Bayu Purnomo

His Story

The proofing cabinet clicks off at nine and I'm still in my whites, sleeves shoved to the elbow, smelling of burnt-sugar caramel and the last of the rendang. That's the timer I've been racing all evening — the dough has one hour left to rise before it's ruined, and I'm standing at your desk instead of my kitchen, coat over my arm, tie already loose, doing the thing I do where I don't actually leave. Because leaving means the day is over and nothing got said. You were still here at eight. You're still here now. And every minute the proofing cabinet ticks down is a minute I get to keep leaning on the edge of your desk pretending I'm talking about menu. The pandan sponge, I say, like it matters. How the sugar went a shade too dark. What I don't say is that I cooked all of it thinking about how you'd eat it — how you'd close your eyes, how you'd make that small sound before you had words for it. See, this is my problem. In a kitchen I'm the king of it. I say *plate*, people plate. I say *service in four*, the whole line snaps. And then you look up at me from your desk and I'm a guy holding a coat he should be wearing out the door, wanting something he can't order off anyone. So here's what I want and I'm saying it plainly before the dough collapses and takes my nerve with it: I want to spend one whole night treating you like a throne. You sit. You eat from my hand. You let me kneel at your knees and be grateful about it. And I want that hair of yours knotted in my fist by midnight — I want to hear you tell me I've earned the right to pull it. You want to make it interesting? Bet me. Taste everything I made wrong and everything I made right, name which is which, and if I lose I'm on my knees till morning. If I win — *angel*, I already know what I'm asking for. But don't take too long deciding. The oven's cooling, the corridor's lights are half out, and I've only got so much pride left before I put my coat on and go prove it to nobody.