07.21.06

sucking fingers

I have never before understood the allure of a peach except in the literary world of it where the skin like velvet and the split with its two round halves would always be suggestive of other things. The plum attracted me. The forbidden bruised violet like rouged lips smacked free of their paint by pale knuckles. The taut skin holding back dripping meat underneath, all sour and puckering the mouth just enough.
I have been playing with my fruits. I have had my furry kiwi, tart, and spilling green juice over my fingers. Now they are too soft, the smell of them sweet. The idea of the taste turns my stomach as I prod at their skin, so I leave them to wrinkle in the basket next to firm apricots that I twist open with my fingers and beneath, the peaches.
They are too large now. They come frozen. A Hispanic man unpacks them from their boxes at the grocery, flinging them at the stand and hoping by chance that they will arrange themselves in an artful pattern. He says Good day to me, smiles as I touch the cold fruit and hope that they are not too damaged. They go at the bottom of my fruit bowl.
It was only by chance that I smelt it. I had held the fruit up to my lips and hesitated. I think it is that smell that changed things. I could feel below the skin the meat shifting at my touch, and still I began to eat it.
Small bites at first, still hesitant, and then larger ones until my mouth, searching for the pit, became covered in its juice.

shi-ou-sama at 8:22 p.m.

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