Caroline tried to concentrate, focus on making an amazing dessert that would be a feast for all the senses. But the heat of Drew’s body so close to her own and the way her insides felt as hot and sweet as molten chocolate whenever he brushed against her – and he was doing so a lot – blanked every recipe she knew from her mind.
The announcer came on. “Because our chefs have been performing at such a high level, we’re throwing out a special challenge. There are two secret ingredients for the dessert round: raspberries and rosewater. And sorry, you’re not allowed to sprinkle the berries with the rosewater and call it a day!”
Caroline turned to Drew and smiled. “I know we’d been talking about a . . .” she paused to give the words extra significance “. . . peach tart with whipped cream.” She winked at the audience, admitting they were in on the joke. “But it looks like we need to be flexible.” She hoped the word would call to mind her yoga poses. “Do you have any ideas about the best way to handle raspberries?”
“Delicately. Very delicately. More often than not, I like to nibble them plain.” He slurred a bit, so nibble sounded almost like nipple, but not so much so that it would get him in trouble with Lee. “But I bet we could do something with them to give the peaches a lovely rosy colour.”
Then he gave her a searing smile. Her nipples felt as red and plump and tender as the berries heaped in a basket on their counter. She didn’t dare to glance down, but she suspected they were popping out through the fabric of her dress, clearly visible to anyone in the studio and probably to the TV audience.
What she wouldn’t give to have Drew’s sensuous mouth closed around one of those ripe peaks now, suckling at her, drawing out her arousal until she was dizzied and begging for more.
Breathe. Remember to breathe – and to make sure Drew, too, was distracted. “Maybe use some of them for a glaze,” she said breathily. “Nothing makes a peach look prettier than a little moist sheen. And for a topping, how about a nice, warm crème anglaise?” She let the words sink in, watched Drew’s eyes widen and darken.
She’d take his “crème anglaise” in her “peach” any day and she could tell he was thinking something similar.
The whir of a food processor brought her back to reality. The Jarvises were already at work, grinding nuts from the sound of it. (A linzertorte variation with fresh fruit? She should have been paying more attention to them, dammit!)
“Flavour it with rosewater,” Drew added. His voice sounded a little shaky. “Sounds good.”
“You start on the peaches and raspberries, Drew. I’ll get to work stirring up the crème. It takes a little time for it to . . . thicken.”
As she passed him, heading to the refrigerator for cream and eggs, she cupped his ass briefly under the cover of the counter, just long enough to feel it was as firm and delicious as she’d suspected.
His sigh wasn’t loud enough for the microphones to pick up, but she heard it.
He got her back, though, as he started to split the peaches. “This peach is absolutely perfect,” he sighed. “So juicy and succulent, with just the slightest hint of fuzz. I wish I could eat it right now!”
Even if she hadn’t been sensitised already, that remark, in that tone of voice, would have zinged directly between her legs and gotten her speculating. As it was, she almost spilled heavy cream onto the floor, lost in a vision of Drew’s tongue deftly playing over her slick lower lips and swirling in on the throbbing spot where she needed it most.
Then she glanced over at their opponents. The Jarvises, lacking such distractions, were hard at work and their dessert looked well underway. Time to focus!
As they busied themselves with making the rich, rosewater-infused custard sauce, turning some of the raspberries into a delicate red glaze and basting it over the split peaches before sticking them under the broiler, the banter and surreptitious touches continued. A brush here. An innuendo there. Eye contact that lasted longer than was strictly necessary.
By the time the peaches came out from the broiler looking perfect enough for a glossy food magazine, Caroline’s legs felt weak from frustrated desire.
Caroline carefully spooned the crème anglaise into the hollow of each peach.
Drew, not to be outdone, took one intact raspberry and placed it strategically on each peach, placing himself between the dessert and the camera so the results wouldn’t immediately go out to the viewers.
They looked at the dessert and then at each other. “Too much,” Caroline mouthed, trying not to burst into obvious laughter.
