Gingerbread

(nutmeg)

A trip to the drug store (something I tried to avoid during work hours lest I garner Audra’s disapproval) provided the second proof of the abilities of the magic potion Audra had bestowed upon me.

I perused the styling products section, looking for hair spray, when a voice whispered into my ear. I could actually feel warm breath against my earlobe.

“They’re all made from the same ingredients, you know.”

When I turned to face him, looking five inches up, I was amazed at how pale his face was. In a place where the sun shone at least 85 percent of the time, the only people who were pale were those who avoided the sun by choice. His pallor threw his eyes into greater contrast. They were blue, not unusual or even startling, but so large and perfectly suited to his face that they were almost painful to look at. Too real, almost. Like you couldn’t hide anything from that scrutiny once it was turned on you.

He was a stockboy, wearing one of those ridiculous red aprons and a white t-shirt underneath. Jeans. Scuffed Nikes. But he seemed larger than life somehow, like he was about to break out of his skin. His face was prominent, but equally perfect. I was confused, but attempted to appear blasé.

“That’s not entirely true – some of them have even more chemicals.”

He smiled and it was like a sunbeam. I wondered how many of the cashiers secretly lusted after him, and whether he drove the rusted-out Camaro I saw in the parking lot on my way in.

I made my selection and handed it to him. He took it and followed me to the section assigned to hair dyes. A slight whistle of disapproval, and my gaze is half mocking, half curious.

“What?” As if we were carrying on an actual conversation and not some random flirtation in which this beautiful boy is drawn by forces completely out of his realm of understanding. And mine.

“Your hair is nice,” he said.

I looked at the colors listed on the boxes.

Chestnut, spiced tea, cinnamon, blackberry, clove, champagne, almond, caramel. Nutmeg.

“You’re this color,” I said, holding a box up to his unruly dark hair. Severe bedhead. Knowing an opportunity to muss it further is mine if I reach out and claim it.

“Should we be twins?” he asked, his expression impish.

I take another box labeled cinnamon, as close to my shade as I can find, and try to imagine him with that color. I shake my head.

“No, I don’t think so. But I’d be flattered if you wanted to look like me.”

Returning the boxes of dye to their places on the shelf, I took the bottle of hair spray from his hand and walked up the aisle towards the check-out area.

“Wait,” he called out, striding after me. It only takes him about three steps to catch up.

“Yes?”

“You. . .smell really good. Incredibly good.”

“I know.”

“What is it?”

“A secret.”

“You wouldn’t have to tell.” His desire, no doubt surprising to him, is readily visible even in the subtle signs of anatomy: I can see his quickening pulse in the way the jugular flutters in his neck, the flush of his skin, the widening of his eyes. Those eyes that are almost too wide in his almost too perfect face. And I think no, I don’t want this one, I really don’t. No toys, no beauteous altars to genetic perfection.

Then again, I was acquiring a taste for pretty people.


It turned out he drove an old Beetle and we ate cheeseburgers with onions (“We’ll cancel each other out,” he said, helpfully) and tried to watch some blockbuster movie on DVD but ended up groping each other about fifteen minutes after the opening credits. I hesitated to comment on his perfection: the width of his hands, the strong set of his arm muscles, the deterministic bore of his chin. His mouth swallows me alive and seems to teasingly savor my skin, perhaps attempting to unlock the mystery of my olfactory allure.

“You smell sweet,” he finally says, as we are wholly naked on my not-so-clean sheets. He is oblivious to such considerations, craving contact as his hands are everywhere at once. “Like, cookies and flowers, sort of mixed together.”

“It’s something like that, yes.” I try to keep an indulgent, even maternal, tone out of my voice but it keeps creeping in He doesn’t seem to notice. He is all enthusiastic passion, pumping away at me as if drilling for oil beneath a reluctant stratum, a fabled reservoir to be discovered. The pure physicality of our fucking is joyful, no other agenda save the one of mutual pleasure.

“I could eat you, eat you alive,” he gasps. He is charming in his literalness. His teeth graze my jawline in example.

I run my tongue along his neck and discover he too is sweet. I’d expected his sweat to be slightly acidic from our meal but there is nothing sour about him. Something slightly bland does linger on my palate, however, even after several climaxes are literally wrung out of me, my cunt contracting violently around his cock. He is full of wide-eyed surprise at the ferocity of my body.

“Wow,” he breathes afterwards, after we have peeled ourselves off of one another, and the air above the bed is heavy with our mutual humidity. “It felt like you really needed that.” One large hand in my hair, the other resting on my breast, as a calloused thumb moves gently around my nipple.

“Yes, I did.” I can admit this because I have that sense that he, the same as Michael, is a gift. “Thank you.”

A shining smile in response and this boy really is too perfect. A mirage, perhaps. But I glimpse him at later times, sweeping the floor and stocking shelves at the store I can no longer patronize, he seems real enough. And perhaps a little less than glorious when he is not glittering with sweat and smug ecstasy.