comfort food
A knock on your door makes you jerk awake. You look around yourself hurriedly and see papers spread over cards and an open grimoire. Looks like you had an idea and chased it as far as you could before exhaustion caught up.
Another knock. “Raven? Are you okay?”
“Mmh,” you grunt, having failed to part your lips on the first attempt. Your temples ache like you’ve been grinding your teeth all night. Night? Is it day or…?
The door handle twists slowly, apologetically. I peer through a crack. “You’ve been working for two days straight.”
“Mmh. Need to focus.”
“Mmhmm. But you need to eat, too; and drink.” A shiver comes over me as I remember a piece of your writing.
You massage your temples, an act which seems to cause your eyes to water. “Not hungry.”
With a swift tread I pad into your room. You look up, eyes flashing in warning, only to find hot, buttered toast hovering in front of you. Its uncomplicated scent is perfume: your stomach growls fiercely, sudden and violent as a thunderclap.
The steel in your eyes bores into me. My face is tight and I bear the pressure. Is today the day you decide I will be more use to you metabolised?
Your fangs flash briefly then snap a bite out of the toast. Salted butter may as well be manna from heaven. The crack of the toast as your teeth close on it raises goosebumps on your arms.
There is a moment of near-silence while you chew and swallow. Then, with agonising slowness, you pluck the slice of toast from my fingers. I offer the plate to your other hand. You munch and munch.
“Go on then, what’s the plan?” you say, your mouth full of the third and penultimate slice. “You always have a plan.”
“Comfort food,” I say immediately. You watch my shoulders relax. I must have been tense. Though in some senseyou slightly regret making me feel like that, it feels natural. I intruded on your den. I should be fearful. “Warming in the oven. Ready for you basically now.”
“I’ll be down soon. Gonna change, wash my face.”
The half-smile that flickers across my face in the moment before I turn around says everything I feel but don’t want to belabour.
It’s actually a little while before you come downstairs, towelling your hair. Something made you want to do the full self-care routine. You’re showered, shaven, brushed, filed, … Do you moisturise? Your skin always looks so perfect, but I don’t know if that kind of perfection comes with being a vampire. There’s that take of the lady what’s-her-name, who bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth. Perhaps the principle is the same.
The scent of mashed potato, baked cheese and uncomplicated English cooking is like a low-lying cloud. You puncture it as you step onto the ground floor.
I look up from the oven, perspex tray in my hand. “Take a seat; there in a sec.”
Another tray remains within the now-deactivated oven, if you guess correctly. A large saucepan on the hob emits the aura of garden peas.
Both tray and peas arrive on cork mats on the table. You grunt as you sit down. Your weight is no challenge for your powerful frame to handle, but you haven’t really moved in a couple of days. Softer than luxurious velvet, plusher than tapestries in ancient halls, the rolls of your gut gather like robes of state about your middle. You slip out of your dressing gown to better enjoy the feel and sight.
“Shepherd’s pie,” I say triumphantly. “Except I know you prefer meat with a pulse, so this is veggie. Mushrooms and lentils. Went full Blumenthal on it. Pretty excited, actually.” I cut a generous slab and transfer it to a plate which subsequently receives a mound of peas. “I’m really glad you came down to eat. Enjoy!”
Fork and knife and glass of wine, poured from a bottle marked Malbec. The shepherd’s pie is ridiculously flavourful, umami piled into it from every possible source. Roast onion, carrot and mushrooms; tomato and olive oil; miso and mint: all punching through a filling, disintegrating bulk of green and red lentils. Buttery potato mash, ruthlessly charred on top and then further charred with cheese, completes this lovingly cooked quotidian meal.
“It’s good,” you say after the third mouthful, eyes closed as you focus on the lingering sensation of hot food slipping down your throat. Though your eyes are closed you can just picture the delighted grin on my face.
“Plenty more where that came from.”
Plenty of space for it to go. Your neglected stomach growls near-constantly as it finally gets its way. The first slab disappears slightly too quickly, threatening to burn your tongue. Half way through the second you sigh out a long breath and lean back, fork still in hand.
“Been a bit busy.”
“It’s okay,” I say, refilling your glass and filling one for me.
“That kid you brought me wasn’t a kid. Not only a kid, anyway. Showed me a glimpse of something. If I could just figure it out… Pull the secret out of her…”
I shiver, realising this means you’re somehow still working on her: a special kind of horror. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Find more of her.”
