POTATO MOON, Part 10 by Jason Bryant

PAD here. Ten entries since last Friday, so we’re ahead of the curve. Congrats to all contributors for a smooth first week.

Jakob’s pants burst into flame. He thought of how this was the perfect metaphor for his feelings for Bela. He made a mental note to write it down in his journal later. Then he remembered the that flames weren’t metaphorical and started screaming.

A cold foam sprayed over Jakob’s body. The freezing sensation reminded him of the cold showers he took several times a day to calm his flaming libido, tame his unbridled heart, and sooth his incessant athlete’s foot. When the mist cleared the flames on his pants were gone and Edwood stood petulantly before him holding an equally petulant fire extinguisher.

“Oh, Edwood!” said Bela as she ran to her lanky love. She wrapped her arms around his gaunt chest and tried to kiss him, but the fire extinguisher pressed between their heaving bodies. It pushed them apart like a big metal barrier of heat retardation keeping their ferocious fires from fusing firm. In Finland.

Edwood looked past the extinguisher into Bela’s gigantic eyes. He raised an eyebrow a tenth of a millimeter, betraying his feelings in a way that almost overwhelmed them both. Then he pulled out of her sweet, tempting embrace, an embrace that he knew he must always pull away from. He turned back to Jakob and said, “You okay?”

Jakob contained a snarl, but only by the tiniest of tiniest measures. The amount of flavor in his mom’s Tofurky casserole? Vast compared to the tiniest of Jakob’s ability to hold back his snarl.

He knew that Edwood was just looking for a reason to belittle him, the same way all the were-creatures belittled Jakob for his… special problem. A chill ran through Jakob. Could Edwood possibly know of … the special problem? The flashes of heat from his body, the transformations that didn’t fit in with other shifters, the lactose intolerance that only let him put second rate, water-based gravy on his potatoes?

Jakob calmed himself, realizing that the chill he felt was just the fire extinguisher foam that covered his body. He needed to answer Edwood in a way that looked aloof yet powerful, so that Bela would see how much more detached and together he was than the repugnant Edwood. What had that miscreant asked him? If he was okay? Jakob reached into the depths of his soul, looking for the perfect response to show his innate awesomeness.

Then it came to him. He looked straight into Edwood’s glistening eyes, which even Jakob had to admit he could fall into like beautiful pools of summer dew, and he said, “You know… whatever.”

Success! Jakob knew that Bela’s undeserving boy-toy couldn’t top that!

Edwood tilted his head a single, soul wrenching degree and said, “Cool.”

Jakob knew he’d lost.