The lady in front of Coach Taylor in the check-out line wants to know if he needs any sex tips.

Grocery Run

Coach Eric Taylor stood in the long, slow grocery store line - - a gallon of milk in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. The milk could have waited. But his baby mama - - that was a term he'd frequently heard his players shoot around since coming to Phili - - wanted her wine. And he figured if he had any chance of getting laid tonight, he'd better not show up without it.

He sighed. These grocery stores in the suburbs of Philadelphia - - he hated them. Hated the way there was always only one line open, and it was always the 15 or less. The woman in front of him had at least 25 items. Not that Eric blamed her. Not a single other line was open except those damnable self-checkouts - - all six of them. Six self-check outs and only one human-person-operated express lane.

Coach Taylor wasn't about to head over to the self-checkout. Sure he only had a gallon of milk and a bottle of wine. Two items. You'd think it'd be easy. But he had tried it once, the self-checkout, when he first moved to the Phili burbs. He'd stood there staring at the screen for a minute while the woman behind him smacked her gum and tapped her foot - - and after he'd finally read everything, he'd pressed the "Scan Items" button. He tried to scan some orange juice. It didn't take. He tried again. It didn't take. On the third time it finally took, and he put it in the bag, and the damn machine told him to please remove the unidentified item in the bagging area. So he'd taken the orange juice out of the bag and put it on the floor. Then he picked up the apples and stared at the screen again. How the hell was he supposed to scan apples? He turned to the gum-smacking woman behind him. He tried not to be distracted by her three nose rings. "Excuse me, ma'am," he said, "Sorry, but could you tell me how you do the produce?" It came out slow, rolled out as pro-duce. He normally didn't notice his own accent, obviously, but he'd started to in Phili.

She kind of snorted. She was standing with her hips jutted out. "What?" she said, her mouth open with the chewing. "What, they don't have these fancy machines down south?"

He had wanted to say - - but didn't - - "No, ma'am, they have real live people in the South. Real live people who say - Well, hello there Coach Taylor! - and ring you up, and while they're ringing you up, they ask after your wife and your daughters - - by name you hear - - and they smile and ask if they can help you with anything else before you go. That's what we have in the South." But he didn't say that. He grabbed his orange juice and threw it back in the cart and hit the button on the screen that said cancel and went and took his cart full of 30 or 40 items to the 15 or less.

So here he was now, with his milk and his wine, not even daring to attempt the self-scan. He would wait. And wait. And wait.

"21 Hot Sex Tips," said the woman in front of him. She turned completely around to face him. She smiled - - a bright white smile. It was late September, and the weather had turned chilly, but she was still wearing - - he couldn't describe what she was wearing, exactly. Suffice to say - - it wasn't much - - but what little it was took special care to accentuate her rather - - ahem - - sizeable chest. She was not unattractive. Not at all.

"Excuse me?" he asked, blinking and turning his gaze to the candy rack and trying very hard to avoid looking at what she obviously intended for him – well maybe not him specifically, but any him - to look at.

"21 Hot Sex Tips," she repeated, "See? There?" He turned to see what she was pointing at. It was a headline on one of the magazines just above the conveyor belt. She looked him up and down. There was nothing subtle about the way she did it either.

He saw a sliver of bare black on the conveyor belt, and he put down the milk and wine.

"You need any sex tips?" she asked.

He looked at her. Focused on keeping his eyes leveled at her eyes. "Well, if I do, I'm sure my wife'll inform me."

"Your wife? You have a wife?"

He held up his hand to her, splayed the fingers, so she could see the wedding band.

"Well," she said, "there's the type of guy who's got a wife, and then there's the type of guy who's got a wife. Which type are you?"

"Uhhhh - - - - the second one - - - - I think. Is that the one who has a wife?"

She laughed. "You're cute." She turned back around to enter her club card number.

/-*-/

Tami was washing the dishes when she heard Eric come in. The front door slammed. Then she heard the jangle of his keys on the kitchen table. The clump of his cap next to them. The thud of the milk jug on the counter top. The clang of the wine bottle.

She turned, intending to remind him that he needed to hang up his keys on the key hook before he lost them and could he please not just leave his cap lying on the table and wasn't he going to bother to put away the milk? But he was walking fast toward her - - that burning look in his eyes - - that look he got when he wanted sex. Not that there was ever a time he didn't want sex, except maybe when he was in the hospital or after he'd driven for twelve hours straight. Maybe there were times when he didn't happen to be thinking about it, but if she threw it out there, it's not as if he would say no. But right now he had that particular look - - not that look like he was hopeful sex might be coming down the pipe some time that night - - but like he wanted it and wanted it now.

