PodCastle 435: Bilingual, or Mouth to Mouth - a podcast by Escape Artists, Inc

* Author : Lisa M. Bradley

* Narrator : Roberto Suarez

* Host : Graeme Dunlop

* Audio Producer : Peter Wood

*

Discuss on Forums







It was first published in Lisa’s first short fiction and poetry collection, The Haunted Girl, available on Amazon or direct from the publisher, Aqueduct Press.





Rated R.

Bilingual, or Mouth to Mouth

by Lisa M. Bradley

“Sweet Sue,” Maz hissed, and I barely resisted an urge to jump into the bonfire. ‘Cause I knew that hiss from his habit of scrolling through smut in my presence, never mind my pleas, and I knew exactly what (or who) had prompted this particular sexhalation.

She was a thimbleful of darkness lurking under a mesquite tree at the party. All’a five-feet tall and maybe 90 pounds if you threw her in a pool—which would’ve, incidentally, accounted for the lemon-suck look on her face. A minute earlier, I’d glanced up from the bonfire, its flames weirded by the plastic bottles that Marcos, our host, had tossed in to melt, and I’d seen the green-tinsel in her black hair, those Hello Kitty combat boots, and I’d known, absolutely known, Maz would zero in on the girl. She was a stranger, and she had a style most of the girls on Five Mile Line didn’t bother with: sort of “pop-punk princess caught in heroin-related downward spiral,” if I had to put a name to it.



Now she sat on the Hinojosa family’s picnic table, her legs crossed twice in that weird way some girls have of wrapping around themselves, one boot planted on the picnic bench. She was either trouble or in trouble, I guessed from the torn knees of her skin-tight jeans. Even with the bonfire and several shadows swirling between us, I saw black splotches on her denim and black bruises peeking from the holes. Girl looked she’d had a tangle in the brush, as mi abuela would’ve said.

“Who’s that buenona?” Maz lowered his plastic cup to get an unobstructed view of the scowler.

No way she could’ve heard us over the Mexican electronica blaring from someone’s trunk speakers, or the laughter and conversations spiking the lot behind the Hinojosa house. Still, she lowered her cigarette and turned in our direction, exhaling like she wished secondhand smoke killed faster. Despite skin sun-baked brown, her eyes were blue, and eerie as cat-shine.

“Never seen her before,” I said. Redundantly, because Maz and I went near-everywhere together—sometimes he followed me into the bathroom; dude had no sense of boundaries—so of course if he didn’t recognize the girl, neither would I.

She flicked her cigarette in our direction, then unwound herself and kinda vaulted from the table into the yucca-and-cactus scrub, where one day Six Mile Line and Seven might be. Despite the October chill, the back of her black shirt flaunted three horizontal slashes, exposing her bony shoulders and lack of bra. Maz started to follow her, but I snagged the sleeve of his leather jacket.

“Wait a minute, you don’t even know her,” I said.

“That’s the point, Beto. To get to know her,” he said with a leering grin.

He drained his Coke and ditched the cup in the fire, yanking me along as he pursued the mystery girl. “At least let me check her out,” I said as we approached the picnic bench.

“Dude! She’s too little to cause any desmadre!”

“Dude! You know how little a black widow is?”

That stopped him long enough for me to scan the feathery shadows beneath the mesquite tree. I spotted and retrieved her discarded cigarette. “Cover me,

Further episodes of PodCastle

Further podcasts by Escape Artists, Inc

Website of Escape Artists, Inc