A Winter Moon

by S. J. Smith

  I sit up and move my hands to his shirt. I undo the buttons at a furious pace. When his hard, bare, tan chest is revealed I can’t help but run my hands down it. He is smooth and hard and so, amazingly perfect.

  I feel him grasp the hem of my slip on dress and pull it up and over my head. That done, he shrugs fully out of his shirt and shoves me back onto the pillows.

  I see him tower over me for a moment before he moves his body over mine and places a quick kiss on my lips.

  “What do you want me to do to you?” he mutters as he nuzzles his way down my neck and my shoulders.

  “Isn’t this about what you want?” I ask coyly as he reaches my bra. He chuckles as he pulls the straps down.

  “I’d say you’ve already done your job,” he says lightly. “I can’t seem to control myself when you’re touching me, stroking me. I think you deserve a reward.”

  He pulls my bra down fully and frees my breasts. I moan as his tongue circles my already taut nipple. I know I have to respond to him. And, suddenly, his tongue licking and nipping at my skin give me an idea.

  “You’ve got a talented tongue,” I manage to gasp. “Does it work anywhere else?”

  He looks up at me confused for a second. Then, a smile of realization crosses his face. Still grinning, his mouth moves once again to my nipple then moves in a trail all the way down my stomach. He pauses at my panties and puts his fingers in either side of them

  Slowly, painfully slowly, he pulls them down kissing every new piece of skin revealed. Finally, I feel the cold air of the room hit my center, and my underwear slides off my feet onto the floor where it joins my dress.

  Not one second later, his mouth is on me.

  “Oh, god!” I scream to the room as his lips pay homage to my pussy, feasting on my warm, wet, flesh. I am writhing now. My throat is voicing sounds I’m not even sure I could name as the pressure inside me mounts.

  Before long, it bursts from me like a dam exploding in a storm. Tears of joy mingle with my shouts as I make my way down from my climax.

  Then, with a grunt, he’s on top of me. No sooner has the pressure faded when it begins again as he thrusts deep inside of me. He grabs my hands roughly and pins them above my head as he stares into my eyes.

  I look straight back at him and see it happen. I see the control he’s held onto for so long slowly melt away. With every thrust, he becomes more and more detached from everything but me.

  When he finally shouts his ecstasy to the room, there is no thought left in his eyes. There is no reason, there is no control. There is only pleasure and release.

  The joy of that release encourages me to find my own once more. And our shouts mingle along the walls of the room.

  When we finally come down, he rolls off me then pulls me into him. I can see the sweat on his brow. I breathe in the scent of him. Of us, both of us mingled together.

  “Thank you,” he whispers sleepily.

  I don’t answer. I simply smile as he closes his eyes, allowing sleep to envelop him completely.

  *****

  The next morning, I blink my eyes open with a bright grin still lining my face. When I think back to last night, what David and I shared, I can not help but smile.

  The smile remains until I roll over, expecting to see David sleeping next to me. My grin fades when I realize he is not there.

  “David?” I call groggily to the room, pulling myself up on my pillows.

  No answer.

  I turn to look at my phone which I’d placed on the bedside table. 9 am, it read. My heart sinks when I realize that David was supposed to be at the stadium at eight am for training.

  He’s never missed training before. He must have left.

  But, that would mean that he left without saying anything to me. Without even waking me up to say goodbye.

  There was one way to be sure. I go to the kitchenette and look in the cabinet where I told David I’d put the tacos.

  They were gone.

  He’d left. He’d taken his lucky tacos and hadn’t said a word to me.

  It was a moment before I realized there was a folded piece of paper sitting where the tacos should have been.

  Relief flooded me as I grasped for it. Surely this would contain the good morning message I wanted from him. Maybe he just hadn’t wanted to wake me up.

  The relieve feeling disappeared when I read what was written.

  Gloria, it said. Sorry about last night. It was a mistake. I think it’s best if we both forget it happened. Thanks for the tacos.

  -David.

  I read it several times over to make sure I’ve understood. To make sure I hadn’t missed an underlying message. Maybe some kind of explanation. I haven’t.

  It’s all there. Everything he has to say to me is written on that tiny note card.

  It might as well have said: I know you gave yourself to me, bared your soul to me, fell in love with me but, I was really just in it for the tacos. Sorry about that.

  I ball the paper up in my fist. I know I should throw it in the trash, but I can’t quite bring myself to do that. Instead, I move to the bed and sink down onto it.

  A million questions and thoughts and feelings are running around in my mind. Not least of which is, what happens now? Will he still come to the stand in Dallas? Will I have to see him over and over and over again? Even after this?

  Tears form in my eyes accompanying my rampant thoughts. The silence in my room is suddenly deafening. I have to do something to combat that, at least.

  I grab the TV remote off the dresser table. I flip hastily through channels, not even recognizing what I’m watching.

  I stop on sports center. My stomach tangles itself in a million knots when I see David’s face. He’s standing with a reporter doing a pre-game interview.

  He’s smiling brightly. He looks energized, excited, refreshed. The exact opposite of how I feel. That smile alone is enough to make me loathe him. But, what happens next makes me despise him with a passion.

