Page 11 of The Curious Incident of the Great Cookie Snackcident of 979
While the kitchen was small, Senka had a solid wooden table and sage green cabinets topped with butcher block counters. Their cooking stove, again small, was well-maintained and shining.
“It’s beautiful,” Abi said, admiring it. “Just lovely. What is on the menu for supper then? What are we making?”
“Well, I have a steak marinating, and then I was going to try to make pasta with a lemon parmesan sauce and broccolini, if that sounds good?” they asked uncertainly, shoulders hunched and wisps swaying slower than normal.
“Good? That sounds amazing! Delicious, though I don’t know that I have ever made pasta before ... but I suppose I’m here for my palate, not my knowledge of cooking, aren’t I? I might just learn a new recipe!” Abi said, rolling up her sleeves.
Senka loosened up and got out an ancient-looking cookbook. It was well-loved, easily lying flat on the table when Senka opened it to the correct page. Abi quickly washed her hands at the sink while Senka fetched ingredients from their ice box and pantry. By the time Abi had returned to the table, Senka had amassed a little cache of ingredients and had a large bowl in front of them.
“Ach so, the first step is to pour the flour onto the table in a mound and then make a well in the middle for the eggs,” they said, scooping the flour out in measured cups. They motioned with their hand and Abi followed to create the well in the middle.
“Next we need five eggs,” they said, pulling a bowl over and offering one to Abi to crack. Abi loved how their tendrils dragged along her fingers when she took the egg, almost like they were as reluctant for the touch to stop as she was.
After cracking the eggs into the mound of ingredients, Senka incorporated the flour until they had a thick dough. Abi suppressed a smile as Senka kept glancing over at her, trying to see if they were doing it right. Abi was fairly certain that judging by the dishes they made, Senka was a much more accomplished chef.
“And now we knead,” they said, forming the dough into a ball and re-flouring the table. “This is where I would normally put a little lunula in the flour here to incorporate as I knead.”
Grabbing a handful of a deep green powder, they sprinkled it across the floured surface and rolled the ball to Abi. While she’d never made pasta before,kneadingwas not only familiar to her but nostalgic. The second she began the familiar movements, Abi submerged into memories of nights spent with her mother, kneading loaves for the next day’s bread. Her nerves melted away, pushed into the pasta with each roll of the dough. As she rolled, the lunula slowly incorporated, giving the pasta a light green tinge. Next to her, Senka nodded and watched her hands with intense focus.
“You really do know what you are doing,” they observed. They reached out their hands, stretching them across Abi’s body and hovered over hers. “Would you mind if I sink into your hands to learn the movements?”
Nodding, Abi slowed so that Senka could sink into her. Their hands pressed insistently on hers, melding into her faster and more completely than they’d done before. It was as if her body was learning them, learning to let Senka in, accepting their intrusion as natural.
Fingers tingling gently as Senka stretched theirs out into hers, Abi began kneading. She slowed, so they could follow easily. Senka’s shoulder pressed into hers, though she could tell reaching across her was awkward for them. In her chest, her heart thumped insistently, Senka’s closeness quickening her pulse. There was something so breathtakingly perfect about the way they filled her hands, responded to her touch, followed and extended her movements.
They kneaded together, the rolling cadence lulling Abi’s racing heart, though her stomach retained its giddy queasiness.
“There we are,” Senka whispered next to her. “Your pulse has settled. I didn’t know that was a side effect for humans, but it seems your body isn’t rebelling quite so hard now.”
“What?” Abi asked, the feeling of blood draining from her face, a cold wash over her. “How did you—you can feel that?”
“Of course,” they said, chuckling. “I’m literally inside you, anything you can feel, I can. Oh dear, there it goes again.”
Exactly as they said, Abi’s pulse resumed its frantic pumping, the knowledge that they couldfeelit compounding her nervousness.
“Abi, now your face is turning red. I’m pulling out, this must be uncomfortable for you,” they said, arms retracting out of Abi’s, dragging through her arms, leaving a yawning chasm of mundanity in their wake.
“No,” Abi said, quickly moving her far hand to rest on her other, trying to hold them inside her. Senka was unable to anticipate Abi’s instinctual movement to stop and their arm was ejected from hers with a force that took her breath away.
“No, I’m just a bit nervous,” she said. “Maybe you just need to put your other arm around me, that can’t be comfortable.”
Her suggestion had nothing to do with the fact that being enveloped by Senka seemed exquisitely decadent. If she enjoyed it as a side effect of their comfort, it was all the better, right?
Swinging their arm around Abi’s body, Senka caged Abi between their arms, the tingle of their tendrils tickling her along the length of her body. If she had any hope of convincing them she wasn’t uncomfortable, it fled quickly. Her face heated and she shivered, feeling their breath as it ruffled the hairs on the back of her neck.
Senka let their arms slip back inside Abi and they resumed their kneading, this time leading Abi’s hands through the familiar pattern. They were a quick study, replicating the routine Abi had learned as a young girl exactly. Abi could feel the flex of their fingers in her own as they shifted to the next step, their body rocking forward moments before Abi.
“Are you all right?” Senka whispered, their low voice sliding along Abi’s spine like molten caramel. “You’re shivering and your pulse is so fast.”
“I’m fine,” Abi gasped, surprised at how affected she was. “I’m wonderful, really.”
“Do I make you nervous, Abi?” they whispered, a tendril of shadow brushing Abi’s hair away from the side of her face. “You’re all red again.”
Abi shook her head, unsure if she could trust her voice. Something was happening between them, something charged and frenetic. Abi had been attracted to people before, but it seemed to take her longer to warm up to people than her friends. It hadn’t been until that day, the day of the Snackcident, that she’d realized that her feelings for Senka had grown.
Now, she was nervous about ruining what they had. If she said something and they didn’t feel the same, she’d ruin this amazing friendship they’d started.
Senka hummed in her ear, doubt evident in their tone. “Hmmm, I’m not sure I believe you ...” They pulled away from Abi, floating back to her side.