Saturday's Storyteller: Mistletoe Make-Out
by Belinda Roddie She tasted like honey and mulled cider. She tasted like cinnamon and sugar cookies and molasses wrapped up in a tiny bundle on her tongue. She tasted like cherries and like mashed potatoes, but she didn't taste like egg nog. For as long as I had known her, she had hated the stuff. I wondered why I tasted like. Here, under that little toxic sprig of hemiparasitic holiday tradition, I kept my eyes closed, my lips moving, my hands at my sides. She was touching me all over, though, mostly along my hips and the lower part of my waist. Like she wanted to turn her arms into a belt to hold everything in me up and intact. When we pulled away, the carolers were still singing outside, and the lights were still blinking red and green, and the fire was still crackling in the hearth. And I smelled ash and soot that mingled oddly with all the conflicting flavors in my mouth. "Have you always wanted to do that?" "Honestly?" I couldn't help saying.