"Charged with life immortal the beast's blood forever enriches those who partake of it." He bespeaks unto them of the artistry in extracting marrow from animal bones in the creation of rich flavored multi-textured stocks and sauces. Words impassioned to mark the life-souls of those who hear, and unwavering, to locate the horror of self doubt in those whom he would prefer dead.

And then he stops. Silent. Upon her entrance.

Glorious in a passionate red, double breasted chef’s coat and standard black checked pants, is a woman that each of the men tastes openly in his own way.

This she felt and she was in ecstasy.

As a good woman should be.

Innately they can tell who she is. Yet Chef honors her anyways. Like he would do for anyone worthy.

"Behold Sharon. As if she were we you shall address her when we are not present." he decrees.

And unto her, "Be thou entitled General until such time as our vision sees more. Our kingdom is yours. Anon."

After which he removes his being into the background to judge as in rapture the men enjoy their capture.

"Does anyone need anything of me immediately?" she asks. Knowing with totality what the Chef needs and expects from her.

No one answers.

"Then take up your stations. I'll visit with each of you in turn. Dismissed."

The men do as they want, as they were told.

Stop #1? The gently simmering tilt kettle in which 5 gallons of Lobster Bisque is gestating. It could be no other. For during a preliminary interview Chef had, with eyes and hands, lips and tongue, and a growling, echoing baritone, summonsed in her, visceral images of his soups. She had felt each word as it erected her nipples and parted her legs to finally find the point in her philosophy that made him worthy. She had moistened in pleasure, accepting the job though she had done so much more.

For now she wanted to do it for him. With him.

The soup cook, Sam, gazed upon her with an almost understanding smile. She was radiant.

"My liege believes that you must love the lives taken for the soup. That each animal and vegetable continue in strength and spirit and that if you respect them and honor them then they will inhabit the soup and make it powerful." he revered. Chef, his father, had guided him well.

He held out a soup cup from which the woman ate. Sharon shuddered. She kissed the young masters forehead. "I have so much to learn." she said and she left him hoping. And removed to the glittering chrome of the back prep kitchen with another full cup of soup to slurp from.

Instinctively she entered the ever-cold of the fish box; a cavernous walk-in refrigerator/prep area designed for the singular purpose of keeping fish fresh. Inside stands Chef the Teacher with his prep cooks. Enshrined before them lies a bloody, gutted, partially cleaned, catfish which seemed to have smiled up at her when she entered. And beside it, in a Lexan container and packed in ice, about thirty more of his, of it's, of her friends.

'So many lives.' she thought, feeling how good each of them would taste. If honored.

When, with a smile, Chef bequeaths her a knife regaled in the fishes blood, like all of them had before her she kisses it smearing the blood on both of her suckling lips. She would teach him, and all of them, the use of a sharp knife on a catfish, just as she had once told Chef that her Grandpa Walter had taught her.

And Chef was yearning for it.

She would enjoy this. Slowly.

He would never forget it.

When she returned successful to the front line, Sam stood, head into the steam from his kettle, cat's eyes closed, wide nostrils flared with confidence. Sharon studied. It had taken her but seconds of sensory happiness to know that whatever it was that he was creating she would indulge in it often.

"Report." she commanded.

"Tomorrows soup. Sir." he replied.

"What kind of soup Sam?"

" Leftovers Soup of course. But I'm not real sure what it's going to end up as. I’ll let you know in about a half an hour or so," he replied. He was testing her.

"Take the time you need. I want a list of the ingredients, and a report of the man hours. If I like it I'll want the recipe." She stared at him with strength. And he bowed his head and replied "Yes sir."

As she turned away they both glimmered, he because she had acted just as his father would have, and Sharon because she would have acted that way regardless.

Next, the 5 line cooks awaited. A fryman, an open-grill cook, a second and a lead sauté cook, and a swing man. For 2 hours between the close of the kitchen at 3:00 and its re-opening at 5:00 she is alone with them. Each is vibrantly, joyously, alive as he shows off his cooking. She presses breasts against them, touches them, actually listens to each of them with interest. "WoW! Line cooks in a restaurant!" she says to herself. And giggles.

