More Than a Kiss

Congress of Cow

Amy walked into the house and was immediately engulfed by the aroma of curry emanating from the kitchen. She followed her nose to the source, expecting to find Isabel. Instead, she found Jeremy stirring something in a saucepan and reading a book - both very unnatural things for him.

“You’re cooking?” Amy said.

“Actually, I’m only babysitting. I have strict orders to not stop stirring.”

Amy peered into the pot and saw something green and lumpy. She was no expert, but she knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sign. “What is that?”

“It’s Saag Paneer. Or will be when it’s done,” Jeremy said, not looking up from the book he was holding. He cocked his head and then turned the book upside down and squinted his eyes.

“It’s what?” Amy said, taking the wooden spoon from him and giving the goop a good poke. It had the consistency of something found in a touch pool at the aquarium. She felt the urge to do it again, the way kids like to poke dead things with a stick.

“Saag Paneer is Indian for green slime. It’s essentially cooked spinach with this Indian cheese stuff. The sauce is supposed to be thinner than this but he ran out of coconut milk. He went out to get it. He’s making you dinner.”

“He? He who?” Amy asked with a note of panic.

“Chad he, that’s who. You know a man’s in love when he starts cooking dinner.”

“What!” Amy said, dropping the spoon and splattering green stuff everywhere.

“Seriously, the dude’s got it bad for you. He was like so down about what happened at lunch that he took an express cooking class this afternoon to woo you back. The only class they had available was Indian cooking. Hence, the green slime.”

“That’s just great. I thought I could spend an evening alone with you and Isabel. I had something important to tell you both and…” her voice trailed off when she realized Jeremy was more interested in his book than in what she was saying. “What’re you reading?”

“The Kama Sutra. Talk about a real eye-opener.”

Amy looked over his shoulder at the drawing he had been studying. “That’s not even humanly possible.”

“Apparently, it is. Those bodies are drawn to scale. I think you just have to be really limber.”

“Why do you even have this?” Amy made some deductions and she hoped she was wrong about all of them.

“It’s not mine. It’s Chad’s. He bought it with the cookbook. He’s boning up on some new positions to try out on you.” He laughed. “Boning up. Get it?”

“Not funny. This is wrong on so many levels I don’t know where to start,” Amy said.

“No, I think the dude is right on target. His plan is to feed you and then fuck you like…” he shows her a picture in the book, “a congress of cow.”

“That is so not going to happen.”

“You prefer him to fuck you like a panda?”

“Jeremy, there is going to be no fucking – panda, cow or any other animal.”

“He’s going to be totally bummed out. What’re you going to tell him?”

“Good question.” She could call Jordan and have her call back with some fake emergency. Amy bit her lip. In theory that was a good plan but maybe the wrong person. Jordan was already skittish about Chad. Amy didn’t want to make it any weirder. She thought some more. Her mother! She’d be perfect. Who can deny the call of a sick mother? And it would have the added benefit of not looking like she was rebuffing him because the rebuff strategy was backfiring. It was making Chad more ardent than ever.

“Do you think that Chad thinks I’m trying to play ‘hard to get’ and that’s why he’s trying so hard to get me?”

Jeremy stared back at her. “Could you put that in like man-speak?”

Men and women were not of the same species despite the claims of science, Amy had concluded. She tried again. “That’s what you told me once. That he thinks I’m playing hard to get.”

“Yes, and he likes it.”

“So if I acted like I wanted him then would he go away?”

“No, he’d totally marry you.”

“And then cheat on you the day after,” Isabel said, entering the kitchen. She was carrying a bag of groceries with celery sticking out of the top and something moving in the bottom.

“What’s in the bag?” Amy asked.

“A live lobster which I really need to get into some water,” Isabel said, setting the bag down on the counter. She peered into the pot on the stove. She took the wooden spoon from Jeremy and poked the green, lumpy stuff. “What is this?”

“Saag Paneer,” Jeremy said.

“It needs more coconut milk.”

“Chad went to get it,” Jeremy said.

Isabel ran water into the sink. She carefully extracted the lobster from the sack and dumped it into the water.

“What are you making for dinner?” Amy asked. “Lobster bisque?” Amy didn’t know what lobster bisque was exactly, but it had to better than Chad’s Pig Veneer or whatever it was Jeremy was stirring.

“No, the lobster is for the lobster race that’s being held at the Extreme Cook Off downtown in the Convention Center,” Isabel said.

“Lobster race?” Amy asked. She did a double take when she saw Jeremy was now studying a diagram on cunnilingus. She made a mental note of the page number.

“The placement of your lobster in the race determines your place in the cook off. Obviously being in the top ten is best. Judges’ palates get jaded and gastric problems start occurring so you want to get in early.” She gestured at the lobster in the sink, saying, “I thought this guy looked pretty fast and he was hot-to-go getting out of the tank. Look at him trying to get out of the sink now.” She grabbed a spatula and parried it at the lobster, like an errant knight defending a damsel. The lobster evaded Isabel’s thrust, reached out with one deadly claw and snapped the spatula in half.

