By Tom Walsh
She asked: “Why are you attracted to me?” Was it her intelligence, her humor, the power with which she swung a tennis racket? Or was it the diamond nipples? I remember the first time I saw them, on the beach in Villefranche-sur-Mer, splitting the sunlight into a thousand rainbows. I asked her to take one off, put it in my palm. She laughed, said they weren’t jewelry. I feigned nonchalance; I needed truth. “When my mother was pregnant with me, the diamond mine collapsed, trapping my father. Mama dug her way in, disappeared for months. She came back with just me and my one-carat nipples.” So, my attraction? Her intellect is unparalleled, her wit spot on, her tennis game near professional. But if she must know, it’s been the diamond nipples all along.
Tom Walsh writes flash fiction in Northern California, among the hummingbirds and pelicans.
@tom1walsh
The Birdseed 