It wasn't that she wasn't already planning on letting him get lucky tonight. Gracie was down. She'd sent him to get a bottle of wine so they could have a little quality time together. What Eric called a "post-baby-down date." Not that Gracie was a baby anymore.

Yes, Tami had been planning to let him get lucky tonight. She just hadn't expected him to pounce on her the second he walked through the door. "Hey, babe," she said, and she couldn't help laughing at his semi-wild look, his hair rustled from the cap he'd just shed.

He silenced her with his lips, grabbed her around the waist, pulled her hard against himself. He tugged at the T-shirt tucked in her pants, pulled it free. His hands felt cool on the bare flesh of her back, on her ticklish sides. He started pulling her shirt up and by pure instinct she raised her hands. It wasn't an invitation - - just a knee-jerk reaction - - but in a second her shirt was off and he was walking her backwards against the counter next to the sink. He hoisted her up to sit her on it and began fumbling with the clasp at the back of her bra.

"Slow down, Coach," she said. "Why are you so horny all of the sudden?"

"No reason," he said, assaulting her neck with little nips, still fumbling with the clasp, breathing hard partly with lust and partly - - she figured - - with frustration because he couldn't get the damn thing undone. "I'm just happy I have a wife to come home to." He sprung it loose, slid it off.

"Maybe I'd like a little romance first, sugar."

"I'll romance you later."

His hands were on her breasts. "That's not how it works, babe," she said, but she gasped when he began to make circles with his thumb.

"Come on, Tami, baby. Come on. I've been so good. I've romanced you for nineteen years, babe. I moved all the way to Phili for you. Just this one time…humor me …"

"Right here? Right now?" she asked. "On the kitchen counter?"

"Mhmmhmm…yeah…" His mouth was on her collar bone now, trailing lower, his tongue dipping down.

"Oh, what the hell," she said. "Why not?" She put a hand on either side of his head, directed his lips where she wanted them to be.

They didn't end up doing it on the kitchen counter. It sounded exciting in theory, but the logistics didn't work. Any time Tami leaned back - - say, for example, to expose her neck further to his mouth - - she whacked her head against the cupboard, which wasn't much of a turn on for her. Then the counter was too high. He had to stand on his tippy toes if they were going to be hip to hip, and that strained his calf muscles, and "Ow! Ow! Ow!" just wasn't as sexy as "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Eventually he slid her off the counter and chased her playfully into the bedroom.

After they were spent, Tami's hair a long, tangled mess flowing across his chest, which was still rising and falling form the strength of his breath, he muttered, "Damn you're sexy, Tami. Damn I'm a lucky man."

She lifted her head from off him, sat up, threw her hair back, raked her fingers through it to straighten it a little.

"Hey…Hey…baby…where you going?" he asked, reaching for her – grasping nothing but air in his hands as she slipped off the bed. "Hey, ho, woah, no, why are you putting your clothes back on? Tami, honey, no. C'mere. C'mere a little longer. Let's cuddle naked for awhile."

"If we do I know you're just going to want to go for two."

"Well...sure…if the mood hits us."

"No, sir. I want my romance now, thank you very much." She stood. Finished putting her clothes on. "I'll get the wine. Meet me in the living room. And get dressed."

/-**-/

He came out in his green and blue plaid boxers and his dark green, just-three-week-old Pioneer's T-shirt. She was sitting on the couch, fiddling with the corkscrew. "I'll get it!" he said testily, as though she'd usurped his rightful manly duty. "I'll get it, babe." He took the bottle and uncorked it, poured them each a glass of wine. "You know what's romantic?" he asked.

"Mhmmm…" she said. A wry smile curved the edge of her wine-moistened lips. "Mhmmhmmm, I do."

"Football," he said, smiling and nodding, "Football. I've got some games recorded."

Her laugh was good-humored. Full. Deep. It made him begin to feel horny again. Behave, he thought. Behave yourself now. The wife needs some romance. Just simmer down. He looked at her leaned back against the arm of the couch, her old, dryer-shrunk Panthers shirt tight across her chest, her moist lips parting to sip her wine. Behave.

"Whatdaya want then?" he asked. "You got some smarmy romance you're going to make me watch? I'll do it. Anything for you, babe. Anything."

