Decadence

If you heat a piece of citrus in the microwave for a couple of seconds, it will yield more juice. When you bake with said citrus, remember that its zest, or grated peel, will have more taste than anything you’ll find on the inside of the fruit.

Melting chocolate is also a business of little tricks. Melt only with shortening, because oil as well as butter will cause lumps and undesirable hardening. Never melt chocolate chips, because they contain less cocoa butter than a bar of chocolate would, and will produce a thick, gritty chocolate if melted.

Every famous chef has had a forte that made her that way. Most of the known world knows about my little lime cakes. Not because they’re mass produced or easy enough to make that I have a following of faithful housewives. They’re not the queen’s favorite dessert or what made my restaurant a hot spot for visiting celebrities. They are by every means delicious, they’ve been called a culinary masterpiece, but their flavor isn’t what’s special either. Everyone knows one decadent dish isn’t going to create international fame.

If truth be told, my restaurant is small and modest. It seats less than one hundred, which has created a little problem with lines that stream down the street in the recent past, but I suppose it all adds to the publicity, and any coverage equals advertisement, which only brings more customers. They all want to try the cakes; for skepticism seems to create a human impulse to test.

I remember the last time I made them. Warm chocolate is possibly the most soothing smell in the world. The luscious, cranberry colored cream can seduce any onlooker into its swirls, hinting at the tastes that are in store. I always use a wooden spoon, in slow clockwise dips, cajoling the sweet scent of the chocolate out as, one by one, I drop in the empty lime slices, following each with a little splash of the juice I squeezed from them only moments before. Then I sprinkle in the zest, only a tablespoon or two, watching it get caught in the rosy cyclone and drawn into the mixture until the little sprigs of green weren’t noticeable at all. And the other ingredient goes in last, the one I can’t say, of course the one that makes it famous.

Unable to resist, I always end up dipping in a finger and sampling before it’s done. I’ve always thought that chocolate was the only thing in the world that can completely overtake every sense in the body.

I never stopped making my own tins, even though I could afford to cast them in gold now if I wanted. Little half inch squares made from two overlapped sheets of aluminum, folded into little crests at the sides. I used to decorate them, when I sold the cakes for my son’s fundraisers in school. Oh, how long ago that was. He’s twenty three now, this year, yet for some reason I can remember those bake sale days so clearly. Back when my apron was patched up from years of use and had been purchased at Walmart. Now, I’ve got a selection of a dozen starched linen aprons that are taken to the cleaners once a week and replaced by swift handed employment as soon as they wear. A waste, if you ask me.

I laugh softly, moving onto the third little tin as I slide my chocolate-covered fingers down the front of my apron. Jason, my son, used to accuse me of pouring it over my fingers on purpose, so I’d have some to lick off while they baked. He was right, of course, and always in a little pout because I made him wait until they were done rather than letting him lick the bowl.

For some reason, that last time, I don’t remember tasting the finished batter at all while it baked. I remember putting the four tins on a large cookie sheet, and hearing someone come into the kitchen behind me just as I slid them into the oven.

I was startled, naturally. Usually the staff would stop people from getting into my private kitchen. Even employees weren’t allowed back there. I stood and turned, wiping the rest of the chocolate onto a hand towel. I remember being piqued, and ready to rage at anyone who dared to set foot in my kitchen. Even Jason knew not to disturb me here, but he was at home, recovering from his recent split from his fiancé. He wouldn’t have left. I’m only cooking here to avoid the rat that got into the house last night, anyway. Hopefully Jason will get rid of it.

It was a man I’d never seen before, tall and menacing, with one of those grim looks on his face that would’ve told anyone that either they were in trouble or something truly terrible had happened. It was the latter.

The man was Sergeant Jay McCoy of the Pasadena Police department, and he’d come to tell me that my son was dead. Maybe that’s why I haven’t made the cakes again.

He’d always been such a happy boy, I remember telling them that, choked with my own grief as I sat in the Sergeant’s office, chocolate drying on the apron I still wore and into the little crevices of my knuckles. Not the type to commit suicide. However, when the asked if anything traumatic had happened in the recent past, I was forced to answer with a yes.

Sarah and Jason had been engaged for nearly a year, and no one had contested how deeply in love they were. In fact, Jason had long since forfeited a relationship with his father to be with her.

My ex-husband was deeply racist, and Sarah was from Asian descent. It didn’t surprise me, knowing Robert, that the idea of a mixed grandchild repulsed him to the point of denying his own son. After all, hadn’t he denied me as well for not sharing his views?

It didn’t take long for me to set the blame on Sarah in my heart. She’d had an abortion without first consenting Jase. She’d killed their child without a second thought, and all to avoid the shame of having a baby too soon after their wedding. It was as if her decision to please her parents, so opposite to the one Jason had made to deny his had crushed my boy’s heart, his very soul. She’d as much sliced the skin from his wrists in the same cold-blooded act of murder the instant she killed that dear, darling baby.