  “We’ve heard rumors that you brought a girl from Dallas, who works in a taco truck, all the way to LA with you just so she could make your favorite tacos. Is that true?” The reporter asks as though it’s just a quirk. A funny human interest story.

  David laughs and I want to burst through the screen and slap him.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. That’s true. I’ll do whatever it takes to win. You know?”

  I don’t hear the reporter’s response. Instead, I scream at the TV and throw the crumpled piece of paper in my hand at David’s stupid, grinning face.

  I click the TV off and march to the closet where my suitcase is stored along with the rest of my clothes.

  I don’t care that it’ll cost me one hundred dollars to change the plane ticket. I don’t care that I might not be able to check out of the hotel without David there. I just know that I can’t stay here one more minute.

  And, I know one more thing, it’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever serve David Gutierrez his stupid tacos again.

  *****

  I’m back in the taco truck. One month older and a little wiser.

  To his credit, David hasn’t tried to come back to the truck for his good luck tacos. As a result, the team’s started to lose at home and on the road. Not every game, but, enough to cause people to talk.

  I know I should feel a swell of satisfaction every time the Rangers are beaten. I should feel glad knowing that David got what was coming to him.

  But, instead, I only feel a vague kind of emptiness. Like a sea shell whose animal occupant has left or died.

  I’ve stopped following baseball altogether. Though I remind myself, before David, I didn’t really follow it anyway.

  Even though he hasn’t come back to the truck, he has called me. The first week after I rushed out of LA, he left over a dozen messages on my phone and well over a hundred texts.

  The first ones consisted mostly of:

  “Are you ok?” and “I’m sorry about what happened. Give me a call
so we can talk about it.”

  I rolled my eyes every time I heard or saw messages like these. It was clear that there was nothing to discuss. I knew what he was going to say. He would say that he still wanted to be friends. And I knew I wouldn’t believe him when he said it.

  He made it very clear what he wanted from me. And it wasn’t friendship. It was one night of pleasure and lucky tacos for the rest of his career. Neither of those are things I’m willing to give.

  His messages and texts have eased in the past two weeks. Now, I still, occasionally see his number pop up as a missed call on my phone. But, he hasn’t left a message in a week.

  Apparently, he’s taken the hint.

  It’s Sunday afternoon. Gabe’s gone home and left me to lock up. I’ve still got an hour before I do that. Even though all the other trucks have already started to board up their windows and pack their things.

  Gabe still likes to keep his regular hours.

  I don’t mind now. At least not as much as I did before...well...before David started coming. I guess the whole thing has changed me in more ways than one. It’s made me more reflective.

  I stare down the walkway, watching the few people in the park stroll leisurely in and out of my line of sight. That’s when I see him.

  I tell myself that it’s not him. It’s just my mind playing tricks on me. He wouldn’t dare come here. Not now.

  But the closer he gets, the harder it is to deny.

  David Gutierrez is walking towards my truck.

  “Gloria,” he says as he makes his way to the window. I want to slam the window in his face. But, vendors are still standing around their trucks and I don’t want to make a scene.

  Instead, I glare at him before taking a deep breath and putting on my most professional tone.

  “Can I get you something? It’ll have to be quick, I’m just about to close up,” I say. I think about putting on a sarcastic smile but I don’t have energy.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” he says. “You haven’t answered any of my messages.”

  “I didn’t think there was anything else to say,” I answer. “You were the one who wanted to pretend it never happened.”

  “Gloria, I didn’t mean it,” he says quickly. “I just...I panicked. I’d never done anything like that before and I...look, can you just close up for a few minutes so we can talk?”

  “The boss wouldn’t like it,” I answer.

  “Then I’ll wait,” he says. Those green eyes stare up at me defiantly and I know there’s no way I’m going to get rid of him. It might be best to hear what he has to say and get it over with.

  I look down at him and heave a sigh.

  “All right,” I say. “You’ve got five minutes. No more.”

  His eyes light up in triumph and a grin almost reaches his mouth, he manages to hold it back.

  “I’ll be at the bench,” he says. “You know the one.”

  I nod. As he walks towards the bench just right of my truck, I close the window and put up the sign.

  As I walk towards him, I wonder if I should move slowly in protest. But I dismiss the idea almost as soon as it floats through my mind. It seems both petty and childish. And, more than anything, I want him to remember me as a mature, adult woman.

  When I reach him, I don’t sit down. Instead, I stand with my arms folded across my chest.

  “Ok,” I tell him. “I’m listening.”

  “Gloria, listen, what I said in that note...what I said in that...that stupid interview...I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Seemed pretty well thought out to me,” I return.

  “I know,” he says. “But, when I woke up that morning. And you were lying there. I...I felt something I hadn’t felt before. I felt like...like I...like I didn’t care about the game. Or the team or anything else. I just wanted to stay there. With you.”

  I tell myself not to believe him. I tell myself not to fall for this line. Not again. But, when he looks into my eyes, I see something so incredibly genuine that I can’t help but be taken in by it.

