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When Mr. Murtaugh died, his son was set to inherit the place.
That had been the plan, back to its initial construction in the exuberant wake of the oil embargo. Son, my son! There will be forever a thriving New York! And New York had thrived, and his son hadn’t. In fact, so vast was the discrepancy between the two that his son, Isaac, had only three years later pitched himself from the building’s façade to splatter inelegantly on the pavement sixty-some stories below. So the building itself came up for auction, when the great magnate Murtaugh followed suit.
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“I know you don’t like it. Nobody likes it. But he owns the building.”
James ran his hands along the outside seams of his trousers. Just a bit soothing, the feel of the stitch under his finger-tips. Reassuringly regular, and carefully fit. Nothing in his world came easy, but trousers were part of the uniform, and the uniform was regular and knowable and consistent. He showed up to work consistently, to practice the consistency expected in his profession. “It doesn’t seem the restaurant is in any trouble?”
(He meant financial trouble. Always, in restaurants, there would be some kind of trouble.)
Wallis, the manager, who was for his part consistently sweaty, was likewise reliably troubled. “Well, he’s not all about the money, is he? Or he wouldn’t have tipped as he did the last time. We’ve got some skinflints in this city, but he’s not one of them. But who knows what he wants? Except for you to wait on his table again, because that’s what he asked for.”
He tipped well, the owner did. Little rich kid. Flashy little shit. James remembered, and he remembered it well. Oh, he’d apparently had a marvelous time, the owner had. But he hadn’t eaten a bite, hadn’t so much as lapped his wine or even sipped his water. They’d pitched it into the trash after. Times weren’t easy, and normally the busboy would have had the privilege of any scraps, but something had been dead awry. And no one had touched a morsel. They’d watched him, the owner, toy with the food, smashing it into mush, dragging it around with his fork, and then surrendering it uneaten. It had filled them with foreboding; they’d been sure the restaurant was finished, that it had been a cruel message, a sign. But instead James had come away $5,000 richer for having been the point-man for the table. And the restaurant had crept gratefully onward.
“He paid you well. Last time.” And that was Tabitha. Who had been off that night, but heard the legend. By that point, they all had. They’d waited on names of great renown—Donald Newhouse, Goldie Hawn—but that was expected at the restaurant's declared echelon. Not one of them had ever left five grand.
It had been a lot of money. Oh, it had been a lot of money. And that man, who, as far as James could tell, might not even have been old enough for the wine (if he hadn’t owned the god-damned building, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and its view, its astonishing view, of the whole of New York stretching out like a twinkling anthill), had paid it in cash, expecting—James was sure—for it to remain undeclared.
… And yet, even the money, money like that—
“What about you, then? You want to do it?” he asked Tabitha. After that tip! The tip that changed everything! James’ wife had been beside herself, had been in tears. (It really had changed everything.) But James had a belief, something too abstract to articulate. A bad feeling: that’s what it was. A bad feeling about the whole thing.
“He didn’t fucking ask for her!” Wallis interjected. “He asked you! Now, are you going to fucking do it or not?”
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The kid was on coke, almost certainly. That’s what it was. The 80s, James told himself: it’s the 80s and every rich person does coke. Nothing extraordinary. Means they’re not hungry, means they’ve got no real thirst for whatever wines they demand with the insistent jab of a finger. He’ll play with his food, the owner will; he’ll play with his food and leave five-thousand dollars. And that’s not at all bad for a single night’s work.
And it’ll be night because he’s on fucking coke and he’d burn out his retinas in the harsh light of day.
—But it caught him in the gut, the sight of him. Same red curls, same amber eyes. It had been over a year! Over a year since this laughing thing had slid with soundless foot-falls into the premiere booth with eyes on everything and everyone, the eyes of a predator, the lazy eyes of that with knowing hunger. God, it couldn’t be coke. But it was something else. God, why did he think it was coke? When he, Armand, possessed such languidness? Indeed, at times, such stillness. Impossible stillness.
“Fortune says this is the best restaurant in New York,” he said smoothly. “Mine.” He teased a silver fork with a glitteringly manicured fingertip. “My restaurant.”
