Gingerbread Latte

This was to be the third cracked Mr Coffee carafe in a month, so brewing up a jug was a negatory. I hadn't yet discovered that wrapping them fully in duct tape – twice – really bolsters their mileage. So there's every chance I was feeling a little depressed as I stepped into the razor-clawed assault of a crystalline winter's morning. At the time I was on a never-ending restoration of a 19th century behemoth of a residence, perched atop a suburban hill. Where the wild turkeys roam beneath harrowing criss-crossed branches of nightmare trees. To detour for coffee was to be late, but I didn't really give a fuck about that. I knew a place around the corner where they'd sell you burnt caramel dish-swill in an adequately sized paper cup for only a couple of bucks. I knew that was where Michelle worked. Now, I didn't know Michelle, but I knew her gracefully and girlishly-penned name from the plastic tag pinned to her tatty apron. I knew she liked to put a circle over the 'I', as opposed to a dot. And, I could recall the three simple flowers that exploded around her inscription.

Truth be told, by this time, I'd been sweating an enormous crush on this girl for at least six months.

A couple of loud-mouthed older women mashed me into the wall to get ahead of me in the queue as I held the door open for them. 'You're welcome', I muttered to myself inaudibly. As I stood in line, so well-versed in the principles of courtly admiration, I was to customarily gape at Michelle as she moved so swiftly and economically – a kind of frantic; smoothed around the edges. Contingency for her any glance toward me had been long pre-established as the dropping of my gaze to the floor and the adoption of a mysterious, pensive attitude. I was sure that I was somehow broadcasting a convincing pretence of profound ruminations on sprawling metaphysical questions. Or measuring words; kneading desolation into arresting poetry. Because, I was under the impression that she was the sort who might read a book. And not even because she had to, but for kicks- which, admittedly, I find kind of hard to understand because they are so boring. But that is no judgement, meaning I only appreciated that all the more.

I took another pained look at her – quite petite, with a chestnut pixie-girl hairdo. Olive-skinned with a natural blush in the cheeks. She had the sexiest arms I'd ever seen – long, exquisitely toned and thoroughly feminine, with a tasteful tattoo on her upper bicep. A kind of Japanese floral design- always on display as she was always apt to wear these cute sleeveless dresses. Eventually I would reach the counter and, somewhere between, 'O stony grey soil', and, 'Tread softly because you tread on my dreams', the font issued thus: 'The final annihilation of the life form known as man...

'Let the attack begin.'

Her hazel eyes swirled as mine burned almost teary now. Minimal words; no stutters, no mistakes. Good- all good, so far. A smidge squawky maybe, but good enough. She twirled her back to me then – sexy arms flailing like some mad professor working gears and levers and pushing buttons; shooting steam. It was an opportunity to admire the way her dress hugged the lithe sides of her abdomen; to consider the wretched need to run my hands along those lines. Then comes the need to crush that need as she turns around again and plonks the hot paper cup before me. I grasped it, thanked her politely and turned away.

Just a reflexive sip before I left, and, 'What the fuck is this? This is delicious!' I have to stop and take stock because this is irregular. There must be some kind of mistake. I really should report this, I reckoned, as somebody might be landed with my harsh piss instead of this velvety majesty I'm holding on to. I returned to the counter.

'Excuse me,' I said, 'Awful sorry, but I ordered a regular and this is not ... regular.'

She looked at me for a long second. I felt compelled to continue,

'I-I only took a sip, I swear... Maybe this is somebody else's... um... else's... well, I don't know what this is, exactly...'

'Gingerbread latte,' she smiled, ''Tis the season!'

I sifted through my basic conversation manual madly, but I wasn't finding anything. I mean, I'd confessed my crime, yet I get not so much as a disapproving scowl, even.

'Maybe you'd like to talk to the manager,' she said, 'come right this way, sir.'

'Oh no, I didn't mean to...'

