Informed Consent by Saorise Roghan

probably can’t offer much that is helpful, Desperate, because unless
you can write a short novel, and someone here can read it now there’s too much
we don’t know.   But we’ve all been
there, where you are I mean.   Most
of us don’t look forward to punishment, but we do look forward to the relief it
usually brings J   Keep coming back, Desperate! We’ll get to know you and be able to help
more!”
    Trouble :   “oooohhhh!
Sounds good to me! What’s your complaint?”
    Despicably Disobedient
Denise thought: “Pack of fruitcakes.”   Don’t label other people’s beliefs
psycho.
    By His Grace is a religious case.   Ok.   Her choice.
Won’t work for me. Following Him and Her Man sound like they at least live on
this planet.   Trouble was obviously a bdsm-er.
     
     
    ***
    Cabbing it to the
grocery store, Denise felt virtuous.   But the feeling disappeared rapidly. She’d left everything too
late.   She looked at the list in
her hand and the vast acres of grocery store around her.   Somehow, her perspective had shifted
since she’d whipped in here last, looking for organic raspberries. The music
playing softly in the background led her to suspect a host of people in downward dog were to be discovered in
aisle 6. Fresh faced employees in Birkenstocks moved around bins adding fresh
produce and tidying stacks.   One of
every two wore their hair in dreds.   Knotted bracelets, tie dyed Ts, and piercings abounded.   Customers carried babies in slings.
    She’d been here before.
Maybe not often but she’d been here.   Before she hadn’t noticed what she felt today - a slight air of
pretentiousness.   Maybe not.   Maybe it was her.   But one thing was for sure, this was
not the store where one shopped for Sloppy Joes.
    Denise yanked her phone
from her pants.   It was 4:00.   She had to get home. At least Zander
would be there. Had she thought about who did what after school and on what
days? She moaned and fled towards the “prepared foods” aisle.
    She’d found food here before.   She’d liberally sampled the gourmet
pizza.   She’d made luscious salads
and bowls of fruit.   But her
brothers had been raised on an utterly unpredictable combination of leftover
haute cuisine prepared for her parents by their personal chef, take out KFC,
and since her mother had no idea of the amount of food growing boys needed to
eat, stolen tins of pate, sardines and wheels of gouda cheese.
      Well.   Had she actually given the impression she would cook?   She grabbed the most normal of the
pizzas, bypassing sprouted grain crust and vegan cheese and latching onto
something she could at least pass off as pepperoni.   A large salad constructed from familiar greens and some semi
normal looking vegetables.   A
gallon of 2% milk-organic, from Happy Grass Fed Cows, and she was moving for
the register.
    No she did not have her
Green Foods Shopper Card.   No she
didn’t want one.   No she had not
brought her own bags.   Sure. Fine.
She’d buy two reusable bags woven from natural fibers by blind children using
their toes while living in impoverished countries.
    At home the herd of dogs
surrounded the cab and escorted her up the drive.   She’d hoped a few of them would bolt for freedom while the
immense gate creaked and groaned its way open and closed.   Several did leave but only to encourage
her from behind as she left the road. They scooted back in well before the gate
finished closing.   They would lick
her to death when she left the cab. She’d be lucky to have any pizza left.
    She paid the driver,
leaning over the back seat, handing him an extra ten, and a slice of pizza.
    “It’s yours if you hold
this out the window as you drive away.”
    The driver shook his
head. He took the ten and the pizza.   All but one mammoth dog took off down the drive.
    There was no way she’d
get in without him.   Once inside,
the dog headed for the interior. Denise opened the pizza box. The beast stopped
short.