Culinary School

Josh finished scrubbing the table down with detergent and steel wool and started using the squeegee to remove the soapy water from the bench before wiping it down with a sanitizer rag. He glanced up in the midst of this and noticed the instructor watching his hands with a glazed look on her face. When she caught his gaze she shook her head and smiled at him absently, but she was blushing. Interesting, he thought and filed the moment away for later.

In the meantime he needed to wrap up work in the classroom so he could get to his real job and cook some more. He'd gotten a job 2 years ago working in a union kitchen in a hotel in Kansas City and one of the many benefits they offered was tuition for culinary school courses. He'd worked his way up in kitchens from the prep table until he became a sous chef in some kind of middle of the road places before eventually landing the gig he had now, something he was quite proud of. He found himself still getting embarrassed occasionally by knowledge gaps, terms and phrases he hadn't been taught at a school and hadn't come across on the job. After a couple years he decided to take his work up on culinary classes, at least partially because he felt he had hit the ceiling of jobs he could get without a degree and also at least partially because he was starting to feel a little bored at his job.

After years of really dysfunctional high intensity kitchen jobs that left him almost no time to breathe, he was working somewhere that was well run, calm, and efficient and he had perfected all the skills he needed to use there. It was a hotel that was run by a larger restaurant group and there wasn't a ton of room for creativity that the dysfunctional places had offered him. It was rare to have a glut of food about to go bad that needed to be made into a special, there weren't huge disasters in ordering that left them without key ingredients meaning they had to improvise a solution on the spot. He wouldn't trade the stability for the creativity, he was in his 30s and unwilling to live a life getting screamed at by coked out cooks anymore, but taking these classes was offering him some experiences that he hadn't had before.

He found himself really drawn to the bread and pastry department, shockingly. This class was one of his favorites, an elective that he'd chosen on a whim, "Weird Cakes" as it had been mysteriously titled in the course catalog. As part of his association with the restaurant group at the hotel he got special registration privileges that allowed him an early pick of classes so that he could still maintain his work schedule. So he'd had no idea that he had nabbed an especially popular class. He was surprised the first day when he'd walked in to a room filled with 30 chattering twenty somethings.

The first thing they'd made was election cakes, a classic traditional American yeasted cake that used to be served as a reward for people voting. The teacher was really passionate, offering a lot of history. She reminded him of young grade school teachers who brought out bashful crushes in their students. The twenty somethings were falling into it for sure, a lot of the male students were putting a ton of effort into a pastry elective when they were on savory tracks. There was a distinct lack of the rivalry that only the savory chefs seemed to feel between the sweet and savory groups that you usually saw in kitchens and culinary programs.

He shook his head, these kids didn't have the life experience yet to know what to do with that kind of woman, she seemed warm and friendly but there was something else beneath the surface, if you got her to open up she wouldn't be all sugar.

Josh wrapped up his work and headed out while the instructor busied herself elsewhere.

Casey shook her head to clear it. Stop perving on your students, that's number one. Number two was that she knew better than to give into the deeply self destructive attraction to dirty bad boy line cooks and chefs. They're hot as fuck, burns all over their arms bisecting shitty tattoo covered hairy arms. They always looked like they were hungover and hadn't slept in days. They kept their nails short and clean, for work, but it was also a rarity in men Casey found. A shame since being fingered was one of her favorite sexual activities but most men kept their hands in such a state that she shuddered at the thought.

She wasn't entirely sure where Josh worked, but she knew he was already working in kitchens. He was one of her non traditional students, which made her feel a little less creepy for ogling him but only slightly. He had a butcher knife and chef knife skull and crossbones tattoo on his forearm and chop chop tattooed on his knuckles. He was fucking exactly her type and her taste in men was absolutely terrible so she'd mostly stopped dating altogether. She'd see a line cook at a burger place and immediately think "I'd let him raw me" and then upon dating him find out that he was a workaholic loser who really had no bedroom game who amazingly would dump HER because he was scared of a commitment that she would never in a million years make with him.