And he had chosen them. Trained them. Opened his mind for them. Helped them grow. Paid them extremely well. It all centered around him.

Of course it would only be him.

If it were anyone at all. She needed a lot. But if Chef didn't reach her level then he wouldn't get it. Get her. Unfortunately if that were the case then she wouldn't be getting any either. And it had been years.

Of being alone with her dreams.

With her imagination.

Sharon staggered, acknowledged that she would, while hoping for the best, take the Chef, gathered herself and pushed on. The cookmen, the food, the customers, and him, they were awaiting.

Waiting for her.

And that elicited a smile and a sensuous swagger-dance from the general as she stepped to her first shift as expediter at her new job. She'd just learned from the cooks, had studied all that the Chef had given her, made all of the dishes many times at home, eaten them as a customer, and he'd even walked her through everything several times after hours. She was prepared. But a little nervous; a lot excited. As expediter she would do no cooking. It would be her responsibility to make sure that each order went out properly and quickly. And to make sure the food runners had set up, and stayed on top of, the condiments, plates, hot bread, soup bowls etc. etc. etc.

Immediately, enchantingly a female voice encased her. "Hello General." it touched. "I'm Keli. I've been waiting for you."

Sharon turned to encounter a food runner. Nipples to nipples they brushed, and they paused. Keli gave her a thorny, single red rose and gentle kiss on the cheek. Sharon blushed, then smiled sweetly. At most the girl was 15.

"Did you do this?" Sharon asked as she motioned to the perfectly set up food runners station.

"By myself" Keli answered truthfully. With no concern for nor interest in her two fellow food runners.

Sharon laughed and returned the greetings kiss and there were lots of happy smiles from everybody.

But not from the Chef.

Everything flowed and by 9:00 the dinner rush was blazing. Sharon had anticipated, and summonsed the front of the house manager to the kitchen as a food runner. Keli became assistant expediter, and if needed, the waiters were actually getting their own salads and appetizers, their own blueberry pies, and were running not only their own food but those of their counterparts. Amazing.

Chef simply, if anything about him could be considered simple, stood close by and watched proudly.

In 6 hours they served 300 soups, 200 salads, 100 appetizers, 350 dinners. Exactly 30 fresh catfish. 400 slices of Chef 's blueberry pie. She'd never experienced anything like it. Perfect. No mistakes. No non-special food items 86'd. All of the nightly specials sold out in the last half hour of service. Everything as it was supposed to be or better. And they all acted like it was the norm.

At midnight, the last meals had been created and served. Swiftly the cookmen finished cleaning their stations and storing the remaining food.

Chef disappeared without closing words.

In turn Sharon briefly visited her home, then waited for the restaurant to empty so that she could unlock it's body and admit herself into it, drink of Sam's and Chef 's soups, prostrate herself on top of a prep table, and squeal in the wildness of the food beasts whose spirits she had treated well while she ran her fingers over her body and her mind through his.

All in the arena of greatness she had added to that evening. She knew he would approve.

Later that same morning, upon the hour of 1:00 A.M. Chef finally arrived at his Castle of No Limits and remoted a massive wrought iron gate. Another button slid open the 750 volt internal fence. With dashboard computer he lowered a draw bridge 'cross a mote/swamp teeming with crocs and gators. From the middle of the bridge he tossed a heavy, squirming, burlap bag into the swamp and waited for the screams. Then he puffed out his chest and felt happy.

A mirrored, moon lit, steel and glass temple rose fortified from a self-made man-made mesa in the middle of a private tropical jungle.

Inside, he hurried to a small kitchen. At the end of a maze.

In it...

...vats and vials, and boxes of brains, cacophonous sounds and animal veins.

...and lives. Many lives.

…and Food Pleasure an ancient one of a kind recipe anthology passed from master to master to master, that will, years into our future, end up as Sharon's to hold and to add to. And to improve on.

