Fried Chicken and Coffee

In his hand, the Sono­ran Moun­tain Kingsnake. Around his neck, green stripes of the Rosy Boa. “You want to touch him don’t you?”

“Never have.” She says, abruptly real­iz­ing how inex­pe­ri­enced this sounds.

“Cold-blooded.” Tak­ing her hand, he holds her palm along the snake on his neck. “Cool to the touch.”

“I know. I know.” She tries to pull back. It would almost be inti­mate except a rep­tile is between her hand, his skin. He’s most likely done with the bar scene she thinks, a scene she hasn’t even tried much of as she’s under­age, hasn’t found a fake id and isn’t will­ing to risk the humil­i­a­tion of being kicked out. She can tell he’s shaved and trimmed his beard for years. There is most likely so much he’s already done she hasn’t.

“All instinct.” His boot, dusty, shred­ded, well-worn under­neath frayed jeans, rests atop the cage of the long hiss­ing beast. “Some have a bit of a tem­per,” he says.

She con­sid­ers the word tem­per, the flip from easy to angry, and how tem­per could be used to describe a snake or a man, a pas­sion­ate and fierce man, but not her­self. What could go so wrong so immediately?

He’s watch­ing her watch him.

She eval­u­ates the blue-green ser­pent tat­too trav­el­ing up his fore­arm, the beard along his jaw, the strong shoul­ders beneath lan­guid snake. All things that make her swal­low and feel uneasy, like she might not be able to get her arm back, or, she might extend the other arm so he could take it in his -

“Ever seen a Cal­i­for­nia Leg­less Lizard?” he says, look­ing amused, finally let­ting go of her hand.

Is there such a thing? She wants to say yes, she wants to say no. Either way, they both know he’s going to show it to her.

Ste­fanie Freele's short story col­lec­tion Feed­ing Strays was a final­ist for the John Gard­ner Fic­tion Award and the Book of the Year Award. Her recent fic­tion can be found in Glim­mer Train, Amer­i­can Lit­er­ary Review, Night Train, Nec­es­sary Fic­tion, Smoke­long Quar­terly, Word Riot and Corium Mag­a­zine. Ste­fanie is the Fic­tion Edi­tor of the Los Ange­les Review.