‘The stranger over my husband’s shoulder’ by Dean O. Arutoghor

Stacey didn’t give a hoot when Barry buried his podgy face in a newspaper as they took a much-needed break at Costa Coffee from their Saturday shopping trip. She was, in fact, relieved. She preferred her husband’s sulky silence to his spiteful tongue. For most of their marriage she had always resented the way he had seemed to derive great pleasure in pointing out her every mistake, belittling her achievements and mocking her yo-yoing weight given half a chance.

Now she wished she had not thought about that because she could feel herself bubbling with resentment again but what was the point? She had never been able to summon enough pluck to stand up to him. Her meekness sometimes vexed her more than his bullying.

Then, just over Barry’s right shoulder, at the table behind them, she sighted the handsome stranger in shades looking straight at her. First, she did a double take before looking over her shoulder sharply. There was no one behind her. She turned her head to face him again and he was still looking in her direction. Ok, this was unfamiliar territory. She looked down at her feet, counted to ten before looking up at the handsome man again. Yes, he was indeed looking at her.

Damn it, now she was self-conscious. Instinctively, she wiped imaginary flaky skin from the tip of her nose, tried to suck in her pot belly, adjusted her top to hide her love handles and cursed under her breath that she had not bothered to run a comb through her wayward hair that morning. But the stranger wasn’t looking at her with disgust. This was…This was…Come on. This is not happening. She is just a housewife who had stopped caring about her appearance years ago for heaven's sake. No one gives people like her the glad eye. Not even by mistake.

More to herself than to him, she smiled nervously and looked down at her feet again. She wished to God she was not wearing open-toe sandals.

When she looked up, the handsome stranger was now smiling at her. She blushed and looked down again. Then remembering, she quickly checked to see whether Barry had spotted her but he was still blissfully ignoring her.

‘Don’t be a fool, girl. You think somebody like that can actually fancy somebody like you? He is just messing with you,’ she told herself off.

When she raised her head again, the handsome stranger smiled and nodded a few times at her.

Despite herself, she started to tingle. She smiled, nodded back and flicked her hair. It was supposed to be a sexy move but her fingers got caught in her hair and she looked silly trying to retrieve them. She decided against doing that again.

Just then she remembered the article in the women’s magazine she had read about three days ago. ‘Sexiness doesn’t come from what you look like but how you feel about how you look,’ a part of it had said. And in the comments section just below the article, a reader identifying himself as ‘PlainJaneLover’ had written: ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison.’

Taking a deep breath, Stacey slowly lifted her chin up, sat up straight, thrust her breasts forward and crossed her legs. For the first time since she squirted out their last child, she suddenly felt taller, comfortable with her curves and damn sexy.

Some considerable time passed before she coughed. Then she coughed twice more.

An irritated Barry lowered his paper to glare at her.

‘I am going to go and try on another pair of trousers, Barry. And this time, I choose. They will be a slightly smaller size and figure-hugging. I am going to get something that emphasises my thunder thighs and fat arse. If you don’t like it, tough,’ she heard herself saying. She could almost swear someone else was talking on her behalf.

‘But you will look like some pig who…’ Barry started to snarl in a whisper. Like a boss, Stacey put a finger to her lip for her husband to shut the fuck up.

She raised her voice so everyone in the café could hear: ‘If I hear one more nasty comment from you about my weight, I will also tell every single person we know what you are like in the bedroom. Try me.’

Barry glared at her. She glared back.

Her composure freaked Barry out. He had not seen this side of her since…Well, since they got married. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, he nodded and broke eye contact first.

Stacey smirked.

Slowly, she got to her feet, picking up only her handbag as she did.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ she said and started to walk away.

Barry’s hand suddenly shot out and he managed to grab her wrist in a vice-like grip just before it was out of reach.

Stacey stopped and looked down at him defiantly.

‘Get your filthy hands off me,’ she sneered.

Barry looked around to see the other customers at the coffee shop staring at him disapprovingly and his shoulders slumped. As if in slow motion, he unwrapped his fingers from her wrist.

As Stacey walked past the handsome stranger on her way out, she winked at him and whispered: ‘Thank you.’

A shame-faced Barry, with head down, scooped up the shopping bags and scurried after his wife straight out of the café.

Fifteen minutes later and still smiling, the handsome stranger took off his headphones and stashed them away in his backpack.

With that, he rose to his feet, adjusted his shades, unfolded his white guide stick and carefully felt his way out of the café.

End