The Safe Way

Mark's asshole throbbed as he picked out the five biggest cucumbers on the shelf, bagged them, and threw them delicately into his shopping basket. His semi-hardon only grew stronger as he thought of the night ahead: cucumbers were so much better than dildos because you didn't have to wash them off when you were done and could even eat them. Until he saw an unmistakable platinum bowl-cut peeping over the mountain of onions just beyond the rows of cucumbers in front of him. "Warden Randall," he yelled.

The short watermelon of a woman revealed herself fully, a plastic bag in one hand, a tie-twist in the other. She nodded. Then nodded again. "Mr. Dennison."

"There you go with that fucking nodding again. You got Tourette's or OCD or something?"

"No, I don't, Mr. Dennison. I think it's best that we don't speak-"

"Why not?"

Warden Randall's eyes narrowed behind the puffy fat of her eyelids. "Because I know what you did. You're a stone-cold killer-"

"What are you talking about?"

"I know you murdered Officer Lickies and Officer Swallow and Washington and Jackson." She nodded once, then stopped her head abruptly and stepped a foot closer to Mark. "And Licebringer too. I swear, if I didn't know for sure that Anderson escaped, I would know that you murdered him too-"

"Whoa, wait a minute. Are you accusing me of something here?"

"Yes, and you know damn well-"

"And what evidence do you have?"

Warden Randall shook her head and looked down to the bag and tie-twist in her hands, which she was continuously threading through her stubs of fingers. "That's just it. I know you did it. But what I don't know is how you did it without leaving anything behind. No hair, no fingerprints, no semen, no DNA at all. Sometimes, I think you're-"

"What?"

Randall shook her head, her wispy, evenly-cut hairs falling around her ears and forehead. "Nevermind. I tell you, though, if Assistant Warden Beering wasn't so convinced you didn't murder them, I would launch a full investigation-"

"How is old Hector, that fucking fruit?"

"His name is Hectric-"

"Yeah, whatever." Mark giggled. "How'd he get a name like that? Can you imagine how many times he got beat up growing up?"

Randall stymied a smile and began to nod. "It was nice seeing you, Mr. Dennison-"

"Fucking call me Mark already-"

"Okay, Mark." She placed the knotted bag and twist-tie in the child-seat of her shopping basket. "But let me warn you: never approach me again-"

"What the fuck, Pam?"

"Listen-"

"Ah, come on, can't we be friends?" Mark pointed to his basket. "I mean, let's have dinner tonight, me, you, and your daughter-"

"Leave my daughter out of it." Randall's face contained all the blood in her gelatinous body, a cherry on top of a ruined, sloppy, vanilla sundae. "I swear-"

"You swear a lot-"

"Mark, I'm telling you-"

"No, I'm telling you. I think we could make good friends. And we could even invite old Hector-"

"Hectric-"

"Whatever. We could even invite him over, too. Like a family, the four of us. Especially since it's obvious you two are-"

Randall's fists balled at her sides. She stomped one foot that made her grocery cart rattle. "I don't care what you know about me. But I tell you, I don't take kindly to threats-"

"Who's threatening anybody?" Mark grinned, his semi-hardon scraping against the zipper of jeans. "Just tell me one thing-"

"What?"

"Where do you live?"