Except that was all wrong, James thought sourly. It wasn’t his restaurant. He owned the building. The restaurant rented the space. The location added ambiance, added pop. But by no account was it Armand’s restaurant. It wasn’t even Wallis’. It wasn’t even Chef Durand’s. The restaurant was owned by some guy in Chicago; James had never even met him. But it wasn’t, by any account, Armand’s. What, precisely, had Armand ever done, except waltz into the place, from time to time, and assume his perch as if he were Hræsvelgr?
And Armand smiled at him, knowingly, keenly. As if he’d heard and thought it quite amusing. He patted the seat next to him. “Come, sit.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“I requested you and was assured you had accepted.”
“It will be my pleasure to serve you tonight.”
Armand nodded. “And for that, you will sit.”
He was strange, certainly. He was pale and strange and eerie. He wore lace around his neck like a doll. And he owned the building that housed the restaurant, and James knew what Wallis, and Chef Durant, and even Tabitha, and What’s-His-Face in Chicago, would want him to do. And he knew what five-thousand dollars felt like, made out like green quilling—thick, beautiful curls which could do anything in sufficient abundance. So he sat.
“Would you recommend a change to the seating for this establishment?” James asked him. It could all be a trick. It could be a trap. It could be anything, provided that thing was odd. It was better, under the circumstances, to defer if not yet to fawn.
Armand turned to him, his eyes blinking slowly. What lashes! Thick and full, impossibly full, and deep and dark and tinged ever-so-subtly red. “You’ll join me. The meal I’ll have brought by another. Someone else.”
“It would be my pleasure to answer your questions about any of the dishes,” James offered, because it was the sensible thing to offer. “Chef Durant is especially pleased with this season’s tasting menu, and he hopes it will be to your liking. If I can assist in any way, then I assure you, you need only ask.”
And in return he received a smile, a smile that said: I don’t even need to do that.
Armand beckoned to Thomas, who’d worked there nearly as long as James himself, and said the simple words which James had come to anticipate and yet with a lingering fear. “He will remain here, and you will bring the plates and all the morsels. Your sommelier: only he should bring the wine. The proper wine, which is to be the finest.”
“Of course, sir.” And Thomas had done it so easily! It was puzzling. James took pride in his careful presentation and propriety, but even he struggled with the thought of Armand. If the request had taken Thomas by surprise, he had masked it admirably and with uncharacteristic finesse.
A few guests had noticed them. Perhaps even a few guests that night knew him, knew Armand. James couldn’t be sure. He knew a handful of stars and local centers of influence, but New York held more wealth in more hands than he could ever disentangle. Fortunes were made and lost every day. Perhaps they were his peers—Armand’s—who shot them cautious glances. Or perhaps they were out-of-town gourmands who had merely found the sight perplexing. James ran his hands along the seams, those beautiful, regular seams of his trousers, the seams with little stitches laid down in perfect lengths.
James thought to speak, but—
—“I didn’t ask you to.”
So he didn’t.
First came the amuse-bouche. It was scallop with coriander and fennel, with flecks of dried sea buckthorn arranged playfully along the long end. James had seen it, at times, nearly bring down the house, at least among the scallop-inclined. A little something to whet the appetite.
“Eat it.”
“Ah, but you, sir, certainly wouldn’t you rather try it?” James asked, albeit wanly. “Or if you’d prefer to see my reaction, I am confident the chef would send another for the table. You might even, ah, you might even exchange them, which is yours and which is mine, to suit whichever best pleases your eye.” So did he need a taster, Armand? It hardly explained the play James had observed last time. Or perhaps Armand had been satisfied having not detected any obvious contamination, any little pills or wires or God-knew-what. Perhaps he was building to it, to a mouthful.
There was a momentary flash of cold, cutting anger.
James took the scallop and ate it as directed.
And it was marvelous. It was delicate but balanced, fresh and satisfying. The flesh was soft and giving, and the fennel enhanced it with a careful, herbal note. Under any other circumstances, it would have been delightful.
Armand, at least, was delighted. James knew so; he laughed. And when he laughed, the halo around him, that red halo, shook like he were a well-abused toy. It shook like he was a loved thing that wasn’t quite real.
Thomas removed it, the tiny ceramic spoon which had held one small portion of one perfect death, the death of something too primitive to imagine the altar upon which its body was served.
