Sauce

It was a thick black sauce which I found in the fridge. I didn't exactly recognize it, but there wasn't much else, so I used it to marinate a porkchop I had just defrosted. I sniffed it first, then poured the dark goop over the pink slab of meat. I let that sit for about an hour.

Heat on high, I set the scratched-up teflon pan on the stove for a couple minutes. Then, at the critical moment, I dumped the porkchop and sauce onto the frying pan. A mushroom cloud of steam rose up, and the sauce began bubbling furiously. In less than two minutes, the porkchop was done, still pinkish, but done. Heat off, I stabbed the meat with a fork, slapped it onto a plate, and cut a piece off with my short serrated knife...

From that very first bite, things were different for me. It was as if, through some mysterious combination of ingredients, the sauce had recovered one of the primordial flavors. Not quite salty, or sweet, but like something from deep inside the earth. Apparently something I'd been craving my entire life. I gobbled up the porkchop, poured the leftover sauce back into the plastic container, and put the container back in the fridge.

It also happened that around this time, I was courting my upstairs neighbor, the one in 3B. I live in a walk-up apartment building. So, in an effort to tempt her, I started leaving the door somewhat ajar while cooking with the sauce. Sure enough, probably around the third or fourth time -- I saved what was left after every meal -- I heard a knock on my door. There she was. Nervously pushing her hair behind her ear, she confessed that her curiosity about the smell was too much to resist. I laughed away her bashfulness and invited her in.

It was her first time at my place, so I didn't really have any expectations. She performed the usual inspection of plants and books while I finished up in the kitchen. I probably would have been more nervous if I thought that things were up to me. But it was a stir-fry that night, a return to the absolute elements. Potato and onion. There was no need for fancy displays of refinement that evening. As soon as the IKEA bowl touched the table, she on it with her plastic chopsticks.

I still remember her face from that moment. What I first took to be signs of a burnt tongue -- mouth in an O, eyebrows slightly furrowed -- were actually signs of that strange inhalation which always accompanies a rush of euphoria. An unbelieving expression the moment her brain registered the taste. Fascinated, I watched her devour her vegetables. From that moment on, I could no longer get her out of my apartment.

Ours was a whirlwind romance, a blurry shuttle between bedroom and kitchen. Feasts followed orgies followed savory desserts steeped in the black sauce. As long as it flowed, nothing could come between us, and we erupted together like neighboring volcanos. I don't know how it happened, but I found myself skipping work, canceling my appointments. I was a man completely possessed.

Naturally, I tried to draw things out, prolong the pleasure. But her cravings for the sauce were just too powerful to moderate. Otherwise perfectly calm, she would explode whenever I suggested rationing. And then there was the night she caught me in the kitchen. I was in my tighty-whiteys, scooping up little fingerfuls in the dark. I don't think I've ever seen anyone's face so red, or had to sweep up so many broken dishes. I truly believe I would have been hospitalized that night if I hadn't smoothed things over with a salmon fillet.

Tensions rose as our supply dwindled. It wasn't cute anymore when one of us hid the container in a shoebox or under the sink. Of course, I tried making more, but I didn't know the recipe and it never came out right. She started disappearing for long stretches out of the day, only to come back for meals eaten in silence. And then she started sleeping in her apartment again. I had hoped that after she got to know me, she might have seen something, maybe even learned to love me. I guess it wasn't meant to be.

After one of those silent dinners, I threw the near empty container onto the table by her plate. She glanced at me with her crocodile eyes, then popped the lid and drank the dregs like broth. She kept her head tilted back with the container suspended at her lip, waiting for the last drop to separate from the plastic. After one long second, it fell onto her tongue.