Thursday, November 20, 2003
Hot Meal - part 2
I started this story last week - here. Now I’m finishing it. Here.
This time, as he negotiated with the mustachioed cashier, handing over his pre-counted change and taking his meal in its plastic basket, he never stopped staring at the cook. He knew she knew he was there for her. This time he’d made no attempt to hide the fact that he watched her as she made his burrito for him, and he had thought she’d blushed when he smiled at her. She had round cheeks and dark eyes, high brows and lips that looked like candy, and by god, she had hips. As he’d watched her through the wide window into the small kitchen where she was working on his burrito, he’d thought of her hands touching his food and a tingling rush coursed through his legs. Then she had looked at him again when his order was ready; she’d puckered her soft full lips and pressed them to the end of his burrito, her eyes linked across the room to his as she kissed his supper before handing it over to the old grouse at the register.
He was on fire, knowing now that she’d noticed him, was waiting for him to share his feelings with her. He’d intended to wait till she was off work tonight; he’d have walked around the dusty block for as many times as he’d have had to so he could be waiting there when she emerged from that door that night. That was still three hours away. But now something else was happening. She’d kissed his burrito. The thought of it made the heat rise under his skin.
He had so much to tell her, and he knew how. He would communicate with her through the universal language of burritos. Ignoring in advance the outraged scoffs and huffs of the cashier, he took his unusually large burrito to the end of the counter, where he could see her in the kitchen as he consumed her handiwork, and where she could see him too.
She was watching him as he took his place for the first time, not at the second left table, but at the end of the counter, right across from the kitchen. He turned his tall stool to face her, lifted the huge burrito in both hands and raised it to his lips; he kissed it where she had kissed it and then licked his lips gently, thoughtfully. The burrito was so firm and warm, so powerful, yet comforting - he laid it against his cheek, rolled it along the line of his jaw, cradled it in the hollow of his throat, savoring its enormity and fullness and heat. Holding it out then in front of his mouth, he confirmed that she was watching with a sly glance to the side - she was - and then let the tip of his tongue slip between his lips. He ran his tongue along the edge of the foil that ran up the length of the burrito, then used his teeth and tongue and lips to uncrimp one end of the silvery sheath she’d created for him. Taking the edge of the foil in his teeth he slowly turned the burrito and tore off the first six or eight inches of wrapper. He dropped the spiral of foil to the basket and pressed the soft bulging side of the hot burrito against his cheek, losing himself in the sensatation, the tortilla fleshy and pliant against his skin.
She was watching everything he was doing with humid fascination. As he caressed himself with the naked burrito she caught her breath, pressed forward against her steamtable. He lowered the end of the huge burrito to his mouth again, pressed his lips to it; his eyes locked on her as he laid another firm, soft, slow kiss on the end of the burrito. Her knees buckled but she supported herself on the table she leaned against. Then, opening wide, as wide as he could, he wrapped his lips around the end of the burrito, his eyes burning holes in hers, his arms tensed and bulging, her breath shallow and eager. He bit into the burrito, into a thick vein of queso fresco that instantly erupted out of the tortilla and over his lips. She gasped under her breath; his eyes lit up with delight and then then he shut them and leaned gently back. Slowly his jaws worked the big mouthful he had taken. He chewed slowly and thoroughly, keeping his eyes closed, until with a triumphant swallow he finished what he’d bitten off and re-focused his eyes on her. The dribble of cream still daubed his chin, still dripped from the bitten end of the burrito.
She took a sip from her cup of water. It was tepid and undistracting. She pressed more firmly against the steamtable and felt her heart race. This was happening. She had to participate or spend the rest of her life regretting her inaction. She stepped out from back in the kitchen, around to the register where the owner sat with undisguised disgust on her overly-made-up face. “I’m gonna take a break,” she told the owner, her eyes steady and calm. “Forget it, puta,” the owner spat back. “Give me the rest of the night off.” “You walk out of here you kiss your job goodbye.” “Then, goodbye, shitty job.” The cook blew a saccharine kiss at the owner (who sat in silent gawking shock at her audacity), and then turned to look again at the only customer in the store, to look into his eyes from five feet closer than she’d ever seen him before. He looked fine. She licked her lips and turned back to the owner: “If you still need somebody next tuesday I’ll come in and apply.” She took off her apron and her hairnet and brushed herself perfunctorily into her full flush, into an exterior presentation that masked the shuddering turmoil she felt inside.
Only after adjusting her hair and clothes a little did she turn to him again. The burrito still rested in his hands, one enormous bite taken from its tip, a dollop of creamy white cheese dripping from the divot he’d bitten, and a rivulet of that cream still drooled down to his chin. He’d not moved a muscle since he’d swallowed that gargantuan mouthful of carnitas and queso fresco and delicate yielding tortilla; he’d heard every word she’d said to her boss - her ex-boss - and he sat stock still, not wanting to jeopardize what he’d hoped to set in motion from the start, what was, incredibly, actually going on.
She looked at him from behind the counter and he was seared by the intensity in her eyes. She stepped out, grabbing a plastic bag as she went, and emerged into the dining area. She was still in white but no longer on the clock, beholden to no one, and he sat eight feet in front of her like a statute rescued from Atlantis, his hands wrapped around a massive burrito she’d built for him herself; and then the space between them evaporated and she stood before him, close enough to smell him; she reached out a finger and pressed it to his chin, wiped the cream from his face, wiped it up from his chin to the corner of his mouth, where his warm lips touched and reflected each other; she put her creamy finger in her mouth and sucked it clean and they heard each other breathe more purposefully; and then she placed her hands lightly over his, holding him as he held the burrito; she reangled it toward herself, lowered her head to it slightly, and, barely opening her mouth, licked up the cream still flowing from the bite in the burrito with the tip of her tongue. She pulled away and focused her eyes on his before she withdrew her tongue into her mouth again and swallowed. “Did you mean to get that to go?” she asked him, opening up the plastic bag she’d brought from behind the counter. “Yeah,” he replied, his smile relaxing. “Yeah, I did.”
