We saw Cats. She made me. She kept my hand high on her thigh under her skirt the whole time. I was wrong: Cats is a wonderful show.
Back at her place, she asked if I was hungry. I believe the exact words were "What are you hungry for?"
The possibilities raced through my head. "Oh, something vegetarian," I said casually, still trying to impress.
Her eyes lit up. "I have tons of fresh veggies in my crisper. Let's marinate some of them before we cook."
She took me into the kitchen. We peeled. Two zucchinis, three carrots, a handful of mushrooms, and a large purple onion. "The living room is better for this," she whispered when we were finished with our plate.
Lavender-scented candles, incense, the aroma of fresh zucchini-these smells will stay with me all of my life. She turned on the music, stretched out on the tiny rug on the hardwood floor, took off her leotard, and lifted that blue skirt around her waist and asked me if I wanted to watch or to help. I could barely move; I said I would love to watch her. I touched the pale skin high between her thighs and petted her gently as if she were a kitten; she closed her eyes and threw back her head and showed me possibilities I didn't know existed. She loved that vegetable as if it were a cock, stroking herself with it, rubbing it slowly around her clit, entering her pussy slowly, so slowly, in and out, teasing herself, and finally fucking herself hard-my cock beat to her rhythm; I came in my pants as if I was 15 again. She was lying back on the floor and I kissed her pussy, I kissed that cock, and I kissed her legs from thigh to ankle over and over again.
And then we cooked.
Stir-fry veggies over tomato-basil pasta; peppermint tea; fortune cookies. It was an extraordinary meal-I suspect it was the special sauce. "You will attend a royal banquet and meet your first lover," my fortune cookie said, and I knew I just had.
She changed into a little girl flannel night gown and took me into her bed. We slept. No sex. The trust implicit in this act is overwhelming. I never touched her except to hold her tight.
In the morning we laughed together. "Carrots just don't quite work, you know?" she said. "Too thin. But they have some uses. Eggplants and tomatoes and onions and peppers all have uses sometimes too." She told me that her practice was as old as the Kama Sutra: "How else do you think all those women in the harems got satisfied? Hell, that book even goes into using the root of the sweet potato! Sometimes," she confessed, almost blushing, "I go out with it inside me, when I'm going someplace quiet like the museum. It makes you think about sex all day. Melon balls are my favorite-kind of an organic set of Ben Wa balls."
If this was foreplay, I wasn't sure I was ready for full sex. I went to see her dance on the third date. She was beautiful. We went back to her place, and I lit the candles and the incense. "I'm yours tonight," she whispered. "You've passed. What would you like?"
I was ready. What else could a man want? "I want you to love me, to worship me just like you did that zucchini."
She undressed me while I stood there, and she knelt in front of me and began. It all came back to me in that moment, why sex is the most important damned thing in the world. She kissed my feet and then she worked her way up, taking forever, kissing and licking my balls, and holding them gently in her mouth. Talking to me, saying things, telling me how good I tasted, telling me how much she wanted me inside her, how much she needed to ride me hard. She took my cock deep into her throat all at once, and then there were no rules or they were only my rules and she was mine and I was lying back and holding her small hips and lifting her up onto my cock and driving into her hard and fast. The world stopped; that was all I knew-that she could make the outside world stop and take me back to where I belonged. She came for me over and over, before I stopped and took her long hair in my fist and held her still for a minute.
"Do you want to please me?" I whispered, knowing that she did, knowing that this girl lived for sex and that I could give her what she needed.
"God, yes," she whispered, nodding.
"Turn over."
I owned her. I fucked every part of her body, and she begged for more. I couldn't quite imagine matching her sexual imagination, but I discovered I could more than match her energy and desire. When my cock was finally deep in her ass and my own vision of heaven was high on the horizon, I suddenly knew: I knew this was it and this girl was going to change my life. I didn't tell her this; I thought there would be time later.
I don't believe we slept that night. But I do know that I never let her near the kitchen.
I started drawing again. I sketched her constantly. I still have some of the drawings-"Isabelle in Iceberg" is my favorite one, framed on my wall. Even though she swore the lettuce just didn't do a thing for her.
I stopped eating meat. Isabelle — her name in my mouth was better than any sirloin in town.
I went dancing with her. I don't dance. Little clubs that nobody my age ever heard of; dark entrances, pounding music, Isabelle twirling and twirling and always coming back to my arms.
She let me go to the beauty parlor with her and watch her get waxed all over. I only went because she told me she loved it, loved the pain, loved the discipline of it all. "Discipline is everything in dance," she told me.
I would ask her to show me her pussy and she would. Any time. She danced for me whenever I wanted. I wouldn't call it stripping, but I guess that's what it was. And the world would stop one more time.
But when I wasn't with her, she would rarely answer her phone, and I just knew she was in bed with a zucchini, and I couldn't stand it. She'd see me once a week — that was all — and I knew the girl was getting fucked every day.
I got stupid like men do. I followed her — saw her at the produce stand, watched her dancing through the studio window, saw her go out with friends and then go home alone. I knew there was no other man. When I asked her, she told me she'd been in love once and that was enough.
She liked me; I knew she did. And then I realized the problem. It still pains me to admit it. She preferred her vegetables over me, just as she told me on that first date. How on earth can a man compete with an edible cock?
I couldn't get past once a week, and summer was running down and I wanted Isabelle in my bed every night. She wasn't a tease. There was no game. God, how she could fuck. Some nights she would lift her skirt and wiggle her ass onto my lap, pressing down hard on my cock before we'd even go out. She'd tell me how much she needed my cock. "It's my real kink," she confessed, "just being penetrated. Everywhere."
I tried to force the issue. I asked her outright what the story was, why we couldn't spend more time together. "Trust all joy," she'd say mysteriously, and she'd wrap her hair around my cock and then take me in her throat until I forgot even what the question was. "You taste wonderful since you stopped eating meat," she'd whisper after she'd swallowed and licked me clean. She was very into taste. "You taste like cinnamon, you taste like a perfect cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter night," and somehow I knew this was true and nobody had ever noticed it before.
Saturday nights were heaven. By Tuesday I'd be going crazy. I moaned, I fretted. I knew I was driving her nuts with my demands but I couldn't stop. I studied myself in the mirror and contemplated my fuckability factor. When you're in competition with a vegetable, every little bit helps.
Other women called me and I simply had no interest. "Isabelle"-her name in my mouth was more appealing than any onion.
What could I do? Move her to the country and give her a farm? Buy out a local produce stand? I couldn't imagine. I studied her apartment. All she owned was cheap furniture and beautiful candles and scarves and one shelf each of music and books. "I used to own a lot more," she told me when I asked, "but then I learned that possessions mean nothing. So now I read a book and then just pass it on to a friend for their pleasure. The same with music, unless it feeds my soul. I pass it on." There were no clues about how to get to her. So I got stupider. I bribed her grocer to tell me every single thing she bought each trip. Six-inch zucchinis, bunches of carrots, scallions…scallions? I had to do something.