Love in the Trenches by Daniel Davis

They left the bar laughing, her leaning on his shoulder, him leaning on hers while making it seem the other way around. Neither paid attention to where they were walking, and so when they hit the gravel parking lot and tripped into a pothole, they both fell unsuspectingly, mouths dropping in surprise, eyes shifting out of focus in an effort to fight intoxication and the shift in gravity.

They landed on their knees in a thick liquid. His hands fell into it; she managed to keep all but her fingertips free, but whereas his legs were covered by denim, hers were left bare by her skirt. After regaining his composure the best he could, he pulled his hands out and looked at them. The liquid, deep red in the dim glow from the street lamps, clung to his fingers. He could feel it slowly trickling down his arms, softly burning against his palms. She could feel the same, except on her legs, creeping not downward but up, warm and tingling and almost as painful as it was pleasurable.

It was cool out, but the liquid was as warm as blood. That wasn’t what it was, though. He said, “What is it?”

“It’s love,” she said. Her hesitation was due only to the alcohol, and the stirring sensation as the liquid hit her waist and went higher. She eyed her fingers, and put them in her mouth one at a time, sucking them clean.

“Love,” he said. He wanted to wipe his brow; he wanted to wipe the hair away from her eyes. But the liquid was all over him. He said, “How do you know?”

“Women know these things,” she said. She smiled shyly as it reached her breasts.

He felt it constricting his chest, and he gave in and stopped fighting. It was gone from his hands now, seeped into the skin he supposed. He could feel the warmth within him, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It was something new, that was all. Something foreign. It was too soon to know if he liked it.

She had felt it before, but this was different in that way you can’t really explain but just know. As he stood, then helped her to her feet, she couldn’t decide if she liked this difference more than the last time, which had been different from the time before that, too. The last pothole hadn’t been as deep, the fall hadn’t scratched her knees as much. The time before that had been a canyon, though. You don’t always recover from that.

His hands free, he brushed her bangs away from her eyes, then kissed her. He tasted it in her mouth, she in his. They tasted it in each other until a horn honked and they had to move. They went back to his place. The feeling lessened a little. Whether it would be there in the morning, he couldn’t say. She was sure it would be, was counting on it; he was wondering if it wasn’t the whiskey after all. All things considered, he would prefer the whiskey. Cheaper, and he could put the bottle on top of his kitchen cabinet as a souvenir.

Daniel Davis was born and raised in Central Illinois. His work has appeared in “Bluestem Magazine,” “Bartleby Snopes,” “Necessary Fiction,” and elsewhere. You can find him at www.dumpsterchickenmusic.blogspot.com.