I can't live without my kitchen man!
Billie Holiday
JILL
Far be it from me to criticize a man who cooks for me. But I'd begun to notice a pattern I didn't know what to make of. The first time he made me shish barak--an incredible, but labor intensive, Lebanese dish of little meat dumplings cooked in a delicious yogurt sauce, he substituted chopped spinach and onions for the meat, painstakingly filling each dumpling with the mixture. (I helped with this part; it was tedious, but we always had fun in the kitchen.) This was shortly after we met in August.
When he made it again in early October, he substituted store-bought spinach tortellini for the dumplings. It was still good, of course, but not nearly as good as the lovingly-hand-crafted version. I might have put this down to a lack of time, but I had noticed that most of the dishes he made that involved a lot of fiddly preparation, like stuffed grape leaves or samosas, were either disappearing, or being simplified. And again, I'm not complaining--I'm sure I was the best-fed subbie in the Delaware Valley, even if it did mean more time at the gym--but Steve didn't seem like the type to pour it on until he'd got the girl, then slack off complacently once he was sure of her. It wasn't until he began complaining about typing being more difficult than it used to be that I started thinking he might be developing some kind of peripheral neuropathy. But since his work continued to go well, and I continued to be fed much more lavishly than I'd ever fed myself, (not to mention all the wonderfully filthy fun,) I didn't dwell on it.
When we weren't going to Thursday night contradances (which I had grown to love) or to Steve's musician-friends' gigs, we spent most of our out-on-the-town time watching Jamila dance at various Middle-eastern restaurants. Which was fine by me, of course, though it took me a while to get over the awkwardness of lusting after the same person as my date. I still got self-conscious when we double-dated with work friends--usually either my co-workers, or faculty from the Performing Arts College, where Steve taught a class on Psychology for Performers.
On one of these belly-dance evenings, we folded our legs under a low, ornate brass table at a Moroccan place in South Philly. We talked about work, the war in Iraq, the amazing Moroccan cuisine, and other ordinary things, but I was in story-time mode. So during a lull, I came right out and asked him why he hadn't gagged me since my birthday.
"Do you want me to?" he asked. I kind of thought I did. I liked being rendered unable to mouth off--the brat's mainstay--but since he had never brought it up, and since the whole situation was so different then, I had kept my curiosity to myself.
"I dunno; have you ever done it to anyone but me?" His smile showed immediately that he was onto me--which I liked. Sometimes I need to feel caught to feel seen.
"Only one--and for a specific reason."
"What was that?"
"Thin apartment walls." I laughed out loud.
"You can't stop there!" I said.
"OK, Grasshopper. Story time!"
"Yay!"
"In grad school, I dated a girl named Lana."
"'Lana' with an 'n'?" I said.
"Yes, Lana with an 'n'."
"Not 'Laura' with an 'r'?"
"Did I ever tell you about the eagle that was shot by an archer, and the last thing it saw were the eagle feathers the arrow was fletched with, sticking out of its chest?"
"Are you saying I am oiling my own whip?"
"Without question."
"Sorry. Please go on."
"Well, being an impoverished TA, I slept on a futon on the floor, so the only thing to tie her to was the legs of the radiator."
"Ouch! I hope it wasn't winter!"
"It was not. We explored crab-ties and frog-ties, and others that didn't involve stationary objects when the radiator was hot."
"Oh, good," I said.
"So one evening, I had tied her down, and we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Now, you know how I love a noisy wench." I smiled, almost managing to keep down my blush.
"I hadn't noticed."
"Well, Lana was robustly noisy; a very gratifyingly enthusiastic lover. Suddenly, we were startled by three loud knocks on the wall. My neighbor, Carol, a painter, had complained before about being able to hear everything--she always accentuated that word, *everything* --that went on in my bedroom. Lana's eyes went huge with embarrassment, but I couldn't bear for her to worry about 'keeping it down' while we made love. So I whispered to her, 'Listen; I love your enthusiasm, and I adore how noisy you are. I don't want you to have to be self-conscious about staying quiet--I live for the way you let yourself go in bed. I want you to always fuck me with reckless abandon. So I'd like to try something; do you trust me?' She nodded, and after a very sad withdrawal, I went to my closet and grabbed a handkerchief--my father had insisted on giving me several, thinking men my age still carried them, or ought to--and then withdrew a roll of white, four-inch surgical tape from my desk drawer."
"Seriously, why do you even have a desk?" I asked.
Before he could answer, the music started, and Jamila came floating into the room in a stunning Moroccan-blue costume, and we both sat, silent and mesmerized, as she performed. God, she was beautiful. You could probably have fried an egg on my forehead when, instead of draping her veil over Steve's neck as usual, she draped it over mine!