And the same was true of the next dish, of the yellowtail with blackcurrant. James had always wondered about fish. He’d worked in restaurants with living aquariums. He’d worked alongside living things and dead things. There was a good in dead things. There was a joy in living things. There was an undeniable tension between the living things, the dead things. He had worked at a restaurant which had served live octopus and he hadn’t been able to stay. He wasn’t sure why he remembered that.
It melted in his mouth. It was clean. It tasted clean. It was a clean death imbued with sweetness. It was uncomplicated, like a gentle release. It brought color to his cheeks, color he hadn’t thought his cheeks could summon, at least not while he felt so exposed. Color in his cheeks. Of course he did. Armand had handed him the fork, hadn’t he? The fork for that plate. It was a small plate. Three forkfuls. He wouldn’t be hungry at the end; no one ever was. Armand had handed him the fork. Armand’s fingers were cold. He imagined them cold because the fingernails were glittering, glitteringly cold, like ice. He thought of Armand’s fingers, which held the fork, as cold, because his eyes saw a cold thing, the metal of the countless rings and gems that ate up starlight. But Armand himself could not be cold, the dear doll, because he was laughing, which meant he was alive.
“And you have to drink,” Armand said, handing him a glass of wine. White wine. Difficult to deconstruct. James had never truly mastered wines. He memorized the descriptions, but he didn’t know wines.
“Light-bodied. Floral. Subtle. Refined,” James said, as if it were a rehearsal.
Armand had mimicked the shape of his mouth as he’d said every word. Light-bodied. Floral. Subtle. Refined.
Armand did it with a smile. The table’s candlelight, firelight, caught his eyes; they gleamed like a cat’s eyes; theirs was an impossible glow. Beautiful. Armand was beautiful. God, with his eyes, with his deep, brown eyes. Not remotely red-rimmed. Calm and steady. Who knew the drug that had such an effect?
Drugged? Was James drugged, he wondered. It couldn’t be. Armand didn’t touch the food. Looked at it only as James touched it. Watched James. Watched his expressions. Felt his satisfaction and amazement in some inscrutable way. Armand’s eyes rarely left James; how he could he drug the meal, even if he wished? And James was no virgin in chemical terms. There was nothing else like this. The heat, the warmth, the flush in his cheeks; to no other sensation was human skin better attuned.
Third was foie gras served with honeydew and pistachio over cornmeal. A joke of the chef’s, practically. Ingredients from across the board in terms of prestige, chosen only for flavor, justifying—if it could—the inclusion of the fattened-liver-paste. The liver could take the abuse, James presumed. It could internalize the necessity of feeding. He heard the geese were force-fed.
“They’re not like young boys,” Armand said, ever-patiently. He held the fork, not James. James’ mouth had been open. He wasn’t sure if Armand’s fingers were warm or cold because Armand held the fork and James’ mouth was open, and James received. He didn’t know how he knew that; he didn’t know how he knew Armand had eased it, allowed James to orient entirely on flavor, not the banal concerns of proprioception. His hands were on the table, utterly still.
The geese wail hoarsely, he’d been told. They didn’t know. The texture was buttery, smooth and soothing.
“It’s an honor,” Armand told him, “for a living thing to die fat.” His eyes were piercing, then. “I’m not thin.”
“You’re very….” James frowned. “You’re soft?” Armand should be soft. Armand should be soft, but he wasn’t. He looked as if he should be soft, as if he were soft once. His cheeks were rounded. He filled out his clothes. But his thighs didn’t spread like they should have, James noticed. There was something beneath Armand’s clothes harder than it ought to be. It was a corruption of him that he wasn’t soft.
“Honeydew is a secretion. When they feed too much. The sugar.” Armand’s nose wrinkled. It could wrinkle. He could move. He was plastic, pliable. Not soft, but pliable in some way. Pliable in some way. “Insects. Not geese. … Fool.”
It stung. It caught him right in the chest, in James’ chest, right within the heartstrings. “Fool.” He could feel tears pricking at his eyes. “Yes.”
So many eyes were on him, eyes from other tables. In a flash of realization. Watched, because he was a fool. Small and young. A foolish boy who ought to know better. What can secrete a melon? Think! Were you raised a fool, James?
“No, please, I’m sorry,” James whispered. Thomas was watching, same as a growing number of guests. Knew how stupid he was. His expression uncertain, uncomfortable and unsure. Because James was a fool and small and must do better.
“I can.”
