Unless a man has a fashion trend of wearing aluminum foil lined caps or has extensive experience working at the National Security Agency, paranoia is not something one usually carries into a grocery store.  Eddie had an invisible cart load of paranoia as he wheeled through the aisles of his local Albertson’s grocery store.  He knew in his heart that most of the tingling came from being near Sara.  It seemed every tingle, good and bad, he had felt since they had met was generated by her.
 
Then again, maybe it was his feeling that everywhere he went with her, it was obvious she was far too good for him.  He saw it in the eyes of both men and women.  It bothered him, unless he was able to convince himself the women were suspecting that he was rocking great in bed with an enormous dick.  He didn’t really care about what the men thought.  They were just filled with envy.  With the new sexual skills Sara was teaching him, it didn’t feel to Eddie like he was as much a stud as he had previously believed, so that started a tiny seed of paranoia.  

That tiny seed was fertilized by Eddie’s feeling that everyone could read the existence of his new kinky lifestyle.  He could still feel the marks from her whip and other extreme treatments, but more to the point, for today, well, this was the first time he had murdered a man with his own hands and he was sure that somehow that must show as he wandered through a grocery store picking up cereal.  He watched Sara read the ingredients of a new type of soup, just like she had done this a hundred times; murder, then soup reading; choke someone; oops too many carbs in the soup.  He watched her carefully and she seemed serene.  It freaked Eddie out.  

Eddie thought about the moments and hours after the – the –, he couldn’t yet settle on a term for it.  Sara had explained to Eddie that this was pure self-defense.  She had been terrified when Nick had broken into her house.  She lived in complete fear of the day he finally came back to extract his revenge on her and the fetish play was the only idea that came to her head given that her new love was tied helpless in a chair.  So, she played the dangerous man into a situation that gave her an edge.  Eddie had, she told him, come through like a true trooper.  She had known that when Nick finally got out of the chair he would kill them both out of embarrassment and jealousy.  She had whispered her only idea to survive to Eddie and he had saved her life.

Still, at the end of the day, it felt, not so much like first degree murder, but not like letting Candy die either.  He felt he was more involved.  He had used his own hands and pulled the plastic bag trigger and now Nick was dead in the freezer.  That thought occurred the moment they turned down the freezer aisle and Eddie got a solid case of the chills and wasn’t sure he could continue.  His foot steps faltered behind the squeaky wheeled cart.  He looked back at Sara.  She stood watching him a moment and misunderstood.  

She looked over her shoulder and saw a big box of black trash bags and said, “Right babe, we will need at least a box.”  She grabbed two and put them in the filling cart.  She grabbed the cart handle, pressed ahead and said, “Oh, we need to go to Home Depot too.”

Eddie looked at the bags, “Are they for?”  She shook her head no, and watched him intently until he felt compelled to continue, “I’ve been a nurse for a long time and don’t know about getting rid of something like that.”

Sara nodded and turned the corner, grabbing some chocolate syrup, “Trust me Baby.  I do.”

Eddie couldn’t help but ask, even though he didn’t really want to know, “Did you look it up on the internet or do you…?”

Sara helped him along, “Have experience?  A few years ago I was a crime scene investigator.  You know, like the CSI guys?”

Relief flooded Eddie’s guilt ridden face, “I didn’t know that about you."

Sara smiled innocently, “I told you I was surprising.”

Eddie peered up and down the aisle, “Ok, Baby, but we need to get rid of him before anyone comes looking.”

Sara said, “I’m good at taking care of things.  You saved me from him.  I’ll protect you.  We’re a great pair.”   She gave Eddie a Mona Lisa smile that reminded him of the moments just before he was offered a step into her fetish closet.  It made him fearful and surprisingly erect.

They passed a shelf end with cooking oils and Eddie surprised himself by stopping, “Oh, we need some more olive oil.”

Sara cooed, “Isn’t it the best play lube for sex?”

Eddie couldn’t help it; he smiled and kissed her, “You’re always right.”  He added a gallon container of olive oil to the cart.

Sara said, “Fun for us, good for the leather.  Why spend the extra at the play store for lubes?”

Eddie felt lighter, “Can we go back to the toy store?”

She reached in her purse and pulled out a small calendar, “Saturday.  They’re having a workshop at a sex store downtown.  Power Exchange, the club I showed you with the new internet site is putting it on, but it’s at some other sex store.  I think we can meet some new play partners there.”

A young couple shopped past them with shocked faces at the overhead conversation.  Sara giggled and spoke overly loud, “You never know where you might find a couple or single who wants to be spanked.”

Eddie received a swat on his ass as he watched the woman walk by.  The man glared back and moved between the sicko couple and his dainty wife.  Eddie asked just loudly enough, “You like him?”

Sara upped her volume, “Nope, but she looks fun.”