Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

French Kiss

French Kiss

Jason stood in front of a diner, taking it all in. Palm trees, neon lights, art deco, a waveless ocean but crowds on land rippling with ethnically diverse people…South Beach, the haven for ecstatic madness.

The high heat must influence the Floridian behavior, he thought. Sweat…vertigo…Luckily, his clothing matched the weather. He glimpsed a couple kiss as if sucking each other’s blood, then finish their vampiric kiss with a sigh. Jason sighed, too. For himself, recalling his ex-girlfriend. Whatever the circumstances, aloneness had no poetry. Still, he couldn’t bear the group of loud passengers on the bus who had experienced the bumps of the road with him.

In one of his wayward moods, he slipped away from the tour group, rented a car, and continued the trip on his own. A billboard on the side of I-95 led him to Loxahatchee, Lion Country Safari. In the proximity of the parking lot, he found the walk-around area with the petting zoo. He took the path to where they housed the giraffes.

After pausing to observe the height of the animals with deference and fascination, he bought a few giraffe cookies and climbed the stairs up to the high deck to feed a lone animal that had ventured near.

The beautiful giraffe possessed powerful muscles but appeared meek and fragile also, like too-tall beauties who haven’t yet discovered the runway for models. Her enormous tongue moved like a contortionist as it snatched the cookies one by one from Jason’s hand.

When Jason ran out of cookies, the giraffe eyed him as if to celebrate the comfort and the connection between the two of them. Mesmerized, Jason stared at the mouth of the giraffe. Did he imagine a smile or could this be due to the muscular structure around her lips?

The giraffe stretched her neck. The next moment, her slick tongue caressed Jason’s face in a circular motion and cupped his mouth with tenderness.

“Some French kiss!” He heard someone giggle.

A nostalgic memory…Where did it come from? On dare as a seven year-old, he had once slid down the banister of a spiraling, oak staircase. At the bottom, Betsy from next door had smacked a kiss on his cheek. Fear, joy, ecstasy, and nausea…the same sensation.

The attendant yelled. “Don’t worry and don’t move. She’s used to taking cookies from people’s mouths.” Then he distracted and lured the animal away from the deck.

To the laughter of the onlookers, Jason rushed down the deck’s stairway.

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