 |
Ricky Ginsburg - July 2018 |
|
You slam the front door so hard that the molding you nailed back in place last weekend pops out again. "Buy a ham," she said, "they're cheaper." What the hell does she know about cooking pork? Your sister was right; this one's not gonna last much longer.
As you eventually learn, after much soul-smashing angst, there's nothing but transient glory in searching bars, beaches, and last-minute-deal cruise ships for a mate. The Hefnerism of the one-night stand may have worked for the grand old god of the bachelor pad, but you start to see those women as freelance prostitutes. Gold-diggers who barter their bodies for a few drinks and a bowl of beer nuts. Hell, you've already spent more money on umbrella-garnished cocktails trying to find a woman you could tolerate beyond the first morning, than you'd make on a ten-thousand-dollar catering job. And now this one's telling you how to cook? What's next? How to piss, standing up? She wasn't even going on the ship when you met her. Just leaning against a palm tree, reading the list of departures, and running her fingers through a waterfall of fiery red hair. Bags in hand, you couldn't help but stop and stare, your eyes snapping a photograph of this magnificent image: thick, auburn locks so perfect that even the setting sun behind her couldn't illuminate an errant hair, skeins of crimson satin that flowed down her t-shirt, stopping just short of her chest. Cool air, escaping from the ticket office, had revealed her lack of a bra in a most obvious fashion. A naked man with a rack of ribs standing next to her couldn't have drawn your eyes away at that moment.
"Lots of cheap balcony cabins if you can leave today," you told her when she turned to face you. She was great for the first weekend, good for the second, shaky at midweek following that, and last weekend, you were about to shovel her out, but she was in the mood and you were in the mood and your sister had dropped off a small bag of herbal pleasure she'd smuggled back from Jamaica and, by the time it was empty, she was back to good again. So, here it is Friday. She's been staying more nights at your townhouse than at hers and there's enough of her damn clothing spread around the place that it's going to take several large suitcases to move her out. But she's not going anywhere this weekend; you've invited two dozen of your friends for a barbecue and you've no intention of being the odd man out. Your friends are bringing sides and dessert. One of them-an old buddy from college, who you only get to see once or twice a year-is bringing a bottle of your favorite Scotch, the perfect adult beverage for pulled pork, a carnivore's delight that you know can only be made from the most succulent chunks of the hog's shoulder. And here's this redheaded sex sponge telling you to buy a ham. It doesn't take much to get you to roll out the smoker and convert anything that walks, crawls, or flies into a dish worthy of an award. The pungent fragrance of hickory smoke and slow-cooked meat has drawn even the most reclusive of your neighbors out onto their balconies for a whiff. Those that have been lucky enough to be invited for dinner, now drool when the wind blows barbecue perfume in their direction. While the woman du jour may hold the distinction of first priority in your mind, traditional barbecue can easily snatch it away when there's a crowd to please. So, you buy the shoulders, two large ones-nearly twenty pounds a piece-as long as you're cooking for so many people, you may as well pander to their gluttony. Of course, at less than two-thirds the price of a ham you have no problem with the extravagance. Having washed them in cold water and patted them dry, you season them with the same passion as you massaged her back and shoulders last night-two hours worth before she fell asleep and left you hard and hopeless, while she snored. You tried to wake her early this morning, to no avail, and had finished breakfast when she finally padded into the kitchen a little after nine. Funny how all that red hair could look so disheveled and frightening. Together with her droopy eyelids and breath begging for mouthwash it made you wonder if Halloween had come early this year. Nonetheless, you kissed her and ran your hand through her tangled locks so that the second kiss would be without a strand of that glorious flax wrapped around your tongue.
But that was hours ago and with several more to wait until the meat is scheduled to start cooking, you open two cold beers and go out to the balcony where she's working diligently on her tan, wearing nothing but sunglasses and five quarts of sunscreen. ***
It's early evening when you wake up on the lounge chair on your balcony. She's inside watching television, dressed in one of your shirts, her panties, and a Marlins baseball cap left behind by a friend. You take the cap off her head and toss it across the living room. With no one else on the pool deck, she'd gone from kitten to tiger under the assumed privacy of a large beach towel. But you were more in need of a swim, so you pushed her away. She tried again, in the swimming pool, demonstrating just how long she could hold her breath under water, and she almost got you aroused. However, the pleasurable chore of cooking was foremost in your mind and you really couldn't concentrate on sex, no matter how hard you both tried.
