My Biggest Secret: Lick It

In the final winner from our My Biggest Secret flash fiction competition, Oded Even-Or takes us on an unpredictable journey chasing the biggest secret of them all. The competition is part of our latest Book Club, for Ben Fergusson’s thrilling debut The Spring of Kasper Meier. You can find out more about the Book Club, and Ben Fergusson, here.

The morning I knew the thing, smelly and juicy like a big peach, all my friends came by my house and begged me to tell, but I told them to go lick it instead and went back to my minesweeper and flat coke. One-one-one and a mine in the middle, easy peasy, that all you got. Then my parents came by but I didn’t even open the door and I yelled that they can go lick it, and my father yelled back that I can at least tell him even if I don’t want to tell my mother, and I yelled that he can go lick it twice, and the coke was thick and sugary like molasses in my mouth, something wonderful. But I knew it wouldn’t last, and soon enough a squad of Mossad death agents rolled inside and grabbed me and drove me to a secret location under the Cineplex where they flicked my balls with electric wires while a tiny ancient man in shorts sat and looked in silence. But I told them to go lick it, and the ancient man told them to stop and said I’m Ben Gurion, the Mossad faked my death and I’ve been running the whole show from down here the whole goddamn time what do you think about that, and I said my secret is bigger than yours do you want to hear it? and he said yes, and his old man mouth was wet with anticipation, but I told him to go lick it, and he jumped up and down in a rage like a wrinkly old boy and the death agents beat me in a frenzy until I blacked out. When I woke up I was back in my room and Avishag was there and she said shh it was all a dream and her voice was warmth for an old king’s bones, but my heart was a cold iron cross and I told her to go lick it and Ben Gurion sprung up from behind her with a Maccabean scimitar but I jumped over him, easy peasy, got in a bus and went all the way down to Sinai quick as a shout and got the biggest suite in a deserted marble hotel by the beach, and I sprawled on a lounge chair like a golden gangster and told the girl to bring me rum and coke and pinched her ass, but then I stopped feeling like a gangster and felt like dirt instead and told her I’m sorry, and she said it’s fine but her face was distant like a cloud, and I asked her if she wants me to tell her the thing, the big secret that everyone’s out for, and she said I needn’t bother, and I said it’s a really good one, maybe the best, but she just smiled a waitress smile and said she’ll be back with my rum and coke, and I felt lower than dirt and looked at the sea, which was spotted with little white puffs which looked like jellyfish but weren’t, and I wished I was a deaf mute fisherman married to the hotel girl in a village between the darkling woods and the sea and our deaf mute children would grow like seaweed. And I looked at the waves and I thought what’s stopping you, what the fuck is stopping you.