The Devil's Larder

63

MY DAUGHTER asked me, ‘Do you think that pasta tastes the same in other people’s mouths?’ Let’s try, I said. You first.

I picked a pasta shell from the bowl, dropped it, red with sauce, onto my tongue and closed my mouth. My lips were pursed as if I was waiting to be kissed. I sat down on the kitchen chair and spread my knees. Come on, I said, trying not to laugh or swallow. Be sensible.

She’d started giggling but struggled to compose herself. She pushed against my stretched skirts and reached my face with hers. It was a kiss of sorts. She had to turn her head like lovers do, invade my lips and hunt the pasta with her tongue. She pushed the shell about inside my mouth and then stepped back, a little shocked by what she’d done, at what I’d let her do.

What do you think? ‘Tomato, onion, pesto,’ she said, remembering the sauce we’d made. ‘And lipstick, too. A sort of cherry flavour. Except for that, it tastes exactly the same as it does in my mouth. Your go.’

She picked a piece of pasta for herself and put it on her tongue. Again she came between my legs. Again we kissed. My tongue got snagged on her loose tooth. Our lips and noses rubbed, we breathed into each other’s lungs, our hair was tangled at our chins. I tasted sauce and toothpaste, I tasted sleep and giggling, I tasted disbelief and love that knows no fear. My daughter tasted just the same as me. We held each other by the elbows while I hunted for the pasta in her mouth.