Watching Josh scrub the bench down had immediately made her think about how it would feel to have him finger her and maybe even fist her. Something she'd never done but always thought about. He'd caught her staring right at the moment she'd been thinking that and she wasn't proud of it. Fuck, maybe it was time to break this celibacy streak if she was having such graphic and inappropriate thoughts in the middle of her class.

Or maybe she just needed to relax a bit. She'd been going really hard lately, teaching two classes because the demand for her course was so high and doing a lot of consulting work with some new bakeries opening around the city. She'd honestly only taken on the job to sub for a friend that was on paternity leave and then she'd gotten asked to start a class of her own.

She'd spent her 20s and early 30s working in New York and had gathered a lot of experience job hopping through every bakery that interested her. Now that she was back in the Midwest where she'd grown up there was a lot of demand for her expertise and knowledge gained working in a major city. She was happy to not have a steady boss and a ton of flexibility but she had taken on too much work for too long because she had been scared of the instable nature of the pay from consulting. Now that she felt secure that she could pay her bills month to month she had finally been able to cut back but she hadn't done much of anything but work since moving back to Kansas City. Maybe a night out on the town would keep her from thinking about fucking her students.

Everything since getting to work had been kind of a shit show. New people working a heavy Friday night shift, a new special that no one seemed to be able to get right, the servers almost seemed to be encouraging people to make substitutions. Josh could handle it but he preferred calm. As his shift was ending and he was headed out through what he internally thought of as the servant's entrance he heard a familiar laugh and peeked out at the bar area.

He was surprised to see his teacher at the bar. In part it was so surprising because she had been on his mind throughout his whole night. The memory of her face flushing when he caught her staring had kept popping up in his mind. He might have been reading too much into it but as his hands worked and his brain led him on autopilot through an intense shift he let his mind wonder whether she was attracted to him. He was passingly attracted to her, in the way you're attracted to someone who isn't an option or a consideration. If he'd met her under different circumstances then it would likely be a more serious attraction but she was like a sexy nurse or librarian, an archetype that was inaccessible. Sexy teacher. That way of viewing her would change dramatically if she was interested in him and in considering the idea it was already starting to change.

Sitting alone at the bar but chatting animatedly with the bartender she was dressed in normal street clothes and not kitchen wear. It was late summer and she was wearing a kind of sun dress that revealed a huge back tattoo he had not expected and she had her hair down and uncovered, curly and wild. She looked really fucking sexy and a little tipsy.

Technically he wasn't supposed to be on the floor in his whites, the hotel was pretty traditional and servants were supposed to be neither seen nor heard, but after the day he'd had this would be the least of the mistakes made by an employee here today so he threw caution to the wind and walked over to where she was sitting. He put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Hey teach. Fancy seeing you here."

A little corny, but it was casual, he hadn't actually walked over to be a suave playboy and seduce her. She'd been on his mind today but honestly anything outside of a brief flirtation was probably not in the cards for them. She turned wide eyes on him, they were just glazed enough that it was clear she had been drinking tonight but she wasn't wasted. The bartender raised an eyebrow at him but then he walked away to dry glasses. Industry bro code.

"Josh!" He hadn't removed him hand from her shoulder and she didn't seem to have an issue with that. "I didn't know this was where you worked." She seemed really surprised.

"You thought I was a hole in the wall line cook, huh?" She shook her head but he could tell by the look in her eyes that she had. "Don't feel bad. I used to be a hole in the wall greasy spoon line cook. But I'm the sous chef here."

He finally removed his hand from her shoulder and sat down on the bar stool next to her. She turned her rotating stool to face him and their knees tangled. Her inhibitions were clearly a little loose to allow that, she was strictly professional as a teacher and he would have expected the same seeing her outside of class. Maybe it was his age, you didn't have to be as guarded with a student your own age as you did with some young kid who had no experience of the world and would get the wrong idea easily.

