Prep work

by PD Singer

  He had? The title is Scaling Down and the recipes came in two forms: one, the way the pros would do it in a restaurant with servings for fifteen to thirty, and the other a companion recipe for family-sized batches that served four to six with some simplified techniques and standard American kitchen measurements, not metric. I thought it was a good idea, and so did my publisher and agent. All of us were taken by surprise by the irritation of the book buyers who thought they were getting a diet plan and didn’t appreciate the butter and heavy cream. Maybe Tommy had put the sauce stains on himself.

  “I can keep going if you like. A second set of hands might be good here.” Imogen came by with another ticket, which she held uncertainly, not sure who to give it to.

  “I’ll take it.” Tommy examined the order. “I put the book upstairs because it was getting too messy. I made photocopies of the recipes I use the most.” He started another sauté pan heating, and I plated the pork. “A lot of my customers come to eat your food.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Thank you? Oh good? Do it right then? “I’m glad they keep coming back.” We skirted each other carefully, me with loaded hands and him holding the book against his chest, protecting it from the steam hissing from the pan.

  Imogen bustled away with my efforts, but Tommy wasn’t turning loose of the book. I wasn’t seeing stiff upper lip, or a stiff anything else, but I didn’t know what was going on. “How would you like that inscribed?” I asked again.

  Glancing down at his pans, Tommy looked like he was blushing, though it could have just been flushing from the heat of the kitchen.

  “Or have you changed your mind?”

  “No, I haven’t. I—” He looked up at me with indecision and something else. “If you sign it, then you’ll go, and this will be over and I’ll never cook another dish with Jude Marshall, and—” Tommy sputtered to a stop. “You must think I’m a right prat.”

  “A bit of a fanboy, but not a prat.” I tried to recall how awful prathood was.

  He handed me the book. “You decide. You just came in for a quiet bowl of soup, and here I am wasting your time.” The pans needed all his attention. Right.

  “No, you aren’t, and I don’t have to leave. Not if you don’t want me to.” Sam and Marcie wouldn’t miss me, and Tommy would. I scrawled Try chervil on the pea soup sometime and my name on the flyleaf.

  “I don’t, if you don’t mind staying.” His words were hesitant but his hands were sure, which relieved me; I didn’t want to have to treat a burn. He had chef’s hands, marked, rough, and with the extra padding nature gives the fool who tries to pick up hot objects too often. Mine had softened with time away from the big gas range.

  “So, are some of your soups rowdier than others?” Could I get him to laugh?

  “My soups are all very well-behaved. It’s the customers you’ve got to watch. You wouldn’t believe some of them, slagging off poor, innocent bowls of soup.” The glint was back, and so was the dimple. “Ever had that sort in your place?”

  “Awful, just awful,” I solemnly agreed, trying not to burst out laughing. “They’re hardly worthy to be served.” Then we did laugh, and I felt forgiven.

  So I stayed. And we cooked. And we chatted. I prowled his shelves and walk-in, looking for clues to his style of food, and it was something I could appreciate: honest, fresh ingredients, treated simply and allowed to shine, mixed with a few more complicated preparations.

  “How long have you been open?” I asked.

  “The pub’s been here seventy years. I took over as landlord four years ago.” Tommy sprinkled a pinch of salt over the asparagus he was sautéing. “People are getting used to finding something other than a blob of soft cheese in a baguette here.”

  I didn’t mention that I’d come in looking for exactly that. “What kind of hours do you keep?”

  “The old hours. Last orders for drinks at eleven, everyone out by eleven thirty.” He picked up on what I’d really asked. “The kitchen closes at nine thirty. Then clean up.”

  “I’ll go play dish pit. Will that speed you?” He had no one else to deal with the growing stack of dirty plates, and after he made one quick dash to the sink and then back to the stove, I could see what needed doing. He had the cooking under control. He didn’t have his face under control—his jaw was hanging open. I laughed. “It won’t be the first time I’ve been in soapy water to the elbow.”

