Paradise Lost (Bobby's Girl)

Bobby had gone to the B&Q DIY store for a new hedge trimmer. Both the lengthening leylandii and the consequentially shaded Sharon demanded action. As a sweetener, Sharon had agreed that a bigger cutter was now essential, given the neglect for the past two years of lockdown. Sharon knew that Bobby’s reservoir of motivation drained quickly and required regular replenishment. She was also painfully aware that Bobby was a gadget groupie, although, what necessitated all that stuff and what it did, other than hang in the shed, was beyond her ken. Her father had kept this house and garden without this paraphernalia. These tools! All they do is make a dreadful, irritating noise. However, like everything in life, Sharon knew there was a need for compromise, and a price to pay.

So did Bobby. But he was less price sensitive than Sharon. His well-being could be gauged by his ‘impulse purchase level’, a sort of feel-good factor more related to the whims of his psyche than either the reality of his disposable income or the constraints of realism and rationality. 

As he turned the corner of the power tools aisle his cardiovascular system pumped up in the usual way, thrusting his blood flow into anticipatory overdrive. Immediately he hit the spot, his inner ‘tactillian’ emerged. His fingers separated and lengthened, his fingertips sensitised, his eyes strafed the shelves, and his brain began cataloguing the emanating data-flow. Bernini’s Ecstasy of St Teresa¹ paled into the insignificance of an outdated, dust-collecting decoration. This was the true ecstasy! The moment. The zenith. The apogee. The high point of every visit. The sure and certain stimulus of retail salivation.

The options before Bobby merged, blending into a mystical, hypnotic trance. Then, through the wafting aether an image began to materialise, little by little, piece by piece. The incomprehensible emerging, incarnate in solid bodily bliss. Both of her like, a unity of twin deities: the GI-360 Omni Plus Orbital top of the range multi-function brush cutter extraordinaire……..and Selena. Orange and white and blonde. Long and slender. Powerful yet submissive. Spinning and smiling. Beckoning and beckoning and beckoning. Bobby’s thing pinged. All his things pinged! His glasses steamed above his covid mask.

“Hello there, come and see what I’ve got just for you today, if you’re ready” she lured.

Bobby already had an eyeful of all that Selena had on show, including the OPO long reach attachment which she hooked gently but firmly over his shoulder, drawing him closer and closer until he mounted her platform.

“Now, what’s your first name? I prefer first names, don’t you?”

“”Me? Bo… Bobby. Or Bob”

“And is it Robert on Sundays? Sunday is my favourite day? Isn’t it yours too?”

“Yes. But Bobby is what……”

“....what your friends call you. I’ll call you Bobby. Friends. That’s nice. Have you seen what I’ve got…. in action? It’s all you’ll ever need. The OPO is, well, everything.”

“No. Not this one. Others…...”

“Let me stand back and give you a proper look at what you can get your hands on. You’ll like what you see.” Selena stepped back, pulled off her covid mask, and blew upwards flicking her hair which had been dangling over her face. “I’ve been jabbed a couple of times. I bet you have too. We’re both adults. Let’s have it off!” 

A twirl of Selena’s finger left Bobby’s mask dangling from one ear. First contact!

“You’ll find we are far, far better than the others. There really is no competition. Giacona Industries spent decades researching and bringing together their best designs and materials. Here, put your hand on this and tell me when you’ve ever felt anything so nice……..”

Bobby took the OPO, holding it tentatively as Selena slid behind him, reaching around his waist and clasping her hands over his. Bobby was trembling with a never before experienced vibration.

“Mmmm,” she whispered closely, “it does have a firm feel. Nice?”

“G..yess..nice”

“Hold it out and I’ll show you a thing or two. Back and forward, gently now. Don’t rush it….but you’ll know all about that….”

“Mm yeeesss Err, no. I mean…”

“Nice, isn’t it? I like it too. Go on, let it go….push the button”

Bobby fumbled. Selena pressed the GO button, the OPO responding obediently, swishing smoothly into action.

“Wow. Yes, this is good!” he exhaled in delight.

“You know you can do it any way you like. Up, down, left, right….and my favourite, bent like this…….”. Selena segued down under, then up between his arms, pressing her rear against him, her sensuous hair spreading over her shoulders and floating up to caress his face. Her heady perfume sent him to paradise.

“Gulp….that is…..amazing,” Bobby gasped.

Selena turned to face Bobby, still wrapped in his arms. “So, do you want to?”

“What?!!”

“.....ask me anything? I know you do. You’re wondering what I charge, aren’t you? Well, I’ll show you what you can save in both time and money. Just come over here.” She took Bobby by the hand and led him tingling with every step to a display stand.

“I’m only looking for a hedge trimmer,” blurted the anxious, self-doubting Bobby. 

“Of course you are. Today that is. And the OPO will beat off all of those little boys’ toys and trimmers you’ll find here on the shelves. It’s long, flexible blade, high solid reach, cute angle shift position, multi-head auto-clamp for leafy and hardwood cutters…...you’ve got it in one. But, think. What about tomorrow? There are things we can do…..stripping….”

“Tomorrow?” Bobby panted eagerly.

“.....  and strimming, and edge trimming. Pruning climbers, root pruning, scarifying. It even cuts hoeing time, and can tackle top tilling and tilthing……you’d like that a lot”

“It does all that?”

“Oh yes. And I will show you how.”

“You will?”

“I can get you started… bed you in with a free, all inclusive familiarisation and training session right there in your own garden.”