"Well I just had dinner here and the food was really good, so my compliments to the sous." He grinned back, pleased that the chaos in the kitchen that night hadn't shown through in the final product.

"You didn't have the special did you?" He winked at her, an industry joke that the special was food about to go bad dressed up with extra seasoning. She smiled and shook her head.

"The salmon. It was really well seasoned and cooked. The dessert was kind of lame though." He winced slightly. There were only two options for dessert, the flourless chocolate cake or cheesecake. Neither were amazing and they were pretty basic. Definitely not something that would impress her.

"Yeah, I've brought up the idea of changing it up, especially since I started taking your class. It's just slow going, this is a pretty corporate gig and added labor hours and ingredient costs is a hard sell." She took a swig of her drink and shook her head.

"Don't feel bad about it, places can't be good at everything. If I want baked goods I go to a bakery, if I want well cooked salmon I'll come here."

"I would like to think that I can be good at everything, honestly." She raised an eyebrow at that. "What? Am I not doing well in your class?"

He winced slightly, he shouldn't be bringing up the class so much, it wasn't a good idea to remind her that he was her student.

"You're doing great! You just literally can't be good at everything. It's a fool's errand to try. There has to be some stuff that you're bad at." He grinned widely, almost wolfishly at that.

"I'm good at everything that matters."

"What's everything that matters?" She rolled her eyes, and in response he nudged her knees with his and waggled his eyebrows.

"Everything. That. Matters." He repeated and waggled them again. She luckily laughed at that.

"Are you good at getting me another drink?" He winced and frowned. "What? Inappropriate?"

"No, just... I'm going to have to fuck the bartender to get it. I'm good at it, but I don't always like it." She gave a sympathetic look and put a hand on his knee, leaning in closer to him.

"Lube up, Joshy boy. Teacher needs another drink." He laughed loudly enough to startle the bartender and then waved him over.

Casey guessed Josh hadn't talked that much in class because his voice was wildly sexy and she hadn't noticed that yet. Maybe she was too focused on the line cook aesthetic and the shitty tattoos and the sexy hands to even notice the voice.

He had really surprised her in a lot of ways. Her night hadn't been too exciting, after dinner with some friends from college she was left alone pretty early because all her friends from college had children they had to get home too, thankfully she didn't have that inborn midwestern drive to procreate because it sounded like her version of a nightmare. But she was happy they seemed happy at least.

She'd headed over to the bar and had been happily chatting with the bartender when Josh appeared. His hand had been hot on her bare shoulder and he looked shockingly sexy in chefs whites. She'd never have guessed that he was a sous chef at such a nice place, but honestly she was stupid and kind of prejudiced not to. He was doing fantastic in her class, clearly bright and skilled in this field. Tattoos and looks had nothing to do with it and she really shouldn't have been so judgmental. She was making up for it by being friendly and honestly it was starting to turn from just friendly to flirty really fast.

She wasn't really sure how good of an idea any of this really was but she'd had a few drinks and he was incredibly funny and charming. They were hitting it off. He'd rolled up the sleeves of his chefs jacket and his eyes had started to sparkle as he'd had a few drinks. Casey had a tendency to be a bit on the defensive with confident men but something about their past relationship made her more at ease. There was no reason to chase him off and it wouldn't be good for her to, anyway, she had to see him again in class later.

"Hey, look... unfortunately I need to head out. I'm not even technically supposed to be in the bar while in my work clothes, but maybe I could walk you out or help you get home?" Casey was several drinks in at this point, loose and happy and confident and she didn't really want to go home yet or end their conversation. She felt a little disappointed but his look to her was beseeching. He didn't want to end the night either.

"Sure, I live in an apartment building a few blocks away, if you're okay walking." He grinned and nodded. He seemed relieved.

Josh had not expected her to be so funny. They'd been drinking and bantering for over an hour when he'd spotted one of the managers spotting him. He'd be sure to get written up, though it was completely worth it, but he didn't want the manager to come over acting like a jackass and ruining their night when they were having so much fun.

