Page 124 of Chaotic Curse
I push through the swinging door into the kitchen.
Chef doesn’t look at me at first.He knows I’ll come.I always come.My hunger for cooking knowledge outweighs the fee he knows I’ll pay.
He flicks his gaze toward the pantry.We both know what that means.His bonus.The price.The trade.
I step into the pantry.Cool air.Flour sacks.Cinnamon bark.Glass jars of cloves.I close the door and leave it closed.He’ll come when he’s ready.
He’s ready a moment later.
Pants drop.
Cock hard and ready.
I go out of my body and see myself above, from the ceiling.The young girl sucking off the older man.It’s not me.Only my body, my mouth, my tongue.
My soul is above, untouched by what’s happening.
At least that’s what I tell myself.My body has been used and abused so much now that it really doesn’t matter.
When he’s done, he walks out.I stay a moment.Collect myself.Pretend it never happened.
When I step out, he’s measuring water.“Chocolate santafereño,” he says, almost like a challenge.“You think you know it.”
“I think I want to.”
He displays a bar of dark, dense chocolate.“It is not Swiss.It is not Belgian.It is notHershey’s.”His mouth curls on the last word.“Colombian cacao, or you ruin it.”
He breaks a chunk from the bar and drops it into the pot.The scent unfurls.Fruit.Flowers.Earth.Smoke.Not sweet.Not tame.
Alive.
“Raw milk.”He pours from a jug.“Cinnamon that is real.Ceylon from Sri Lanka.Don’t use Cassia.”He snaps off a piece from the bark with a knife.“A whisper of salt.”
He hands me the molinillo, a special wooden whisk we use for the preparation of hot beverages.“You froth until your arm breaks.”
I rub the stick between my palms.The surface goes from brown to velvet.From flat to a thousand bubbles.
He pours a little into a chipped cup.“Drink.”
I lift it.Steam warms my face.The chocolate hits my tongue and opens.Bright first.Citrus bloom.Then the flowers.Violet?Orange blossom?I don’t have the words he has, but I have the feeling.Beneath it, earth.Not mud.Something old and clean.The milk rounds it.
“This,” he says softly, almost reverently, “is ours.Not theirs.If you use American, the acid kills the body.If you use Swiss, the fat smothers the flower.Colombian or nothing.”
“I agree,” I say, and it feels like betrayal to mean it and relief to say it.The drink sits in my chest like a small sun.
He nods once.“Again.”
I froth until my shoulders burn.I would do worse for this lesson.I have.
Later, he wipes the rim of the cup with a thumb and watches my mouth as I drink.“One day,” he says, in an almost tender way, “you will make this for someone who deserves it.”
I don’t answer.I don’t have a name for someone like that.
* * *
Present Day…
I’m back.Back in the cooking classroom with the echo of Chef Charleston’s clap as students wander in.The normal world returns.
