Love Remedy

Sent from my iPhone:

I never thought anyone could make me feel the way he could. The way his dark eyes sparkled when he smiled, and the way his long brown hair highlighted his exotic, gypsy-like, features. Even the way he handled the break-room vending machine.

For anyone else, the ancient metal coils never seem to drop the requested item. But for him- one open-palm bump and his Snickers bar fell, bringing along a few friends. “Hey, Becca- you like Cheez-its?” His voice was like a cool ocean breeze; a refreshing dose of pure happiness.

“Hey, Remy.” All I could do was awkwardly nod. I did, in fact, like Cheez-its. “Have you seen the Halloween decorations?” I knew Remy must have seen the array of lights, creatures, and animatronics waiting to be put on display. He was a backroom team lead (or junior manager), having just finished his undergrad degree. Or at least that’s what I’d heard.

“Yeah, pretty rad,” Remy said with his s**y surfer accent. He sounded Hawaiian, or maybe Tahitian. Or maybe he was just a really chill individual (I never had the courage to ask).

He tossed me the bag and takes a seat across from me. “I’m just here to pick up my paycheck.”

Being so close to him makes my heart race. I looked at his hands, his arms, his shoulders- he wasn’t wearing a work uniform. In a dark blue Superman t-shirt and acid wash jeans, Remy was probably headed home to his beautiful wife, and family.

I needed to fall back to reality, so I brought up the one thing I had learned about him; one fact that placed him even more out of my reach than he already was. “I heard your wife had a baby? Congrats.”

Remy replied with a blank stare.

“Sorry. I overheard Tony and Aaron talking about throwing you a baby shower.”

Remy nodded with a chuckle. “And how I would have to switch to nights? Yeah, they’re really funny.”

“So you don’t have a baby?” I asked with a mouthful of crackers. I was already thinking of ways to slip out of the break room and try to outrun the awkwardness.

“I don’t have a wife,” he smiled his sweet s**y smile.

“Oh?”

“The mother of my son: she’s an old friend from childhood.”

My hands were shaking as I forced more crackers into my mouth. “Oh? That’s interesting…”

“Yeah, more of a ‘friends with benefits’ situation.”

Images of his naked body filled my mind, causing me to choke on my own saliva. “Ha… ha, funny,” I managed to say between gasps.

“Funny?” he asked, licking his lips.

“I-I just never pictured you like that.”

“How do you picture me?”

My body is frozen in place as he stands up. His clothes start to fall off, but not in a normal manner; he was sheading, like a snake.

I woke up in my bed, naked covered in sweat. I pulled my hair into a ponytail.

It was a dream- of course, it was. I’m thirty years old and work at Target for crying out loud! Dreamy-exotic surfers don’t hit on single women in their thirties.

“Maybe if more of them looked like you…” Remy appeared in my bed, wearing a wine-red sweatshirt and khaki pants- the kind of clothes he would wear to work. He even still had his name tag on. He ran his fingers through his hair, but as he did, it seemed to change from dark brown to ocean-blue. As he laid back, his shirt rode up ever so slightly, revealing his tight abs.

I couldn’t help myself. If this was a dream, it was my dream. I walked by fingers under this shirt, exploring his chest hair. It was thin and soft, tricking down his stomach, like an arrow pointing to the promise land. “What are you?”

“What am I?”

“Your nationality, your lineage? I mean sometimes you look Hawaiian, other times, maybe French or Spanish.”

Remy sat up, taking off his shirt. “What if I told you,” he said in a whisper as he pinned me down, “My mother was siren and my father was a demon king.”

“A demon king?”

“Some called him a Bayou forest nymph.”

“So you’re part-cajun? That makes sense; you have your daddy’s voice and your mama’s hair?”

“In more ways the one,” he said with a wicked smile. He ran his fingers through his hair, removing what looked like a hair tie with a metal charm attached. “When I was born, my father killed my mother, keeping her body around to feed on her power. When I was old enough he allowed me to have a piece of her.”

I expected to see a bone or something inside the charm but the hair tie itself was made of a strange glowing material. “You kept a lock of her hair?”

“He would have wanted me to drink her blood or whatever, to become just like him.”

“The child of a southern demon and an ocean princess- What does that make you?”

“An abomination…” Remy paused and bit his lip seductively. “A freak…” he leaned in for a soft kiss, first to my lips then to my neck. “…and hungry.”

He gripped my leg, sinking his nails into my flesh. I didn’t remember his nails being so long or so sharp. I could feel him moving his hand, gliding a blade against my throat. By the light of the window, I can see his hands- they’re made of wood?

“I thought you said you weren’t like your father?” I push him away, pulling the covers over my naked body. This was getting a little too strange. I blinked my eyes, trying to force myself to wake up. But was never good at that. I had to let this play out.

“I never said that,” Remy took a step back his muscles creak like old wood- or a tree. Wings made of sugar cane emerge, the stalks swaying with grace and elegance as they protrude from his flesh. His eyes were now a deep black, but his lips: pouty, soft, just begging to be kissed. “You invited me here, I know you dream of me.”

A magnetic force drew me into his embrace. This wasn’t real, he wasn’t real. Maybe none of it was real. How, and why, would someone with supermodel looks and a killer body take a job at Target?

Remy licked his bottom lip. “You’re thinking about me, right now.”

I blinked my eyes again and now I’m typing on my laptop. I’m wrapped in a blanket.

Now I’m wrapped in his arms. I can feel him lowering the blanket, touching my skin.

His fingers are bleeding a clear liquid. It wasn’t blood; was it some kind of sap? honey?

Remy’s presses his lips to my ear. “Taste.”

His finger grazes my bottom lip. He tastes like maple syrup, mixed with pina colada. “Yum…”

“Yum indeed, mon cheri; my darling, my love,” Remy aimed to devour me whole, or perhaps just my soul. “Let me worship you, let me love you”

I have never wanted anything more…

Wow, I never knew Becca was such a great writer. I thought I might as well post this. Since I’m leaving town… anyway,

much love,

RemyD

Can you dig it?