...and a much more aged, encyclopedic collection gathered from across the worlds of fact and fiction, containing thousands of potions and lotions and chants, songs and dances and recipes for creating ideal, monogamous, conditional love. Never had it been successfully used. For it was only open to the greatest of men, for whom, by the very nature of greatness, it was ever more difficult to find a woman worthy outside the violence of their own minds.

Until Sharon.

For Chef.

He gathered his ingredients...

1/2 cup dried earthworm, ground

3 cloves fresh garlic, minced

2 large yellow onions, chopped roughly

12 ounces of his own blood (freshly drawn)

1 3/4 cups of his own semen (frozen, thawed)

2 gallons water, boiled and filtered

16 male black widow spiders, live

16 male praying mantises, live

1 large male sex organ; Bull; (freeze dried, ground)

3 piranha, live

Salt, black pepper, cayenne, butter and flower to make a roux.

... towards concocting the potion for a male homo-sapiens complete psychosexual submission to a female homo-sapiens. Without which, according to the text, a relationship could be pleasurable but would be a superficial compromise at best.

For the woman must be allowed to feel equal.

To be equal.

Things he mixed and things he cooked. The essences were souped together. The piranha, the spiders and the mantises all, one at time were honored in death. Their lives absorbed with pleasure by the chef.

Then...

With good things mixed and evils purged, 8 c.c into three veins urged. One small glass for toasting words, their lives he wished forever merged. A gallon large cup #2, for future uses, of her soul to view. His being ready for things to be, twas for painting he poured into cup number three.

He opened a notebook filled with drawings of her, naked in poses he could barely endure. His unit he dipped into cup number three. "I know you're there love," he sang "Come unto to me."

He touched to them. Drew on them. Her visible soul, her scent, they seemed to rise from the drawings. To fill the chamber.

Chef hurriedly spoke more words from the book; "All great ghosts present, Come grasp with me, enjoin me now with what I see. To body I smear to mount my erection, empower my being to please my selection.". The building it trembled. The recipe it took.

Her spirit swallowed him with out asking. He let her push into his mind. He could taste soup on her breath, in her being, the sweat on her breasts, the lamb leg she'd indulged in, the power of her. And for first time in his life a woman was allowed, a woman actually had the strength to, control him.

He approved. Entirely.

When she awoke, still on the prep table; as she knew he would be it was the Chef who awakened her with a gentle kiss on the forehead. Last night her being had left him satiated. But he hadn't had strength enough for her. Though she had to admit she'd had several ripping orgasms. But then again, whenever she took that chance, such was her norm. She laughed a little before she opened her eyes and decided that she'd give him another chance. Maybe he'd grow into the roll.

They exchanged smiles and he introduced her to Maxine who owned a farming company that supplied the Chef's vegetables, and some of his fruits. Sharon wondered why the owner herself drove the truck, but wiped that away when she realized that in a similar circumstance that she would do the same thing. Regularly.

“Perfect." was Maxine's word of introduction.

'Thank you" both Chef and Sharon replied.

They went through everything together, not even a squashed squash was rejected, and when they were through Chef made stuffed quail, scrambled eggs and english muffins for breakfast. When Maxine left Sharon realized for the first time that it was only then just 5:30 A.M. And that she was still beautifully naked.

Simultaneously next in at about 6:00 A.M. were the blueberry man and a frozen fish vender. They were introduced. Sharon never heard their names.

"200 pounds of frozen catfish?" she screamed over the Chef's voice. "Frozen? I thought the big famous Chef used only fresh ingredients." He'd already partially screwed up the sex, and now he seemed to be on the verge of failing her entirely.

"You were wrong." be said, and they all three laughed at her.

"Shut up. All of you." she replied. "Your reputation is that all of your food is fresh. What do you think you're doing?"

"Not on Saturdays." was all that he said.

"That's bullshit." she slapped.

"If you'd shut your mouth, I'd explain."

