30 Days of Stories - Vol. 1 (7:51-7:58PM)

Puerto Valliant stood in the freezer door, letting the blower run over his bare chest. Consuela chopped the vegetables with a butcher knife that had been passed down for generations. Puerto's cats, all seventeen of them, stretched and lounged lazily in the courtyard, waiting for the moon to rise so they could begin a night of hunting and yes, fucking.

Consuela lopped the head off a rooster and called Puerto in for the ritual they'd shared for the last fifteen years. He scratched his bald head with a broken thumb nail as he watched her hips sway back and forth across the tiled kitchen.

"Did you get any oysters today, Puerto?" she asked as she laid plates on the wooden table.

"Oysters? Nah. No oysters today, no oysters tomorrow."

All he could think about was the swaying of her hips. He loved how thin her ankles were compared to the rest of her.

"How about a little mambo before dinner, baby?" he suggested.

She laughed and swatted his hand off her breast.

"Not tonight, sugar. You catch me a bag of oysters and maybe..."

The pot of water on the stove boiled over, sending steam throughout the small kitchen.

"Open a window, baby. It's gonna be hot tonight," Consuela said.

He slid the window up and leaned his elbows on the sill. The moon was up.

Francisco, the leader of his seventeen cats was nowhere to be seen. The rest of the cats were stirring, ambling out of the courtyard, oblivious to Puerto watching them from the window.