Dishes

There once was a girl called Rosie, she had a boyfriend called Josh and they seemed to get on very well. Rosie loved to cook, in her professional life she worked as a film caterer, creating delicious spreads for all manner of film directors and celebrities. She could whip up a vast range of dishes in a minute flat and could make even the most picky film stars swoon over her low calorie, fat free, soy, antioxidant delicacies, or vegan raw foodist delights.

Josh had a most peculiar quality. He LOVED to clean, and he was very good at it. His day job was managing a smallish bookstore that specialised in first additions and classics. His days were spent enfolded in the smell of old Dickens, Chaucer, Elliot, Austen and the Brontes. He loved books and talking about books and he was luckier than the rest of us who completely salivate over such opportunities for work. However, in his first week, his boss came in unexpectedly one day and found Josh in a corner with a broom, trying to clear away a large cobweb.

“No!” his boss yelled across the room, luckily it was a slow day, hence Josh's opportunity to get to the cobweb, so there were no customers to be alarmed. Except Josh of course, he was quite alarmed, what exactly was he doing wrong?

His boss explained. “ The shop is meant to have cobwebs, that's what gives it such a great book shop atmosphere. You may sweep and mop the floor each night before you leave the store, but that's it! NO major cleaning.” So although Josh loved his job, the cleaning ban there only exacerbated his need to clean outside his job.

Rosie was happy. She often had to make a large number of different dishes quite quickly, leaving her exhausted with no energy for cleaning. When Josh saw the mess, his eyes would sparkle with delight and he would hurriedly roll up his sleeves and get to work. Rosie often marvelled at how well he could clean, it was like a gift. The dishes would look as if they had just been purchased, they were so clean. So, like Jack Spratt and his unnamed wife, they completed each other and continued to be happy.

One night Rosie and Josh went to visit a friend of Rosie's, Monica. Monica and Rosie had been friends since high school, but because of their separate lives, Monica worked as a fitness instructor, they weren't able to spend much time together. On this night in question, Rosie and Josh went over to Monica's for dinner, along with another old friend from Rosie's high school, Bonnie. After they had pushed away their dessert plates feeling full and content, Josh rose and offered to make coffee. It had been a very successful dinner. Monica was quite strict about her diet, and had made a vegetarian meal of a salad of baby spinach, rocket, radish, black toasted sesame seeds, blue cheese and parsley with steamed broccoli and teriyaki tofu. Rosie had brought dessert, mint and lime sorbet with caramel shards.

Once in the kitchen with the coffee pot going, Josh looked at the large pile of dishes just waiting to be sparkling clean again. His fingers itched. Monica had been quite insistent when he had offered earlier to help as she ferried the plates from the table to the sink. Still, he was just a hindrance on the other three, who had plenty to catch up on. He picked up the first dish and placed it under the running water, how blissfully warm it was, how nice to scrub away at the plate and see it so clean, so new again.

After a while, Rosie began to suspect what her lover was up to. She went to the kitchen and found Josh scrubbing away at a large pot that had been left over from Monica's pasta lunch, and all the rest of the dishes were draining on the side board. The coffee was boiling furiously and Josh seemed totally ignorant of it.

“Oh God, the coffee!” Rosie rushed to turn off the stove, but it was too late, it had already been spoiled. Monica came running in, “Oh my God!” she exclaimed.

“Sorry” said Josh, feeling a little meek for forgetting about the coffee. “No, no that's ok” soothed Monica. “Wow, it's all done, can I borrow him sometime??”

They all laughed and Rosie crossed to Josh and rubbed the back of his head. “ He really can't help it, he's totally manic about cleaning”.

The weeks passed and Josh and Rosie's lives continued. But Rosie started to feel a certain resentment to Josh's manic cleaning. She would be draining her coffee cup and he would whisk it away, humming happily to himself. And while washing dishes, he seemed to fall into a trance so that all her questions or attempt at conversation as he was washing fell on deaf ears. In those moments he was totally lost to her, like a human dishwasher, just occasionally whistling as he chugged along. Only when everything was clean and the kitchen shined like the after picture for some household cleaner advertisement would he revert back to his normal self.

So she decided to test him. Her birthday was coming up and so she threw the most amazing dinner party. It was an eighties themed party, with matching food. To start with there were asparagus rolls, devilled eggs and cucumber sandwiches. To follow gazpacho soup with a garnish of green grapes or vichyssoise. The main was a towering torte of jellied fish, egg, pasta and tomato. There was also cheese souflee and three kinds of salad, a coslaw with red and green cabbage, carrot, onion, parsley and chives, a pasta salad with quails eggs, aioli and oregano and a large green salad with five different types of lettuce, cucumber, mint, cherry tomatoes, button mushrooms, orange segments and fromage frais. In between each course she served a different sorbet. There was lime and frangelico, ruby grapefruit and pickled ginger, green tea and pineapple and champagne and strawberry. For dessert, Rosie outdid herself, she made chocolate mousse with kalua, a giant five layer black forest chocolate cake filled with raspberries, white, dark and milk chocolate and layers and layers of cream. The top of the cake was decorated with cherries and almonds and in the centre she had put three fluffy birds with lopsided eyes. There was a grand concoction of blue jelly and chocolate fingers to look like a swimming pool, complete with swimming dolls, fish lollies and chocolate deckchairs. She made a giant fruit platter with mango, grapes, lemonades, boysenberries, lychees, mandarins and bananas, with caramel and chocolate fondue for dipping. She used every available dish in the house, all the best china, crystal and silverware. Thinking, as she enjoyed herself baking, cooking and serving, surely this will be too much for him. But Josh merely watched her, with a twinkle in his eye.