  I scrubbed away, enjoying the simple pleasure of bringing order out of chaos and messing with Tommy’s mind at the same time. Maybe he could lose the fanboy thinking if he saw me doing the menial tasks that never end. Once everything was loaded in the sanitizer, I ambled back to the stove. “Have you decided on a special for tomorrow yet?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll wait and see what’s good at the market.”

  I liked that philosophy. Also, I was eaten with curiosity. Of all the books out there, why mine? No mouth to brain filter, remember—I asked.

  “A couple of reasons,” he mumbled, his head practically in the oven where he browned the top of something sticky. “I couldn’t afford to go to culinary school, so I bought books and took a few classes when I could. I’m still not much of a pastry chef. But I learned by cooking the family portions and then scaling up.”

  I’d thought his knife work was a little odd, and his mise en place barren, not organized as I would have set it up and missing ingredients he’d needed several times during the evening. “You do well for self-taught.”

  “Thanks.” He waved his hand at the rack of spices and metal pans. “It could be more efficient, but I just don’t know how to do it. When I washed dishes at Claridge’s, they chased me back to the sink every time I tried to look.”

  Having to chop an onion at the moment of need wasn’t at all efficient. That should have been done hours ago and replaced if it was used up. I would have screeched harsh words at any of my staff who’d done that, but I’d thought at the time that he just didn’t use it much. “Some of my best line cooks started as dishwashers.”

  “Lucky them.” Tommy slid a filet of cod from pan to plate, dribbling the cooking juices over it. “When my dad died, any chance of learning elsewhere went too. I had to run the pub or sell it, and it’s been in the family since it was built.” The asparagus glowed jewel-green next to the brown-drizzled white fish, beautiful in the fluorescent light for the scant seconds ’til Imogen took it away.

  No choice then. My mouth didn’t ask my brain—I heard myself offer. “I could show you a few things.”

  To see his face, you’d think I’d brought the sunshine for the picnic. “Start by showing me exactly how you minced that onion so quickly.”

  So I did, and began to get a better feel for how much extra effort Tommy had to go through with each day’s cooking for not knowing the basics. “You’ll pick up speed with practice. Do the shallots similarly or they look like worms in the dish.” Perhaps I didn’t really have to touch his hand to show the small circular motion that keeps the blade from slicing through the root end prematurely, but I wanted to, and he didn’t shake me off.

  He peeled another onion to test his new skill. “I’ve just been slicing them at random. This is a lot better.”

  That started me asking about his menu changes and thinking how to reorganize his mise en place. Tommy didn’t need to keep the truffle oil away from the heat; he hadn’t gone that far down the path of haute cuisine as to have any, but we shuffled pans and plotted prep work until Imogen interrupted us with a late request for shepherd’s pie.

  “I do cook some of the pub classics, Jude.” Tommy scooped out a portion and offered me a taste.

  “Mmm. Made with the freshest shepherds?” It really was good, savory with lamb and rosemary, the potato smooth but with enough texture to show it had never been a dehydrated flake.

  “He was fresh, all right. I had to slap the cheeky bastard to get him under the mash.” He disappeared into the walk-in with the pan, my chuckles following.

  The riposte was my r
eward, along with his blue eyes dancing below the thatch of straight brown hair that stuck out below his baseball cap. Had he sported headgear as pretentious as a toque, I wouldn’t have followed him to the kitchen.

  “I can start cleaning up, Jude. Thanks.” Tommy glanced at the clock. “I’ll be able to squeeze a few more minutes from each hour, now.”

  I started scraping the grill. “It’s a start.” I hadn’t really touched on more than the very basics, but his day had been long already and how the hell had it gotten to be nine thirty?

  “You don’t have to stay for this. You came in for some food, not to end up cleaning a grease trap.” He lifted the cover, making a face at the nastiness inside.

  “You get to clean your own grease trap. I call mopping the floor.” I was reluctant to leave, both for the company and for the joy of creating something delicious, some small bit of edible art. It had been so long, and cleanup felt like payback for the chance. “I’m staying.” The stack of pans in the sink shrank under my hands.

  “You really are a lifesaver.” He came to stack the dishes from the sanitizer rack, standing a little closer to me than the space required.

  Have to find out sometime. “I’m a small, round candy with a hole in the middle?” Did they have those candies here?