"I'm out of here. I'll be back at noon. You'd better have this place set up and you'd better have one hell of a good explanation." she said and she left through the back delivery door, ready to never return to his restaurant. Never to return to him.

Then, "Hey. Sharon." came a voice. It was the blueberry man.

She gathered herself.

"Come back to my farm with me little girl. I'll tell you a story." he said. So she went.

When she returned to her job everything was calm. Except her. Blueberry hadn't explained, but had provided testimonial. Blueberry was a good man. Instinct told her so. So she trusted him. So she returned. Somewhat open mindedly.

It was to a Saturday Lunch. More than twice the dinner pace. 2 1/2 hours of madness. 300 more people. It would all begin in minutes and they were playing charades in the middle of the kitchen. She walked by with out saying a word, to change into her chef's clothes. Keli followed. After waiting until Sharon had stripped, she handed her a menu, pecked her on those lips, smiled again, and left.

Circled in blood were the big, bold, impossible to miss words:

TODAY'S CATFISH ARE A PREVIOUSLY FROZEN PRODUCT AS IS OFTEN THE CASE WITH THE MAIN ITEM FOR OUR SATURDAY LUNCH MENU. THIS IS NECESSARY IN ORDER TO SERVE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE IN SUCH A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME WHILE STILL OFFERING A GREAT MEAL AT A GREAT PRICE AND MAKING A GREAT PROFIT. IF YOU ARE NOT SATISFIED WITH ANY OF THE CATFISH DISHES SERVED TO YOU DURING TODAY'S LUNCH WE WILL REFUND YOUR MONEY.

Sharon hung her head a bit as she read it. But then smiled. He hadn't failed her yet after all.

At her station she found the first order coming out of the machine and Keli acting as expediter. The chef stood close. He would give, for though he was upset that she had not implicitly trusted him, it was a conditional love he so desperately sought.

He would not have to act.

Sharon swept Keli into her arms and pulled her close. She hungrily slid both hands up the young girls body, clasped her pretty face and gently and then passionately kissed her. Sharon liked kissing. So she often kissed. And so she enjoyed kissing Keli. It drew them closer together; helped push their friendship.

The kitchen staff having stopped to watch, erupted in applause just as they had applauded Sam, and later Chef, when they to had been drawn towards Keli.

Sadly our Chef started to cry a little inside. And then a little on the outside. He left the kitchen for the rest of the morning. For the rest of the day. He wondered if it would be for the rest of his life.

On this day not one main meal without catfish was offered. They served catfish pie and hot & sweet pepper cat fish quiche. Pan fried catfish and deep fried catfish. Sautéed, broiled, and corn-meal breaded catfish. Catfish cakes on kaiser rolls with lettuce and tomato from Maxine's farm. They served hush puppies and coleslaw and onion rings. Two gallons of tomato-corn cajun salsa. Bowl after bowl after bowl catfish gumbo-chowder with okra.

All you can eat for $14.95. From 11:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M.

And though totally unprepared because she'd missed the entire morning training session, Sharon ran everything perfectly.

And Sharon ran everything perfectly that Saturday night. Even helping the crew with the Sunday Brunch set-up.

And Sharon hoped he had forgiven her. For not allowing him a chance to explain about Saturday afternoons.

She hoped that she could forgive herself.

Alone, neither slept that night. But neither wanted to. Each enjoyed the pain.

The next day being Sunday, Sharon was off from work. She had demanded Sundays off. Because she hated cooking eggs. Hated Sunday brunch. Wanted to know her set schedule in advance.

Having started driving towards the 24 hour grocery store for a food bounty and a newspaper she found herself outside the Chef's front gate; wondering if she would ever get inside.

Mosquitoes as big as humming birds. Lizards. Snakes. Turtles. Ravens. Armadillos. To her surprise there were also humans gathered. Even at 6:00 A.M. long after all of them should have known he was at work making waffle and pancake batter and pre-poaching eggs. All total? She guessed at over 75 including a young tourist family. But she stopped anyways, in front of the T-shirt man who had multiple shirts with the Chef 's face, shirts of his purported "first" menu, another with the restaurant logo, one looking almost water color like with a sexy nude drawing of her above his signature, and a dozen or so others including a shirt which simply read...

