Another Mistake?

Another Mistake?

Author's Note: In February 2022, I published a short piece entitled "It's Always a Mistake." That story was set in the heat of a New York summer. This one is a follow-up, set in the depths of a New York winter.

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It was dark when I awoke. I had no idea what time it was, but all I heard were the passing buses on Central Park West and the occasional voices moving up or down the block. It was very cold outside, but the window was open just a bit. I once asked someone why it gets so damn warm in New York apartments. He said it is something about this underground steam system that heated most of the older brownstones in Manhattan. The knobs on the radiators didn't particularly work, so one gets used to leaving the window open a bit even when, like today, it's about 20 degrees outside. You get used to the noise, too. Of course, I don't have an air conditioner and with my windows open in the summer and pretty much all year round noise doesn't bother me.

What may have awakened me, though, was more pleasant and more visceral. Through the gap between my door and the floor came the fragrance of sauteed vegetables with "All Things Considered" on at a low volume. So that's where she was. After lying back with my eyes closed to savor that familiar aroma, I roused myself and grabbed a robe to go to her.

My kitchen is small, but a good cook can do magical things there. She is a good cook and can do many magical things. And not just in the kitchen. When I reached her, she was leaning over the stove. Her left hand was holding the handle of a pan and her right held a wooden spoon she was using to move the various chopped vegetables around. It was a heavenly smell.

She wore one of my oversized Columbia shirts. When I stopped behind her and encircled her waist with my arms, being careful not to disrupt her cooking, she said without turning her head, "Hello, sleepyhead."

I gave her a kiss on the right side of her neck.

"You don't have to cook anything. I thought we could go out to dinner."

"Why? Then I'd have to get dressed and it's freezing out and then...I don't know about the then, but I thought it'd be nice to stay in and see."

I gave her another peck.

"That smells good," I said.

"Thanks." She paused. "You can check," she said.

"Check what?"

"You know."

I lowered my right hand to the bottom of my shirt on her body and, well, checked.

Without missing a beat or a turn of her spoon, she said, "Oh, behave."

Having confirmed that she was, in fact, wearing one of my oversized Columbia shirts and nothing else, she gave me a bump check with her ass and I stepped back.

"Look," she said as she turned at the stove. "You keep stirring, and let me get dressed."

"They say the majority of accidents happen in the kitchen," I told her, and she said, "Which is why I'm getting dressed."

I took the spoon from her, and she gave me a kiss on the cheek and headed to the bedroom.

Well, I thought, that takes care of my dinner plans. I don't generally have "dinner plans" as a rule and I didn't for that night. I'd say I was a go-with-the-flow sort of guy, but it's really a combination of inertia and a lack of imagination that leads me to microwave my dinner more times than not. Even on most Saturdays I didn't have particular plans for going out. What can I say? I'm a homebody.

I'd run into her yet again when I was getting some staples at the Korean market on Columbus. It was then in the mid-20s and I was bundled up pretty much but she still recognized me. So we did what we usually did when we ran into each other. We returned to my place and had sex. Summer. Winter. Spring. Fall. The thing is that when we're done, we both think it's a mistake. Every time. See, the other thing is that we both always love actually doing it. It's something unique. If either of us was in a relationship that was even approaching "serious" and we met, we'd do no more than catch up like normal adult friends do. More and more, though, neither of us was in such a relationship. Hell, my last one was, what, three months ago? And the thing about that last, doomed one--that'd be Susan--was that the sex was really...okay. And she couldn't cook worth a damn.

Now, I'm not saying I'm Gordon Ramsey or anything, but I can throw together something that's at least decent. Susan couldn't.

This one, though. She was a master, or mistress, in the kitchen, as was evident right before me in the vegetables I was sautéing.

It wasn't long before she was back in the pants and shirt, now with one of my wool sweaters on top with its sleeves pulled up to free her hands and no shoes and telling me to get dressed while she finished her cooking.

She found some rice in a cupboard and some two-day-old chicken in the fridge, and by the time I was back, she had the rice cooking in a pot and the chicken mixed in with the vegetables and it was a smell to die for.

"I took the liberty of opening a Cabernet," she said when she heard me come out of the bedroom. "It's on the table in the living room. There's an extra glass." She nodded in that direction.

I poured myself one. "You need a refill?" I asked, but she said she was good. She asked me to set the table, which I'll confess to not doing very often, and somehow I found placemats, mismatched silverware, and even a couple of cloth napkins to put on the table.

"It'll be in about ten minutes. Then we can talk," I heard. I gave her another kiss on the nape of her neck when I passed behind her to get the plates.

"No," she said. "Leave them. I put the food on them here. You can be the waiter. For now, go sit down. About five minutes now."

I sat on the sofa with my phone, but couldn't resist looking at her. She is gorgeous, no more so than when I study her and she doesn't realize it. She was in profile, her right arm gently making circles in the pan and now and then dipping a different spoon into the pot to check on the rice. She turned back to the pan and took a spoonful to taste it and I could make out a sotto voce "not half bad." It was all like some ballet. Not the herky-jerky modern but some smooth, precise, beautiful Balanchine.

Suddenly there was all manner of movement. She was grabbing the pot and pouring the rice into the colander. She had taken a little-used large white bowl from a cupboard and poured the rice into it. A quick bit of water into the empty pot and that was in the sink. She then lifted the pan and slowly poured its contents in before rinsing that out and returning it to the stove.

"Pour me more wine," she asked midmotion, and I did and topped off my own glass. I could see her very delicately stir her concoction and then dole it out onto the pair of plates.

"Come and get it," she called to me before removing the dish towel she'd tucked into her jeans as a sort of apron. I lifted the plates and gave her a kiss on the lips as I brought them out and set them on the table.

She surprised me by carrying a candle she'd found in a kitchen drawer that she'd lit and put into a candlestick and brought it to the table and then went to turn off the light.

When we were settled, she lifted her glass with the candle light's reflection flickering and I did the same and we clinked them. I took a sip, and she took more than a sip.

"This looks very good," I said as I lifted my fork.

"Thank you," she said. "Let's talk."