing well in advance so she can nail the green. Exactly as you'd do if you were a racecar driver who wanted to get somewhere as fast as possible without attracting unwanted attention.  Or a bank robber, come to think of it.  Well, I guess we are criminals at this point.  We even feel like bank robbers, too focused and anxious to talk on our way to a job.

I'm starting to wonder how we'll get into her house or apartment without being seen, when we arrive at a townhouse complex, a row of single-car snout garages. Perfect. She hits the opener and we drive into one of them.  She kills the engine, closes the door behind us and squeezes my hand, beckoning me in.

I walk around behind the car, and she already has the door to her townhouse open.  After we walk up the stairs to the main floor and take off our coats, she wraps her arms around my lower back, pulling me in.  I respond, holding her tightly.

She lets out what must be the longest, deepest sigh I've ever witnessed, pulling me closer, turning her head and tucking it against my chest. This feels so good, a human body pressed up against mine. Warm, soft, comforting, sustaining.  I hold her as tightly as I dare.  

For minutes we stand there, just hugging.  After weeks without so much as brushing against someone else's shoulder, this feels amazing.  I don't want to stop.

She starts to shake.  Soon she is trembling, sobbing, in my arms.  "It's been so horrible!"

"I know."  My own voice cracks.   Hearing this in my own voice triggers me, opening the floodgates. It has been so long! Humans weren't made for this. Now I'm sobbing intermittently too, tears streaming down my cheeks. We keep holding each other, letting out our sorrows.

I don't know how long this has gone on - a long time - but we eventually ease back into a normal hug, her body pressed up against mine.  "Thank you," she says.

"No, thank you.  Being bad has never felt so good," I reply as we lean back to look at each other.

"Oh, look at you," she says, touching one of the tears on my cheeks with her finger and bringing it to her lips, then resuming the hug, holding her body tightly against mine.

Not wanting to spoil the moment and turn things sexual, I try to keep my mind off the feel of her body. In other words, I try not to notice her full breasts squashed against me, her hips pressed against mine, her hot breath on my neck.  You know, it's harder to think about baseball when the fucking season has been canceled!

She turns her head a little and kisses my cheek.  This breaks my not-thinking-about-sex concentration, and my penis responds reflexively.  "Mmmmm," she murmured, pressing herself against me ever so slightly harder.

She looked at me, a little sparkle in her eyes, hoarsely whispering. "You know, we've already broken the law. The penalty is the same no matter what we do now."

Our eyes follow each other as our lips meet, soft fillets of flesh pressing together.  I feel the same electric current between us as when our hands touched.  I am so very tuned in to every sensation, having gone so long without. Never has a kiss been this tender and sensuous. Not even my first kiss as a teenager.

Our lips slowly open, our hot breaths meeting as our tongues slowly emerge from their lairs, coiling  around each other and beginning their slippery, insistent dance.  Maybe I tried not to think about it a minute ago, but now I am acutely aware of full mature breasts squeezed tightly against me, and a receptive female pelvis pressed against me, not to mention my own penis hard enough to put a new hole in her belly. I am aware of everything.

Her hands start migrating away from my back, around to my chest and working their way down to that erection of mine, gently stroking it through my pants.  Now her hands are on the waist button, then tugging down the zipper and pulling them down.  A finger sneaks behind the fabric of my briefs, running along the length of my log.

She pulls the briefs down, and my manhood springs free.  Her hand wraps itself around, pulling.  I step out of my pants and underwear, leaving a cotton puddle by the front door as she literally leads me by the cock to her bedroom.

She sits on the edge of the bed, taking me into her hot mouth as I feel ecstasy long forgotten. She sucks me calmly but insistently, sending another charge through me with every lick of her tongue, every bob of her lips down my shaft.  The voltage inside me builds steadily for a couple of exquisite minutes until I can hold it no longer, discharging jolt by jolt into her mouth. 

My high tension spent, I kneel down and kiss her gently, tasting myself on her lips, thin strands of my ejaculate swirling around our gently dancing tongues.

We stand up and press ourselves together, again relishing the full-body contact we've so badly been craving, this time my penis leaving a blotch of white drool on her skirt.

I start kissing her below the ear, nibbling on it gently, then my tongue slipping around behind it and working its way down her neck.  I'm hearing moans of delight but barely aware of sound with my other senses overloaded: taste, smell, touch -- and whatever the hell it is her pheromones are doing to me.

As with the initial kiss, I'm aware of the tiniest sensations.  After such a long absence of human touch, it’s like I’m doing this for the first time.  With the very important distinction that this time around, I know what I’m doing. And so does she. 

I've pulled her blouse a little to the side so I can kiss and lick my way down her clavicle.  She unbuttons it so I can keep going, inexorably descending the canyon between her mountains.  From the center, my tongue ascends again, tracing the edge of her bra cup I climb her right breast.

My hands have unhooked her bra from behind, and the cups fall away, allowing my mouth to finally move down (up?) to the hard summit, tongue circling around and finally sucking in the painfully erect nipple.  I'm aware of the nipple's gumdrop firmness - the thought pops in my head that if they could make flesh-flavored gumdrops, they'd be just like women's nipples! - as well as the wrinkled, follicle-dotted moat of areola surrounding it.

My hands move around to the front, squeezing her round breasts together and my mouth now suckling the other nipple, the breasts' pudding-like softness rippling and quivering as I work.  I move back and forth between them, dragging my wet tongue across the rift between, then we pause to get on the bed.

I could enjoy these breasts all day if I didn't have other goals.  I release them from my hands, which now work their way over her round hips, down her firm thighs and back up, moving to remove her skirt.  She shimmies it off and tosses it across the room.  My right hand roams across her back, her hips, her thighs, but pointedly stays away from her front side.  I want my mouth there first.

