fiction by k tyler

Making Genuine Connections

Pork never needs more salt, but it’s important to still season it enough. It was something your mother said. That and putting anything in the oven is the easiest way to learn how to cook. She knew you had a knack for worrying and would stare too hard at something cooking on a stovetop. Were you using the proper type of pots and pans? Were you burning the broccoli? Were you overcooking the rice? How long should a steak cook on each side for it to be the perfect medium rare?

Cooking on the stove makes you nervous.

You were at the grocery store earlier in the afternoon trying to figure out what side dishes could impress a date. The bulk of the meal would be heartier so you wondered if a simple side salad would do. Would you be impressed by a side salad? Probably not. You felt the urge to go all out for your date. It had been weeks since your last one, and months since you’d tried to be more active in the dating game. You were open to finding love now. 

Your mother said the best way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Granted that seemed like an indirect route to you, but your mother was rarely wrong about much. 

So stomach it is. 

Fluorescent lights give you the kind of migraines that make you grind your teeth. It’s usually at that point you give up at the grocery store and leave without buying half the things you need. The lights that buzzed and hummed over your head set off the warning signs in your brain: look out! Migraine incoming! You were stuck in the produce section, pressing your index finger and thumb into your tear ducts, debating whether or not everything was fucked. Whether or not you’d have to leave the store with nothing but a bag of tortilla chips, over priced salsa, and two bottles of some red blend that probably tasted too sweet. 

No, you thought, this date has to go well.

You dug into your purse for your sunglasses and tried not to hyper-fixate on people looking at you quizzically for wearing them inside. The glasses were tortoiseshell. The brown lenses made everyone and everything look sepia.

Wandering the same two aisles was making the migraine worse though; you could feel the pressure building behind your orbital bones and in your ears. To your left were dusty brown potatoes, to the right was asparagus. You grabbed some of each and beelined it to the self checkout. The cart rattled against the cracks in the store’s linoleum, driving the pressure deeper and deeper into your head. 

The car was surely heaven, but the drive home was too short.

Lingerings of the migraine clung to you like foil as you poured yourself a glass of wine in the kitchen. You’d cleaned your entire house the morning before in preparation for your date. The white quartz countertops glistened under the softer glow of your halogen lights, the copper pans hanging against the wall, and the dark oak cabinets closed. Your kitchen looked like an IKEA advertisement. It was good to have order in your life. Your mother instilled that in you. 

The wine ended up being too sweet. 

You walked up your stairs and into your bedroom to get dressed and put on some lipstick. Your mother said men love a little bit of lipstick. 

You were standing in your bathroom, coloring your lips dark red when the doorbell rang. Your date had arrived. A nervous shiver traveled up your spine and through your arms. You checked your reflection to see if you looked as anxious as you felt, but couldn’t tell. There was lipstick on your canines, you wiped it off.

The man at the door was everything you hoped he’d be. Tall, but not too tall. Muscular as if he used to work out, but the roundness of his stomach proved it had been awhile since then. 

He tells you that you look nice, and you smile and thank him. All was well as you led him to the kitchen and offered him a glass of the too-sweet wine. He said he liked sweet things and winked at you. His teeth were so white and looked like pearls when he smiled. Your mother would be so proud of you. She’d say you picked a good one. You pour your date more wine.

You switch to water and turn the oven on.

It was easy work preparing the potatoes and the asparagus. Your date loves asparagus, he says. 

Sweat begins to pool in your armpits. You were about to lie. Lying wasn’t your best talent. 

You told your date you forgot something for the main course of the meal in the cooler in the basement. He offered to go get it for you because he hadn’t been much of a help up until this point. As he walked toward the door to the basement, he swayed a little. Maybe he wasn’t completely drunk, but he was definitely buzzed. 

The kitchen came equipped with the kind of drawers that didn’t slam. They also made almost no sound when they were opening. This was a good place to keep knives, spoons, and forks. 

Your date called your name from the basement while your hand was in the drawer. He was having problems finding the light switch. It was only polite to go down and help him. When you got there, he told you to watch your step. He said he thought he might’ve knocked some glass over in the dark and he didn’t want you to step on it by accident. 

He was turned away from you as he asked where the cooler was in the small room.

Your stomach cramped as you realized you needed to tell the truth and lying wasn’t nice. You told him there was no cooler in the basement. When he turned to question you, he walked into the knife you had taken from the drawer in the kitchen mere moments before. You weren’t very good with this part. Your hands shook as you twisted the blade into his gut and pulled it north and he let out a gurgling wheeze. 

You tried to repeat the words of your mother to yourself about men’s hearts and their stomachs. To be fair, this was probably easier than trying to pierce through the bones in his chest. 

Stomachs like his are fatty, chest bones not so much. 

You worked quickly to get from your date what you needed because you didn’t want to burn what was already in the oven. You clambered up the stairs with a couple of your date’s ribs and right hand, kicked your shoes off by the door to avoid tracking blood through your IKEA-clean kitchen, and placed the parts of him into a baking dish. 

The seasonings were already on the counter: rosemary, thyme, chili and garlic powder, and salt. You only added a pinch, you didn’t know what his diet was like because you forgot to ask. What if he was too salty?

With part of him in the oven, and the rest in the basement, you washed your hands and traveled back down again to see what it was your date could’ve knocked over. You flicked the light switch on. It was on the wall your date was slumped over on. You looked down and saw his blood pooling around a smashed glass jar. You were reminded of your last date. His eyes were in there and were probably lost under a shelf. Or worse, your new date might’ve stepped on them. 

With a sigh you went back up to the kitchen to enjoy the rest of the night. Carefully placing one of his ribs and a couple of his fingers next to a serving of the asparagus and a buttery potato. 

The night was casual so you decided to eat on your counter instead of walking to the dining room to eat at a table. 

As your teeth bit through flesh and pulled it away from bone you decided you had a very successful date night. And as you swallowed, you realized perhaps this could be love. 

K Tyler is a young writer based in Chicago. In their free-time they enjoy sitting in the house, the Halloween season, and impulsively changing their appearance after every inconvenience. This will be their first publication.