She visited us at our table after her set, and taking hold of both ends of the scarf around my neck so that it felt a little like a collar and lead, said slyly to Steve, "You'd better keep an eye on this one; I may need to steal her from you." A hundred feelings washed over me all at once: surprise, excitement, self-consciousness, anxiety about whether Steve knew how attractive I found Jamila and what he would think if he knew; it all made me a little swoony.
"Thanks for the warning," Steve replied with a faint smile. "I shall be vigilant."
"You do that," she said. "See you in twenty?" The three of us had arranged to walk to a nearby bar together to meet some friends after her last set.
"Absolutely!", Steve and I said simultaneously and, smiling archly, Jamila retrieved her veil and glided toward her changing room.
"So these are people from your work we're meeting?", Steve asked, for once choosing not to tease me about my blushing.
"Yes, they are," I said. "But don't change the subject!"
"Oh, right. So, anticipating what was coming, Lana opened her lovely mouth, and I popped the handkerchief in. I applied the tape, and holy cats, there were her full, sensuous lips distinctly outlined. I could have just looked at her all night. I applied another piece just below her lips so that it folded under her chin and jaw, and smoothed it into place. I asked if she could talk, and when she plainly couldn't, I put my keys into her hand, instructing her to drop them in lieu of a safeword if she needed to. She nodded her understanding, and I let my fingers do the walking for a while to bring her back up to speed.
"So the gag was working brilliantly. We were getting closer and closer, and she was moaning harder, but no louder; just a muffled mmph. Crazy sexy. We came simultaneously, and it was wonderful; big, wracking orgasms all around."
"Nice!"
"Then, after we'd caught our breath, I knocked on the wall and yelled, 'Hey, Carol--was that better?'"
"You didn't!"
"I did! Lana's eyes got as big as silver dollars--and when Carol yelled back, 'Much better; gag her every time!'--they got even bigger."
"You bastard!" I said. He laughed.
"And even though she wasn't a blusher like you, Grasshopper, she turned colors I'd never seen before. I kept her bound and gagged and ran cool washcloths over her until she'd calmed down enough that I judged it was safe to free her."
"You are so evil!"
"But I'm the evil you devotedly serve!"
"Yeah; what's up with that?"
* * *
The old nursery rhyme is right; three on the sidewalk is a lot, especially on a crowded weekend evening. So we fell into an inverted triangle formation, with S and J in front and me between them--which I liked--but a couple paces behind, which I could have done without. At one point, Steve asked her softly if she'd heard anything from "Doug." I didn't catch the next few words, but from her tone and gestures, I guessed she was waving the question off. When Steve persisted, I heard her say, with an edge of annoyance and a tone of finality, "He's not a part of my life anymore, OK? I'm fine." We walked the rest of the way in silence.
"What's that?" I asked over the hubbub of music and people-being-people. I wasn't sure I had heard her right.
"I said, 'Is he taking too much care of you?'" Jamila said. The two of us were on the tiny dancefloor, where she might have made me feel totally inadequate if she hadn't been so attentive and in sync with me.
"What do you mean?" I asked as the song ended and we walked toward a quiet corner away from the bar.
"I've known Steve forever," she said, "and I say this with love--but I've seen him too many times with damaged little damsels in distress he could play rescuer to. I call it his Larry Darrell Syndrome."
"From The Razor's Edge?"
"Exactly--some kind of dating Messiah complex. But Jill, I've haven't seen him this happy since I've known him, and you are nobody's D.I.D. Maybe our boy is finally growing up. Anyway, I'm really glad you two found each other."
"So am I!" I said, gratified at what she had told me, and flattered that she had made a point of doing it. Then, hoping the barroom lighting would hide my blushing, I said,
"Hey, I've been meaning to ask if you're taking any new bellydance students. Steve has evening clients on Wednesdays, and if you're free, I'd love to take some lessons."
"For you, sweetie, I'd love to. I'll have to move some things around, but we'll make it work."
"Oh, thank you!" I gushed. "I am so excited!"
"It will be my pleasure!" Then, looking over my shoulder toward the bar, she said,
"It looks like your colleagues want you to do a shot with them."
"Oh, God; I hope it isn't tequila," I said. "I hate tequila." (It was tequila.)
After a few drinks and a lot of refreshing laughter, the two of us walked back to Steve's place. It was a lot of walking, all in all, but even though I was the one wearing heels, he was the one who got the foot massage. (But I'm the brat, remember.) At least I knew I could pump him for information once he was in his happy place.
"Is everyone who works in events that effervescent?" he asked.