“Wowzer,” Isabel said, surveying the decapitated spatula.

“Wowzer is right,” Amy said. “Remind me not to get on his bad side.”

Isabel threw the spatula in the trash. “I guess that’s why they’re usually sold with rubber-bands around their claws.”

“So, after the race, are you going to eat him?” Amy asked. Jeremy was totally engrossed in the book and not stirring. She poked him with her elbow. “Keep stirring.”

“Depends on if he wins or loses the race,” Isabel said, looking down on him. “His performance will affect my life. If he places high I should reward him with life, don’t you think?”

“You could take him to the beach and free him,” Amy said.

The front door slammed, announcing the arrival of Chad with the coconut milk. Amy panicked. He was the last person she wanted to see. She was about to sneak out the door when Chad appeared, blocking her only exit. “Hello, my little love button.”

Amy gritted her teeth and looked at Isabel, sending her telepathic messages. Isabel caught on and came to her rescue by saying, “You better get that coconut milk in the Saag Paneer because it has the consistency of wallpaper glue.”

Chad quickly began tearing the top of the container. “How much do you think?”

Isabel shrugged. “Don’t know. Never made the stuff. I have a spastic colon.”

Chad noticed Jeremy reading and snatched the book away from him. “No one was supposed to see that, you idiot.”

“Hey, I needed entertainment. Stirring is boring.”

Chad poured in a tiny bit of the coconut milk. Jeremy had to use both hands to stir the thick gunk. “Keep stirring,” Chad ordered.

Isabel grabbed the carton of coconut milk out of Chad’s hands, saying, “Let me help. You men are useless.” She poured a little at a time into the pot while Jeremy continued stirring.

Chad leaned up against the counter next to the sink, affecting a pose that Amy supposed was calculated to look like a male model. He tossed Amy his famous wink. She didn’t bother to catch it.

Chad changed poses, leaning on one arm, crossing his feet and pooching out his bottom lip. Amy supposed it was his sultry look.

“Where are your pink shoes?” Amy asked.

Chad’s smile disappeared. “They were stolen. I couldn’t believe it. Who would steal pink size 12 men’s shoes?”

“A clown?” Isabel said.

Amy snickered.

Chad ignored the insult. “Do you know how hard it is to find a shoe like that?” he said, petulantly. “And now I’ve got to do it again. But you should see all the adorable kid Converse shoes. You know for when we’ve got little ones,” Chad said, raising his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx.

Amy might have decked him if what happened next hadn’t happened.

Chad’s face turned red and he screamed. He plucked his hand up off the counter by the sink. The lobster was dangling from his finger! The lobster had a death grip on his forefinger with one of its enormous claws. Chad jumped up and down, spun in a circle and then banged the lobster on the edge of the counter. The lobster sailed across the room, splashing into the pot of Saag Paneer.

Jeremy yelped and jumped back.

Isabel screamed, “Save him!”

Amy said, “I’ll save him!” She rushed to Chad who was now spurting a stream of blood from his hand.

Isabel shook her head. “Not him! Save the lobster!” Isabel pushed Jeremy back and whacked the back of the pot. It turned over, emptying out the green lumpy stuff and one seriously dizzy lobster onto the floor. The lobster scurried away.

Jeremy put his hands over his ears, screaming, “Will somebody please turn off the alarm?”

“That’s not an alarm. It’s Chad screaming,” Amy shouted. “The lobster bit off his finger!”

That seemed to be news to Chad. He looked down at his hand and, for the first time, saw that he was missing his index finger. He stopped screaming. His eyes rolled back into his head, his knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor.

“What kind of doctor faints?” Isabel said.

“One that just lost his finger,” Amy said.

“He’s bleeding an awful lot,” Isabel said. This observation kicked Amy into gear. She grabbed a dishtowel and kitchen shears. She cut the towel into strips. “Snap, snap, you two,” Amy said, gesturing to the floor, “find the finger. The lobster probably dropped it into that green goo.” She tied the strips to Chad’s hand, fashioning a tourniquet.

Jeremy and Isabel knelt on the floor, searching the globs of Saag Paneer with their bare hands. They looked like two kids making mud pies. Green mud pies.

“How do we know which lump is it?” Isabel asked.

“Just find a lump that looks like a finger,” Amy said.

“They all look like decapitated fingers,” Jeremy said.

Amy said, “Get them all, we’ll sort it out later.”

“I found it!” Isabel yelled triumphantly. She held the finger up for everyone to see.

Jeremy gently pinched the dismembered digit between his thumb and forefinger and dunked it in the sink of water, to rinse it off. “Isabel, get a baggie. Fill it with ice.”

Isabel leaped up and got a baggie and ice. Jeremy dropped the finger inside. Isabel put her hands on her hips and looked at the kitchen floor. “Gross. It looks like Linda Blair was here.”

Satisfied that the tourniquet was working, Amy turned her attention to waking Chad up. She slapped him across the face. He didn’t move. She slapped him again, harder.

Chad’s eyelids fluttered. He opened his eyes and smiled at Amy. “I knew it. I knew you cared.”

She gave him one more slap just because she could.