She poked the dozy looking guy who wasn't paying attention beside her,

'Take over here as I take care of this gentleman,' she said, then turned back to me,

'Please come with me, sir.'

She beckoned me behind the counter and I followed her on into the doorless office off stage left. She then guided me around the corner, barely out of view.

'I'm the manager,' she said as she placed an assured hand on my fluttering chest and pushed me against the wall. I'm not afraid to admit that I was trembling as I tried to grapple with my words,

'I really didn't mean...'

'Shut up and kiss me,' she said, as she pressed herself into me, raised on the tips of her toes. I can't explain the flood of calm that came over me as I succumbed to the magnetic draw. Our lips met. Her tongue swept past mine before she broke off to exhale heavily. Then she came back to me, only more vigorously than before. Her knee slipped in between mine, parting my legs slightly and rapidly defrosting my flash-frozen cock and balls. My hands gradually ran the course from her hips, up her sides, to the underside of her pert breasts. She pressed her palm to my hard meat and let her fingers curl slightly around my shape. Delicately, I put a hand to the side of her face as she purred. She broke off again and leaned back a little as if to give me a moment to regard her beauty. She smiled and wrapped her dainty teeth over her lower lip, then coyly sent her eyes glancing sideways. Contrived, obviously, but affective, definitely. As though the floor fell out from under her, she dropped from my clutches.

I looked down to see that she was already working on unbuttoning my pants. She pulled them down my thighs, then put her hands on my hips as she looked up at me, her eyes apparently darker than before. She constricted them slightly into a predatory glower and I could feel her intention as an exhilarating ripple up and down my entirety. She shifted her gaze to my primed package momentarily, then pulled the same trick as before- eyes to the side, teeth over lip. That one never gets old. All the while, her lips inching ever closer...

Her eyes locked on mine as she takes me into her mouth, gradually edging as far as she dares. Pursed lips, concave cheeks, a slight strain in her brow as she drags back. Another plunge and slowly, she draws back, eases back- smouldering eyes locked steadily, pulling at me. She's determined to pull at me as I'm stood at the precipice, however long it takes. Pulling at me until I give way and crumble - smithereens streaming and hopping down the cliff face, divided, dropping into the sea. She moans softly as she works.

Her astonishing behaviour only served to skew my stunned senses further until I was nothing more than her stupefied thrall- unresisting and bound to her every move. A listless automaton captured in the limbo of that subliminal ardour. Instinctively, my hands reach out to grasp her head- her hair interlacing my pulsing fingers as she smoothly draws back once more; dragging burgeoning rapture.

Her brow rumples and her pouting eyes implore. A small, desperate sigh precedes a contented moan. And she dips again.

Sensing imminent release, she halts. And I teeter. And she holds. And I quiver. And she holds... patiently; soft eyes, easefully goading; a moan- scarcely grazes my consciousness: 'Mmm-hmm'…

To spur a violent whiplash; jetting fiercely; whacked across the backs of my knees and I buckle. Spouting fitfully, spurting furiously... Wild thrashing steadily hushes by degrees; eventually subsides and bleeds into placid, cascading waves of mellow relief...

She touched the corners of her mouth and raised herself off her knees, using my hips for leverage. She told me she had to get back to work. There was no time to arrange a subsequent meeting, but I knew where to find her, I suppose.

As I approached the exit, she called after me,

'Excuse me, sir.' My little heart gladdened at the sound of her voice.

'Don't you want your gingerbread latte?' She said holding the paper cup aloft. I walked back over to retrieve it, beaming idiotically,

''Tis the season,' I said lamely. Her smile had lost some of it's warmth. I thanked her and left.

I thought of her incessantly for two whole days. I knew she usually worked on Thursdays, so that's when I chose to return, expecting to find her. But she wasn't there, and the dozy guy told me she'd seen out her very last shift two days ago. And I thought of her incessantly after that and puzzled upon the significance of the gingerbread latte.

So, that was her. That was Michelle. Never did see her again.