SHORT STORY:

by Brandi Wells
[warning: some sexual content]

     Tomato sauce bubbles and pops, leaving red splatters on the ceramic stovetop. A moth skitters across the ceiling and settles on the oven hood.

     "I hope it doesn't fall in the sauce," she says.

     "You could put the lid on," he replies.

     She tilts the pot, all the sauce runs to one side and she scrapes the tarnished bottom with a spoon.

     "It's ready," she says.

     They sit on the kitchen floor with the pot between them and eat the sauce plain, no noodles and no cheese. He skims the spoon across the top of the sauce and eats a mouthful of the watery part.

     She leans over the pot, dipping sauce up with her finger. It drips across the floor and onto her leg, running down into the crease behind her knee.

***

     There's no box spring, no bed frame. The sheets are twisted and hanging off the mattress. His kisses are long and sloppy, leaving the sides of her face wet . He closes his hand over hers and says, "Stick your finger in my ass."

       She pulls away.

"Try two fingers or maybe three," he says. "Just put them in your mouth and wet them first."

     "I'm not doing that," she tells him.

     She tries to roll away from him.

     His arm is wrapped around her, his sweaty palm pressed against her back. The stubby hair on his chest rubs her skin, leaving red splotches between her breasts.

     "Come on," he says, pulling her closer.

     Their sweat-greased bodies slip. She clutches his arm and bites the inside of his elbow. Her teeth sink in; she tastes blood and feels the tendon snap.

***

     He catches the moth between his fingers. It beats its wings against his thumb, trying to toss its tiny body out and away from him.

     "Kill it," she says.

     She picks the pot up and sets it on the cabinet.      "It's just a moth," he tells her.

     "Moths are filthy," she says. "They have all kinds of diseases."