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Ordinary men brought apples and peaches. Extraordinary men brought plums. He wandered the market, studying the stalls. A day’s labor would trade for a bushel of apples or a half-bushel of peaches, and would feed them both well for a week or more. But ordinary men brought apples and peaches, and she would smile and kiss his cheek and call him sweet.

A half a week in the tenements, scavenging burnables, would trade for a half-bushel of plums, rich and darkly sweet. He lingered at that display, with the memory of a single taste years ago fresh on his tongue. A half-bushel of plums would keep them in luxury. Extraordinary men brought plums, and she would not call him sweet for that.

He stood, staring, thinking about what she would say for a plum, thinking about what she would do for a half-bushel of them. In his mind, the rich dark taste of memory lingered and transformed, and her lips were on his, her arms around him, and the curve of her was the curve of the plum as he picked one up. The firm unblemished flesh gave subtly under his hands, warming, and he ran his hands over it until the merchant coughed, and asked if he planned to trade or just fondle the fruit.

He put the plum down. Extraordinary men gave plums. He was no extraordinary man: he was an ordinary man, with the green hunger coiling and snarling within him, fighting the edges of madness at every step. He was an ordinary man, and he would bring her apples, or peaches if there were any left after the day’s work was done. And she would kiss his cheek with her burning lips, and call him sweet, and there would be a burning emptiness where the thought of her had been.

He turned away, and back toward the apples, and something caught his eye.There had been no old man there before. But there was an old man now, kneeling half in the shadows where the concrete walls met, a basket in front of him. And in the basket, there was a flash of red. The old man met his eyes, and winked, and beckoned.

He had never seen a cherry before, but he had heard of them. He had heard enough to know that the half-dozen in the bottom of the basket were worth six months’ hard labor, and that one would sate him for a week. He had heard that they drove the green hunger away, but that was a legend. The cherries were a legend. He stared.

Extraordinary men bring plums. What kind of man brings cherries? They were the exact shade of her lips, small and firm and perfect. He wondered what the taste of them would be. He wondered what the taste of her would be, spiced with cherry juice. She would not call him sweet for this. What would she do for the man who brought her cherries? He croaked a question, wondering what he would do to be that man, and the old man cackled an answer.

One week outside the city for a single fruit. It was a heavy price, outside the tenements, away from the steel and concrete and glass, away from the safety of roofs and windows, away from shelter against the acid rain. But cherries. He could see her lips parting in surprise, feel the heat of her exhalation. He could only imagine the warmth of her gratitude.

He traded a stack of burnables for a week’s worth of apples, and went out along the ancient highways into the empty wastes, with a pack on his shoulder and a sharpened bit of steel jammed into his belt. It might give little enough protection against the green madmen, but it was better than going bare-handed. He went, as the old man had commanded, to find the gods.

In the wasteland, the wind blew and stung, unbuffered by the leaning tenements, and he learned to wrap his collar over his mouth and shield his eyes with his sleeve to keep the dust out of them. With his eyes slitted against the wind, he searched the wasteland for the neon gods, watching for the dull grey reflection of the endless sky on bits of glass and tubing. He kept his eyes out for the green madmen, too, knowing they would kill for meat or for the flickering light of a god, but in that he was lucky.

When the unbroken grey clouds darkened and swirled, he made shelter with rocks and trash against the searing rain, and braced it with his body, huddling with his face hidden until the storms had passed. The splatter burned, but it did not reach his hands, or his face, or the pack that held his barter. He made his way across the wasteland, and among the debris, and all the while he thought of her.

In the dim-lit nights, indistinguishable from the days, he slept in the crevices, with his back to the stone, and she came in his dreams. In his dreams, he tasted the sweet-hot juice of the cherry on her lips, and he imagined the taste of it. In his dreams, she lingered, warm and welcoming, and the spice of cherries mingled with the dark plum-sweetness of her, and he woke aching and consumed with hunger. In the days, the green hunger coiled and whispered in his mind, but in the nights there was only her. There was always her.

He ate his apples carefully, and they were cool and crisp and sweet, and washed the dust from his mouth with their juice, but they were a pale imitation of the imagining of her. He ate, and sheltered, and slept, and searched, and dreamed, and at the end of the week he went limping back into the city with the heavy weight of three gods in his pack.

The old man was there in the market, with four cherries in his basket. He smiled, and the smile was wizened and ancient and endlessly knowing. The gods were revealed, and disappeared into the battered overcoat, and the basket proffered with a sly nod. With his heart suddenly pounding, he reached in and closed his fingers around a single fruit.

It was small, and cool, and firm to the touch; he held it closely and felt it beginning to warm. With the cherry clutched tightly in his hands, he made his way through the shadows and the alleyways; the clutching hunger of the need for light receded with the pain from his seared leg. There was only her, and the need to bring her the fruit he held clutched in his hands.

She was basking in front of the fire at the burning, her face alight with the leaping flames, no hint of green to her skin. He looked down at the cracking flesh of his own hands, and knew he could not bear to touch her with them. First it would be the flame, to cleanse and purify and drive away the madness, and then —

Their eyes met, and he forgot about the fire. He forgot about the green that even now receded in the wash of light. He forgot to be afraid. He forgot everything but the sudden and undeniable need for her. Of their own accord his hands unfolded, revealing the fruit he’d guarded so carefully, and offered it up to her.

Her lips parted and her eyes widened, and the heat of the fire was nothing compared to the heat that washed over him as she beckoned him closer. The flames danced reflected in her gaze, and he moved without volition, following her, into the shadowed hollow of the first-floor room.

Inside, there was the flickering green glow of a god, casting dancing shadows around them, but he saw nothing but her face as she reached out to take the cherry from his cupped hands. Her smile was slow, and inviting, and her lips closed around the fruit with deliberate delectation.

When she kissed him, she tasted of light.

I normally do my writing blog elsewhere, but since my normal writing prompt person has decided to make May’s daily prompts erotica based — and I don’t normally write much erotica — I’m making a temporary home here.   That way, the regular blog doesn’t get clogged up.

I’ll probably be using some of my old familiar settings as a base, so I’m not going to be able to keep the two blogs from intertwining in some ways, but I’ll try to give a brief explanation if I’m using a setting that would only be familiar to people who’ve read my stuff before.

Some favorites:

The Word: Retold Bible stories

59th Street: A postapocalyptic world where the sun no longer shines, the rain is made of acid, and the only safe food to eat is manufactured fruit.   Those who eat it find themselves with a maddening desire for light.  To ignore that desire is to see the flesh turn green and crack, and then the mind itself breaks.

Allium and Aconitum: Paranormal fantasy, about monsters and people and which one is whom.