Mattresses adore

Rob pressed his palm against the mattress at the behest of the assistant store manager. Her exact words had been, ‘Have a go. See how it feels.’ Rob’s eyes had faltered on her name tag as he leaned over the mattress with an outstretched hand. The small yellow plate fastened above the assistant manager’s left breast was embossed with black print. Her name was Stella. 

Picture by Haley Owens

They stood under rows of fluorescent light in a mattress outlet at the edge of the industrial zone. Stella’s hair was black. Her thick fringe cut a severe horizontal just above her eyebrows. So modular, thought Rob, imagining Stella as a piece of LEGO. He pictured her walk-in robe, filled from floor to ceiling with different styles of hair. Today, Stella had chosen black helmet hair and a black crepe dress, which had been sewn together in a billowing style that made her look like a scorched marshmallow – gooey pink innards concealed beneath a carcinogenic outer shell. 

Rob had already endured a lecture on the orthopaedic benefits of the box-spring mattress. He had nodded sagely and mumbled in a tone that approximated learning in case it conferred some advantage in price. But Stella’s last instruction had given him pause: he was unsure what to feel for. After bouncing his hand upon the mattress a few times for Stella’s benefit, he said, ‘It feels great.’ 

But Stella wasn’t buying it. Emphasis was needed. 

‘Really great!’ he reiterated, his voice becoming husky as he sought to subdue his inclination, tonally speaking, to finish on a rising inflection. 

Stella exhaled through the gap between her front teeth. 

Rob discerned, by a tickling coolness under his arms, patches of sweat blossoming on the red T-shirt that pulled across his belly. He tugged at the hem, trying to conceal the band of body hair that had been revealed as his shirt, by increments, had ridden up. He could feel Stella penetrating his subterfuge and bearing witness to the deep flaw in his soul. 

His gaze launched itself recklessly into the open space of the warehouse, flapping about the store like a tethered bird with a fleeting glimpse of freedom. Rob’s vision slammed into the shopfront window in futile pursuit of cloud and sky. He blinked. Such rushes of panic against double-glazing stupefied him, and he shifted his outlook to settle on the sign painted on the shopfront window. He read inside-out. ELAS. His lips moved as he pronounced the word under his breath. ALES. ALAS. SLAY. STAY. STALL. STALE. STEAL. STELLA. He riffed on the word as he wound back his gaze, swaddling it inside himself to recover in the dim tranquillity between his ears. 

Stella persisted. ‘You need to feel it. To lie down.’ 

Rob glanced at his shoes, remembering the dog poo. He had scraped his sole against abrasive surfaces to rid himself of the offending material, leaving remnants of shit at intervals on the footpath leading up to the shop entrance. 

Self-doubt quivered across his upper lip. He was sure he’d left the last vestiges of poo on the mat out the front, but he hadn’t anticipated exposing his soiled soles to Stella. 

‘Will you be sharing the bed?’ asked Stella. 

‘I’m buying for me.’ 

‘Perfect. Now, lie down.’ 

Rob glanced at his shoes, rooted to the dull-grey carpet. His body swayed, equivocating mindlessly between his impulse to run and his yearning to curl up at Stella’s feet. He looked again at the sign on the shop window. Thank goodness, he thought, for ELAS. 

‘Stella?’ 

‘Yes?’ 

‘Did you say this one was discounted?’ 

‘They’re all discounted. This one is seventy percent off. Plus, the manager has taken another two hundred dollars off the seventy percent discount price,’ said Stella. She pointed to the mattresses against the wall. ‘Those are fifty percent off. You’re getting a great deal whichever you choose.’ 

‘I’ve come at the right time.’ 

‘But you’ve got to try them, see how they feel,’ said Stella, tapping the mattress. 

‘I see,’ Rob stalled. ‘Just give me a moment, I’ll —’ Rob bent to undo his shoelaces. 

‘There’s no need.’ Stella nodded towards the small square of fabric at the end of the mattress. 

‘It’s just,’ Rob said, ‘it wouldn’t feel right’ – he paused – ‘to put my shoes on the bed.’ 

He loosened the laces and pulled off his shoes, slowly, so he didn’t unleash remnant stench into the air with this fresh agitation. He could see his middle toe protruding from a hole in his right sock and a small bloom of dark hair sprouting at the knuckle. 

Rob stepped forward, liberated from his poo-streaked soles. He sat on the edge of the mattress and swung his sagging yellow socks up onto the small protective square at the foot of the bed. 

Stella stood over him, waiting. 

‘Just great,’ said Rob.