  He looked confused, but went with the words, not the sense. “Oh, I’m sure there’s a hole on you somewhere.” He leaned his shoulder against me.

  My rate of washing dropped to zero. “It’s even been licked once or twice.” I leaned back. “I’m not at all cherry-flavored.”

  “Wouldn’t mind checking that out for myself, if you fancied staying the night. Unless”—his eyes flickered to the cookbook, set aside from the prep surface—“he’s still tasting?”

  “He” being my former lover, mentioned in the author bio on the dust jacket. I hadn’t thought how much of myself I was exposing in those few lines. “Lives in New York City with his partner, Paul” had gotten me some critical brickbats, but this time I was grateful for the “out and proud” comment. “Not for a couple of years.” Not since he’d found out about the waiter in section three. “No one else regular.”

  “That’s the anti-social hours for you. Makes it hard to meet anyone.” One last bit of pressure against me, and then he went to drag the wheeled bucket and mop from a closet. “Harder to keep them unless they know what it’s like already.”

  One thing I did not understand yet, and needed to. “I’m saying ‘yes’ either way, but are you asking Jude Marshall the chef, or are you asking Jude, the man?” How much of myself could I bring to his bed?

  He didn’t answer that right away, running water into the bucket for a few minutes first, and giving me hope for an honest answer. “I asked the chef to sign my cookbook, and it was probably the chef I asked to stay once I came back to the kitchen.” He dipped the mop into the bucket, but yielded it when I reached to fulfill my promise about washing the floor. “And you must have a thousand begging for it. But it’s the man I’m asking upstairs. I can’t get to know you better if you leave.”

  Not a thousand like him. Not even one like him. I’d bring all of myself upstairs.

  At the top of two flights of stairs, once we’d climbed them, lay his apartment, taking up the back end of the floor past the door marked 2B. He carefully reshelved the cookbook in the bookcase next to a brown loveseat that might have been in the family as long as the pub had, then led me to the bathroom, which looked as if it had been carved out of the larger space. “Would you like to wash the kitchen out of your hair?” Tommy offered, stripping the double-breasted, spattered jacket off. He threw it at the hamper, though one stubborn sleeve dangled out.

  Now that we were out of danger of Imogen popping in on us, I couldn’t wait to get my clothes off and peeled myself more efficiently than any shallot I’d ever touched. The ancient clawfoot tub had a thin, white curtain on a floating ring and a handheld shower sprayer, but before Tommy could turn on the water, I had to give myself a little appetizer, taking him in my arms for the first kiss of the night.

  Stiff at first, he relaxed against me, melting like butter too close to the stove, and he was the first to part his lips. Tasting, savoring, we explored, and I wouldn’t have known he’d kept his eyes open if I hadn’t too. I wanted to see him react to me as well as to feel him. I wanted to examine this man with every sense I possessed. Slipping a hand down his bare back brought me a little moan, and a deep sniff against Tommy’s cheek plunged me back into the kitchen. I wouldn’t let that scent go until he made me.

  “Not yet. You smell too good.” I stroked my cheek against his on the way to his neck; it was late enough that our almost-stubble rasped together, and then I could breathe deeply of warm Tommy and his craft. The butter and herbs that had glazed the filet clung to his hair, faint traces of the spicy tomato-based sauce for the eggplant wafted from his skin, and I tried to devour them all. With tongue and lips I explored him; food scents mixed with his own at his neck gave way to salt and sweat on his shoulder, his forearms again bearing hints of what he’d handled and washed away from his hands. That didn’t keep me from sliding his fingers into my mouth.

  Somewhere on him, there would be clues to everything he’d touched tonight. I would find out what he’d made before I arrived. I had to lick into the hollow above his clavicle and found my way back to his lips. “You taste so good just like this.”

  I had tasted like that once, and did again tonight, with the time we’d spent together cooking. Tommy was doing his own best to lave the traces from my skin. His tongue and lips against my neck made me hard, and I couldn’t help pushing against his groin, scratching against the baggy pants that I hadn’t managed to shove off his hips. Kneading the big muscles of his butt with one hand inside the pants and one out, I wasn’t going to get those pants off unless I was willing to let go, and I wasn’t, not before I was completely drunk on the taste of him.