ADD ANOTHER ONE TO THE SWAMP

It was the shirt that all of them wore. She bought one with his likeness on it, stripped naked from the waste up, openly to feed their imaginations, and placed his face against her pert breasts.

She would have him again.

But first she would look inside the famed kingdom. There was unfortunately not much for her to see. The wrought iron was built into a huge stone mason wall some twelve feet high and topped with barbed wire, that surround a complex known to be as large in area as her entire home town.

But there was much to feel. Much that none of the others could define. Or could they? She looked at them, questioning herself. Was it possible? Did the masses know what had gone on? Were they worshipping him for it instead of lynching him?

She watched. Sensed. The psychic wailing grew, blasted more intense as the burning Florida sun fevered above the castle. Sharon could pick out blisters of evil, spirits of ululating banshees imprisoned behind the great walls.

Sharon knew. Joyously.

The Chef had killed them. Premeditated, calculated, sometimes with the same knife they had used to gut the catfish, and often bare handed. And he'd fed them whole and sometimes live to his crocs and his gators and probably to his rumored piranha.

And he'd enjoyed it.

Like a man should.

And then came the tortured soul, soul enrichening shriek of a recently murdered federal anti-trust, anti-monopoly slime ball. The kind that attempts to kill the spirit and let the mind and body work on to feed big government. His disappearance was all over the news. None but the worst had grieved. It had happened on a night that the Chef had left early without explanation. A coincidence that Sam would tell her had grown ever more common as Chef had rejected woman after woman.

Accompanying it's wail a cheer burst from those that had gathered and they made the wave with a stabbing motion with their right arms. Sharon joined in. What fun. She was glad she had stopped at the castle after all.

As they came forward for her she teared up. "Gotta stop crying so much." she thought to herself.

"No you don't. Just enjoy it." came Chef from within. And Sharon smiled uncontrollably, for it was most natural.

That morning they had a magnificent tailgate party outside of the Chef's estate and her new companions regaled her with recollections of the many recipes he bad sold unto them and cooked with them. They embraced her with folk tale like yarns of the dozens of negative lives that Chef had erased. They were beaming to be talking about him. To be talking to her.

She in turn told them stories she had heard from Blueberry and of what it was like to work for and with the man and a caringly somewhat glorified tale of that night that he had summonsed her being to his.

They all shuddered. Even the littlest of the children shuddered, like children should.

After the party ended slightly before high noon, freshly invigorated and excited, Sharon returned to her home kitchen and sought pleasure in her work. On the day she was hired Chef had told her that she would be expected to contribute to the next quarterly menu.

Or to be fired.

It would change in 3 weeks. The recipes were due on Monday. She was ready. Always she was ready for a new a challenge.

Even when she wasn’t.

If she would demand worthiness she would have to command it.

Sharon had her own volumes which she'd kept from that summer when they put the swimming pool in her back yard and Papa started showing her how to cook on a charcoal grill and Mama started showing her how to bake cookies. She had almost twenty years of notes and charts and diagrams and pictures. She had page after page of banana breads and ice creams and variations on meatloaf. She would simply finish what she'd been working on, and choose the best from her collection to fill in. It would be easy. First up was one of the new recipes, a gravy for the meatloaf. It was a long, labor intensive process. But often times good food takes lots of time to make. When it seemed finished she took out her eye droppers.

She placed three drops on the tip of the tongue and adjusted the gravy's sweetness. Next with a new dropper, into a cleansed mouth, she dropped four times across the back of her tongue. She found the sauce had no bitterness and she was pleased. All too often she would slightly bum a gravy and then she would have to greatly adjust. There was nothing to make it sour so the last step was to adjust the salt.