In any sense, she hadn’t planned to tell him at all, yet another strike against her, another piece of evidence that she didn’t love him as he did her. Perhaps the girl was void of all emotion. She’d been able to sneak off to get the deed done, but not crafty enough to hide the papers. He’d found the papers. He’d come to me, to his old room, immediately, without even first telling her. His form of explanation, or what he could tell me between sobs, was the doctor’s bill resting on the pillow of his side of their bed.

It didn’t take me long, either, to decide how best to avenge my son. My secret ingredient, in my little cakes was meant to relax the body, releasing pleasurable spurts of endorphins. It was what put them in such high demand: guaranteed happiness paired with mouth-melting flavor. However, as the health inspector of my restaurant had informed me when he, the only other living person to know my recipe, had approved them, was that if I overpowered the ingredient, it would become toxic, creating a series of painful stages that would eventually lead to death. But I never used that much in an entire batch, much less in a single serving, so he deemed my recipe safe.

It seems amazing to me now that after the shock of the news, and the trip to the police station, I’d remembered to go back to the restaurant and finish my cakes. I even cut them up into their perfect one inch squares then took them home with me.

I popped them into my mouth on the drive home, and walked blindly past the investigative team in my child’s bedroom. I left the remaining squares in a tin on the sink and ran a bath for myself. The phone rang.

Sarah was hysterical. She told me that she’d gone to the clinic to get an official test for the pregnancy, not to have it aborted. I was calm, monotone even. I told her that she could come visit me tonight, if she wanted. I would cook for her. Then I hung up and moved heavily to my bath, munching on a few more of my little squares.

The water was warm. I couldn’t help wishing it was thick, like the chocolate, that the cyclone would suck me in and make me feel heavy and soft, like the chocolate. I sank down to my neck and felt my throat close on a little sob. I grabbed another square and set it on my tongue to melt, so it would ease my throat.
He was far too young to die. Why, he’s only fourteen. My little Jason, he must be devastated that is father left. Bastard.

It’s only been two years since the divorce, but it’s clear that my ex husband wants nothing to do with our teenaged son, and it’s obviously hard for the boy, trying to grow with only a mother. The new high school is rough on him, I can tell. He even got beat up by a group of black boys, because of Robert’s reputation. How ironic that he’s being punished for a father he doesn’t even have. I think it was the best choice, me leaving Robert after finding that paper. I didn’t know he was a member of that awful organization. Where did he hide the outfit? Oh, well, now he’s open about it.

I had to buy Jason’s car all on my own. Oh, sixteen is a hard age, and this chocolate is so sweet. I swear I could make a living off of it if I ever tried to sell it to the right people. I’m glad he’s growing into a good boy without needing a father, though his has come back. He sees him now and then, and it makes him awfully depressed, though I think their relationship is growing…

I cough, sitting straight up in the full tub. I’d let myself sink too far into the water during my daydreams. I put a robe around my body, and bit into another cake, as I stepped back into my room. I just painted the walls this week. I decided that changing the decoration was the best way to recover from Jason’s leaving for college. It was the first time I’d redecorated since Robert left.

It’s his fault, and they should know it. Why would a man leave his son to grow up alone? He did have the decency to eventually return, I admit that, but then he left again for a selfish and stupid reason. One, that with Jason’s splitting from Sarah, now proved to be for nothing. The phone was ringing again. My mind has felt so heavy since that officer came through the door. Maybe I ate too much chocolate, Jase used to yell at me for that. Oh, my boy, my baby boy.

He’s on the phone, the murderer. I tell him to come along for dinner too. He can look into the face of the woman that is carrying his grandson. It will be a boy. That’s just how things work. Boys have to grow up without fathers sometimes.

I shake my head. I have to clear it if I’m going to make dessert for the grieving pair. I do it with care this time, and I make sure it’s perfect. I even add a little extra chocolate to add back that cherry color. Odd, it won’t turn the pretty red that I had it at this afternoon. This is a good idea, as poison. Rat poison. I grab my stomach and ease down into a kitchen chair. The doorbell rings.





It’s midnight now, and they have gone into the living room to better get to know one another. It’s sad they couldn’t do it before Jason passed. There’s a little crumbling left of my lime cakes in a tin on the stove, but the rest has been consumed.

I made it this morning, as rat poison. Now, I remember making it like that once before. I can’t say why the memory was so clouded, I put it in all the little corners of the house and I left a little tin of it on the stove; it’s still there. I told them not to eat it. I didn’t tell Jason not to eat it. I didn’t tell him that.

They said he slit his wrists, but that his throat was bloated. I should’ve told him it was rat poison, because he wouldn’t have noticed a difference in the taste. I didn’t. He would’ve cut his wrists to escape the pain. There is an astounding amount of pain.

I swore to avenge my son. I never go back on a promise.

He’s always been right about me, you know: I eat too much chocolate.


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No longer an admissions piece - it got me in. :) I'd still like to know what you think of it, though.