Twin Gullies and the Flaramel Can

“Hey Gwyn, Jill told me it’s time for your breast rake”, said Nate approaching her as she was returning books to the lower shelf.  She turned to face him, and rose from her crouched position giving him a generous view of her bountiful cleavage.  Her name tag may have stated ‘Gwyn Tulllies:  Librarian’ but seeing her this way always made him think ‘twin gullies’ the way the fabric created caverns around her chest.

“Sorry Nate, what was that?”

“I mean your rest break,” he replied as he felt blood diverting to two separate locations, uncertain of whether he was more embarrassed by his burning cheeks or the other.

 

Always possessing a nervous disposition, books offered refuge since his school days and now he was fortuitous enough to experience the other side of the library desk.  His attempts at developing more confidence by joining the school production was dealt a setback when in a critical scene describing the solidarity amongst the revolutionaries for change and the burden it had upon them, the intended message was lost when the character Pablo suggests to his compatriots that we are nothing but an ‘assemblage of dreamers and weighted hankers’ which Nate earnestly declared as “hated wankers.”
 

Enduring months of reliving his embarrassment and retreating from social engagements, Nate enjoyed helping his mother bake every Saturday morning and creating desserts.   He would seek out every recipe he could from every source available and the library became a resource from which he could tweak old dessert recipes from old books, long since forgotten as the internet emerged. 

Gwyn continued returning books back to the shelves, Nate noticing Decadent Desserts in the title she had in her hands and immediately followed with an Abbi Glines romance entitled Take A Chance.  He had everything bar the ray of light spilling over the title as if it was a sure sign from the Lord God Almighty himself.

“Have you ever tried crème caramel flan Gwyn?” he asked gesturing towards the previous book.

“Can’t say I have, are you offering?” she added in a way that Nate didn’t know how to take but he’d come this far.

“My place tomorrow, I’ll whip one up and if you don’t like it I’ll do all your returns for the next week.  Deal?”

Gwyn arrived and Nate promptly invited her in to his compact apartment.   He opened the pinot gris and they enjoyed conversation over the evening learning more about each other as the evening went on. Gwyn excused herself to use the bathroom and noticed the framed newspaper photos and homemade montage hanging on the wall about some cooking competition revealing the story of one Nathaniel Crocker who made it to second place in a televised cooking show.

“I had no idea,” she said when she returned.

“About what”?

“The cooking competition.”

‘Oh that,” he replied, “yeah, I did okay then a knife injury damaged the nerves in my right hand and I couldn’t do it anymore.  Mum was really proud and made up those frames for me.”

Nate served the caramel flan in the bowls and presented one to Gwyn. It was without doubt, the most beautiful dessert she’d ever tasted and within one mouthful, she knew she’d be on the issuing desk for the next week.  She moved toward him as he raised the dessert spoon to his mouth resulting in a sweet yet all too brief lip contact containing both him and the dessert.

“Now that’, she said softly, “was a pash in the flan.”

Andrew Hawkey