Quite by accident after swallowing a mouthful of saltwater while body surfing in the Atlantic off of the Rhode Island Coast Sharon had discovered that she tasted salt most strongly toward the outer edge of the back third of her tongue. Right near the molars where people would be chewing their meat loaf. So that was where she always adjusted to, being careful not to make anything to salty. For people could always add more if they wanted, but it could not be taken out. Well, yes, the volume could be increased so as to dilute the product, and then it could be adjusted and reseasoned, but that was impractical. Best just to not make any mistakes to begin with.

At the end of the night she had everything ready. Plus. She would give him more then he had asked for. Overwhelm him with her talents. Maybe it would help to ease the tension over what had happened on Saturday morning. She didn't want to be fired. Didn't really think that she would be. Or should be.

On Monday morning she was there to meet Blueberry and Maxine and the rest of Chef's purveyors. They knew. She could tell by looking at them. By the way they looked at her. Chef had been changing his menus every quarter for five years and they knew when the recipes were due. They all kissed her well. She kissed them back. They smiled at her. Envied her. Many assistant chefs and cooks before her had been fired.

And many before her had been exalted.

And normally Sharon wouldn't have cared what happened next for she knew that she had done well. But this man's opinion meant something to her. This job was important to her. And she was glad of it.

By 10:00 A.M. all the food to start the week with was in house and it was time.

He called her into his office.

She gave him a folder with the menu items, their recipes, cost breakdowns, approximate prep and cooking times. A folder with years of love-work, her heart, mind, and soul all bundled up inside for him to handle, to evaluate.

And he did. Quickly.

"What did we order unto you?" he spoke down unto her.

"It's all there. And more."

"Answer us!"

"Two dinner entrees. Two appetizers. Two desserts. One soup. One entire Saturday Lunch menu."

"Then what manner of violence denigrates our presence? A cookbook fired from the weakness of your very soul?"

"I thought..."

"You thought that if you always went beyond what is asked for, and what is expected that you'd always come out ahead."

“Yes.”

"We think that by supplying us with five times what we asked for that you don't have to take a chance on saying "This is my best." and having us reject it."

"You're wrong."

"Then you thought that we would seriously consider turning over half of our menu to you?"

"Yes. The food is good."

"It's more than just whether or not the food is good. It's what we want. What we ask for. What we need for our life and for our menu. And we told you exactly what that was. Now take of us your leave, and return not into our restaurant until you are capable of giving it to us."

Sharon, confused, packed up her belongings, left the menu folder on the Chef 's desk, grabbed a thermos full of Broccoli Cheddar Soup and called Keli.

The apartment was within walking distance. They were together in minutes. Sharon in tears, Keli ready.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

“He threw me out. He wouldn't listen to me." It came out as a sob.

'Like when you walked out Saturday morning." Keli said and she took Sharon's

hand as they sat on the couch.

" But he thought I was insecure."

"Most women are."

"I'm not most women." she screamed, pushing away.

Keli answered gently, "I never said you were.", and she pulled Sharon in and kissed her. And of course Sharon kissed back, and took out Keli's breasts.

"You've done this before." Keli moaned.

"You know woman are naturally bisexuals How could you think I wasn't?" "If you've realized that then how can you expect monogamy with Chef?" Keli asked, happy with herself for having trapped her partner.

Confused, Sharon stopped. "What?" was all she said.

"Happiness through monogamy is impossible." Keli stated and she tugged

down her partner's chefs pants, and bikini bottoms, and unwrapped her own sarong.

Sharon pushed away again. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that for men like Chef one on one for life is crucial. Except a woman can't be long term monogamous. With either sex. If she tries she's denying the other half of her sexuality."

"But ...”

"No buts. To the extent you want it, it's impossible."

Of course Sharon knew she would never stop loving women. They meant to much to her. So she answered, "O.K. So what am I supposed to do instead?"

"Fall in love and live happily ever after."

"And just how am I supposed to do that?".

"What am I? Some kind of sex toy?"

"You know what I mean."