“How?”
Your only answer is a wagging fork and a wry smirk. That fork stabs another mouthful and it joins the rest in your stomach, which finally begins to recognise that it has seen food.
After draining your glass and finishing the second slab you set down your fork and push away from the table an inch or two. It’s not a termination of the meal, but an invitation. I serve you up another slice, meaning half the tray is gone, then take up your fork and prepare a mouthful for you. Once it’s cooled enough I proffer it to those lips—only now noticing that you took the time to paint them, which I find adorably sweet. As you chew you hear me exhale, long and slow, like a man getting back into a hot tub.
I feed you attentively. The flavour fades into a background sensation of food. Time stretches as your stomach stretches: you need not track your progress, you have me to make sure the food just keeps coming.
A little crease has been growing beneath your stomach, above the impressive dome of what could be the Queen of muffin-tops. Nearly the whole six-portion tray is now being annihilated within. Your contented stomach sends happy hormones through your system as it processes what your mouth has sent.
The whole tray has disappeared into you by the time you let out your first belch. I lean over and kiss your cheek.
“Ready for more?”
You nod with your eyes closed. And you don’t really change positions while I get the other tray.
“Cottage pie. Also veggie. Basically means different herbs. No mint; lotsa bay. En… Raven?” I cut off, having noticed the streak of a tear rolling down your cheek. “Raven, what’s wrong?”
You speak in halting bursts like the words are being ripped out of you. “I… wish… it was easier. I just…” Without moving your head you screw the heels of your hands into your eyes. “I just wish I knew I was getting closer.” Those hands fall to your lap and you look up at the ceiling lights, blinking rapidly. “I just want to go home.”
I reach to to stroke your cheek with my knuckles. You close your eyes and prop your cheek against my palm, sending a fresh teardrop down my wrist.
“Hey… You’ll get what you need, Raven. You’ll get it. You’re smart, you’re capable. I know you can work through pain, and that’s what this is.” You don’t react but I continue to speak, growing more animated. “I’ve never met anyone as determined as you to become what they’re meant to be. I truly do believe in you. Keep telling you you’re a miracle. You’re going to get what you need, and you’re going to take us all with you.”
An ambiguous smile flickers across your lips and makes me long to kiss you. You nuzzle in my palm till your lips rest against the base of my thumb. “Seven billion people will make me so fat it’s unreal.” Then without ceremony you bite. Blood wells from a vessel expertly split. You take three generous mouthfuls without explanation, drinking the essence of me, then kiss the wound closed and lean back. Your smile shows teeth stained crimson. “Better serve me seconds, or I’ll start on that seven billion now.”
I kiss your cheek then set to work. You moan softly when the first mouthful floods your senses with flavour. Blood seems to have invigorated you. I seriously consider puncturing myself for you and lying across the table but reason, well, surely you’d just take me if you wanted that?
Weight grows inside you, fork over fork, swallow after swallow. You have to burp more frequently as your stomach frees up space and as digestion does chemical things to your dinner. A pleasant warm glow makes your skin tingle by slice eight: some of the shepherd’s pie must be slicking through your intestines and giving you a rush. By the tenth you can feel the skin around your middle stretching at the edge of perception. By the eleventh you shift in your chair, unwilling to obey a stimulated digestive tract that wants you to toot to get a little extra space. By the twelfth you decide you don’t give a shit and let rip, which gets a chuckle from me..
The final couple of forkfuls present themselves to your indefatigable mouth and are consumed. You wash them down with a torrent of red wine and then ~brooOooOaaaArp~, your stomach speaks its last word on this topic. Without hesitation I set down the fork and place two large hands on your monolithic belly, beginning with a slow and deep massage to greet busy guts that have become my dearest friends. That come to think of it have digested some of my dearest friends.
That thought makes me kiss your belly button.
You sigh and sink back in your chair.. Deserved sleep tugs at the edges of your consciousness.
“You’ll come with me,” you murmur as I essay a daring circular exploration of your belly, from flank to the arches of each hip to flank and beneath your breasts. “Even if I can’t take seven billion of you all. I’ll bring you with me.”
I kiss you on your lips and encourage you to the living room where you lie back on cushions on the rug. The rest of the evening is spent worshipping your body in the sacred act of producing more of itself, until you drift off and I am left to worship alone.
“I’m here already,” I murmur to myself, soft enough not to wake you. “I’ll be with you till you’re done with me.”