Homewares

I’m on the top floor of a department store, in the homewares department. There’s an absorbed hush in here, as though the bedding and towels are absorbing all the chatter. The place is full of women like me, not really here to buy anything, but waiting for something to catch our eye; we wander round in circles, picking things up and touching them, politely passing things to each other, conferring over colour (”No, not really cream, more of an off-white”), companionably holding the other end of a pillow case so someone can determine its dimensions. My daughter calls and I talk her through how the washing machine works, and I call a friend to tell her they have navy hand-towels on offer, should I get her some? There’s a genteel middle-classness about it, all these women with nothing more pressing to do on a Saturday after lunch than look at pretty things. I’m here because my lover is busy and the hotel room needed cleaning: the crumpled bed changed, the wastebasket emptied of condoms, the air cleared of the overwhelming smell of sex. I catch sight of my face in a mirror, serene and calmly interested in pink plates, and look round at the other women, with identical expressions to mine. I don’t rule out the possibility that they too have tiny brown bruises all over their well-sucked and squeezed breasts, and semen seeping out of their asses.