Sweet Girl

I’ve been woefully unproductive with writing for quite some time. I have a couple things in the fire, on very, very slow cook, but I did try Five Minute Fiction again this week. Something quick and maybe a little cute. The seed word was “custard” , and I wrote frantically fast with a number of sloppy errors. I cleaned those that I could find up and embellished a bit, so this is really 15 minute fiction. -M

—

“Don’t you dare peek,” Carlie said, ”No matter what you think you hear.”

I promised her, but damn if it wasn’t hard to do. We’d had such a great night out for my birthday; dinner, dancing, the works, and Carlie had practically dragged me back to her place from the pulsing music. Not that I put up any kind of fight. And then the blindfold when we walked into her front door?

I have a good imagination, and it was running full steam as she led me through her place. I think it was to her bedroom, but when she let go my hand and said “Don’t. Move.” I heard her walking on what sounded like plastic. More sounds made me want to just rip the blindfold off – I was sure she was taking off her clothes. What good is your girlfriend stripping in front of you if you can’t watch?

“Not a move, David. I see you. Not a move.” Now she was a breath away, then out of the room. I heard her pad – yes, barefoot, down the hall, to the kitchen, rummage around, and come back.

More steps on plastic and then stranger sounds still; a kind of “sschlorp”, a giggle, and the flick of a lighter.

“OK, David. You’re a good boy. You can look now.”

I ripped off the blindfold to see Carlie, yes, naked and beautiful, reclined in the middle of her bedroom (hah! right again!) floor on a plastic disposable tablecloth, with a just-upended egg custard jiggling on her flat tummy. It had a candle in it. Egg custard. I’d only confessed my childhood love of it to her last week.

“Happy birthday, Baby,” she said, holding out a spoon. “Make a wish, blow out the candle.”

She started singing Happy Birthday, then. She didn’t ever get to finish.

And I thought Carlie was a sweet girl before.