“Good.” Armand turned his head, an unnatural turn, as if there had been no interstitial movement. The gesture he made was meant for Thomas, who, if he’d at any point been waiting other tables, had abandoned them and served no other.
Armand held a glass to his lips and began to tilt it. “Drink again.” Red wine.
“Robust, earthy, with notes of nut and oak.”
Robust, Armand had mouthed. Earthy, with notes of nut and oak.
Venison and its diet. Truffle, huckleberry, bitter green. Thomas had not laid down new utensils—under normal circumstances, a galling mistake. Not a mistake. No need for it. James, with an open mouth, did not need to concern himself with things like that. He can be fed by hand, and is.
He could taste the deer’s entire life, just as intended. Oh, how penetratingly, how deeply green! It’s a false conceptualization of the woods, of prey in the woods. Deer can’t possibly eat truffle, do they? It grows underground, does it not? It doesn’t matter. It’s all an illusion anyway. The deer eats bark when all else fails and is laden with ticks. Ticks on its ears. Ticks on the soft parts of its belly, on its face. A wretched life, wretchedly authentic. You wouldn’t want to eat a deer. You want to eat a story-book deer; you want to eat Bambi. It’s what you actually want. You cried at the movie even though you’d be disgusted by a real deer, if you butchered it yourself. The deep-red meat that arrived through the service elevator of the kitchen was evenly-colored, free of wounds and parasites. James mustn’t forget it’s a fantasy he’s being fed. James must not forget he is pretending to eat something more darling and innocent than it actually was. James must remember that the deer would at any moment ascend to that which could instead consume him.
His lips were coated with the reduction. Deer don’t drink wine, James.
Regardless, the flavor was immaculate, and James—who could not afford to sit at such tables under ordinary circumstances—licked Armand’s fingers clean, one by one. His tongue teased the whorls and facets of Armand’s rings, but the meal is a privilege, and he must clean Armand’s fingers one by one. They have no taste of their own, no scent, and they are not soft. In his mouth, James’ mouth, there were utensils shaped like human fingers, attached to a human hand. If that’s how you like it. If you can’t think of what else it might be.
It couldn’t be an intrusion because James’ cheeks were flushed and the meal, each dish, was sublime. James knows to want the hand that feeds him, as James is not a fool. He would want this hand that feeds him to be that of his master. The generous hand, the nourishing hand, is the hand of your master. Your mother doesn’t feed you anymore.
James sank to the floor. He had never seen anyone sit on the floor of the restaurant. Prospective grooms had been spotted, time to time, down on one knee. Not a proposal, James. Not even a negotiation. Thomas didn’t tell him to rise, didn’t scold him. Thomas said nothing, even though patrons gasped, gasped ten times the volume as at any dropped plate. Thomas isn’t a fool, either. He’s quite keen, actually; it’s fun that he knows something’s dreadfully wrong. James likes Thomas and doesn’t want him embarrassed or distraught, so for whom is it fun, exactly?
Dry-aged duck and artichoke. Summer beans and yoghurt, h’semen, harissa. Poultry after venison, but with duck, it’s excusable. Armand chuckled as James licked it out of his palm, slathered wide and wet. When James was finished, Armand cupped the second handful and brought it down, down to the level of his lap, between his legs, as before. James imagined it was the smell, the right smell—spicy and intoxicating—for the space there. He twisted himself to be on his knees, his hands resting lightly on the upholstery between the frame of Armand’s legs. James would never seek to damage anything, anything about Armand’s restaurant. Good boy.
Dewey-eyed, and you may cry. I know that it’s because you are so happy.
James felt the pointed toe of a boot rub up against his groin, up against his overwhelming, nearly-painful hardness. The boot was friction, light friction. Playful friction except it wasn’t funny, it was torture. James found himself pushing against it in a slow, tentative rhythm. Oh, he prayed everything was the right scent, that his was the right scent as well. James could prove himself capable of love, and worthy, if he remained practiced, and professional.
James couldn’t remember the dessert, even the name of it. Some part of it was brown butter and some part of it was cream. Chantarelles too, somehow. Didn’t matter. The plate was just as pretty on the floor; the other patrons, burdened with their judgements, only didn’t know it. The taste was phenomenal, but the flavor was love and the scent was love. To be fed is to be loved. James was loved and strove to be loved. James, didn’t you promise by the end, you’d be full?