Blueberry Muffin Morning
Based on A Poem by John Stone.
The morning is for the languid, especially a Sunday morning.
She rises at half-past six, despite a long, active night the day before. A look over her shoulder confirms that he rests still. He lies, an arm sprawled out, red-marked from having been beneath her for hours, perhaps since they slipped from coital bliss the night before. Adonis sleeping in the garden of Aphrodite.
The shower is warm, not hot; good enough to refreshen her memory of his scent. She uses his soap. She's scented of his body.
Too much like him; there seemed to be nothing left of herself. Had she suffered an absorption, a collapse into him? No, she thought. She was still herself, very much.
His brush smelled of a rich, spicy wine; how did it reach such a perfume? Not made for her fine hair, more for his own courser curls. She manages and moves on.
Something to wear, something to keep warm in, not with which to hide her form; his shirt lies in a pool by the bed. She picks it up and pulls it on, feeling it swag against her knees. The winter sun warms the room a bit more. But she needs it still.
Staggering to the kitchen, the paper is picked up at the back door, dissected for it's value in the kitchen; she doesn't want to wake him, not yet. The Arts section is set aside. They may see a movie later.
Her stomach's whine precludes further notions of Tom Cruise and Julia Stiles.
She empties out the pantry, hoping he stored what made up her Sunday Morning Special. Flour, hermatically sealed in a plastic bag like freeze-dried cocaine; Baking soda at the back of the fridge, a year-old bottle of RealLemon that hasn't quite reached expiration. Yet, in the middle of these antiquated foodstuffs, farm-fresh brown eggs, milk that has not yet expired and a carton of real blueberries.
She pulls out her mixing bowls and set to work.
Within the grains of milled wheat she remembers her grandmother bending low over a metal bowl, stirring the flour into the sugar and sodas, creating a mountain of white.
"A good blueberry muffin," she had said, "Is not too sweet or too bitter, and doesn't have sunken blueberries. That's why you make a well in the middle and pour the milk into it, instead of pouring it everywhere."
Wonderment upon noticing that he has the same large, glass measuring cups, similar hard worn wooden spoons, the sort Granny used to beat the eggs into the milk. She wonders where they came from, who had left them, or if he'd actually bought them himself. She can't picture him hunched over this bowl as her Grammy might.
The blueberries themselves are a masterful creation; sweetly-scented. As she measures them into the glass cup and puts them under the faucet she praised them for their jewel-like color; one is plucked into her mouth before being gently rolled and patted between two layers of paper towel. Similarly, she rolls it's familiar around in her mouth. The tang is much appreciated as she pierces it's thin blue skin, spilling the clear, thin-seeded contents of the berry into her mouth. Berries her grandma would be proud of.
She tosses them in the flour before making her Grandma's demanded well, then, quickly, she united both mixtures, liquid and dry, until they form a lumpy batter.
Odd cheer in filling the day-glow muffin liners with the oatmealish mixture, like a happy young housewife. The world could be a beautiful place if everything exited the preheated oven with a golden Good Housekeeping glow.
She closes the oven door and sets a timer, backing from the oven, pausing only to rinse and replace the cups and dishes. A Mimosa might be good.
***
From Adonis to beast, he rises at eight O'Clock, grumbling at the pain of the sun. Staggering, tripping, scratching, he arrives at his kithen to find the beauty he'd won sitting at his table, breakfast spread out before her.
Perhaps it was the scent that rose him; the heavenly scent of something baking. He sighed in rapture; Her nose is buried in the Current Affairs section.
He sits down, reaching across the mimosa pitcher to retrieve a golden muffin. Her own hand is reaching and, through some unknown magic, touches his.
She pulls back, shocked, not having heard his thunderous morning moods. He shrinks back, abashed, before suddenly becoming Carey Grant.
"Mimosa looks good." He utters.
"Does it?" She smiles, "I thought you were looking at my muffins."
That was cheap, she thought, a bad Benny Hill joke. But he laughs, a real laugh; it goes through his eyes and makes them shine.
"I didn't make anything else," She says, "I should have tried an omelet, for your sake."
He shrugs, "Nothing is perfect. It is better so."
"Of Course."
He reaches again for the muffins with no impediment. She waits, her lips a bit cracked at the edges. Finally, the muffin basket is hers, and she places a perfect, jeweled specimen on her plate.
He watches her bite the bread, almost sadistically, and swallow. It becomes part of her as she swallows; padding for the breasts he'd laid against the night before.
She catches him staring, his dubmstruck expression allowing her to laugh. Her foot skims up his shin, gooseflesh breaking out.
Storms brew in his eyes but fade away to pleasant showers, returning to the joy of a glorious muffin; later he would love her violently back in the bedroom until she can no longer move.
But the pleasure of a mid-morning meal was a good way to start.