Page 33 of Big Sexy Love
Because this is one absolutely beautiful park. It’s clipped and neat, but charmingly designed, with winding paths and trees that look like they’ve come straight out of a fairy-talepicturebook.
This must be Gramercy Park! I can’t help but smile to myself. How gorgeous that in the middle of the bustling city is a place that looks as serene and composed as this! I can almost block out the sound of the hubbub and traffic from the nextstreetover.
It’s not busy in here at all. I wonder why. Surely anyone with any sense would want to hang out here on such a fresh spring day. I shrug away my confusion. The lack of people around means there’s no one to see me hitching my tights back up in the most unladylikefashion.
I spot a big oak tree and slink behind it, hitching my dress up slightly so that I can pull my tights back around my waist where they belong. But then I realise that my bumbag is so tight across my middle that I can’t get the tights up far enough tostayput.
I quickly unclip the bumbag and place it on a little wooden bench beside me. I take another furtive look around – no one nearby. With all of my strength, I yank up my tights again, my dress bunched up around my thighs. They really are a bit small and so I squat, hitch them up my legs bit by bit and wiggle so that they’ll come up over my belly. I’m almost there when I hear the worst sound a lady can hear when she is pulling up her tights. The sound ofarip.
Nooooo!
I look down to see how bad it is. Dammit. They’ve split right up the crotch. No! These are my favourite tights! They’re maroon. Maroon tights! They make me feel like Zooey Deschanel. Maaaan. I pull at the hole with a sad,frustratedsigh.
‘You!’ comes a furious voice frombehindme.
I spin around to see a snooty-looking woman staring at me in absolute disgust. She’s frowning, her top lip is curled, the wholeshebang.
‘Are you okay?’Iask.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ she spits at me, a vein popping out of her smooth forehead. ‘Where isyourkey?’
I pull my dress down hurriedly. ‘My tights were… Wait,whatkey?’
Two spots of colour flush onto the woman’s high cheeks. ‘You don’t have a key?’ she asks, seemingly horrified. ‘This isoutrageous.’
What is she talking about? What key? Is Gramercy Park the go-to place for all the odd people inthiscity?
The woman looks down at my dress in horror, her mouth agog. I follow her gaze to find that I somehow haven’t pulled the skirt of my dress all the way back down. In fact, a chunk of the fabric has tucked itself into the waistband of my tights. As I struggle to pull it out, the woman stares at the crotch hole in my tights and inhales sharply before taking out her phone and frantically pressing at thescreen.
‘I didn’t think anyone could see me!’ I explain. ‘How embarrassing.Sorry!’
‘Police, please,’ the woman shouts into the phone, one arm outstretched, palm flat. ‘You stay there. Don’t move amuscle.’
‘What’s happening?’ I ask, wondering why she’s calling the police. ‘Is there a criminal? Are you in danger?’ I crane my head up to take a look in the near vicinity. I don’t see anything suspect. What the heck isgoingon?
The woman ignores me, her hand trembling. ‘There’s a pervert in Gramercy Park,’ she says into thephone.
I gasp, my heart starting to speed up in fear. A pervert in the park? Shit. I look around again, eyes wide. ‘Shouldn’t we be running away?’ I ask frantically. ‘We should get outofhere!’
The woman’s hand is still warding me off. She continues speaking into her phone. ‘This is the second time this has happened!’ she snarls furiously into the receiver. ‘I want someone hereimmediately.’
The second time a pervert has been here? But it’s such a classy park. It doesn’t look like the kind of place a perv would visit, even a high-classperv.
‘She can’t leave because she doesn’t have a key. She is keyless. She was touching herself in broad daylight. And… and she has some sort of phallus onherhead.’
The pervert is female. That’s unusual. And she has a phallus? What the hell is a… A hot feeling floods over me as it dawns on me that this woman is talking about me! That I am the one with a phallus on my head. ThatIam the pervert she’s talkingabout.
‘Wait!’ I shout in disbelief. ‘I’m not a pervert! I was just sorting out my tights! I was hitching them up and theyripped!’
Ending the call and dropping her phone into her handbag, the woman puts her other hand out, feet in a wide, defensive stance. ‘You do not speak to me. Do not come near me. I will not have it. This is a private, decent park for private, decentpeople!’
This is nuts. I’ve got to get out of here! I make to leave, but the woman yells so loudly that I stop in mytracks.
‘Don’t even think of it. You cannot leave. You do not have a key! You can’t get in or out withoutakey.’
I think back to the jogger running into the park before, how I followed her through the gate before it had fully closed. I didn’t know this was a private park! How was I toknowthat?
‘There is a cop two minutes away. You will not get away like thelastone.’