Before the camera could focus on the erotic creation, Drew sprinkled the remaining raspberries more casually over the plate and Caroline swirled the creamy sauce. Now it might classify as food-porn, but it was no longer porn made from food.
Both of them still stifling chuckles and giving each other amused, but heated glances, they presented their dish to the judges.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have . . . a tie!” the announcer said. “The judges are evenly divided between both teams. We didn’t make provisions for a sudden-death round, so we’re going to turn it over to you, the home viewers. Call the station and vote for your favourite team and their recipes. One call per viewer, please. We’ll show you some more top highlights from Cooking with Caroline and Warning: Man Cooking, and we’ll return in fifteen minutes with a verdict. Get those dialling fingers going!”
The station was so small that there was only one dressing room, a tiny box of a space with just enough room for a short couch, clothing rack, and vanity table and stool. Caroline made a beeline for it.
Not fast enough. She didn’t get the door all the way closed before Drew pushed it open, and shut it behind him.
If the room had seemed small before, now it was downright tight. Drew’s lanky frame took up a lot of space – and Caroline’s libido filled in the cracks.
“Here’s the thing,” Drew said. “I know that you’ve been coming on to me to distract me, to mess me up.”
Her mother had always told her she was too competitive. “Boys won’t like you if you always have to win,” she said.
Well, the boys had liked Caroline just fine, although admittedly they all got along better when the boys weren’t trying to get the same things Caroline wanted – like the top cooking show on WPVL.
Her mother could be right about many things, but she’d been as wrong about boys as she was about cooking. Her idea of tacos included Velveeta “cheese”, and she’d layered her lasagne with cottage cheese rather than ricotta. A healthy self-preservation instinct had driven Caroline to learn how to cook.
“Fact is, I respect that,” Drew continued. “It was a slick move. It almost worked. Maybe it did work. But here’s the thing.”
He stepped closer to her.
That same self-preservation instinct was failing her now. She backed up until her knees hit the arm of the sofa. She caught herself before she fell – but, oh, she wanted to fall, and pull him down on top of her.
“What I need to know is if you’re feeling what I’m feeling,” Drew said, his voice husky. “If the audience is right and the chemistry is real. Because as much as I like cooking against you, right now I’d rather be cooking with you. Figs and asparagus and cucumbers and peaches . . . Licking and sucking and—”
The hell with it. They weren’t on stage any more. The cook-off was over.
Caroline grabbed the front of Drew’s T-shirt and dragged him down for a kiss.
There was no time for subtleties, and no need for them, either. They’d been enjoying foreplay for hours already. Even as they kissed, his hands were behind her neck, unhooking the halter top. He dragged the front of her dress down and filled his large hands with her breasts, catching her peaked nipples between his fingers and rolling them, lightly pinching them, murmuring something about raspberries, until her thighs turned to jelly.
She might have slid bonelessly to the ground if he hadn’t insinuated his hand between her thighs and caught her in a most intimate way. His eyes widened
, no doubt because he’d discovered how drenched her panties were. He hiked her dress up and she tugged the French-cut lace briefs down and he pulled them the rest of the way and she kicked out of them.
She popped the buttons on his jeans. No underwear for him. His cock was smooth and curved. She swiped her thumb across the bead of moisture at its tip, and brought it to her mouth.
He groaned.
She thought they’d make good use of the sofa, but instead he spun her around to face the dressing table. She was stunned by her reflection in the mirror, tumbling-down hair and dilated pupils and well-kissed, swollen lips.
“I’ve been dying to do this all day, ever since you leaned over the damn counter,” he growled in her ear.
She spread her legs and wiggled her hips, and he needed no further invitation. He sank into her easily, her inner walls plump and slick with her own juices.
Oh, God, so good to be filled! Her eyes fluttered shut.
“No,” Drew said. “Open your eyes. Watch what happens when I fuck you.”
She tried, she really did. But with every thrust he sank deeper and she pushed back harder, and an orgasm began to build, an ache deep inside her that expanded and grew and burned until it threatened to incinerate her. Bracing herself against the vanity with one hand, she reached between her legs with the other. His cock slid across her knuckles as she found her clit.
