Recipe

Let's not worry about names. Let's not worry about the how's, or why's, or who.

It started in a kitchen.

Sunlight filters in, catching at particles of dust, drenching the air soft yellow. Like so many acres of wheat.

There's the sound. The soft rhythmic thumping as he slaps the ball of dough down, presses it, folds it, rolls and presses it again, scrunching fingers through the firm pale loaf. Calm confident hands knead and press sweet sugar loaf down against the table, and I want those hands around me, thumbs pressing into my back, holding me down.

I watch, as he picks the dough up with one hand, dusts flour over the table with the other, and slaps the loaf down.

You could dust me with flour...throw me down. Knead fingers through my skin...

The kitchen is quiet, and narrow, and overwarm, making it easy to daydream.

Sweat prickles at my neck.

I could tell you why I was there. The entire backstory, with Amanda away visiting her boyfriend out of town, and me crashing at her place in the co-housing, and....

But you don't care about any of that do you? Let's get to the bits that do matter.

He was wearing a white shirt, and moved like an autumn breeze. The room smelt of cinnamon and vinegar, and every so often, he'd make a request, ask me if I'll be around to turn the over on in an hours time, ask if I can grab some spices out. Little things, and every time, I'd jump to obey.

At some point in the morning I watched as he scooped the nascent loaf into a bowl, placed a damp cloth over it, and walked away, leaving it to stew in its own biology for a few hours.

I could have left. I could have followed him. Instead, I stay, and watch the loaf. Read a book. Lounge around in sunlight, and wait.

I watch, and wait and watch myself waiting.

The chairs are made of rugged wooden. There's the sound of laundry machines in the next room, and then, for a short while, the sound of someone opening the machines and moving clothes around. I doodle at the crossword. I read a recipe book. I turn on the oven at the allotted time, and doodle some more, constantly aware of my own skin, thinking about him.

I sneak glimpses at the dough, as she expands, looking pregnant, looking ready to burst.

...have you ever had that? That sense of waiting, waiting and watching yourself waiting, but not being worried about the waiting. Not frustration, not anticipation. No impatience, no wound up spring coiled tight. Just the moment. The moment stretching on and on, and the warmth, and the boy being gone, and the knowing he'll return, and when he does he'll give you what you want.

I stretch. I roll my shoulders. The door opens; the air outside is warm, and still, and the smell of lavender bushes against the threshold of the room, only barely making it inside.

He steps inside, wanders over to the bread, and checks that it has risen. He pulls it out, asks me to grab the ovenrack and then takes a knife and scores across the top of the dough, letting out steam before gentle cradling the loaf and lifting it over.

His voice is detached and dreamlike, each request, less like an order, and more a question asked of curiosity "Would you mind getting the pans?"

"Could you give me a hand with the oven door?"

"Here, I'm making a cake next. Would you like to mix it while I grab the ingredients?"

"Sure." I think that might be the only word I've spoken all day. "I'ld like that."

The boy smiles, grey-green eyes resting on me for just a moment longer, then he points over at the sink "We'll be mixing it by hand, you should wash your hands first."

I obey.

He sets about pulling ingredients from his backpack as I wash my hands. I scrub away with warm soapy water, and steal glances over my shoulder, as he wafts this way and that, ingredients accumulating on the table as if by magic, without my ever noticing.

Or perhaps I'm just a touch distracted.

His sleeves are rolled up, shave thirty hours overdue. His hair is tied behind him; wiry and black flecked with silver. It's easy to picture him as a librarian... or a pirate. For a brief moment, I imagine him standing on the table top, with a telescope, calculating times and locations from the positions of the stars. Setting a course, with that quiet smile, with that knowing glint within his eyes.

Taking me somewhere.

Or leaning back in one of the chairs, reading a book, reading the words aloud- telling me a story.

The air of the kitchen is humid and warm; the moisture from the loaf mixed with the heat coming off of the oven. It feels tropical. Oversaturated. Sweat prickles at my neck, down my arms, around my waist.

I feel itchy. I'm basking in it, marinading in my own perspiration, just like sweet sugar loaf. The cool water washing over my hands is a balm, yet even so I want more.

More sweat. More heat. More cold. More touch. More moisture in the air. More until it feels like drowning.

