Cliff

exhaled forcefully and glanced through his car’s tinted windows to ensure he did not recognize any of the other vehicles parked on the street and that there were no more surprise visits from television news stations. Satisfied in his anonymity, he lowered his head and exited his Hyundai Santa Fe. His fleece hoodie would have offered better protection for his identity, but that would have been both unseasonable and too cliché. Instead, he made do with a light jacket with the collar flipped up and moved quickly to get into the dingy store on the corner as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible. He gripped the door handle, made a mental note about the hand sanitizer he would need to replenish at home, and slipped inside.

He inhaled the familiar smell, anticipating it before entering. Cliff was used to the odor’s distinctness. While the griminess, size, neighborhood, and “clientele” of these shops were widely variable, the smell was always the same, here and in every one of these kinds of places located in every one of the many cities to which he had traveled for work: a kind of undisguised sterility from chemical disinfectants. It was probably better than the alternative.

“ID?” The young, leather-clad, heavy set woman behind the register looked at Cliff, her recently-pierced nose still red from the procedure. He withdrew his driver’s license from his wallet, and the clerk held it just long enough to show it had been checked; state law required it, and Cliff, who lacked a recently-pierced nose, hoped that he fit the undercover enforcement profile: clean-cut, respectable, worthy of ID-checking.

He reclaimed his ID and walked toward the back, passing accoutrements and lurid DVD covers. His salesman-mind wondered what kind of price markup was imposed on those items. He sincerely was not interested in buying them, never had been, but if he were, certainly the Internet would be a better marketplace, and probably more affordable and certainly more discreet. Cliff reached the back of the shop and parted the strips of black fabric that hung across the dim doorway, heading for his favorite booth in the back, his eyes drifting to the electric sign by the knob that would be illuminated if occupied. It wasn’t. He entered and locked the door behind him.

The video screen in the booth played advertisements of products that were available: titillating people engaged in provocative behavior. He dug out a wad of bills from his pocket, singles and fives, and fed a dollar into the video kiosk. There were dozens and dozens of channels, each catering to a different taste, but Cliff was not as discriminating as many were, and he was satisfied with the default channel without the need to flip through other content. He sat down on the hard plastic chair and allowed himself to take in the video for a few moments before turning to the vending machine tucked into the corner of the booth. He eyed the choices being sold there, and eventually settled on his typical pick. He pushed a five into the slot and waited for the thud indicating that his choice had been dispensed. Cliff retrieved his purchase, sat back to watch a bit more of the video, mentally counting down the video-time his dollar had bought him, and unwrapped the chocolate bar.

He examined the surface of the sweet in the flickering light generated by the video screen: the chocolate was not sun damaged, at least. Then he sniffed the length. Cliff closed his eyes, and his head rolled backward slightly as he savored the sensation for a moment. He sniffed a second time, more deeply, but the initial thrill was replaced by the growing desire just to taste it. He forced himself to resist biting the surface of the bar, and instead pushed it against his lips, allowing their heat to melt the milk chocolate a bit, inhaling the molecules of the candy thus released, slowly allowing his tongue its first taste of the melted goodness. He could hold out no longer, and bit through the end, chewing through the chocolate and caramel and nougat and peanuts, working his tongue in a circular motion against the roof of his mouth, spreading that first bite across the surface of his tongue, ensuring that the taste-belt was fully covered. He swirled and swirled saliva in his mouth until the last remnants of that first bite were fully ruminated and slid down his esophagus. His timing was perfect; the video ended and the store’s advertisements came on screen.

Cliff parted with another dollar but paid no attention whatever to the screen. His second bite was more aggressive, the caramel stretching from the bar to his mouth, and was quickly followed by a third and a fourth bite. Cliff was not one who found additional pleasure in prolonging a binge; once he started the activity, he allowed his appetite to set the pace, which was generally expeditious. He systematically devoured the remainder of his chocolate bar, fed another dollar into the video machine, licked his fingers until they were clean of any remaining sweet, and sat back to enjoy the sated feeling he inevitably felt, before the guilt.