"No. Why don't you explain it to me?"

"With a man. I want a loving, long term, monogamous, relationship with a man."

"Weren't you listening?" Keli said and she parted her legs very convincingly.

As they made love for the first time, already Sharon was hoping for a relationship that would last forever. With a woman! And it need not be monogamous.

She smiled deeply.

But still she cried.

Because she had begun to understand that there could never be an ideal man for her. A life long dream was dying, and she thought briefly about suicide.

A couple of days with Keli passed and Sharon decided to go back to the Chef and tell him that she had chosen the best of her recipes and to give him what he had asked for.

But then she changed her mind. She was right. And since it was his restaurant after all, she admitted he was partially right also. She wouldn't give in though. They would show down and she would win or she would quit. It was simple. Either she would enjoy her job and the people she worked with or their was no reason to keep it.

What was the sense in paying the bills at the expense of day to day happiness?

What was the sense of attempting long term monogamy at the expense of her life?

So she called him. Told him to be at the restaurant after work on Saturday night. 1:00 A.M. She would not return until then.

When she entered the kitchen it was dark. Completely dark. She could smell her meatloaf and it's sauce cooking. She could smell her ground chicken pasta sauce and her crab chowder and her dark chocolate, coconut, and macadamia nut cookies. With love she stood silent and breathed it in. All of it. Every menu item that she'd presented to him was their for her, for them.

On her shoulders she felt his hands. They gripped her and wouldn't let her get away. She turned to face him. And said "No". And pushed herself away. Or at least tried to. He grabbed her by the hair and forced her tightly against his hips and chest and asked "What do you mean, "No."?" and she said it again with a little less force. "We have to talk" she said, and he shut her up by yanking her hair down and back and making her gasp. And when he unbuttoned her chefs coat, flipped the bra-latch, and twisted her nipple their was a last gasp with out any strength behind it whatsoever.

So he had her. And he loved it. And for that night she never said no to him again. Nor did he ever say no to her.

But when it was over she cried. She loved him. But she was now, thanks to Keli, aware of their ultimate long term fate. She would just have to accept it. Postponing it as long as possible.

They spent 2 weeks at his castle and at the restaurant making each other happy, and sad. Then, ever so quickly it seemed, it was the first night of the new menu.

People had waited in line from early Thursday afternoon. They'd pitched tents, brought dates, celebrated. Many of them she'd seen every Sunday morning at the tail gate parties. The kitchen would be open round the clock from 3:00 P.M. Friday until 12:00 midnight Saturday. For 33 consecutive hours she'd, they'd, he'd, pump out the best restaurant food most of these people would ever eat. Her food. Lots of it. Plate after plate. Pound after pound. All-you-can-eat pleasure. 80, 90, 100 people per hour. Over 2500 people.

And they came to eat for free. In order to get the kitchen used to producing new food at the high standards, high volumes needed, it was all free. All of it. To the right people. For the wrong people, as decided solely by the Chef, no amount of money would get them in the door.

Again it was the ideal as reality. The 2 days were the best 2 she'd ever spent at a job. Sharon had a ball. Yet it meant so little.

For she'd come looking for love and for inspiration in one of the greatest creators known, found it, and relinquished it before it had a chance to grow.

After the work was over, the couple spent Saturday night pleasuring each other in the fish box and sleeping in a tent that Chef had permanently fixed on the roof of his restaurant.

Sensing her anxiety he invited her to work with him on Sunday because he didn't want to let her out of his sight.

She said no. And she told him about Keli. And he cried.

Sharon spent the night holding him, and cuddling with him and allowing him to love and to feel love. And in the morning she quit. Quit another job, another man. Quit and returned to herself To her imagination. Quit because she was happier being alone with her ideal partners locked up inside of her head than she ever was projecting their traits onto those who could not meet them. Onto those who were merely an incomplete promise. And besides she would try again. And even if she never found that impossible man, worthy of her, she would be happy, for she knew that there was simply no point in being anything else but.

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