Eggs
We worked for a magazine publisher downtown. Not exactly together. My job was to write a monthly breast fetish magazine. She was some kind of secretary. Everyone called her Flapjacks, but not to her face. Whenever anyone in the office mentioned her, I saw pennants on sailboats, or prayer-flags beating in the wind that howls from the Himalayas.
One day Flapjacks asked if I’d come have breakfast with her. I thought she wanted to buy pot, since that was how I rounded out my salary.
There was a Cuban diner on the same block as the smut factory’s editorial suite. I ordered cafe con lecheand a medianoche sandwich (recipe below*), she asked for eggs, sunny side up.
“Bon appetit,” I said, when the waitress shuffled away.
“Check this out,” she said, and smashed her breakfast all over her secretarial blouse.
The heavy plate clanked down onto the table in our booth. Grease from the eggs turned the shirt transparent. Everyone stared.
“Don’t ask me why,” she said, “but I always wanted to do that.”
- Bocadillo Medianoche: slice a baguette down the middle, toast on griddle, slather with butter, stuff with boiled ham, cheese, sliced pickles. Spurt some hot sauce on it.