Page 7 of The Perfect Ingredient
2 Grams
I didn’t see Jean again.
It’s been an agonizing month. A hundred and thirty-two failed attempts to replicate the exact flavor that exploded across my tongue the moment he came down my throat. I’ve taken notes. I’ve ruined entire batches of ganache trying to blend sea salt, milk powder, and a thousand other different things just to try and recreate what I labeled “sun-warmed innocence” on my flavor chart.
None of it tastes like him.
None of it tastes likethat.
And I know it wasn’t just the moment, or my state of mind, or the thrill of being soaked in some farm boy’s semen. It was something fundamental in his chemistry, it washim. And Ineedto taste it again. I need it for my work.
But he doesn’t come back.
Instead, his boss does.
Gruff man with a wiry face, like a walnut that’s been dropped in a fire and rolled in the dust. Always has something under his nails. Never smiles. Three days after Jean, he showed up,slapped the side of the flour sack and said, “You owe me for last time.”
I nodded, waved him inside. “Right.That.It wasmyfault. Tell Jean not to worry. Lovely boy, truly. None of this was his fault. I was… Distracted.”
The man just grunted. Didn’t care.
Now every time he delivers something, I ask.
“How’s Jean?”
“Still working for the mill?”
“Whereexactlyis his family’s land?”
The answer’s always a grunt, or a shrug, or a damned look like I’m asking about a broken wheelbarrow instead of a radiant creature of gold, cream, and unspilled potential. The one with God in his eyes, and whose cock pouredmiracles.
It’s making mederanged.
Which is why today, after too much brooding and exactly zero drops of divine cum, I take a motorcar to Lyon.
The shops here still glitter with the stubborn elegance of pre-war pride. Brass balconies, polished windows. Art Deco is trying to climb over the bones of the old city like ivy, but the past won’t loosen its grip. I always liked things that resist.
My first stop is a little shop run by an old Catalan woman who stocks the specific cinnamon bark I prefer. Then, a spice importer near the river who lets me sniff anything I like if I flutter my lashes just so.
Now my basket swings from my arm, already heavy with improbable treasures—clove pods, rose vinegar, black garlic, even edible gold leaf I have absolutely no use for. I’m halfway down the Rue de la République when someonegrabsmy elbow.
I turn fast, ready to hiss, until I seehim.
And my breath just… stops.
He’s taller than I remember. Or perhaps it’s the fault of that long, impeccably tailored coat. His jaw is sharper, his mouth a more devastating curve, and his hair—once full and always smelling of bergamot oil in school—is now cut severely, the way the idle rich wear it in Monaco.
But hiseyes. Golden-brown, still piercing. Still knowing. Still...
“Hessou,” I breathe.
He smiles.
“Louis de Rochefort,” he says, stepping closer, like we’re not standing in the middle of a busy street. “Of all the gutters and gardens in France, I didn’t expect to find you in this one.”
I’m reeling.
The last time I saw him, we were seventeen and pretending we weren’t in love.
