Here I am, a twenty-four-year-old single mother to Gavin (the wonderful parting gift I received in appreciation of my mad virginity-giving-up skillz, ‘yo) when suddenly, the guy I spontaneously gave said virginity to after a rousing game of beer pong at a frat party shows up in my home town to whisk me off my feet and claim the son he never knew he had.

That's me by the way, in case you haven’t been paying attention. A land far, far away had turned out to be a few miles from where I lived and that second thought I figured he had never given? Well, much to my dismay, and using a Harlequin Romance novel cliché, he had spent years pining for me and searching the world for 'the one that got away'. I never believed in a million years that he would ever stop and give me, his one-night-stand from college, a second thought. Okay, I knew he existed somewhere out there, over the rainbow, in a land far, far away living his own life. Sometimes it’s just a toss-up on whether or not I love sleep more.Ī few months ago, I hadn't even known Carter existed. But it’s not like I would ever follow through with this fantasy. It’s more of a wish if you will, something I fantasize about when business is slow at the shop, when I’m waiting in line at the grocery store, or pretty much every waking moment of every single day when I find myself yawning and cranky from lack of sleep. I connect with his smooth, muscular chest, slide my fingers up his body, and.choke the ever living shit out of him. I pull my arms out from under the sheet and my hands reach out towards him. I slide my body ever so slowly across the bed, careful not to disturb him, until I’m so close I can feel the heat from his skin warming me from head to toe. The sheet is draped low over his h*ps as he sleeps peacefully with one arm flung over his eyes and the other resting on his taut, na**d stomach.

I stare at his prone form lying next to me, the greenish-blue glow from the alarm clock on the bedside table providing just enough illumination for me to see the shallow rise and fall of his chest. And in this dream I’m under the covers in bed, just a few scant inches away from Carter’s body.

Futures and Frosting by Tara Sivec