SUMMER OF THE MAKEOUT QUEEN — GEORGIA BELLAS
/The only trip she takes these days is back in time via the Google satellite image of her front stoop. She types in her address and zooms in with the mouse. The picture is a little grainy because it was dusk and thunderstorm-dark but there is enough light to illuminate the two bodies glued together in summer heat. You can see the back of her neck where her hair curls damply below the barrette holding up thick brown waves. If you squint you can imagine the pixels are drops of sweat.
If you look closely you can see his left hand cupping her right breast, her nipple poking between two fingers, the ruched edge of her sundress tugged down below a tan line.
If you look closely you can see her right hand digging into his left shoulder. Her fingernails are red.
If you look closely you can see the pale white of her right thigh, dress pulled up to her hips, his hand between her legs. If you look closely you can see her foot on the cement, red toes curled over the top step.
If you look closely you can see her tongue down his throat.
You can't actually see that she knows. Their faces are pressed together, indistinguishable. No space for a breath between their lips let alone a glimpse of tongues. But she can taste the salt of his lips still and it is almost the same thing.
The only thing you can't see, no matter how closely you look, is her heart.
Georgia Bellas is the Fiction Features Editor at Atticus Review. Her work appears in Split Lip Magazine, People Holding, Lockjaw Magazine, Synaesthesia, Sundog Lit, Cartridge Lit, Bird’s Thumb, WhiskeyPaper, The Collapsar, and [PANK], among other journals. She is one of the poetry winners for Sundress Publications' 2014 Best of the Net Anthology. You can follow her teddy bear, host of the award-winning Internet radio show "Mr. Bear's Violet Hour Saloon," on Twitter @MrBearStumpy.
