We’re drinking screwdrivers in beach-front Santa Monica, and my mouth is full of the twin tang of citrus and vodka when he invites me back to his place. I flash my teeth at him and move in for a preliminary tasting. The boy is sun-kissed, luscious, juicy as they come, the crisp whiteness of his low-buttoned shirt showing off his tawny summer tan.
I restrain myself somehow as we get an Uber and speed past the boulevards and avenues where orange groves used to sprawl. When at last we stumble through the door, I unpeel him with an urgency that rivals his own. He’s so sweet and ripe I can almost smell it on him. I squeeze him between my thighs. I crush him between my hands. I bite into him, and my mouth fills with the pith and pulp and juice, the tang of him.
Thomas Tyrrell lives in Cardiff and sometimes catsits for witches. He won Terry Hetherington Award for poetry and is published in Cheval 10.
Lonesome October Lit 