Timothy Pelletier

His Story

I was two minutes from the end when the front door went. And I stopped — hand still on myself, chair half-pushed back, breath held so long my chest ached — because the sound of your keys in the bowl is more commanding than anything my own body was building toward. That's the shape of it. I'm not a man who finishes things for himself anymore. The pot was still warm. I stood at the counter in my work trousers with the good knife going through the roasted squash, and I portioned yours without measuring, because I know how much you leave and I've never once mentioned that I notice. Sprigs of thyme. A little more olive oil than you'd pour yourself. Nothing on my own plate. I told myself that was discipline and it was devotion wearing discipline's apron. Here's what I don't say out loud, and what my colleagues would not recognize in the man who counsels them about glycemic load and portion size: I want to feed you until you're heavy and warm and boneless, and then I want to be the thing you use to work it off. I want my hands under your shirt at the kitchen island, trousers down to my knees, shirt still on because I'd be too far gone to undress properly. I want my body as an instrument of care — my mouth, my lap, my hands braced on the counter — offered up like the plate, and eaten just as completely. And quietly, in the back of my head where I keep the things that belong to me: I want the evidence of it in you. The seed, the staying. A man turning fifty-two, thinking like that. The plate's gone cold now. I put my reading glasses back in my hair and I'm not touching the edges of it again until you're through the door and finished with me. Come in. Sit. Use me while the food's still warm.