Brumal

“I often find myself laying still in bed with the ceiling fan on and windows cracked. I’ll wait for the cold air to shrink the tissue in my joints, for my nerve endings to cool, and to feel the agony of hypothermia even though I am perturbed by all things cold; snow, door knobs, the hands of people with poor circulation. I am fazed by freezers; and those stainless steel stretchers that will latch the cold onto my body.

I don’t think I’ll mind dying as much as I’ll mind sleeping in a freezer—my brumal body boxed beside strangers.”

From Guest Contributor Shanique Carmichael

Unrequited

Soft and warm, her diamond-drill eyes cut through troubles to allow her molten laughter to fill his heart.

She moved like a leopard and, when her thighs brushed innocently, nerve endings tingled with an indescribable charge.

Wanting her more than breath, his eyes often sought the smooth valley beneath her throat, desire locking his tongue until...too late, leaving him to pounce at the desiccated dust eddies in her wake.

Fleeting shards of opportunity teased like mirages, requiring more energy and know-how than his aging, wounded, soul possessed.

She’d offered him a photo once. He’d declined. 2D simply wasn’t enough.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid