On Fire

Lesha ran out to me, but I held my arm out to hold her back. I was trying to get my stomach under control, but saliva was starting to fill my mouth.

What the hell was wrong with her? Gloria just cracked the thing open and sucked out the inside like some kind of monster! It looked so slimy...here it comes again!

I just kept walking back up the hill to the house, I just needed air, and to get away from the weirdos. This is why people needed to have proper families, so they didn't just go around eating food off the floor!

"K, are you okay?" Lesha asked, still following me.

"Do you eat them like those two?! I almost accused her.

I looked back to the shed and almost gagged again seeing Mei double fist two shells, dumping them into her mouth.

"I like them cooked, but I have eaten them raw, and K, they aren't that bad!"

"Did you see what they look like? Lesha, they are nothing more than a pile of slimy guts in a shell!"

"K, stop being so dramatic and try some! What if I told you that, since tonight we will be staying inside…" Lesha let her words trail off suggestively.

"Oh, come on! You can't hold that over me like that to get me to eat disgusting food!"

"Oh, I can and I will! Did you also know that they can increase your sex drive?" Lesha asked me, sliding her hands around my waist, and pulling me close to her.

"Fine! But Lesha, they are disgusting!"

"Fine, but you have to at least try them cooked, it would be rude for you not to at least try the food," Lesha said, kissing my neck and making it hard to concentrate.

While the other four helped, Lesha and I went inside the house to see if there was anything we could help with. I wanted no part of the oyster's, but I did promise Lesha I would try some soup.

The house smelled creamy, and I could smell a hint of pepper. The creaminess smelled sharp, and this time my mouth started to water, but in hunger.

"Celia, do you need any help?" Lesha asked after we walked into the kitchen.

"Hm? Already bored with changing the cages?" Celia asked looking back from a large pot she was stirring.

"No, Kiada here hasn't ever been outside of Healia, so she has never seen the ocean or the things that come out of it," Lesha said going over to stand by Celia.

I decided to take a seat at the large table that sat in front of a door that led off to the back deck that I had noticed when walking to the barn thing. There were oysters on the counter still in shells, so I decided to stay away.

I wasn't stupid, I knew they wouldn't bite me, and I had seen them before, but I had just thought that they were just rocks, not...food? I was still worried about the soup, but I was also not going to go back on my word.

I was a woman, and it would be cooked in soup and I wouldn't even notice that they were…

"Oh? Never been outside your mountain range? Well, they can't accept you to take everything just as people tell you, right? I do have to agree, I don't like them raw either; it's not that they don't taste good, I just don't like the texture of the slimy boogers!" Celia said with a laugh, and I was able to relax.

"Thank you, I was getting to the point where I was worried I was just being a wimp," I said with a sigh.

"Oh no, you're still a wimp, girl. Here, let me show you how to eat it so it won't bother you as much," Celia said, going into a cupboard and pulling out a red jar of what looked like some kind of tomato sauce, but it was dark.

"Oh K! This stuff is so good! You won't even know what you're eating!" Lesha said with a big smile.

"Yes, this is red piper sauce. We have a trader that always brings us more when he comes to pick up his order. This will help, look," Celia explained to me as she picked up an oyster and another one of the short knives.

I was very hesitant, but after being called a wimp by Corbit's mother, I felt like I had something to prove. I stood up and watched as Celia pried open the back of the shell, sliding the knife around.

I turned away, I couldn't see it or I wouldn't be able to do it. I waited until Lesha came over and tapped my arm.

"Here, don't complain, or look at it, just open your mouth and eat it," Lesha told me while holding my shoulder a lot harder than she needed to.

"I am not going to," but my words were cut off by the shell that was shoved almost completely inside my mouth.

"Chew three times and then swallow!" Lesha barked at me now holding both my shoulders, far harder than she needed to.

It was everything I imagined it to be, slimy, rubbery, slimy...but it wasn't horrible...wait…

"What is wrong with my mouth?" I asked, breaking Lesha's death grip on my shoulders.

I had swallowed it, and there was nothing left in my mouth, but it was like there was a fire inside of it!

"What's going on?! What did you do to my mouth?" I asked with hot tears running down my face and no way to stop them.

I was starting to sweat, this was like that green plant my bother Mort had given me one time as a joke, but this was so much worse. I could hear laughing coming from both girls, and I turned on both of them.

"You two did this on purpose!" I scowled at them fiercely, but then stopped when they both shut right up.

"K, it was just a joke, I'm sorry," Lesha said, looking at me with concern, and Celia looked actually scared of me and what I had to assume were my glowing red eyes.