When he suggested walking her home he wasn't really sure how she'd take it. He meant it any way that she was willing to accept, but she might be offended at the idea of him trying to take her to her place to sleep with her. He was relieved when she said yes and he led her out through the servants entrance, chatting absently and exiting out onto Broadway street.

"Before I moved to New York the Folgers plant used to be here, and it would smell like coffee all the time. Shitty coffee, mind you, but still. I miss it. I didn't even realize that it closed down while I was gone." Casey sighed wistfully. Josh remembered the smell from the plant too, he hadn't grown up in Kansas City but it was definitely a sense memory from visiting as a kid. "That's actually why I chose my apartment, luckily I really like it despite the lack of coffee smell."

"You know, you can always get that smell yourself. You are aware that you can brew coffee at home, right?" She shoved him playfully and his skin tingled under his clothes where she had made contact.

"Hey, turn here." She lead him towards an alleyway courtyard with a low lit fountain babbling. He followed her behind the fountain where it was so dark that he could barely see her and she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him forward using his body to pin herself to the brick wall behind the fountain. She left the rest to him, allowing him to make the next move and lean his head forward to kiss her.

Josh bracketed her head on one side with his arm holding himself up as he leaned into her, he put his other hand on her waist but as the kiss deepened she grabbed his hand and moved it to the her dress, lifting the bottom and pressing his hand to her underwear. He wasted no time slipping his fingers into the waistband of her underwear and down to her clit.

She moaned against his mouth and pulled back to huskily whisper, "Inside." She obviously didn't mean inside the building.

He did as she asked and slid two fingers into her pussy, she was wet, clearly had been anticipating this happening, and he entered her easily. He pressed his fingers in as far as he was able and then crooked them inside her, rubbing against her inner walls. That drew a fresh moan out of her that was just a little too loud considering they were out in the open in a public space. He kissed her and grinned against her mouth, pulling back just enough to mutter for her to be quiet. Their lips brushing with every word.

"We're going to get caught if you can't be quiet. Not that I'd mind, it definitely makes me look like a stud." He kissed along her jaw at that, then to her neck making her tilt her head to the side so that he had better access. He continued his work with his fingers inside her and rubbed the meaty part of his thumb against her clit. She made a whimpering noise and he switched to the pad of his thumb so he could offer more pressure and concentration on it.

"Should I go faster?" He murmured this against her ear, wanting her to lead him in the direction to get her off. She nodded and moaned lightly.

"Faster, same pressure, keep your fingers inside of me."

"Yes, chef" he laughed huskily against the smooth skin of her throat. He did as she asked and her breathing picked up. She was tightening around his fingers, working with him to make herself come. He bit gently at her neck. She breathed in quickly at that bite, and he followed it with a lick.

"You're driving me wild, pulling me down this alley, making me do exactly what you want. Pussy dripping down my fucking wrist. I'm going to make you come but it won't be the last time, this is just beginning." His voice was low and deep as he whispered this to her. He continued to stroke his fingers in and out of her while working her clit with his thumb. He went a little faster and a little harder and suddenly she was shuddering against him, hiccupped moans gasped out against his lips while he leaned in to kiss her while she came.

He withdrew his fingers, giving her clit one last stroke that made her shiver, and tugged her dress back down. His dick was incredibly hard but he felt satisfied even without coming himself. He sensed he had barely scratched the surface of what they'd do together and he wanted to leave her wondering.

"Can I help you get to your apartment?" She shook her head, suddenly bashful after dragging him here and shoving his hands into her panties. She nodded her head towards the doorway at the front of the building.

"That's me right there." He nodded. "I'll see you in class?"

"You certainly will." He leaned in and tilted her face up to his, laying a brief dry kiss against her lips and then moved back to allow her around and watched until she entered her apartment building. He waited until he was confident she was safely home and allowed his erection to subside before walking off in the direction of his car. He looked forward to what came next. He had a feeling she was going to be a lot of fun.