Alice liked to French kiss fire. The sizzle and pop, followed by a scream. She loved it. She liked the taste of orange heat. As a child the glow of a stove bewildered her, set her in a constant gaze. One day she broke her gaze and gave the stove surface a good strong lick.

Sizzle, pop, scream.

Her mother rushed to the kitchen and screamed louder than Alice, she thought she was a bad mother.

Two weeks later Alice did it again in private, but held back her scream. She gripped her yellow flower skirt in fists.

Alice continued to French kiss fire. Under the suspicion of her mother, Alice carefully devised a system for burning then healing her wound without causing infection and a visit to the doctor. But Alice couldn’t hide her lisp.

Alice was a new girl at my high school. Her mother got a new job in town and couldn’t turn it down, so she moved Alice and herself. They moved in after spring break.

Alice walked into my classroom, jolting her hips to a rhythm. Confident, strong, elegant steps. She wore a polka dotted dress. Her eyes were tired, but she looked always straight. She looked through me as she sat down in the desk behind me.

I turned around.

“Hi”

“Hi. I’m Alisth.”

How unfortunate her name had to end with an “s” sound. The class laughed and snickered. My face was red and I was darting my eyes around, but she seemed not to mind, and was waiting for me to say something else, as if nothing had happened, but the teacher started the class.

After school I looked for her. At first glance Alice had the attention of most boys at our school. But every class she was in, she spoke up, raising her hand. She had an opinion about everything and most of her opinions had “s” sounds in them. By lunch she was already an outcast, unclean.

I myself was not above ridicule and I risked this punishment by pursuing Alice. But something about Alice made me reckless. I liked her because she was partially broken and could be had at a bargain price. I had good odds and that turned me on. Like a lion stalking wounded prey, as opposed to running away from a healthy, stampeding herd. I saw Alice standing alone after school. Both of our mothers were late.

I circled her.

“Hey, how was your first day?”

“Alright.”

“Cool.”

She was smoking a cigarette. My face reddened. I didn’t know what to say. Honesty, go with honesty.

“I think you are very pretty.”

Idiot! Fuck! Idiot! Surely I had failed. Honesty? What an idiot!

But she smiled.

She kept her smile and stared into my eyes as she rubbed the butt of her cigarette out on her tongue. She winced, and spat.

“Holy shit! Are you okay?”

“Better than okay, that felt stho fucking good.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Maybe. I sthee my mom coming”

“Hey I was actually wondering if you would like to meet up sometime?” I bolted the words out. Time and Alice’s mom’s car were not on my side.

“Where do you live?”

“Um, by Citrus Heights Elementary. Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah we moved into a housthe right in that neighborhood. We’re neighborsth!” She gave a genuine smile. “Let’sth hang out tonight then. Tonight at eight.”

“Uh…” I paused. This wasn’t supposed to happen so soon, I had it all planned out, a slow meticulous kill. But she was more of a predator than I was. Her mom’s car had climbed the hill.

“Yeah great, let’s do it.”

“I’ll sthee you there.”

My mom picked me up a few minutes later.

My father would come home from work and we would all sigh together as a family with him. It was always agreed that he had worked hard and would work hard again tomorrow and the next day. We needed him to work hard. Above all he liked being needed. It affirmed his manhood, and we all cheered his manhood.

“How was work honey?” My mom asked.

“Uh, long. What’s for dinner?”

“Roast beef and salad.”

We all sat down together.

Our dinner conversations were a competition of words. For my brother it was comparing our stories with his superior tales of personal experience, or friends of his who had done exactly what we had done only a little better. Most of his stories were lies.

For my dad, he wasn’t to be bothered with any conversation that was above his intellect, that may threaten his authority. He preferred preconditioned conversations. And he addressed improvisation from the script with a grumble, which meant the speaker should shut up, unless they wanted to feel the rage of cooped up anger he wavered through while at work. Working for us!

My mom served as somewhat of a buffer for our egos and I resented her for not having any thought of her own. I wanted her to stand up for herself when my dad criticized her cooking, like tonight.

“What, we don’t have Thousand Island? Why didn’t you buy any? Fine.”

He stood up and scraped his greens back into the salad bowl and served himself an extra serving of roast beef.

My dad looked down at my hand reaching for my can of coke.

“Are you wrapping your warts at night?”

“Yes.” I had been, diligently.

“Carol, I think you’d better schedule another appointment with the dermatologist. We gotta get rid of those suckers.”

“Yeah, I really want them to go away.” I added.

I had been to the dermatologist twice before. The operation was crude. I waited for the doctor. He brought me into a room and followed me with a nitrous oxide tank. He sat me down and burned my warts with the nitrous oxide. The next day they would blister. Afterwards I had to wrap the warts with tape. In the morning my hands smelled like feet and looked post-bath wrinkled. After removing the tape I scraped off the dead skin with a butter knife. I had been wrapping my warts with tape for two months, but they wanted to stay.

I brushed my teeth for twenty minutes, slathered half a stick of deodorant under my arm and put on a new shirt. I snuck out after dinner.

I walked up to the school, scanned the playground, and found Alice lying on the grass of the soccer field. I sat beside her.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“Alright. My mom’sth justht fucking crasthy, loco.”

“Oh I’m sorry. I like your dress.”

“Thanksth.”

I thought she was already bored with me. I was definitely going to screw this up. But she started kissing my neck. I jumped a little, it tickled. She went for my lips as I managed to get a hand down her blouse. We started to kiss. Her tongue was wild and aggressive. It tasted like a cigarette butt. She stopped shortly after she had started.

She looked at me suspiciously. “What the fuck isth on your hand?”

She ripped my hand off her breast and examined it.

“Wartsth. That isth stho fucking grossth.”

She stammered up and started to walk away fast, as if I had just committed some grave injustice. I thought of calling out to her, to try and explain, but I remained sitting on the grass, starring at my hands.

When I got home I rushed into the bathroom. My wart scraping butter knife was on the sink. I started scraping. I began to cry. I kept scraping. I started to bleed. My hands started to feel cold and numb, so I stopped. I held the knife in a tight unyielding fist. I was breathing heavily in a high pitch. Snarling with my lower teeth showing.

That night Alice licked the top of the stove burner. A good strong lick. Sizzle, pop. She gripped her polka dotted dress in fists.