Catering to You

I wake up in my crew cabin with chocolate on my mind.

Not a bad way to wake up, honestly. Except the chocolate in question was on my fingers last night, and a woman named Kassandra Bigshot was licking it off while I stood there foolishly holding a serving spoon.

Let me back up. I'm Lee Rodgers, thirty-five, caterer. I've been working the Sunset Star out of Miami for eight months now. Divorced two years, no kids, no drama, just a guy who cooks for a living and thought a cruise ship gig would be easy money.

And it has been. Until last night.

Last night I got a private booking. Penthouse suite, deck fourteen. The client had used the ship's catering service before, they told me. Repeat customer, requests a dessert course served "in a particular manner."

I figured particular meant she wanted it plated a certain way. Or she was allergic to something. Or she wanted the plate warmed.

Nope.

Kassandra Bigshot, forty-two years old, rich enough to buy the ship and bored enough to be interesting, sat me down at her table, put a bowl of chocolate mousse in front of me, and said, "Would you feed it to me? With your fingers. Only if you want to."

I laughed. I thought she was joking. She was not joking.

"Ma'am," I said, "I'm a caterer, not a..."

"Kassandra," she said. "And I know what you are. I'm asking you to feed me dessert with your fingers. It's not complicated, Lee. Yes or no, and no is a perfectly good answer."

And here's the part I keep chewing on this morning. I wanted to. Nothing to do with the money. But the second she said it, something in my chest went oh, hello, that's new.

So I did it. I dipped two fingers in the mousse and held them out and she took them in her mouth, slow, eyes on me the whole time, and cleaned every bit of chocolate off. Nine times. Nine fingersful of mousse. By the fourth one my ears were hot. By the seventh I could not stand up straight if my life depended on it.

She thanked me and said, "The dessert service goes through the office like always, and the fingers were never part of that. That was only ever yours to say yes or no to. If you want to, same time tonight. Bring something with fruit."

Then I walked back to my cabin on legs that did not feel like mine.

* * *

I'm lying in my bunk now with my phone in my hand. There's a message from an unknown number, sent at six this morning.

Good morning, Lee. I enjoyed last evening. I trust you slept well. Tonight I'd like berry tarts. Three of them. Eight o'clock. K.

I stare at it for a solid minute.

Berry tarts. Three of them. She wants me back.

I should say no. That's the sane move. This woman is a client, this is my job, and what happened last night lived in a gray zone I'm not sure I should visit twice. I'm a professional. I have a rep to keep. Chef Mateo would fire me so fast my head would spin if he knew what "particular manner" meant.

But I type back: Eight o'clock works. Berry tarts it is.

Then I lie there and think about why I said yes.

Here's what I keep coming back to. It wasn't just that she was attractive, though she is, all sharp cheekbones and dark hair and a laugh that comes out low. It was the asking. She asked for exactly what she wanted, plain as day, no embarrassment, no games. And when I said yes, she said thank you like it mattered to her that I actually wanted to be there.

Nobody's asked me for something that honest in years. My ex-wife asked me for things, but they were always tests I was failing.

And okay, fine, the other thing. The way her mouth felt around my fingers. Warm, and deliberate, and unhurried. I'm a grown man, I know what arousal is. But I have never once in my life gotten there from somebody eating dessert. My body found a brand new door last night and I don't even know what room it opens into.

I'd like to find out. That's the truth of it. I'd like to find out very much.

* * *

The galley is quiet when I come on at two. Chef Mateo is going over inventory and barely looks up.

"Rodgers. The penthouse lady wants you again tonight?"

Word travels fast on a ship. "Yeah. Tarts."

"Berry?" He flips a page. "We have raspberry and blackberry. Kiwi is off, don't ask."

"Raspberry and blackberry, then. I'll do the pastry myself."

He waves me off. I spend three hours on those tarts and I'm not ashamed of it. Shell baked blind, pastry cream flavored with a little lime, berries fanned out on top in circles, a brush of warmed apricot jam to make them shine. They come out looking like jewelry.

At seven forty I'm standing in the corridor outside the penthouse suite with a covered tray and a clean shirt, and my heart is doing something I'm not going to describe because it's embarrassing.

The door opens before I knock.

Kassandra is in a silk robe. Deep red, calf length, tied loose at the waist. Her hair is down. She's got bare feet. She's forty-two and she is flat-out beautiful and she knows exactly what she's doing to me, I can tell, because there's a little smile at the corner of her mouth.

"Right on time," she says. "Lee. Come in."

"Evening, ma'am."

"Kassandra. We covered this."

"Kassandra." I step inside. The suite is all cream and gold, big windows, the balcony doors open to let the ocean air in. She's turned the table to face the sunset.

"Those smell wonderful," she says, nodding at the tray. "Raspberry?"

"Raspberry and blackberry. The chef wouldn't give up his kiwi."

"Kiwi is overrated." She takes the tray from me and sets it on the table herself, which no client has ever done. Then she turns around and looks at me straight on, arms folded loose, and says, "Before we start, I want to ask you something. Plainly."

"Go ahead."

"Last night. Did you enjoy it? Honestly. Not what you think a client wants to hear."

I could dance around it. Some part of me wants to dance around it. But she asked me plainly and she earned a plain answer.

"Yeah," I say. "I enjoyed it. More than I expected to. Enough that I've been thinking about it all day, which is probably more than you needed to know."

"It's exactly what I needed to know." Her smile comes all the way out now. "Because here's my situation, Lee. I like unusual pleasures. I've done this on three cruises with three caterers and none of them enjoyed it. They endured it. That ruins it for me. You didn't endure it."

"No," I say. "I didn't."

"So. Tonight, the tarts. I have ideas about how I'd like them served. Some of those ideas are going to be more involved than fingers and mousse. And I need to know, before we go anywhere, that you're saying yes because you want to. Not for the tip. Not because I'm paying for this suite. I settle your fee with the office either way, that's already handled, that's business. Your job, your pay and my dessert order don't change if you say no, tonight or any night. This part is separate. This part is just you and me."

She waits. The ship hums under our feet.

"Business is settled," I say. "So this is just me. And I want to. I'm saying yes because I want to."

"Good," she says, and pulls a chair out for me. "Then sit down, and let me show you what I had in mind."

So I sit.

She stays standing a minute. She unties the robe belt and reties it tighter, more of a look than a change of clothes. Then she pulls her own chair around so we're facing each other close, knees almost touching.

"First thing," she says. "I want you to talk while you feed me."

"Talk."

"Describe the tart. The taste. The texture. What you did to it in the kitchen. I want to hear you while I'm tasting it. Not a speech, Lee. Just you."

"You sure? I'm a caterer, not a poet."

"I'm not asking for a poet. I'm asking for you." She lifts the cover off the tray. "Oh, those are pretty!"

"Thank you. That's the apricot glaze."

She picks up the first tart and holds it out to me. "Then do it your way. Start wherever you like."

So I take it. I break the corner off and hold it up for her