The fire flashed and consumed her. She gritted her teeth to keep herself from screaming as she came. The walls were thin enough that they would have heard her on stage. As she keened deep in her throat, she heard him gasp her name, a short thrust for each syllable as he found his own release.
In the mirror, they both looked rather stunned.
He toyed with her breasts. “Casabas melons, indeed,” he murmured.
She chuckled, enjoying the feel of him twitching inside her as she moved.
“Caroline? Drew?”
It was Lee.
“Where the hell did you go? We’re on air in thirty seconds!”
She’d never heard Lee speak in sentences that long or panicked. In a flurry of motion, she and Drew separated. He tucked his still-wet, still-half-hard cock back into his jeans. She grabbed a towel and swiped between her legs.
“Where are my panties?”
“Who knows?”
They raced for the stage. His shirt was untucked, and her hair wild. The audience roared their approval, clapping and whistling and stamping their feet.
Stephen Jarvis glared. Ally Jarvis did, too, although she also looked a little longingly at Drew. Or maybe Caroline.
The announcer tried to spread out the results, but the audience was having none of it. They started yelling all over again when they heard Caroline and Drew had won.
* * *
And oh, how they’d won.
Once they were able to escape from the studio, they ran the only stop sign in town on the way to Caroline’s house, where they spent the rest of the night playing with food. In bed.
On Monday, Lee called them both into his office and laid out a proposal for a new show: In the Kitchen with Drew and Caroline.
“With Caroline and Drew,” Caroline countered.
“Hot in the Kitchen,” Drew suggested.
“Yes!” Lee said.
A month later, the show was syndicated.
Some episodes could not be aired in the Bible Belt.
The Magician
Andrea Miller
The Magician stood in front of his makeshift table, three silver cups on its surface. And he held up a red bead, rolling it between his thumb and index finger. Then he slipped it under the cup on the right. “Keep track of the bead,” he told the crowd of gray men doling out their francs.
The Magician moved the three cups, switching their positions again and again but slowly enough that I knew – that everyone knew – the bead was under the cup that was now in the middle. He touched that cup, bringing it to the exact center of the table. “Is the bead under here?” he asked rhetorically. “Or is it under this one or this?” he continued, touching the other cups.
The first to play was a man with a thick mustache and he, of course, picked up the middle cup. “A winner,” the Magician declared, giving him his winnings, but after that the players were not so lucky. Yes, after that, the Magician always won and so at the end of every round he raised his shirttails (un-tucked) and stuffed the pockets of his jeans with dirty bills. And in this way I caught a glimpse of his belt – green-tinted snake skin that matched both his cowboy boots and his eyes. Gorgeous eyes. Yes, the Magician was handsome, or perhaps beautiful would be the better word. But there was something strange and ambiguous about his looks. He had broad shoulders, a sprinkle of stubble, full sensual lips and breasts like rosebuds under his shirt. And I didn’t doubt that he knew real magic. After all, when the police officer came around the corner, he made his table, his cups and his customers disappear without a trace.
Now we were alone, even the click of cop boots was receding. The Magician leaned against the brick wall behind him and looked me up and down. I came closer. “Are you a man or a woman?” I demanded. But he shrugged. “I’m beyond all that. Are you playing or what?”
“That last trick was shoddy. Don’t you have anything else up your sleeve?”
“Oh, I know lots of tricks.” The Magician smiled, confident and sly. “Follow me.”
We walked one block over broken glass on a cracked sidewalk and we went into a hotel where one has a choice of how to pay: by the night or by the hour. Then in the room the Magician shed his clothes – shed them like a snake sheds his skin, like he never again intended to cover himself. And, though I was fully dressed, he just stood there in all his unusual splendor: his skinny colt-like legs, his slender throat, his cock rising out of his slit.
“You’re a hermaphrodite,” I breathed, feeling my own slit cream.