The party was a grand success, everyone came dressed up, you couldn't move for the shoulder pads and big hair. At the end of the night Rosie was quite drunk. After she waved goodbye to her final departing guest, she grabbed Josh and headed to the bedroom. He had been a model boyfriend all night and had resisted the urge to sneak off to the dishes, despite his slightly shy tendencies.

After a wonderful orgasm, Rosie was spiralling down to sleep when she felt Josh slip out of the bed. Thinking he would be off to the bathroom, she turned over and prepared herself to sleep. But then she heard the clatter of dishes and knew what he was really up to. Feeling a surge of rejection, Rosie stormed naked to the kitchen. Josh saw her angry face and guiltily put down the dish.

“WHAT do you think you're doing???” she screamed “ It's 5 am, now leave that and come to bed. NOW!”

“Just a few and then I'll come ok?” Josh tried to pacify her, it was only dishes.

“ NO!” Rosie yelled” JUST LEAVE IT FOR TOMORROW”

“ I'm GOING TO DO JUST A FEW!” Josh yelled back.

“ Jesus!” said Rosie “ It's like you're an addict! Dishes are your drug!”

“Well so what?” countered Josh “ I LIKE doing them ok? It helps me to relax”

“You're soo not normal” Rosie exclaimed “ I just can't win!” And with that she stormed out of the room. Josh assumed she was going to sleep, and so he continued with the dishes, humming quietly to himself.

Rosie tried to sleep, but the noise of each dish scraping against the last one was getting on her nerves. Eventually she got up and started throwing Josh's stuff in a bag.

“Get out of my life” she screamed and Josh looked startled, but then his face darkened. “ As you wish” he said and left slamming the door. Rosie looked around her now spotless kitchen and screamed. She wrenched open the cupboards threw their contents of fresh dishes on the ground. She cut her hand and screamed again, then stormed out of the room.

The next day Rosie woke with a terrible hangover. It wasn't just the alcohol, but as she surveyed her ruined kitchen and bloody sheets, she felt a second type of hangover take hold.

It took all day for her to clean up the broken dishes, the blood on the floor and on her sheets. She made herself a snack halfway through and then groaned as she realised she would have to clean up that too. Suddenly everything seemed so pointless. What was the point of cleaning if things would just get dirty again.

So over the next two weeks, she gave up on cleaning. If she needed a cup, she would rinse it and then use it and leave it dirty again. The floor got dirty and her kitchen was filthy. She stopped having people over as she didn't want them to have to see her messy house.

She got fired from her current catering job as the male lead had got food poisoning from a chicken tartlet and could find no energy to go out and find another job. The messiness of her house was dragging her down.

One day as she lay on the couch flicking through the various daytime soaps and talk shows, Josh came by. He had realised that she hadn't packed his electric razor. It had been his grandfathers, and was the only remembrance he had of him. It was so old that he only used it now and then, so it had taken a while for him to notice that it was missing.

“ I've just come to get my....” Josh trailed off. He couldn't believe the state of the house.

“ Oh” said Rosie “ Ok” He looked thinner and she was embarrassed by the mess both of the house and of herself.

Josh struggled through to the bathroom. It was also in a severe state of disarray. There were towels on the floor, make-up spilt along the sink and soap stains everywhere. He picked up the nearest towel and opened the cupboard gingerly. After finding his razor, he closed the cupboard and noticed that the knob was now shining brightly next to the other stained ones. He rubbed it a bit more until it lit up like a miniature sun. Then he realised that it now looked out of place next to the other dirty ones, so he gave them a polish. In doing so, he wiped away some of the soap scum on the cupboard door, then he wiped away a little more, and suddenly the cleaning frenzy took hold of him. Rosie heard some weird noises coming from the bathroom and so went to investigate. There was Josh, in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up scrubbing away at the toilet.

He paused and looked up at her tilting his head on one side. Then he crossed the floor so he was right in front of her. She had forgotten that clean smell that he had, and his nearness, his familiarity, yet now distance was strange and confusing. He lent down to her and she closed her eyes, ready for his kiss. But instead of kissing her, he appraised her face and said “ Bath, now”. She was so dumbfounded by this bluntness that she obeyed. She lay in the bath and he washed her hair, which she guiltily realised hadn't seen shampoo in a while. Then he washed her body, soaping between her toes and the backs of her knees. He applied a scrub to her face and then bid her raise her arms so he could shave her armpits, then he lifted her legs to shave away the hairs there as well.

Afterwards she felt brand new and he carried her to the bedroom and dried her softly with a towel. Then she got kiss after kiss and they were on the bed, all over each other like rabid mice.

He back spooned her and she feel into a deep sleep, feeling relaxed and happy.

She woke alone later and wrapping herself in a duvet, she went to the kitchen for a glass of water. The house was sparkling. The bathroom was spotless and when she got to the kitchen she felt as if she was snow blinded. Through the blaze of light she heard the familiar scrape of one dish against another. Josh was putting the final dish to dry on the sideboard and he turned to her smiling.

“Sorry, I couldn't help myself” She went to him. “ Missed me?”

“Actually yes” He replied. “ I've been living on two minute noodles, I can't do the cooking thing”

“ I guess that's it then” She said and they both lived happily until he overdosed on washing up liquid.