  “I told myself that I couldn’t think like that. That I couldn’t let anything become more important than my career,” David continues, “But...this feeling...I couldn’t control it. That’s why I left.”

  “Is that why you made sure to grab your lucky tacos too?” I ask. I’m still determined to be angry with him. I don’t want to let him off the hook so easily. Not after what he did.

  “I told you,” he says. “These...stupid little rituals...they make me feel in control. Like I’ve got some say in the way things turn out. I grabbed the tacos because I thought they could help me...get control again. But, you’ll notice I haven’t been back for them since.”

  I want to believe him. Something in his desperate, pleading glance makes me want, with every fiber of my being, to believe that what he’s telling me is true.

  But, the little voice inside my head won’t stop hating him. It manages to bring up one small but, relevant fact.

  “I’ve also noticed you’re losing,” I say. “How do I know you’re not just trying to get your ritual back? How do I know you’re not just using me to win again.”

  “Because I don’t care if I win anymore,” he says. “And, to prove it, I won’t come here before games. I won’t go anywhere else for tacos either.”

  “You’re just going to give it up?” I ask. “After you’ve done it for so long?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You were right. It doesn’t really help. It’s all in my head. And that’s the reason I’ve been losing. It has nothing to do with the tacos. It’s got everything to do with you.”

  “Me?” I ask.

  “Gloria,” he hesitates and looks down for one moment. Something in this pause makes me hold my breath.

  “I love you,” he says finally. “I knew it that morning. The morning I left. That’s what scared me.”

  I move towards him and finally allow myself to sit down on the bench next to him.

  “But you’re not scared now?” I ask.

  “No,” he answers. “I’m not scared now.”

  That’s what breaks me. That’s what finally quiets the angry little voice in my head. I allow myself to smile at him as I press closer and say.

  “Then neither am I.”

  Before he can say another word, I close my eyes and press my lips against his. When he responds and puts his arms around my shoulders, I let out a sigh that I didn’t realize I was holding in.

  I don’t know how long it is before we move apart and I couldn’t say who pulls away first. But, when I look into his eyes, I know I’m smiling more widely than I have in the past month.

  “Just don’t expect me to make any more tacos for you,” I tell him. He lets out a buoyant laugh.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he says finally. “You’re the only luck I need.”

  As he pulls me in for another kiss, I think that’s true for both of us.

  THE END

  Bonus Story 34 of 40

  The Alien Twins

  There are only a few things of which I’m certain anymore. I can practically count the facts I’m totally sure of, on one hand.

  My name is Angie Lai.

  The year is thirty ninety something… I think. I lost track a while back, so I can’t be one hundred percent sure on that.

  The Nya war has been going on for years, now and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to end anytime soon.

  I’m pissed off.

  To be fair, it’s not so much the war that’s pissing me off, it’s everything else. The war is all that I know. The alien race invaded Earth when I was only a baby – wanting our planet because they destroyed their own – so surviving it isn’t a problem as far as I’m concerned.

  It’s just the hiding that’s doing my head in. The constant need to keep out of view. I’m not even hiding from the Nya so much. Them, I can handle. Them, I can face. Sure they might be able to shape shift and disguise themselves as humans, but I can always pick out the telltale signs
that they aren’t. The blueish hue to their lips, the odd shape to their waists, their extremely pale irises.

  They might have gotten the general human shape right, but they haven’t quite achieved it exactly. I’ve been on my own long enough, survived with no one else to rely on, I know what I’m looking out for, it’s no issue to me.

  No, it’s the humans that I’m trying to keep away from.

  My mum died in the early days of the war, so I’ve only ever had my very charismatic father around. Growing up, I idolized him; I thought that he was the best thing on the planet.

  So did everyone else.

  Now, he leads a pretty big colony of people, trying to fight the Nya, and everyone hangs on his every word. It took me a while, but as I got into my late teens I started to see him for what he really is.

  A control freak, drunk on power. He preaches hate like it’s normal, turns people into venomous killing machines, then he sits back and just waits for hell to unleash.

  I don’t like his methods, and to be honest I don’t like him anymore.

  It took me a while to get up the confidence, but I eventually ran away, left the colony, and I’m pretty sure that he’s been after me ever since. It’s been years now, and I’m still fearful of getting caught. But I’m better by myself, I know I am. I don’t need him, or any of them. I can’t go back, not now, not ever.

  I never fit in with the humans anyway. I’ve always been an outsider. This will only make that worse.

  I remember the humans telling me about the old days, before the war, and that world seems so alien to me – like something I could never survive in. I often torture myself wondering what it’ll be like if this war ever ends, and the Nya leave.

  How will I survive that? I just don’t think I can.

  Here, killing aliens, by myself, this is what I’m made for. This is all that I know, and all that I’ll ever be.

  *****

  I’ve spent the last few days settled in an oversized abandoned warehouse, but I haven’t felt fully comfortable for a while. I much prefer smaller, safer spaces to sleep in. I like to be able to feel every wall around me if possible, to ensure that I’m definitely alone.