I finish washing my hands, shake them dry, then set about unbuttoning my flannel shirt. I start at the bottom and work my way up, leaning against the bench and watching the boy as I do so. At some point between unpacking ingrediants, he notices, and pauses, watching. I thread each individual button between fabric feeling my breathe come in and out; hard disks of plastic, each and everyone one of them feeling like a golden coin between my finger tipes. Something given. The boy watches, and I watch him watching.

It feels like relief as I reach the top button, shrug out of the shirt, freeing my arms, freeing my shoulders, air against the back of my neck. My singlet still sticks to by back and my chest, but there's not much I can do about that.

I tie the arms of the shirt around my waist, as the boy traces the lines of my body. His eyes glaze over the ink upon my shoulders, the tanlines of my chest. My white singlet is already damp with sweat. I can feel myself breathing, the air filling me up... then draining out. The rise and fall as I stare him down. There's a smile pursed between his lips. Cheeking on me the same way I peeked at sweet sugar loaf earlier, with twice the hunger.

He stares a moment longer and then his attention breaks into a rueful smile.

"You look good," he says "But this can be a messy recipe, and if we get anything on that top its going to stain."

That's okay. We'll just take it off.

I don't mind being naked while its in the washing machines.

I love the way his eyes rest upon me. The way he drinks me in, as if I'm made of sunlight, warmth, something nourishing.

I love that sense of power...

He ducks over to the bottom draw in the corner, comes back unfurling an apron: pink and blue plaid, with gold around the edges. He steps close, hangs the main loop over my head. My heart hammers away as he lifts up my hair behind, so that it doesn't get caught. He steps around behind me, and loops the long dangling ribbons one and a half time around my body, his hands passing around me; brushing each time against my waist. I feel like a doll being dressed up, like a kid being prepared for a day at school. There's a part of my which is annoyed. There's a part of me that finds it soothing. Exciting. He ties the robbons firm, tight, snug around my waist, no thought to my bodily autonomy. For the briefest moment, I'm hopeful that he'll take a hold of my wrists, tie those back behind me with the ribbons as well.

And if he did, would he bend me over the table, pressing me down, lifting up my skirt? Or would he just leave me here, plaintive and yearning.

The conflicting images flicker- sharp and visceral.

He steps away, and I feel my body sag in disappointment or relief.

Oh well.

He moves away, and I allow myself to breathe. The smell of fruit bread fills the room. Intoxicating and sweet. The polished oak table is littered with raspberries and oranges and courgettes and coco. He brushes past me, crouching near by to access the lower draws and I resist the urge to scratch the top of his head, to reach out and just touch him while he's crouching there beneath me.

I could pull him closer.

I could pull him against me.

"Do you mind mixing ingredients?" he pulls out a glass bowl and places it on the bench, "You'll be pinned in place for a bit, and it'll get your hands messy, but-"

I step over, dangle my hands in the bowl.

The first ingredient he adds is sunflower oil, soft and silky, liquid amber flowing over my hands and fingertips. I rub my fingertips together, and think about rubbing oil over his arms and shoulders, lying down and having him rub oil over me. I think about the pressure of those hands, the way he kneaded sweet sugar loaf, the way he could knead my sore shoulders, my legs, my-

The next ingredient is sugar. Thick brown sugar, softer than white sugar. I think about that; the difference between white and brown sugar. Wonder if its symbolic. I think about calling him sugar, about him calling me sugar, about how sweet he smells. I wonder what he tastes like.

I don't look at him as he moves behind. Instead I stare straight ahead, at the fogged up windows, my gaze fixed as my fingers mix the oil with the sugar.

The texture is sticky and wet.

The third ingredient is eggs. He stands at my side, our arms brushing against one another, as he cracks the eggs in one at a time, dropping each into the existing mixture with a satisfying "plunk", before setting the broken eggshells aside.

Eggs....

Eggs make me think about eggs.

About pregnancy. About the sex. About blood between my legs, the nature of humanity, evolution, centuries and millennia, a million years of women fucking men and men fucking women, about the heat of his body so close to me, and getting pregnant, and finding completion in that moment.

Eggs make me think about DNA, about the helix, about getting tangled up with someone that way. Genes unzipping jeans.There's an itch between my legs. I press my hips against the heavy tabletop, hard, hoping to sooth it, hoping to rub that itch away. To rub it out.

