The First Pink Incident

Dead Silence. Just heat

Andrew watched his younger self looking about to see if the other kids were around. Their voices had faded from hearing. It was just the thud of his heart vibrating the whole scene. He was trying to tell his younger self to move back, but nothing was coming from his mouth.

He watching himself looking up to his mother to see if she was watching, she was not. Mrs Edward’s conversation with her friend was too intense. These two were linked inextricably when in conversation.

Andrew could see the brain waves of his young self formulating a plan. The easy route would involve sliding beneath his mom’s legs and under her seat to go reach for the truck. Nothing to it. Nothing hard about it. He had done this plenty of times at home. He knew just what to do.

However, the radiating heat that was washing over his younger self was proving to be a deadly magnet. With skills Andrew never replicated since, he started the slow tiptoe process of moving each of his limbs over, between, and around his mother’s legs.

The shame was so intense that current Andrew was reduced to a flood of tears. He could not stop history. No matter how strong his will and ability to compose himself was. Today, the demons were winning.

In painstaking slow motion, the little man moved with grace, stealth, composure, and patience. Every time the mother appeared to look down, Andrew froze and the mom carried on.

What felt like an eternity must have been just a bit under a minute in real life. Andrew was just about to recover his truck. He had his hands between the legs of the friend while his legs straddled carefully that of his mom.

A bead of sweat started to roll off his hairline. His heart rate jumped. Andrew looked down. His face was right above one of the woman’s pink heels. Very very tall pink heels at that. The nylon looked extremely shiny and very very sheer. The kind of sheer that would have passed for bare legs had he not been that close to realize they were not bare.

The drop of sweat rolled and gained in size. Arching his brows, Andrew hoped to catch it before it left his face. If he let the bead of sweat drop, the woman would instantly know. This could not happen. This could just not happen.

Moving his head, he adjusted and let the bead of sweat roll down the bridge of his nose. Sticking is tongue out and lifting his head very slowly, he caught the bead before it dropped away from his face.

Safe!

Now, to get the toy. Andrew moved a bit more to get a better position. Looking up, to verify his mom wasn’t looking, he was surprised to see that she was talking to someone behind her.

Good.

Time to get the truck!

As Andrew slowly moved, his heart started to stop. More beads of sweat was forming and the room was becoming intolerably hot. Even felt like the room was starting to spin. His legs and arms were starting to shake from the rigorous demand he was placing on them.

His finger tips felt the truck. Looking at his arm, he realized that if he pulled the truck up, his elbow would catch the skirt of this lady. That was not a good thing.

With a very careful flick, he rolled the truck back to his side. It came to a stop right by his foot. He was safe. Now, to disentangle himself without collapsing on the two sets of legs…

Something shifted. His mother’s mood had changed. He could sense it. He dared not look. He had to hold still.

Wait.

Wait…

Hold.

Hold…

The woman made a joke and the mom started to laugh. The tension in the air eased. He was not out of the woods yet, but he was clear enough to move back.

But the beads of sweat were now hanging on the edge of his brows. He had lost track of them while trying to assess his mother’s mood.

Crap!!

And one of the beads was ready to fall too. He looked up. It was massive. It was trembling. It was barely hanging on to the edge of his brows. One slipped into his eyes and stung worse than the shampoo that occasionally got in his eyes.

Andrew took all the energy he had to prevent himself from screaming out. He bit his lip and tasted blood. He looked back up and saw another bead of sweat trembling and mocking him. It was going to fall. There was no way to avoid that.

His arms started to shake. He could not make any sudden move. The woman had shifted. Her legs had closed some. His reflexes adjusted so that his arm never touched her legs. But now, his face was lower and much closer to her heeled foot.

He could see the pattern of the stitching in the nylon… it looked so cool. But that bead was now ready to fly.

Andrew had no leverage to easily get away. He had to move forward. The only way out was to cartwheel himself over to the other side. His mom’s bag was to his left and prevented him from sliding easily under the bench in front of him mom.

A cartwheel would draw too much attention. If only this woman would pull her legs back… he could army crawl forward and then slip under the seat and scoot back before his mom’s full attention returned to her friend.

The sensation of laughter was settling down. The humorous part of their conversation was ending. Andrew needed to move fast. And now.

The bead of sweat broke free!