Day 3 AND Overall Winner of Quarto’s 2022 Thunderdome Flash Fiction Contest. View the prompt here.
Illustration by Watson Frank
I knew Durian would show up because well, he was addicted to snacks. What an American concept, right, but it’s true; I’d seen him turn down fresh pages on Porn Day because he “had to save up.” They called him the Snacking Queer after that, but I believed him.
I stood out in the rain until he came running. Durian, I said, stopping him at the door. Will you buy something for me? I presented a wet five, pulled from my itty-bitty shorts.
Come inside wouldya? he said, dragging me in by my shirt. I didn’t have the courage to tell him that last time, the Old Bald Man had scared me. He was so Old and so Bald and he spoke a gnarly Qingdao dialect and I didn't know any of the snacks so I had left, embarrassed.
There he was again, looking at the two of us wetting his shop. I looked away. Durian pulled two bags off the shelf. These are my favorite, he said. Spicy Gluten Sticks. The girthy ones. Not these. He pointed to another bag. They were much less girthy, I could see.
Just these, grampa, he said, in Mandarin. Grampa grunted. Money exchanged hands.
You don’t speak Qingdao Hua either? I asked on our way out.
Is that what you were scared of? You dumb bitch.
The dorms were too far away, so we went to the playing hall.
I’m so wet, he said. It’s all sticking to my skin—I’ll get sick. Do you mind if I take off my clothes? And then he took everything off.
I looked at him, munching heartily, and after a while, I took off all my clothes too. And there we sat, dicks out, going sssstthhh hahhhhh because the Spicy Gluten Sticks were actually Very Spicy.