Our Kitchen
As the whine of the food processor fades, the backdoor thumps open.
“Hi hi, I’m home!”
“Are you hungry?”
Without looking up, I dip a forefinger into the pureed basil, Italian parsley and olive oil and bring it to my lips to taste as you wrap your arms around my waist from behind. I smile as my body tingles at your touch.
“Yes, starving.” Your corded arms squeeze my waist and make my nipples begin to stiffen and the tightening squeeze draws a happy grunt from me.
“But hey! What were those sandwiches I had for lunch?”
“Just BLTs. You liked them? You didn’t eat something else instead did you? Your doctor wants you to eat better, Elle.” My lowered voice betrays me.
“They were good, and no I didn’t eat anything else.” Relaxing your teasing cinch and laying the side of your warm jaw against my scapula widens my smile. Your soft voice reverberates in my ears as you ask, “When did you have time to make them? And also, when did you talk to my doctor?”
“I fried the bacon while the turkey sausage was cooking at breakfast – it was still dark out! -- and I sliced up the beefsteak tomatoes, those big purple plum radishes you like and the butter crunch lettuce when I was slicing up the mango for breakfast. I toasted the brioche bread while the hash browns were cooking.” I avoid answering about my meeting with your doctor.
“Breakfast was good too, but that’s like forever now.”
“Want a beer?” I wriggle my hips and slip out of your grasp, get a mug out of the freezer and beer from the refrigerator.
“Yes, please. PBR?”
“All gone, Golden Girl, but try this instead -- Spotted Cow, from New Glarus, Wisconsin. You can’t buy it in Minnesota or anywhere outside Wisconsin, but I smuggled it over the Mississippi last week. You married a beer runner, babe! Oh – our fish!”
I push the frosted mug of farmhouse ale towards you without looking and dart back to the cooktop to flip the fish. “I’m sautéing the walleye I caught Sunday. That huge fish.”
“It wasn’t huge, geez.”
“Well, big then. Anyway, you dozed off in the boat and didn’t even see me catch it.” I scrape up the tasty bits on the bottom of the pan and turn them over onto the fish. Still not looking at you, at your throat-constricting beauty, I scoop more of the fatty, browned drippings and capers onto the fish. The gleam of the fish reminds me of more that happened, Sunday in the jon boat.
“You are such a slippery girl! After I fingered you up the leg of your short shorts to climax – you were helpless! -- your tummy full from our picnic lunch and the sunshine on your pretty face put you right out on me! Fisher girl my foot! Next year we can celebrate the anniversary of boating fun. Only it will be your turn to take care of me.” I grin at the sauce pan and look back toward you out of the corners of my eyes. My nostrils catch your scent.
“Geez Gillian, you want us to celebrate an anniversary every day!”
With a snort of false annoyance, you wonder suspiciously, “How come I only got a half a beer? More dieting for me?”
“No, no! It’s just you need to go jump in the shower before I get dinner served up.” Glancing sideways at you, I tease: “And brush your hair out. You haven’t had it trimmed in months and it’s so long! And tousled up, Dorothy Gale. Did a tornado blow you somewhere over the rainbow?”
“AC still isn’t working in my pickup so I drove home with the window down. I’ll be right back.”
Turning the heat very low, and with a squeeze of lemon, the flakey white fish is finished. I call over my shoulder at your receding figure, “Unless you are prepared to fight off a woman in heat, you better soap away that intoxicating mix of hay, diesel and girl sweat.”
“Hush! Geez!”
….
When the sound of the shower water upstairs ceases, I layer a row of blanched spinach on each plate, place a piece of walleye on the tranche, ladle a ribbon of the basil-parsley puree over the fish, and spoon a helping of wild rice onto each plate. I set the two plates on the table, along with two glasses of ice tea and settle into my chair at the table.
A minute or so later, I look up as you pad into the kitchen on bare feet, brushing out your damp blonde hair. With your arms up, your breasts jostle beneath the threadbare lime tank top. “Sexy,” I murmur as my cheeks color and your eyes sparkle. No bra, since it is hot tonight and private at home.
Looking at you closely for the first time since you came home, I notice the darkening spot on your right cheekbone. And others on your upper arms, shoulders and disappearing into your top.
“What on earth happened to you? Those marks – are those bruises? How did you get those?” My frown turns into an angry scowl.
Your greenish-blue eyes hold mine steady until you quietly speak. “You know I have had issues with Amy Knoblach the last few months. I agreed to meet with her today about them.”
“Issues! I thought those were resolved. I hardly know her! How can she think she is someone I’d be interested in? This is ridiculous!”
With a shrug and a glinting stare, you murmur throatily, “I handled it.”
“You should have told me!”
“Why? Would you have wanted to watch?”
“No!”
“Yes you would. I know you would.”
I refuse to answer.
“That was silly that I didn’t think to figure out how you could watch. I know you, G. You are as fucking crazy as I am. So shush, wife of mine – you would have watched!”
“No! I mean …” Your hands reach across the table and coil with mine. Your strong, slim fingers caress mine.
I glance down, enjoying the touch but see how your hands are. “Look at your fingers, they are swollen! Your knuckles are scraped raw. Oh! I will kill –“
“Hush, bitch. I took care of it.”
“When you call me that, I get …”
“Aroused, wet, hot, and you want me. I know. Bitch.”
“Stop it!”
Your salacious grin bares perfect white teeth. Fangs. Your loving tourmaline eyes silence me. I growl and show my teeth too, wolf-like. After a moment, and then another until the blood pounding through my veins slows and my ruddy vision clears, I snarl quietly. “Are you ok?”
“Yeah.” Your eyes continue to hold mine.
“Look. When I got to her place I charged into her barn, ripped off my shirt and she did the same: it was simple, G, woman to woman. In jeans and boots it was me and her in a stall in her barn. I fought with my fists and with my body and with my heart. For you. There were horrible thumps and agonized grunts, sweetie. I never cried because it was me versus her and I was not letting her take you. You’re mine and that whore Amy can’t have you. You belong to me.”
“Oh? And how the hell is that new? You always had me. Only way to get rid of me is death, and I doubt that would work either.” I pull your bruised, swollen knuckles and fingers to my lips. “And more, kitten: I own your sweet ass. You are mine and never anyone else’s. Clear?”
“Yes, bitch. I belong to you forever and ever, til death do us part. I remember what we vowed. You remember what we both vowed too.”
The flood of tears shines my cheeks, spots my blouse, and clears my mind.
“Yes, Elle. Forever.”
“Can we eat now?”
