The doorbell rings at 6 PM sharp. I open the door to find Bob, holding a cast-iron skillet in one oven-mitt-clad hand and a brown paper bag in the other. He’s got a few more grey streaks in his hair than last year, and a new, faint scar on his chin from a biking accident, but his smile is the same: a little lopsided, a lot knowing.
“Are you grilling this year, or am I?” he asks, stepping inside without waiting for an answer. This is the ritual. He usually brings the steak - generally a dry-aged ribeye from the butcher two towns over, because Bob refuses to compromise on this one day - and I provide the rest.
“You already know the answer to that” I giggle, taking the bag. Inside, nestled on a bed of butcher paper, are two perfect, marbled slabs of meat. “Jesus, Bob. These are obscene.”
“Only the best for our annual tradition” he quips, heading directly to the kitchen.
We’ve been doing this for nine years. It started the spring we were
neighbours, two single people in our early thirties, living in adjoining
apartments. Back then, we’d help each other with groceries, water plants, and
bitch about the landlord. Then, one particularly bleak March, after a bottle
of wine, the conversation turned to Hallmark holidays. Bob, with a straight
face, mentioned one that truly spoke to him; Steak and Blowjob Day.
From time to time we mix things up; like the time I took him out to a fine-dinning restaurant and enjoyed the thrill of pleasuring him under the table while other dinners were blissfully unaware of the different sort of mouthful that I hand. But, generally speaking, it’s now a finely tuned operation. While I man the grill, he makes himself comfortable and gets himself in "the mood" ready for when it is time for my other service.
We eat at my kitchen table, the steaks bleeding into the mashed potatoes, the rich, savoury scent wrapping around us like a blanket. We talk about his new job, my recent trip to the coast. We laugh about the time another neighbour from across the hallway almost walked in on us when we left my front door ajar, such was our hurry to get going. It’s easy. It’s us.
After the plates are cleared and the wine is half-gone, the air in the room shifts. It’s a subtle thing, the way our knees brush under the table, the way his gaze lingers a second longer than it does when we were just chatting in the hallway. The irony melts away, replaced by something simpler, more primal. This is the part of the deal we never speak aloud, the part that isn’t a joke. For one night, we get to be selfish.
I thought nothing more of it until, on the very day that we'd joked about
us celebrating together a few weeks prior, he showed up at my door asking if he could borrow
some supplies for a steak he was preparing. Mistakenly, I took this as
some sort of coded proposal to indulge in some oral delights.
We were both single, both curious, and it was presented with such ironic
detachment that it felt safe. I pulled him inside my door, closing it
quickly behind him, dropped to my knees and blew him right there. Being our first time being intimate in any sort of way, it was a fumbling, laughing mess and Bob's steak turned into a
charred mess while I kept him occupied. But it was fun.
Not until I had swallowed his sticky mess did he he quiz me on what had
come over me. And then came the realisation that he had no idea what day
Steak and Blowjob Day actually feel on and it was just a funny coincidence
that he's chosen that very day to have steak.
We fell about laughing at the silliness of the situation We agreed on
one rule: just this day. No strings, no awkward mornings-after, no
expectations for the other 364 days. And the next day, when we saw each
other getting the mail, it was a simple nod, a return to neighbourly
pleasantries.
From time to time we mix things up; like the time I took him out to a fine-dinning restaurant and enjoyed the thrill of pleasuring him under the table while other dinners were blissfully unaware of the different sort of mouthful that I hand. But, generally speaking, it’s now a finely tuned operation. While I man the grill, he makes himself comfortable and gets himself in "the mood" ready for when it is time for my other service.
We eat at my kitchen table, the steaks bleeding into the mashed potatoes, the rich, savoury scent wrapping around us like a blanket. We talk about his new job, my recent trip to the coast. We laugh about the time another neighbour from across the hallway almost walked in on us when we left my front door ajar, such was our hurry to get going. It’s easy. It’s us.
After the plates are cleared and the wine is half-gone, the air in the room shifts. It’s a subtle thing, the way our knees brush under the table, the way his gaze lingers a second longer than it does when we were just chatting in the hallway. The irony melts away, replaced by something simpler, more primal. This is the part of the deal we never speak aloud, the part that isn’t a joke. For one night, we get to be selfish.
Later, when the deed has been done, both of us lounge naked on my couch in
each other's arms. The frantic, playful energy of the early years has
mellowed into something more deliberate, more knowing. We’re not just two
people grabbing a thrill; we’re two people who know the intimate details
of each other’s bodies, as well as how they like to be pleasured. There’s
a tenderness in it now, an unspoken gratitude for this strange, suspended
reality we’ve built.
Afterwards, we lie in the dark, the scent of seared meat and oral sex mingling in the air. He traces a lazy pattern on my shoulder.
“Another successful year,” he murmurs.
“The streak continues,” I reply.
I feel him smile against my hair. We don’t say ‘I love you.’ because we honestly have no feelings for one another. We don’t talk about what this means, or what it might mean if we let it spill over into a Tuesday in July because we know that will never happen. We are just two consenting adults who exist together in this single, perfectly contained moment that repeats itself once a year.
Afterwards, we lie in the dark, the scent of seared meat and oral sex mingling in the air. He traces a lazy pattern on my shoulder.
“Another successful year,” he murmurs.
“The streak continues,” I reply.
I feel him smile against my hair. We don’t say ‘I love you.’ because we honestly have no feelings for one another. We don’t talk about what this means, or what it might mean if we let it spill over into a Tuesday in July because we know that will never happen. We are just two consenting adults who exist together in this single, perfectly contained moment that repeats itself once a year.