  Tommy solved my dilemma by twisting around, letting me grope and press my erection into his crack while he undid the fasteners, the skin of his back smooth against my chest. The sun never had a chance to brown him. He was pale and salty beneath my tongue, and yes, he was hard and smooth under my hand. I had hold of his cock almost before he had the zipper down, firm and hot, the skin slipping over the glans with my slow strokes.

  “Let’s at least get to the bed, Jude,” Tommy mumbled into my ear. He’d let his head fall back onto my shoulder and had found my earlobe with his teeth. Fortified with kisses, I could let go long enough to follow him to the double bed before I dragged us down to the cold tile floor of the bathroom instead.

  He lay warm and lithe under me on the cool cotton sheets, meeting me thrust for thrust with hips and tongue, his fair skin pale gold under the light of the small lamp. I did my best to touch every square inch of him, no longer hidden under layers of baggy fabric meant to protect him from the dangers of his trade.

  He felt good, too—not thin, not fat, just warm and hard, and as eager to absorb me as I was for him. His hands traveled up and down my back, sliding to my ass now and again to pull me more tightly against him. With lips and tongue he explored me as thoroughly as I did him, licking, nibbling, and using the slightest edge of teeth against my neck. I wound my fingers into his hair, sliding along the slight dampness that was the inevitable kitchen sweat. I knew Tommy’s mouth would feel just that good on my cock.

  I tasted him first, nuzzling my way across the little prickles of hair on his chest, down to his treasure trail. The scent changed along the way, the spices and oils giving way to the tang of a man who’d done honest work. He’d not just earned his bread, he’d baked it. If he’d fed me liquor, it couldn’t have intoxicated me more.

  Tommy groaned for me when I sucked him in, swiping my tongue along his shaft on the ups and downs, feeling his foreskin bunch and straighten, teasing the edge of the head. No words now, nothing more than good, oh good, buzzed through my mind, and then it got better when Tommy urged me around and over him to take
my cock in his mouth.

  Wet, firm pressure, the slight yielding of lips, and the flicking undid me. The little spangles behind my tightly closed eyelids were a pale reflection of the fireworks below. I convulsed and shot my pleasure into a sudden chill. Forgetting to breathe, I fell forward, taking him deeper, and that was enough; Tommy came before I stopped pulsing, and I swallowed almost without tasting.

  Collapsing was my only option. I did manage to turn around and get my ass out of his face before melting into the mattress. Tommy kissed me softly before turning to snuggle his back to my chest and wipe himself down with a handful of tissues. One last little brush of my lips against the tender skin behind his ear, and I tried to catch the curve of his lips, but he turned out the light, and I went with it.

  Waking to dim light and movement in my arms, I opened one eye to see Tommy frowning up at what turned out to be a strip of condoms. “Who gets to wear that?” I murmured, hoping he’d unroll one over me.

  “Neither of us.” He tossed the strip off the edge of the bed. “They expired five months ago.”

  “I hope you rotate your kitchen stock better than that.” I was obscurely glad that they weren’t fresh. “How’s the lube supply?”

  “Plentiful.” He waggled the bottle at me. I cupped a palm to catch the squirt of slipperiness. We kissed, carefully, and then I devoted my mouth to his shoulder and my hand to his morning wood. Tommy lay on his back, his cheek against my head, sighing under my ministrations and taking a moment to come back to reality enough to pour more lube into my hand. This I applied to myself, and I turned him to his side.

  “Not bare!” He was right to be cautious, but that wasn’t what I planned.

  “No, not bare.” I nestled my erection between his cheeks, wishing I could both thrust along the length of his crack and see myself do it, but I could imagine his ass like the two firm lobes of a peach or a cherry and still reach around to play with his cock. He put his hand back to grab my ass, pulling me to his rhythm while I trailed my tongue along his nape. Less frantic than last night, we thrust together until we had to speed up and then freeze, me a few beats behind him. Tommy’s spurts were a throbbing in my palm, and he clenched his buttocks, grabbing me tightly for the last few plunges before I spilled creamy wet heat between our bodies.