But that only makes it worse, and I know that'll only make it worse, and I grind away anyway, because I want that.

A stray lock of hair bobs up and down tickling at the side of my face, itching at the edge of my vision. I want to tuck it away, but my hands are slick with sugar and oil.

Trapped.

The Boy steps away for a moment, and I crush the egg yolks in frustration, I churn the mixture into a browny-golden slurry, and bite my lip, and fantasize about being fucked against the windows.

I've only spoken four words, and we don't know each other's name, and I can't tell: I can't tell if he knows how wound up I am, if he's toying with me, or if he's oblivious, if he's just that gentle, just that overbearing.

I shake my head, try to focus, press my fists down against the bottom of the bowl.

The boy steps behind me: directly behind me, with fingertips brushing across my shoulders, and his waist against my hips, and this time I know. Know how much he's in on this. Know what he intends. His chest a wall behind me, but still, he pays no attention to that, and instead scoops great cups of flour out, thumping them down on the mixture, like chunks of cloud stolen from the sky. His arms brush against my arms as he moves, finger tips of his left hand pressed against me for balance, and I close my eyes and lean back. Lean against the rise and fall of his breathing, against his chin resting against my head, as my fingers clench and unclench through the mixture, as he adds more powders. Coco. Baking powder. Nutmeg. The smell of it, the texture, as powders cake against my fingertips, and I squeeze and fold them into the mixture.

He breathes into my hair. "When me and my sister were young, we used to bake cake together for mum's birthday."

His fingers stroke the length of my arm, from shoulder to wrist.

"She was seven while I was twelve, so she used to mix the ingredients, while I told her what to do."

"Do you want to tell me what to do?"

"If you'd like."

I nod. "You want me to call you Big Brother?"

"Yes,"

I go to turn, to face him, but as I go to withdraw my hand from the mixture, he catches at me wrists. Nothing tight, just firm, a reminder to stay in place.

He presses my hands back into the bowl.

"Easy, Little Sister. Don't get distracted."

I nod. Nod and dig my fingers into the mixture, folding the slick egg and oil over the powdery flour. One over the other, folding together, pushing the flour and coco down.

"Okay Big Brother. I'll do what you say Big Brother."

The entire mixture is brown now. A dark choclatey brown. Thick like mud, or wet clay. Like playdough, and I want to shape it, and I want to eat it, and I my fingers grip the mixture, crushing through it the same way I want to be crushed by him.

Please.

His hand withdraws from my wrist, catching the stray lock of hair scratching at my face and folding it behind my ear.

I can feel my breath; so deep. I can feel it going in and out, my heart beating, and just like... the shape of him. So close, right behind me.

He leans over me, into me. His hips pressed momentarily against my ass as he reaches for the next ingredient:

The next ingredient is orange- an entire orange slit in half with a knife and crushed between his hands, its juices flowing and dribbling down into the dark choclatey clay. He carves its flesh out with his fingers and I watch his hands as he crushes each individual slices before throwing the tattered fragments down into the bowl for me to stir.

Next up he pulls out a little jar, an inch wide, and inch deep, with a black lid and brown, gritty contents. He unscrews it, and offers it up to my face.

"Smell this."

Okay, Big Brother.

The scent is overwelming vanilla. Vanilla and alcohol, and I almost stagger, under the power of it.

The boy flicks a teaspoon for it the mix, then takes a finger, and paints the paste against my nose, Inescapable.

I know what's going to happen to me by the end of this.

"Thank you big brother,"

His hands brush along my waist as he walks past, trailing lower for a moment, against me skirt.

The itch between my legs feels hot now. Hot and empty and moist, like the cake mix. Needing to be churned.

The next ingredient is chocolate. I watch, patient, as he breaks it up into pieces, each pieces snapping off with a satisfying click. Then he adds a dollop of butter and melts it all in the microwave, long seconds counting down while he is far away from me.

It gives me a chance to stare at him. To look at his arms, at his pants, and his shirt, to think about his hands, and my wrists and my shoulders, about the hair on his chest, and the smooth skin of mine, about-

The microwave beeps. The Big Brother returns with the bowl of chocolate, molten and dark now, folding out of a bowl, and drizzling over my hands- threatening to burn me, if not for the cool thick coating of raw cake batter encasing me.