My mouth, still sucking and licking her trembling bust, traces a few widening circles around her nipples, sliding my tongue along the bottom edge where her tits meet her abdomen, then moving my way down.  I kiss, lick and nibble downward, lingering at her navel, then traversing her slightly rounded belly.

Now I'm at the top of her panties, her pelvis arched to meet my approaching head. How convenient. I pull them off and throw them in the general direction of her cum-stained skirt. 

My lips are on the move again, crossing the border into a top corner of the grasslands upon her mound. I suck in a few of the fine brown hairs, leaving them damp, then move off to the edge, running down the slightly stubbly fairway where she has trimmed her bush. 

I suck on the spot where her inner thigh meets her pelvis, leaving a faint red mark, while I breathe deeply, taking in her royal female aroma, a heady blend of funk, sweat and honey.

As if the pheromones on her neck weren’t enough, now I’m practically crazy with lust for her cunt. I shift, hooking my arms under her thighs so I can get my face down in there.  I gently clamp my mouth lips over her cunt lips, my tongue snaking out to trace around their secret, tangy folds and crevices. 

Finally I lick the juicy center, exploring the hole from which flow these wonderful smells and juices.  Mmm ... tastes like honey, kumquats and something funkier I can't place.

Now I move my attention an inch upward, my tongue drawing a circle around her hard little clitty. As my mouth closes around it I reach up and hold her breasts, cupping them and then squeezing the nipples firmly, varying the tension on them as I mix up my ministrations on her various pussy parts. She is writhing with pleasure.

I keep working on her for a few minutes, her moans gradually getting more insistent, her skin getting sweatier, and her pelvis pushing harder and harder against my sloppy face.  Soon she becomes fully tensed, bucking against me as she eases back to the bed, orgasm over.

But she's still moaning, still not done.  She flips around and straddles me, lowering her aromatic pussy to my face as she takes me in her mouth again.  This is heavenly.  69 is something I love just about as much as regular intercourse: I'm very oral, and just love working on someone's tasty bits while they work on mine, while getting pleasured at the same time.

Like I said, she's still not done, and still pretty horned up.  I clamp my mouth around her clit again and she pulls her head off my cock, moaning and breathing hard, too overwhelmed with pleasure to focus on pleasuring me.  This changes the angle of her pelvis, moving my mouth further down her pussy.  She seems clean enough, so I shift slightly so I can lick across her perineum and around her puckered back hole.  At the same time, I reach forward and grab her breasts, squeezing the nipples firmly, which prompts loud gasps of delight.

After a moment of this, she flips around again, lowering herself onto my stiff pole.  Oh right, I'd almost forgotten how good that feels.  So soft, so warm, so wet, so cozy inside.  At the same time, she kisses me, licking her juices off my face, her hips grinding against mine as I explore her insides with my fleshy probe.

She leans back up, giving me access to those wonderful dangling breasts, which I am thrilled to get to suck on again, and starts a rhythm rocking her hips, which I am now holding onto with my hands.  I let her drive, and try to match my breast work with her tempo.

She's getting more and more excited, hopefully headed for another orgasm.  "Flip me and fuck me. Hard."  I grab her from behind, flip her over (I'm good at doing this in a single motion without pulling out) and she lifts her legs.  I pin them back against her and start pumping hard, but trying to match my pace to her rhythmic moans, which have risen to whines, making sure to grind my pelvis against her clit each time I bottom out against her.

It doesn't take long at this pace.  Soon she is cumming again, moaning, then whining, then whimpering, then panting gently as she rolls off her peak.  We enjoy another deep kiss, long and slow this time as I continue to drill her, slowly and gently now.

Then she looks me deep in the eyes, and I feel her pussy squeezing my cock tighter.  At my reaction - I feel my eyes popping out of my head - she giggles.  There is something to be said for a mature woman who knows what she's doing.  She starts squeezing her Kegels rhythmically, increasing the cunt-striction as I keep fucking her.  Soon I can stand it no longer, and I'm filling her already sopping tunnel with a  manly flood.

She quickly has us flip again, me still in her, so she can lie on top of me in our relaxed state, still enjoying the long-missed novelty of flesh pressed against flesh (not to mention flesh inside flesh).  We alternately kiss and stare into each other's eyes, both in silent thrall to the experience we've just had. 

Eventually I shrink and pop out of her, a mixture of fluids draining out of her vagina onto my bush.  She grinds her own pelvis against mine a little, matting her own fine hairs into the mess.  If I weren't so blissfully spent I'd want to get down there and suck that tasty mix out of her bush - and then her pussy. But I feel too good lying here to move.

We both fall asleep, maybe for an hour? I'm not sure, but I could go for another round if she wanted. "What time is it?" she asks, sleepily.

I look over at her bedside clock. "Twenty to 7."

A couple seconds later, having processed this information, she bolts awake, rolling off me. "Shit, we better go.  You do not want me dropping you off in an empty parking lot. Cops could see us."  I'm disappointed to realize she's right.

We quickly dress, wash our sticky faces and hop in her car so we can get back before the store closes.  She drops me in front with five minutes to spare.  I go inside to buy a kombucha so I can walk out from inside the store to my car looking like a normal shopper, avoiding suspicion.

This has happened so fast, our senses so overloaded while we were alone together, and then we had to rush the store. I realize we hardly talked after we headed towards her place ... we didn't even get each other's name, let alone learning anything else about each other.  Did we have anything in common, other than a desperate need for human touch?  What if we want to see each other again and find out? Of course I know where she lives, but I am no stalker.

Guess I'll have to go shopping again next Tuesday.