WEST 10TH
The flesh on my face again grew hot. Despite the fraught exchange, Jane insisted on ordering dessert. Baked Alaska. (Meyer lemon semifreddo, Cointreau.) It was delivered atop a porcelain platter with a silver spoon. She stabbed the tiny utensil through the meringue, lifting a dollop to her mouth, which, once agape, revealed that residual cheese from her entrée coated the back of her tongue, where she dumped the sweet, singed egg whites. “Mmm.” Her eyelids fluttered. She sucked the spoon dry before swallowing. Then, she gagged. Her brow furrowed and she reached her fingers past her lips, pressing into the depths, coughing wildly, and extracted a long, blond hair. “Excuse me,” I gasped, and thrust my chair from the table. Sprinting through the ostentatious main hall past aristocrats and those paintings I did not recognize and the asshole server and Bill Clinton’s RC aircraft I felt saliva line my throat and did not wait a moment to lock the bathroom door after entering. I knelt before the toilet in prayer, sprays of vomit splashing water against my face.
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