I want this spread across my whole body.

I want to swim in this, to rub myself with this.

"Do you want chocolate, little sister?"

I nod. He takes the spatula, still dripping with chocolate, and holds up to my face. I lean forward, forward against the bench, with my tongue stretched out, lapping at the molten mix; the chocolate pure enough to scorch in its own weird way. Pure and bitter.

He holds the spatula there until I'm finished eating, I can feel his attention upon my body, his gaze against my shoulders, his fantasies of gripping at my hair. Or maybe those are my fantasies...

Every lick of the spatula is a stretch, my tongue where he wants it, my hands caught in the bowl, his hips wide behind me. Wide and firm.

Stray hairs come loose from my ponytail, dangle and itch around me face, wiry with humidity and sweat.

When I'm done with the spatula, he dips his fingers into the bowl, and brings them up to my face. I lick those too, feeling the texture of his hands. Rough workman's fingers.

"Good girl."

His hand withdraws. The gap between my legs is warm and wet. Impatient.

The next ingredient is raspberries. Frozen berries, pink and sweet, crusted with diamonds of frost. Big Brother tears open the packet, pouring them into the mix until my fingers hurt, like the ice bucket challenge. I grit my teeth as my fingers clench through the icy mix. Clench and unclench. Like crushing cold mud, crushing all the icicles out of it, the cold biting into me, throbbing with pain. His hands catch at the bottom of my singlet, ice cold fingers making their way up beneath the fabric. My muscles go tense as calloused fingertips pressing against my flesh, rubbing over me, pulling me close against him, fingertips worming their way into my belly button. Cold hands squeeze the heat out of me, satisfying that fire inside, even as I rub myself against against him wanting more.

Deeper.

Good.

With a spare hand, he takes a single berry and presses up to my lips. I refuses for a moment, them open just enough to let the berry through, trying to nip at his fingers.

Too slow...

He feeds me more, taking handfuls of fruit and shoving them into my mouth, grinding them across my face.

I laugh and bite, savour the pain, the redness, the sharp acidic taste of the fruit, and the sting of the frost. He holds his hand across my mouth as I chew, as I swallow, smearing sticky red liquid across my chin and cheeks.

Fuck.

Yes.

I love the game of it. Love the warmth of giving in. Being his dirty girl, being his princess.

We lean into one another. It feels good to tilt my head back against his chest. Close my eyes. Feel a kiss pressed against my forehead

"Good girl."

"Mmhmm."

"Yeah?"

"Uhunngghhh,"

It's so easy. So ease to sag against him. To trust myself to Big Brother's arms.

The room feels oversaturated and feverish; the ice of the fruit and the heat of the oven, and the golden afternoon light, and the boy running finger across my skin, icy finger tips slipping under the waistband of my dress and along the rim of my hips, fingers firm and wet and cold against my clammy skin.

I can feel individual crystals of icy, catching at my singlet... getting pressed against my skin... melting... and dribbling away like so many beads of sweat.

Sweat.

I like sweat.

All movement has stopped. There's nothing but our breathing; slow on the way in, but sharp on the way out. Hair hangs around my face. My finger tips rest against the bottom of the glass bowl, and ice cold batter is caked across my hands and wrists. The ties of the apron cut against my skin, into my flesh, and the boy smells sweat. Tangy. Like salt, and perhaps a little like vinegar...

"The next ingredient is courgette," he murmurs. "It's meant to go inside the cake... but I think it should go inside you instead..."

My eyes dart to the vegetable in question.

It's long. Smooth. Thick. Dark green stripped with light. Perfectly round at one end, with a little nub at the other, and I can't help but think about its texture: waxy, smooth and just a little uneven.

Oh.

Oh wow.

I try to keep a straight face. Try to stop myself from laughing, giggling, as I stare at it, as I feel those stirrings inside me, beneath me, folded amongst flesh.

This is so silly.

"Fuck me," I whisper "Fuck me Big Brother, fuck me with your vegetable."

My legs part, ever so slightly.

His hand slips free of my waistband. Long, steady fingers reaching out, and taking hold of the courgette.

"As you wish."

I watch. Watch as he pulls it away, out of sight. I close my eyes, lean forward churning my fingers through the ice cold cake mix, as he tugs my hips just a short distance from the bench, as he fluffs up the front of my skirt.