"Oh no," she said. "Much worse than that."

His brow furrowed.

"I'm going to make you stay up and talk. For at least an hour. Just sit and sip wine and talk to me."

"Torture," he joked. "Absolute torture."

"You mean you didn't marry me for my witty conversation and my pleasant company?" She gave him a pouty, slutty look.

"Hmmmm…well, I suppose that is what I married you for, when you get right down to it. If only marriage was 98 percent sex, I might have married you for something else." He raised his glass to her and winked. "Turns out I somehow got that something else, too. Lucky me."

"Lucky you indeed."

He sat back against the other arm of the couch. He stretched his legs out on the other side of hers. Then he put one foot in her lap. "No, sir!" she said. "No way. You don't get the foot rub. I get the foot rub."

"Is that how this works?" he asked.

"That's exactly how this works." She brushed his foot off her lap with one hand and put her foot in his lap. "A little hard work will keep you awake." She leaned back and sighed.

He put his wine glass down on the coffee table so he'd have two hands to rub with.

"So," she asked. "What did make you so horny all the sudden? You stop by a strip club on the way home from the grocery store?"

"Somehow I think that would get me in trouble."

"A whole world of trouble. So what was it then?"

"Oh hell!" he said, pushing her foot out of his lap and swinging his own legs off the couch. He nearly made her spill her wine.

"Damn it, Eric!"

"Hell, sorry, I forgot the milk. I left it out." He went to put it in the fridge, but she'd already done it, probably when she went to get the wine and the corckscrew, which, by the by, she could have told him before he came in here. Well, hell, maybe she had told him. Maybe that's what she'd been calling after him when he was high tailing it to the kitchen. She'd also hung up his cap and keys. Which annoyed him. Because he was going to get around to that. Really he was.

When he came back, he handed her a piece of chocolate. "70 percent dark," he said. "Just like you like it, babe. I remembered." It had been an impulse buy. At the last minute. He'd spent so long looking at the candy rack because - - after she'd entered her club card number - that woman kept turning around and smiling at him, speculating to him about what might be in the sex tips while the cashier finished ringing up her stuff.

"Aw, you did remember. And I didn't even ask you to buy it. That's sweet." She bit down on the chunk, licked a stray speck slowly off her lips. He tried not to watch. This wasn't helping him to behave. At least she'd forgotten her question though. He sat down again and resumed massaging her foot.

"So…" she said. "What made you so horny?"

Damn. She hadn't forgotten after all. Well, he had to give her at least half the story. "I was standing in line," he said. "It was a long line. And I was looking at this magazine - - Cosmo or something."

"You were looking at Cosmo?"

"Just the cover. It was a long line. Anyhoo," - - Anyhoo was another expression he'd picked up from his players - - "it had some article - - 21 Hot Sex Tips. Just the title. And I get to thinking about you." No need to mention the woman who had hit on him. That detail didn't merit inclusion.

"Was one of those tips to throw your wife on the kitchen counter, leave the milk out to spoil, and give yourself a cramp in your leg?" she asked.

"Numbers 7, 12, and 18 - - respectively."

She laughed again. Damn, why did her laugh have to be so sexy? He could see she was running her tongue along the inside of her mouth to get every last taste of the chocolate she'd just finished.

"I think you were more likely looking at Maxim than Cosmo," she said, "but I'll take your word for it. A little mystery never killed a girl. As long as you always bring that energy home to me and me alone."

"You alone, Tami. Only you," he said. He let go of her foot, reached for his wine. He let the smooth, semi-dry liquid pool in his mouth for a moment before slipping down his throat. He put his glass down. Slid off the couch onto his knees. Crawled over to her. Put an arm around her waist. Looked into her eyes. "The only woman in the world. The only woman worth looking at. My beautiful, sexy, intelligent wife."

"You do realize you already got laid, right?"

She was smiling when he kissed her. "I know," he said. "I was there."

She shook her head. "This just seems like the wrong order."

"See, now, babe, you're just uncomfortable taking compliments. If you convince yourself that I'm only saying it because I want to get laid, you can take it. But otherwise, you just don't know how to handle my expert romancing."

Her laugh this time was light and long and it made him feel happy. Happy was a simple word, but that's just exactly how it made him feel. There wasn't any other word for it. Happy. He was very, very happy.

"You're right," she said. "I just can't take it. We better go for two."

And now he was even happier.

/AND THAT THERE'S THE END /