It felt intimate, and warm. Tegan thought Moe smelled nice. Like earl grey tea and violets.
Moe didn’t want to let go.
Neither did Tegan.
But with a crowded bar and multiple police standing around, they both realized that they needed to.
Tegan looked at Moe, and took his hand, leading him toward the entrance, “Close the bar early. I wanna go to the beach with you.”
Moe nodded. “Sure. I…I’d rather get out of here after what happened, anyway.”
“And Moe?” Tegan said softly.
“Yea, Tegan?”
“Today was the best day of my life. I’m glad I came to this bar. And met you.”
Moe smiled. “Really? Even afterthisdisaster?”
“It was abeautifuldisaster. That’s life, right?”
Moe nodded. “Yeah. You’re right.” He sighed. “Tegan? Do you wanna…make this a date?” He felt his whole face go warm. He couldn’tbelievehe said that. He hadn’t asked even a singlewoman out inyears…andneverasked out a man.
Tegan’s eyes widened, a subtle smile on his lips, his surprise overturned by happiness. “I was thinking thesamething, Moe.”
They both grinned at each other.
They wrapped up everything with the police and the crime report. Moe closed up.
And Moe felt free, finally opening up to someone, who felt like his soulmate, their strange and crazy night ending on the beach.
Moe kissed Tegan right next to the water, and Tegan realized that love gave their suffering meaning, and that God really was in the details—not the devil.
A year after they dated, Tegan bought Moe a Caravaggio.
The Penitent Magdalene stood as a reminder of his dissolute past, and how his future was to be laden with strength in morality and kindness—with Moe, his true love, together.
Teeth Over Pearl by T.C. Mill
I sit across from her, watching as she scoops two mussels at a time onto her plate from the deep bowl, almost a cauldron, that we’ve ordered together. As she lifts each from the bone china and pries the shells wider. Her thumbs slip inside the pearly rims to delicately hold the butterfly shape. It would be distracting, if anything in the world were worthy of my attention but her.
I nibble a few mussels; this show doesn’t unfold at a popcorn-munching pace. Her movements are fluid but deliberate. Time seems to have slowed, as if we swim through gelatin. I’m happy to exist in this limbo forever—my hunger satisfied, my arousal sweet but not urgent, my eyes downright delighted.
She catches my gaze. Her smile lasts only a moment before she bends over the next morsel. A glimpse of teeth as she sucks away the meat, then chews once, twice. Her eyelids flutter in the moment before she swallows, before her throat bobs and a ripple crosses the underside of her jaw, trace of her tongue savoring the wash of buttery-briny flavor. The naked shell gleams with the same pale rainbow as the opal ring on her finger.
It feels like a fresh-harvested pearl is rolling between my nether lips, heavy, round, salty, and wet. The bead of moisture bursts against the groin of my underwear as she shakes a lock of black hair over the ivory shoulder of her blouse.
Though she knows I’m watching, I’m not sure this is a performance. I can’t dismiss the appealing idea that this is nature. How she eats—perhaps especially in my presence.
Our eyes meet as her teeth kiss another soft saffron-colored body from its shell. Her tongue slides to gather the juices, rolling and laving so no minute, iridescent crevice isunattended to, then licks her lower lip. I uncross my legs.
My waistcoat pulls snug across my breasts as I take a deep breath. My nipples are achingly erect but modestly hidden. Modesty was an omnipresent rule when and where I grew up—so omnipresent that even now I shy away from labels, finding them too ego-focused. If I did take one, it might be butch. She’s called me handsome. Jasmine perfume, currently melting behind my ears from lust, I prefer to think of as cologne some days. My gentlemanly habits—dressing impeccably in black, camel, or gray; quietly opening doors; standing until she’s seated—appeal to us both.
And then there’s the immodest symbolism of how my girlfriend is sucking mussels from their shells. She obviously sees what she’s doing to me. I have no idea how she keeps from squirming in her seat. Turning me on turns her on like nothing else.
She swallows, and her eyelids flutter again. Oh. That’s it. The way she squirms is just more delicate…but noticeable when you’re watching closely.
I raise my wineglass to my lips but can only sip a little. My throat feels constricted by my pulse, even when all my blood seems to be pooling elsewhere.
