Forbidden Fruit – Jeremy Scott Munnings

March 11, 2026

The mingle of clouds and sky on a Central American sunrise summit makes me froth at the bit for what’s to come. I’m like some sort of feral horse that’s been hooked on sugar cubes and won’t stop kicking the stall down until it’s fed three of them per hour. Instead of sugar cubes, I’ve got a hankering for a variety of mango, well, less of a mango and more of an obscenely large kumquat hybrid with mango tendencies, that only grows on certain vertices of these slopes.
        The air is thick with moisture. It reminds me of the smell of the pungent fat white grapes going to spoil at my father’s vineyard. I wished in part that I could have taken over the vineyard, but my father was a louse and let the thing go to shit, and I was left to leave home and become a collector of essences for a major perfume conglomerate.
        In the cafes I searched for a guide to take me up the mountain. I found one, but not after losing half a nub off my pinky finger by playing a local variation of Russian Roulette, but with machetes. The guide’s name is Yerba. Like the drink. His skin is the color of cappuccino and I think how much nicer it would be to be in a cafe in Sorrento again instead of hoofing it up a mountain. But then again, there are the fruits to be found. I’ve always loved an adventure. First time I ran away from home was one of the years that the Braves won the World Series. I remember because I was young and in a bar when my parents found me, drunk and head first in peanut shells, watching the game unfold.
        The fruit is called Miracal by the locals. It is only spoke of in hushed tones. I don’t blame them. They have a sort of fascination with it that goes beyond the gourmand. It is spiritual, it is fervent, it is a closely guarded secret. They ferment the stuff into a wine that is rumored to give you visions like absinthe does, while also curing impotence in older men.
        I don’t care for visions, I want the scent. I am a hound for it. I’ve only smelled it twice, but the unctuousness, the velvety undertones, the rich terpenes. God, to die for. To die for and to be resurrected again for even.
        I’m halfway up the mountain and Yerba turns to me. I’m wiping my bottle thick glasses clean from the local sweat. He speaks to me in hushed tones.
        “Soon, Señor, we will meet Miracal.”
        “Perfect,” I reply while swatting at the mosquitos that had followed us from the cafe.
        “But you must ready,” Yerba says while making gestures towards his crotch.
        “I am ready,” I say.
        “No.”
        Yerba takes off his shirt and embraces me. His sweat soaks through my clothes as I am too stunned to move. I hug him back awkwardly and he embraces me harder. I can feel his erection. I’m not sure if I should acknowledge it or move forward. I am starting to feel stirrings in my loins, despite years of not thinking I was capable. Could this be the power of Miracal?
        We make love and it’s transcendent until nothing is left but hot breath on each other’s shoulders. I had no idea that a human body was capable of such pleasures. I have lived and died like a floating head, a wandering nose. His touch was soft though his hands were callused. I cry now thinking of his skill in penetrating the stench at the bottom of my body.
        “We ready,” is all Yerba can manage over the groans and spasms of pleasure still erupting from me.
        “Why don’t we stay here a little longer?” I ask. I had forgotten why I was here. The fruit, the scent, all of it replaced by the feelings that were now unlocked by my body, by Yerba’s.
        Yerba shakes his head. He is already dressed again. But I can’t manage to stop my legs from shaking, my hands from quaking at the thought of what line I had just transgressed. I was on strict orders by the conglomerate to deliver samples of Miracal by the end of the month. But, I had discovered something far richer than money could buy. I had discovered the secret to pleasure. And his name was Yerba and he smelled like mosquito repellant, masa, and kerosene. He had a nose that could probably perceive more than even mine, so refined in its shape, like a crest of a flightless bird. I could live and die knowing that there is such a well of sensation, only to be discovered in another’s body.
        But, why, why is he still climbing the mountain, forever away from me again? Why can we not just sit in that moment forever? What happens if I refuse to follow?
        I have never been one to demand anything beyond my means. But, I have lived at the extravagance of others. So, I climb with Yerba, through trails no more wide than a man’s foot width. I dive into the jungle’s webs and thorns and tear myself apart with revelation. What if there is no fruit? What if the whole thing is a joke on us foreigners? Sure, take him up the mountain, have some fun with him, then cast him to the jaguars.
        I’m starting to feel like we’re going in circles. I complain that there is no difference in the moisture levels inside and outside my boots. My glasses have fallen off. I can’t see more than the trail one foot ahead of me. It is night. It’s been night for hours. I’ve been walking forward praying that something new would happen. I was too in my head and now I can’t hear Yerba’s breathing in front of me. I smell feline urine and the sharp scent of copper that accompanies blood. My heart is racing. My pulse is beating like a drum in my ears. Whoosh whoosh whoosh.
        Then splat. Then another splat. Laughter. Merciless laughter. Like Yerba’s smile had merged with the forest. Then silence.
        “Yerba!” I call out.
        Silence greets me in return.
        I look up and am treated to darkness. All around me the thickness of jungle cover. And I cry out “Yerba!” once more. A hooting that turns into some sort of wicked laugh turns itself over and over. I stumble towards it thinking it could be my guide. Two globe sized eyes greet me in the darkness and I fall off the trail and into the brush, if not to safety then to somewhere those eyes can’t see me. They blink as I turn and turn, falling deeper down the slope, sliding now, and then bam! I hit my head and the world blinks out with the two eyes staring at me from above.
        I wake up in the cafe that I found Yerba in. I only recognize that I am in the back room of the cafe from the sounds and the smells of the roasting coffee. I try to move but my legs are wobbly. How long have I been out? Where are my things? My glasses are on the side table so I put them on. The world is clear and in the corner is Yerba smiling.
        “The Miracal, Señor.” He hands me a fruit, but it’s not the fruit that I want. It’s his hand. The caress of it. The softness of the part of his palm that connects to his thumb. I take the fruit and I eat it out of politeness. It is sour like a plum, but undertones of sweetness. A fantastic fruit. But no, miracle, that’s for sure. It’s a miracle that can’t stop the tears flowing as Yerba leaves the room. All is folly, all is lost. Nothing is fair, but at least there is a sweetness trickling down my tongue once more. Not that it’ll ever compare to Yerba’s tongue caressing mine. Not that any tongue ever will. Because what he opened up in me, like carving into the flesh of a pumpkin, that will never close. Place a candle in me and call me a Jack-O-Lantern. I am illuminated, but forever changed. The only notes I can make are “mosquito repellant undertones, masa forward, kerosene accents,” for with that scent I could live and die free.