And now, with her in the shower and your thoughts tending toward the prurient, you wonder if she's still interested and knock on the bathroom door. Rather than relight the "dancing on the causeway" fire, you let her choose the movie when dinner arrives. A bottle of one of your better Italian red wines is breathing on the coffee table when you return from taking the rain cover off the smoker. Normally, you'd drink beer with pizza, but the wine will work; just a bit annoying though, that she opened an expensive one for such a pedestrian meal. The movie she's selected is a Spanish love story with English subtitles. She doesn't understand more than a dozen words yet sighs each time the handsome male lead takes a woman in his arms. You make certain her wineglass is never empty. At the end of the movie, you consider ordering another one from the on-screen menu, but she's having a hard time sitting upright on the couch.
"You sleepy?" Purists, such as yourself, cook with only the finest, all-natural charcoal; none of those packed-with-clay-and-who-knows-what-else briquettes will ever fill your firebox. Even the ignition process is chemical-free, well, assuming there's nothing weird in two sheets of crumpled newspaper. Glancing back into the living room, you notice she's now splayed out on the couch as though she's fallen from the ceiling and landed there. That's fine, a man and his smoker need no other accompaniment for this part of the ritual. The smoker requires a full hour to reach cooking temperature, certainly enough time for you to dispatch the last of the wine. She, like most of the other women you've shared a bottle with, will miss the best of part of the evening - the stars, the quiet, the immeasurable peace of South Florida as the day comes to an end. It would be nice to have someone who appreciates the ambience and you start to think about replacing her. But then you shrug. "There's no getting around the beauty of her hair." The pork goes in the smoker an hour later; fat side up to let all those cholesterol-inducing globules render through the meat for the fifteen hours it's going to spend there. You drain the wine bottle, tapping it several times, and shuffle back inside, sliding the glass door closed as you go. She's made it around to her back over the past hour and with her mouth in the classic "O" position, you can't decide if she's catching flies or making you an offer. There's nothing to baby-sit when you cook low and slow, but a couple of hours after the meat goes in, you do need to stabilize the temperature. But it's not as if you have to stand there with a flashlight and a fan; cooking at 225 means that nothing happens quickly. You set an alarm clock for two in the morning and turn down the comforter on your bed. However, there's a twenty-seven-year-old female passed out on your couch and that's not where you intend to have her spend the night. You already lifted her several times, from several different positions, but the wine is playing Delilah with your strength. You bang her thigh into the doorframe, carrying her into the bedroom, and she murmurs the Spanish actor's name in your ear. Laughing, you whisper back, "Pero, ¿me quieres en la mañana?" and wonder if you'll ever really love her, morning or not. Yet right now, with her in your arms and the smell of her hair, washed in a combination of strawberries, vanilla fudge, and the essence of fresh patchouli, it's lust that's driving your car and love's in the backseat. You lay her down carefully on the bed, slip off the panties and t-shirt she'd put on after the shower, and stand there for a few minutes admiring the smoothness and perfect color of her skin in the light from the open doorway. Like you've done every time you've been with her since that first night onboard the cruise ship, you run your fingers through her hair, laying it out in sheets of ruby-colored satin as though it was a single swath of sunlight radiating from her head. She could be your goddess if she only understood pork.
Knowing that she's awake, you call your sister, even at twelve-thirty in the morning, and she laughs so hard when you tell her about this major failing that you hear her spit something out over the phone. *** The alarm clock wakes you a few minutes after two in the morning and you walk out naked onto the balcony to check the smoker's temperature. It's running a bit below 220, so you open the air vents and add a few more lumps of charcoal to the firebox. The night sky holds you captive for a while as you watch the clouds dance past the full moon accompanied by a symphony of crickets and the occasional hoot owl. Just as you are about to turn and go back to bed, her hands come around from behind and wrap around your waist.
"Did I wake you?" You ask, still looking at the sky. You take a couple of deep breaths and start to say something, but she flips her hair back and brushes a lock off her forehead. The moonlight catches her smile, one that you know she's rolled out just for you. Taking her hand, you guide her away from the smoker, and close the door. "They are, just smaller than the ones you're used to." |
The rest of Ricky's website.