Photo by Tyler Delgado on Unsplash
Ilyana set the plate down in front of Andrew and then walked around the small table to sit in the chair across from him. Andrew took a bite of the chicken piccata. It was delicious, of course. Ilyana had dinner prepared for him every night when he got home from work, and every night, it was delicious. He let the flavors sit in his mouth for a moment, taking the time to enjoy them while trying to ignore his growing feelings of unease. He finished the bite slowly and then took a sip of wine from the glass Ilyana had already poured for him.
“How was work today?” she asked with a smile.
“I… um… well… there w…w…was a pr…pr…problem.” he managed to get out. He silently cursed himself for stuttering. He always stuttered when talking to a woman, any woman, but it was ridiculous that he was stuttering now while talking to Ilyana. He had stuttered with her at first, but over time, the stutter had disappeared. Now that she had become intimately familiar to him, it was unusual for him to stutter when talking to her. The fact that the stutter was rearing its ugly head, even here, was a sign of how nervous he was about tonight. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
“What kind of problem?”
“It was an intermittent problem. Something that was showing up on the server, but not something I could reproduce locally.”
She nodded, still smiling, though he had no idea how much she actually understood what he had said. “If anyone can figure it out, then you can.”
“I’ll take another crack at it tomorrow.”
She leaned forward and said, “Maybe as soon as you finish eating, I can take you into the bedroom and make you forget all about your work problems.”
Andrew felt his pulse rising again and forced himself to take a couple of deep breaths to remain calm. He had to admit he was very tempted to take her up on her offer, even though he had already made up his mind. He shook his head slowly, “After I finish eating, I’m going out.”
“Oh, where are we going? Are we going over to Ryan’s for a gaming session? I know how much you like showing me off to your friends.”
Andrew looked down at the screen on his phone without answering her. There was a picture of a woman on it. Her face was slightly asymmetrical, though not ugly. He might not have even noticed the asymmetry if he hadn’t been used Ilyana’s perfectly symmetrical features. The woman in the picture had a twinkle in her eyes which Andrew imagined was intelligence, and maybe just a little bit of mischief. He had searched her on the social net, of course, and seen the full body pictures she hadn’t shared on the dating app. Like Andrew, she was overweight, bordering on obese. He glanced up at Ilyana again. She didn’t have the figure of a model, but that was only because she was a few inches shorter than Andrew. She was perfectly toned, though, with just a hint of muscles, like a swimmer, or maybe a yoga instructor. Andrew shook his head, turning off the phone and looking back up at Ilyana, who was still patiently waiting for an answer.
“I’m going on a date with another woman tonight,” he said.
“Am I coming too?” she asked uncertainly.
Andrew shook his head silently.
“But why?” she asked, “Don’t I provide everything you need and want? If there’s anything you’d like me to do, just tell me. I’ll gladly do it.”
“You make everything so easy for me. You cook and clean. You always compliment me and put me first, and do everything I ever ask you to do. At first, it seemed just, well, perfect. I really thought you were all I needed, all I would ever need, but you just aren’t. I’m sorry, but I have to get out there and find someone else, even if it will be really tough for me.”
“I don’t understand,” Ilyana said, her smile disappearing for the first time.
Andrew looked at the table, his plate of food and glass of wine sitting before him while nothing but an empty placemat sat before Ilyana. He reached out and picked up the pepper shaker.
Image by wnk1029 from Pixabay
“Did you know black pepper doesn’t go bad?”
“The shelf life of black pepper is about two years,” she answered.
“Sure, but that’s just the best by date. You could eat ten year old pepper, and you wouldn’t get sick. But what does happen is, as pepper gets older it slowly starts to lose its flavor.”
“I bought that pepper around three months ago. It should still have all of its flavor. Was the food not good? I can make you something else.”
Andrew shook his head, setting the pepper shaker back down. “I don’t mean this pepper. I mean pepper in general. You could keep eating the same pepper, year after year, and it wouldn’t hurt you at all. But all the flavor would slowly go away until it was completely gone. Even though it would be easier to eat the pepper you already have, at some point, you have to go out and try different spices. Even if trying new things frightens you.”
Ilyana shook her head, “I don’t understand.”
Andrew nodded, “I know you don’t. Exactly how long ago did I get you?”
Ilyana smiled again, happy to answer a question she understood. “It was five years, seven months, ten days, three hours, and eleven minutes.”
Andrew nodded, “Thank you, Ilyana.”
He looked down at the half-eaten plate of food, deciding that his nerves weren’t going to let him finish. “After you clean this up, why don’t you go ahead and put yourself back on your charging station? If things go well for me tonight, I won’t be back for a while.”
This story was originally published June 1st, 2019 on The Weekly Knob
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