I have a confession. I’m a True Crime tv show junkie––The First 48, City Confidential, Dateline. Every now and then I’ll catch an episode of Law & Order SVU, but true life drama is always more interesting.
Usually, erotica is the furthest thing from my mind when I’m watching an investigator use the latest DNA technology to crack a thirty year old cold case, but during one particular show, I heard something that got my creative juices flowing.
It was an episode of Forensic Files, and the arson investigator was explaining the term “flashover”. He said: “Flashover is the point at which you go from having a fire in a room…to having a room on fire.” For some reason, I found this definition really…erotic. Anyway, I wrote down the quote and stashed it away on my computer. A few weeks later, I wrote this flash fiction piece.
Flashover
After dinner at Girardis, Randy and Jenna pause outside the restaurant to take in the warm spring air. The sun has just set, and the street is vacant. The topic hadn’t come up all that evening, but she could read the question in his eyes as they’d made small talk throughout the meal.
“So…did you fuck him last night?” Randy asks, as he runs his hand up her camisole and along the small of her back.
She buries her face buried in his half-unbuttoned shirt. She told herself she wouldn’t get this close. Not tonight. She inhales his Armani cologne, and for a split-second thinks about lying to him. She decides to tell him the truth.
“Yes. He’s my husband, and if I keep making excuses, he’s going to get suspicious.”
Justin looks her in the eyes. “Well…we can’t have that, can we?” He kisses her––slowly at first––then more passionately. His tongue explores her mouth, desperately trying to give her a reason to leave her not-so-perfect suburban life. She reciprocates, as if this were the last time their lips would meet.
“I know I’m just a distraction for you,” he says, pulling away. “You told me as much in the beginning. I guess part of me wishes that you would’ve changed your mind by now.” She knows what is coming next. His apartment is just up the road. Her husband is out with his friends and won’t be home for hours. Although she had resolved to end things tonight, her body is craving his now. The kiss…his hands against her spine, coupled with the thought of never seeing him again, has thrown fuel on a smoldering flame she had fought so hard to extinguish. “One last fuck,” she thinks to herself. But, would she have the strength to leave it at that? Or, would this be the point of no return?
She reaches in her purse, fumbles for her keys. In the distance she can almost hear the sirens.
From the poem: Cherry Blessings by JZB