“You can?”

“I’ll get it going for you.”

“I’m sure...not sure...I only….”

“Bobby, look, this is a great product as you can see. I sell dozens and dozens to real men, no problem, every month. Guys like you are desperate to get their hands-on experience... with the OPO. But this month I am just one short of making my target. Can you help me, please, if I ask nicely? I can offer you, just you, a very special personal favour, Bobby. Today only, Bobby. I call it doing my bit for the boys. A bit of give and take.” Selena moved up close again and deepened her voice. “I give you all I’ve got and you take it while it is going. You’ll not do better.” She squeezed him reassuringly.

Bobby took all Selena offered, every bit that was going. Asking about every attachment. Signing every document she laid before him. Anything to prolong the encounter. Then he drove home, somehow getting there without incident, transported in a rhapsody of anticipation for his next meeting with Selena as she demonstrated his very own GI-360-OPO. Tomorrow, tomorrow, roll on tomorrow.

He had only one problem. How would he get Sharon out of the way?  

Bobby was doubly excited and struggled to tone down his report to Sharon of his B&Q visit. He focussed his explosive enthusiasm on eulogising about the wonders of the GI-360-OPO without dwelling on or drooling too much over the hands-on experience in the store.

Sharon was her usual dismissive self, “I bet it’s just as noisy as the rest of your fad machines.”

”No. Eh, they ran it in the shop. We could hold a quiet conversation while it was going.”

“We’ll see. I don’t get why you are quite so excited about another tool being delivered. Sometimes you are even more odd than I take you for. But, as long as the trees get cut, I don’t care.”

“It’s quiet Sharon, but the place could get messy and you’re not good with that hay fever.  Maybe you should go and visit…..”

“Don’t worry about me, I got some stuff from the chemist. I’ll be fine”

“Damn! damn!! damn!!!” thought Bobby quietly to himself.

That night, Bobby had a difficult time sleeping. His dreams were orange and white and blonde, long blonde and tactile. In the morning he was up at the crack of dawn and stood erect at the window, furtively, yet frantically, looking down the road. He worried that it might rain. “Damn, damn, damn,” he thought again, “Rain. It’d damn better not!”

After an unbearable, dreadfully long couple of hours the orange and white GI liveried box van pulled into Bobby’s driveway. His heart leapt as the carriage of his dreams nosed its way towards his house. Then his heart stopped with a huge thump like it would never start again. A fat bald man and a spotty youth jumped down from the van, opened the sliding side door and began unboxing and assembling the super tool. The super-expensive tool with its own finance agreement and consumables saving scheme he hadn’t remembered to mention to Sharon. 

“No blonde!” he choked. “Where’s…?”

“Where’s what, Bobby?” Sharon looked up from her sudoku, annoyed as she was on a timer. “Have they brought the wrong thing?”

“No, Sharon, it’s fine. It’s them. They’re not…..not….”

“Not what, Bobby? What’s wrong?”

“Not what I expected, in some ways, that’s all.”

“Well, I’m sure they know what they are doing, even if you don’t. You need to be a bit more trusting of people.” She cancelled her game and launched a new one, not wanting a poor score blemishing her perfect record. 

“Mmm? Yes. I’d better go and get them started.” 

Bobby peered down the empty road again, his hope greater than his expectation.

The demonstration and training took around two hours and very quickly Bobby and Sharon’s garden was smothered in cuttings, uprootings, trimmings and prunings. Everything got sliced and diced, even plants that had been perfectly fine as they were. All chopped by the demonic imposter vandals. Bobby spent the rest of the day raking and breaking, picking up and pressing down into his recycling bin, his neighbour’s bin and one he borrowed from the people across the street who were always away on some holiday of sorts. Lucky sods. “She didn’t tell me her OPO wouldn’t do the hard bit” he cursed as he crammed the debris through his car’s tailgate, ready for the third dump run. Bobby fumed and sweated buckets all day. 

Meanwhile, Sharon had been leisurely basking, soaking up the newly revealed rays of sunshine. “Well done, Bobby,” she cooed, “that was a great job. Such a versatile device and clearly a big turn-on for you, my very own Mr Gadget! Now you can put those old machines on eBay and see what you can get for them. Best of all, you won’t need to go searching in B&Q ever again.”

“What?!!!!!!!”

Bobby did as he was told….almost. That week, as soon as Sharon was distracted, he sneaked off to the retail park, heading straight for the power tool aisle haven in B&Q. His heart once again pounding, he sought the solace of the orange and white and blonde Selena. He found only spotty Jordan glued to his phone on the stand. Jordan didn’t remember Bobby. Worse, he had never heard of Selena.

“Blonde? Naw, don’t know her, pal. It’s just me and Dad here.”

And so it was on each of Bobby’s recurring visits to buy the expensive quickly depleted OPO consumables and top up his club subscription for his damned OPO device. Oh, how Bobby detested it and, more so, being stuck with it. Every day, disconsolate Bobby mourned the sacrifice of his treasured gadget collection. All gone to strangers. Worse still, That special euphoric thrill of turning the corner into the power tools aisle was gone. Lost forever. Vapourised and vanished as had the long blonde vamp, the aether reclaiming its smooth, toned Selena. Selena the siren. Selena the deceiver. The witch. The ghost.

¹ Ecstasy of St Teresa: you’ll know the sculpture from Tom Hanks’ fiery encounter at Santa Maria della Vittoria in the film Angels and Demons