Jury Duty

It began even before they picked us both to serve on the same jury. When all of the new intake were milling around in the lobby of the court building with none of us having any idea what was going on or what to do, I felt her glance at me. I turned and caught her eye, and her smile. Then, later, as we queued to go through the first of that day’s various bureaucratic hoops, she was only a few places behind me in the queue.

Then there was some sort of introductory talk, and it was her perfume that I remember most, that and the way her thigh in stockings – even then I knew they were stockings and not tights – and a tight skirt, kept pressing against mine.

We chatted in the first tea break; names, places, nothing at all in common. She worked in a High Street hairdresser in one of the local towns I have never been to, and well, I sit here day after day using my fingers and this keyboard to populate my computer’s memory with characters and stories that never seem to go anywhere.

Anyway, purely by the luck of the draw, apparently, they selected us together for the same jury. Of course, she sat by me as the judge told us twelve good people that our case would be a long complex one, while I felt the warmth of her hand moving higher up my thigh as her left breast brushed repeatedly against my arm.

By the time we all parted on that first day, I was beginning to look forward to my jury duty.