Fiction Fix Seventeen

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Fiction Fix
Actually, Mitchell was encouraged by how
easy the first fifteen minutes with Bree went.
He poured two glasses of wine, gave her a
short tour of the house. She loved the black
and white photos hanging in his living room.
She was wearing a sleeveless cotton dress,
vintage-looking in faded yellow and green,
its scooped neckline revealing her collarbone,
delicately arced, Mitchell noticed, like the
little handlebars on a tricycle. They sat on
his blanket-covered sofa. She slipped off her
shoes, then pushed them under the coffee
table using her feet—an elegant, dextrous
move. Shortly thereafter, the trouble began.
Don’t, he wanted to whisper to her, Oh don’t.
There was an ancient method and logic
to all of this, a reason why four followed
three. Bree had barely sipped her wine, so
she couldn’t be blotto. Yet with hardly any
ado, she had embraced him, was sucking
the breath right out of him like some hot
meteor. She had skipped all of the operating
3
instructions, including steps 3 through 6,
including linguine, and had fast-forwarded
to a place of electric nerve endings and chaos.
Two or three minutes of it—hell, he couldn’t
tell passing time—and then he backed away
from their entangled nest and pointed to the
kitchen.
He stood, attempted to smile. “Hey you,”
he said, trying to sound playful, not knowing
at all what he meant. “Gotta attend to dinner,
but hold that thought.”
He retreated to the privacy of his kitchen
and stood there, confused. Yes, he had invited
her here hoping for this very kind of encounter,
but there was the whole evening ahead.
Wasn’t there? He glanced at the bowl of
shrimp on the counter, moved to the stove
to settle himself, turned on the right front
burner, set the sautéed garlic to rewarm.
He’d heard nothing behind him, and then
Bree’s pale arms were there, wrapping his
waist. He could feel her face push firmly into
his back like something trying to imprint its
meager outline.
Mitchell reached for the shrimp and
poured them into the hot skillet, the resulting