She gave her love away like jelly tots to sticky fingered boys with sugar smiles. Her parents had told her it was good to share though they hadn't meant like that. I watched as other boys grabbed a handful to fill their appetite and were gone as soon as they swallowed. Stood outside the youth club, her nail chewed fingers squeezed the once-more empty plastic wrapper of her heart.
I told her my Dad owned the kiosk in town and I promised her cola cubes and sherbet and pear drops and whatever else she chose to fill the space her love had left behind. We walked along the canal to the high street and from there across to the market, empty this late in the evening, stalls vacant as extractions in a sweet toothed mouth.
Dad's keys, lifted from his jacket pocket, unfastened the locks and bolts and I opened the kiosk for her like a gift, like the lid of a jewelry box. The strip light flickered on, bouncing off the glass jarred shelves of peppermint humbugs, cola cubes, licorice and pastel shaded sherbet. Holding hands we stepped inside.
She sat on the counter and I measured out a quarter of rainbow drops, of white mice, of strawberry laces and rang them up on the till. For each bag she paid with a kiss so much sweeter than anything my father stocked, her eyes screwed shut, holding tightly to something. She upended a paper bag glittering with space dust, pouring what remained into her mouth like people do their last few crisps. Space dust flickered, lost between mouth and bag, and fell to the skin revealed by her low cut top, sparkling on the swell of her chest. She licked a finger, ran the tip across the dusting on her skin and offered it to me.
Underneath the sweetness a sourness found my tongue as I sucked the dust from her finger. I saw her see it in my eyes, saw her see that I knew just how it felt to be her.
'How?' she asked.
'I can taste emotion,' I said, which sounds so much more pretentious now than when I said it there, in the cramp of the kiosk, surrounded by so much sweetness trapped behind glass. She smiled and kissed me again, this time her eyes open and gazing into mine, watching me show her exactly how she felt. I kissed her back and prayed that I would taste her love me.
Dan Powell writes fiction of all shapes and sizes. He can be found at www.danpowellfiction.com
I told her my Dad owned the kiosk in town and I promised her cola cubes and sherbet and pear drops and whatever else she chose to fill the space her love had left behind. We walked along the canal to the high street and from there across to the market, empty this late in the evening, stalls vacant as extractions in a sweet toothed mouth.
Dad's keys, lifted from his jacket pocket, unfastened the locks and bolts and I opened the kiosk for her like a gift, like the lid of a jewelry box. The strip light flickered on, bouncing off the glass jarred shelves of peppermint humbugs, cola cubes, licorice and pastel shaded sherbet. Holding hands we stepped inside.
She sat on the counter and I measured out a quarter of rainbow drops, of white mice, of strawberry laces and rang them up on the till. For each bag she paid with a kiss so much sweeter than anything my father stocked, her eyes screwed shut, holding tightly to something. She upended a paper bag glittering with space dust, pouring what remained into her mouth like people do their last few crisps. Space dust flickered, lost between mouth and bag, and fell to the skin revealed by her low cut top, sparkling on the swell of her chest. She licked a finger, ran the tip across the dusting on her skin and offered it to me.
Underneath the sweetness a sourness found my tongue as I sucked the dust from her finger. I saw her see it in my eyes, saw her see that I knew just how it felt to be her.
'How?' she asked.
'I can taste emotion,' I said, which sounds so much more pretentious now than when I said it there, in the cramp of the kiosk, surrounded by so much sweetness trapped behind glass. She smiled and kissed me again, this time her eyes open and gazing into mine, watching me show her exactly how she felt. I kissed her back and prayed that I would taste her love me.
Dan Powell writes fiction of all shapes and sizes. He can be found at www.danpowellfiction.com
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