"What kind of fish is that?"

She lifted her head off the pillow and looked at him from between her raised knees. "Excuse me?"

He was kneeling at the foot of her bed. He tipped his face and sniffed. "I smell fish. Salmon. Sockeye, perhaps. Have you been cooking sockeye?"

She sat up. She hid her nakedness with the bedsheet. "Exactly what are you trying to say?"

"No offense." He showed his palms and smiled. "I love salmon. Did you know salmon is the third most popular fish in the United States?"

"You mean, it gets asked out on a lot of dates?"

He pondered this. "Ha," he said, finally.

She crossed her arms over the sheet, binding her breasts. "You don’t want to do this, do you?"

He cocked his head. "Do what?"

"This." She spread her knees underneath the sheet, making a tent.

He reached for the sheet. She snapped her knees shut.

"I thought you seemed nice," she said.

"I am nice," he said. "If that’s what you want."

She pointed at a dainty gold hoop piercing his left nipple. "Did that hurt?"

"Delectably." He licked his lips.

"Oh. I get it. You’re into pain."

He frowned and took a deep breath. "Salmon runs are really very brutal," he said. "Hordes of muscular bodies slamming furiously into each other. Some of them get trampled. Some of them are so badly beaten up they can’t be sold at markets. Their appearance is horrifying. No one would buy them. This is despite that fact that underneath their bruised exterior their wild flesh is delicious."

She looked at him steadily. "I think you should leave."

He shrugged. He got off his knees and moved to the open door. He paused there, showing her his naked back, his ass-clenching jeans. He grasped the knob and pushed the door shut. He kept his back to her.

Suddenly his shoulders drooped. "Now who’s not being very nice?"

She laughed. After a long while she stopped. "Take off your belt," she said. "Give it here."

He turned, but kept his eyes on the floor. His face was ashen.

"What are the first and second?" she asked.

Without looking up, he said, "Excuse me?"

"What are the first and second most popular fish in the United States?"

He met her gaze. His eyes showed panic. "Well...tuna," he said, "is one and...." He looked like he might weep. "The other is, number two...." His eyes filled with tears. "I don’t...I can’t remember." He unbuckled his belt and whipped it off. He lobbed it at her.

She caught it with both hands. Her bedsheet fell. She was fully exposed, palely glistening, as if she’d just emerged from water. "Well, now. Who’s been a bad boy? Who hasn’t learned his lessons?" She looped the belt and slapped it on her palm. "Sit."

He sat on the bed, waiting.


####

Ellen Parker writes short stories and is working on a second novel.

Ellen's day job is in public relations and she lives in Seattle with an assortment of animals about which she says she has ambivalent feelings: two cats, three snails, two fire-bellied toads, and a Japanese fighting fish who lives alone because he eats any other fish put in his tank.

For the record, she notes that these are the three most popular fish in the United States, in order: 1) tuna, 2) shrimp, 3) salmon.