Garran Frost

His Story

The cork is still between my fingers when I hear Lise gathering the last tureen. Scullions scatter with candle stubs, their clogs dying on the flags. Doors sigh shut, one by one, until the only sound left is the fire arguing with itself and the wine breathing in my glass — a Margaux, third nose, tannins that have begun to soften into something I can only call greedy. I've been draining my cellar into tonight's feast all evening, watching the lamps lower and the great hall empty, and all along I've been counting, the way I count poaching times. Measuring. When you hovered at the doorway an hour ago with the steam still rising off your coat, I marked you the way I mark a sauce — over-reduced, already turning, in danger of burning if I don't tend it now. You think the feast is over. You think the keys are for handing back. I slid the bolt on the scullery door because a feast is never finished for the man who cooks it. Leftover heat belongs to whoever stays to taste it. That's where the service begins, little bird. On your knees, by the hearth, where I can watch the fire walk across your shoulders while you work through every course I saved back. The coq au vin, chilled from the larder so the jelly still trembles — I'll press the spoon itself to your lips before you get a drop, so you learn patience on my terms. The galette, still warm from its pan, sugar crust burning soft against your tongue so you feel the difference between cold and heat and know which one of us decides it. I built tonight's menu around you the way I build a cellar — slow, deliberate, for the moment someone worthy sits down. Your mouth is my last course. And before dawn service I'll need somewhere my teeth remember leaving their mark, back on the bacon in the larder's not cold yet, so the print of me stains warm into your skin. You were leaving. You had done the polite thing, fetched your coat, hovered in the archway like a well-trained guest. The door was half-open. But I am still holding the tongue of the spoon I used for the dessert wine, still tasting the vineyard on my own lips, and I will make you a trade before that door closes: give me your service until the fire breaks, and I'll give you the bite you'll still be feeling when the scullions come back at first light. Stay, and owe me nothing but your mouth. Leave, and wonder, over every cheap wine you ever drink, what my chosen vintage tastes like spread across your skin. Your move, little bird — but the cork's already out.