“Intersexual,” he corrected. “But are you gonna suck my magic wand or what?”
I knelt in front of him and put the whole of his rod in my mouth. Yes, he was small like a ten-year-old boy so it was easy to have my lips wrapped around his tiny balls and circled around the root of him while at the same time his piss hole tickled at my throat. And I sucked him savagely – like I was going to bite his prick off and consume it – but I also sucked with adoration, veneration. “You have the most beautiful cock,” I murmured, my mouth full. “You have the most lovely cunt.”
The Magician’s cunt hole was shallow and tight – half formed by usual standards yet perfect in its way. I jammed my baby finger in and felt his slick pussy walls clamp down on my knuckle. He was getting close now. I could feel it in the way he thrust his hips up into my face, how he was shoving his tiny cock as far down my throat as he could. I shook with anticipation, I wanted so badly to see him come. Yes, see. I spit him out and gripped his little rod between the pads of my thumb and two fingers. “Come for me,” I urged, yanking on him. One stroke, two, three. And then come he did. His jizm flew from him like a dove and fell to the ground like rain. Yes, he came torrents.
Most people, in moments like this, flush or pant like a dog but the Magician just smiled. A pearly spurt had landed on my cheek and he seemed to like me dripping with him, being a dirty girl for him. With his hand, he wiped my face and then slowly, as if he were thinking of something else, he rubbed his hands together until the jizm sank into his skin. And when he finally opened his hands, I saw that cradled in his palm he now had a knife. The Magician winked.
Perhaps, mesmerized, I was following his silent orders. Or perhaps, after I saw that glint of metal, I laid myself on the bed because that’s what my cunt wanted more than anything else. But I do know I felt dazed – like I was in a thick enchanted stupor, like I was deliciously helpless as the Magician lopped off every button of my blouse and sliced through the crotch of my loose pants. Yes, he even cut open my panties.
There were mirrors on the ceiling and in their reflection it seemed my pussy grinned, then grinned wider as
the Magician stroked its lips – his fingers cool and slender. I tipped my cunt up to invite him deeper and he obliged, sinking his hand into my hole, though so slowly and in such a way that I just wanted more. With his other hand, the Magician rolled my clit like he had earlier rolled the red bead and my clit turned red like that, hard as glass like that. I bucked my hips, and came so close to coming, but the Magician reined me in by pausing, by ignoring the strangled gasp that came from somewhere deeper than my throat. Yes, he paused and he pulled a coin out of my pussy – a coin warm and covered with my juice as if it had always been buried in me. Like this wasn’t a trick. Then he dipped back in and pulled out another.
“Clean it with your tongue,” he demanded. And I did. Until it gleamed.
Coyote Blues
Susan DiPlacido
Pedal-steel guitars and dusty windshields on heavy-duty pickups that’re actually used for work and not just for cruising to look big and cool. Days of wind and sun and arid sand so thick you could drown in it. Washed out skies and cracking desert – everywhere you look is another variation on the colors of rust stretching out in gaping hunger. It’s a sight that makes words like “forever” seem nearly comprehensible. A forever of crimson, umber, and amber. But it’s not a muddied landscape. Mud would imply water, but there’s not much of that. Least, not that you can see, or dive into, or ever really clean off with. Soon as you’re out of the shower, the inescapable dust starts to cling before you’re even toweled off.
Or so it seems to me.
Instead of blue or crystal clear, the liquids round here match the earthen, sun-drenched hues of the land. Brown whiskey, yellow beer, and gold tequila. And it’s sucked down and sweated out by men in bootleg Levi’s and Wranglers. Not stonewashed or sandblasted or otherwise altered from the factory. No – just the heavy deep indigo and red tabs from the factory that wash out and settle down on their own. They stride with loose, loping gaits – easy and deliberate. Big belt buckles, bigger hats, straight backs, leathered faces, sinewy arms and slow drawls. And the boots on all of ’em. Lord, the boots. And the way those men squint. They squint even past sundown, if they’re looking up at the impossible night-time sky.
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