Flash fiction # 226b

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

1

The Silver Trail

The naked mattress sighed as they fell, the moisture in the summer air cushioning their fall. The tiny room at the back of the apartment didn’t offer much privacy, but it was enough. Enough when
you ached for someone the way he ached for her. Moist air blew through the open screen window
above. They were high, oblivious.

They fell into each other, a rumbling thunderstorm working up like they worked each other up, all flash and bluster. It was new, but easy. Not the first time. Certainly not the last.

He laughed inside, laughed at how she had nailed him with the little note under his windshield
wiper. He’d left his car parked on Franklin Street and forgotten about it in the night’s
festivities at the bar. Troll’s was aptly named and just the place he craved after a big victory,
all inhibitions lost in the flush of the home team’s victory. Trolling for hotties at Troll’s,
he thought, would be easy work.

But she wouldn’t be had that night. She’d left the note. “Follow the silver trail…” it said.
Signed “Tanya.” Ahh, the “silver trail.” Now he remembered. The tequila and salt on the inside of
the arm, on the crook of the neck, on the tummy, below the bellybutton. The silver trail of
saliva… Yes, he would follow the silver trail.

The Cowboy Junkies crooned, hypnotically. They made love. The thunderstorm rolled through, and he felt the rain tickling his back. It pushed through the screen in a million tiny droplets.