Page 74 of Aftertaste

“I’ve seen a lot of things, Stan,” she said, reaching for his salt-covered hand. “Stuff you wouldn’t believe. And I wouldn’t call most of it extraordinary. But you?”

She lifted his hand to her mouth, watched him watching her.

“Your food? What you can do?” She ran her tongue across his palm, clearing a trail through thefleur de sel, sending a thrill all the way through him. “That’s extraordinary.You’reextraordinary. This?” She tasted it again, his heart hammering inside him. “It’s just salt.”

It was, suddenly, so much more than salt.

She licked it from the creases of his hand, from his life line, his love line, the crystals melting in her mouth, into his skin,fleur de selblending with the minerals of his sweat.

So much more than salt.

He was dizzy with the things he wanted to feel. His whole body bent to her mouth, to how much he wanted to be inside of it.

More than anything.

More than salt.

He shivered as he pulled her close—nerves, he figured, or adrenaline. A rush of blood.

She got goose bumps when he kissed her, chills—a kissthatgood, she thought, knee buckling.

Extraordinary.

Salt.

BUT IN FACT,the temperature in the room had dropped.

The whipped cream ceased melting in its bowl. The wine stopped opening, stopped breathing, its bloom stilled by chill. The silverware iced over, edges of cutlery and cusps of spoons overtaken by frost, their surfaces no longer reflecting the encounter at the table, or the new arrivals with their Hungry eyes, watching from above.

Shadowed faces pressed through the ceiling, hot knives through butter, hovering in obscurity, unseen by the Living at the table, too consumed, too insatiable, too absorbed in the pleasures of their mouths, to even register their presence.

!!!!!!!!

THERE ARE SOmany souls in his Hell’s Kitchen apartment.

Every spirit the Chef has ever raised.

A nun, a rock-climber, a little kid. Two teens—a guy and girl—brooding together. A ballerina. A wife. Someone’s grandma. The Chef’s own dad.

And now you.

You’re all stuck. Scared. Becoming what you feared.

Hangry.

Because even though you’ve gotten closure, you’re still trapped and can’t move On.

The ones who’ve been here longest are already showing signs. Wild eyes. Rage that ebbs and flows. Cravings that they can’t control. They’re stronger now, can make things happen. Make themselves known. Make themselves seen.

The Hangrier they get, the more apparent they become. Their bodies limn in eerie light. Their forms cast shadows on the ground. They have an edge, a shape, a look-and-feel. Ghosts Hollywood would die to catch on film.

You cluster for comfort, an anxious swarm of souls. Your thoughts are a hive, no longer yours alone. You writhe and shiver and howl as one.

And in this collective state, pushing and pulling and thinking together, you notice it.

The veil—the one between worlds—isn’t solid like you’d thought.

It’s not a wall, rigid and hard.

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