1984. Shirtless with rivulets of sweat cascading down your hairy chest as you mow the lawn. Sporting aviator sunglasses and a patriotic red and white bandana. Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” blaring from the open basement window. The HiFi turned up to eleven and flooding the backyard with music. I’m sitting patiently next to the cooler of icy Old Styles, the ties of my terrycloth romper dangerously dangling off my shoulders. Later that evening, you share a Marlboro Red with me. My first cigarette. You call me a good girl and let me pocket your Zippo. I can taste the musky hint of me on the paper filter when you pass it from your lips.
1994. Disheveled home-schooled backwater son-of-an-evangelical. Gas station attendant in a worn-thin flannel shirt. Stringy dishwater blonde hair tucked behind your ear. But that fucking accent. Your tobacco-stained fingers frantically working into me in the backseat of your older brother’s Firebird. And he’ll beat your ass if he finds out we were naked on those faux leather seats. Your mouth, a southern slurry of Soco and corn chips. You taste like fall and small-town parades and bad decisions.
2004. We throw back watered-down drinks like it’s our job. We wish this was our job. Our jobs involve laptops, building badges, and sensible shoes. Being an adult sucks. We are thirty-something-spinsters. We arrive at the bar in a pack and hope to leave in a pair. Over the course of the evening, I plant myself in the booth and end up guarding the purses and drinks….and my dignity. For the last call, I sloppily order a bourbon, neat. My mouth, like my mind, is numb, I don’t taste a thing.
2014. They say you don’t know anything about love until you have a baby. They are wrong. When I kiss your cheeks and tiny hands, you taste like the tang of sour formula and neediness.
2024. Me with my tits out in a dress that sits somewhere between cosplay and thirsty. You, a helluva lot classier in a tailored velvet waistcoat. Your silver hair styled in the world’s sexiest pixie cut. I’m exhausted from chatting up every writer in the room. My attempts at networking are awkward; introverted authors with sweaty palms uncomfortably hawking their self-published novellas. You are different. We lock eyes and I’m pulled into your orbit, buying your chapbook of NSFW poems. Before I leave, you press a wrinkled flyer into my hand. An invitation to an after party. You flash me a knowing smile– that’s where the real party is. I blush, feeling the hard edge of responsibility and restraint. My husband finds me in the crowd, bored and ready to leave. “Maybe next time?” you casually whisper and we both know it’s a false offer. But in that split second, flyer wadded up tightly in my palm- I see my life through a series of different choices. A place where there are less boundaries and more options. I imagine you taste like brandied cherries and freedom.
M. Florence is a Midwestern multi-genre GenX writer. She works, teaches, and (sometimes) writes. You can find her on X @MFlorenceWriter.