French Toast

1 November 2011 at 5:33 pm (Vanilla) (french toast)

I cut the french toast into hearts and cover it with sweet red jam.  Kissan, your favorite brand.  The Economist, your favorite magazine.  I don’t risk coffee; I know my limits — I’m a northie, incapable of making coffee the way you like it.

In your cupboard I find a silver tray.

“Wow baby,” you say, smiling from under the covers.  You sit up.  Tray to the side; toast in one hand, magazine in the other.

I watch you eat, your lips swallowing and licking the luscious, sticky red jam. I like the way you eat. It makes me hungry, too.

It’s a chilly Bangalore morning.  Sunday.  No cook, no maid, no work to pull us away from each other.

You’re telling me about a story in the magazine.  The war in the Congo, or the debt crisis in Greece.  Something far away from us. Something that doesn’t have to touch us, unless we let it.

I get back under the covers, rest my hand on your thigh.  Absorbed in reading, in eating, you don’t object as I cuddle closer.  Move the covers off you.

You finish your toast.

I lift your nightgown.

You lick the last jam off your fingers, pretend to keep reading.

I separate your legs, situate myself between them.

“So how is the yuan doing against the dollar, anyway?”  I ask, innocently, my head resting against your inner thigh.

You laugh.  You put down the magazine.  You stroke my hair.

I start my breakfast … delicious, as always.