The White Apple
By Matthew Gordon
Copyright Matthew Gordon 2012
The lights were dimmed, but it seemed as though there was no reason for them to be on at all. A cornucopia of candles was all that was required, their flickering beams forming a curious interplay with the little electric lighting that was available. The soft golden orange of the walls blended with the fire that illuminated them, forming a cozy canopy for the solid oak table that resided in the centre of the room.
The table was old, if not ancient. Caroline had bought it at an estate sale, so its procession of previous owners could have been endless. It was plain except for an ornate floral corona expertly carved around the edges of the tabletop. Its accompanying chairs, six in total, had the same pattern running up and down their sides. It had all been very difficult to move, and had required special permission to use the building’s service elevator, but the table looked so good in the room that Caroline simply had to have it.
On that table were the scarce remnants of her dinner with an old friend. The strips of fat from the sides of their steaks looked as though they had been removed with scalpels rather than knives, sitting harmlessly at the sides of the plates without any meat still on them. Caroline and Martin had obliterated their generous portions, as well as the potatoes, vegetables and sauces that had adorned their plates only a few minutes earlier.
“You were hungry,” Caroline teased as she scraped all of the fat onto her plate.
“No more than you,” Martin returned.
“Vraiment touché,” she admitted, carrying the plates and silverware to the kitchen.
Even though she had no plan to wash the dishes until later that night, she filled the sink with warm water, squeezing in a liberal helping of dish soap. Steam filled her view as the plates and cutlery submerged slowly, taking on a blanketing film of suds. She washed her quivering hands, watching the colour return to them – she wished for a moment that the rest of her condo was so warm.
More interested in Caroline than in staring aimlessly at the wall portrait of Caroline’s grandmother, Martin took his and Caroline`s Kronenbourgs into the kitchen. He smiled at Caroline’s obliviousness to his entry as he placed them on the counter. The tap was so loud, and she was so intent on putting the fat into the compost and the dishes into the sink, that all she could hear was her own absent-minded humming.
He pulled back her long brown hair and kissed her on the cheek.
“You startled me,” she gasped, turning around to face him. Regaining her composure, she turned off the tap, letting the dishes soak.
“And you brought my beer? Thanks,” she said, taking a gulp and then greeting him again, this time with a smile.
Leaning back against the sink, careful not to let the water splash against her frilly white blouse, she eyed her friend tentatively. They had each taken the same effort into making themselves look respectable for the evening in, an entirely unnecessary gesture that they had both found fun. Her deep red of her lipstick shadowed and then covered her sparkling white teeth as she converted her grin to a satisfied smirk.
“I’m so glad I found the time for you today,” she said slyly, running a finger down from the collar of his shirt. She was only a couple inches shorter than him but she could look up into his eyes from her vantage point against the sink. She liked it that way.
Leaping into his arms, she continued, “work’s been so tough... I barely see my husband anymore, or my parents...”
“It’s okay,” he consoled, rubbing her back. “I feel the same way. We knew this would happen though, didn’t we?”
She exhaled calmly. “Yeah, we did.”
“It’s not like I’ve seen much of anyone either.”
“True enough. Ella was always the type to go out with her friends a lot, wasn’t she?” Caroline moved her head from Martin’s shoulder so she could look at him again. “Then again, you’d be a bit of a hypocrite if you tried to portray yourself otherwise.”
“She’s out at her pottery club right now.”
Caroline slapped her hands against his chest. “A pottery club?” she laughed uproariously. “We’re not even thirty! She’s at a pottery club, William’s on a business trip in the Yukon of all forsaken places, and here we are, in my condo, fresh off a steak dinner – which I made perfectly, I might add.”
Martin chuckled in agreement.
“We rule. I know we work seventy-hour weeks at our offices, and I know the only reason I don’t have massive bags under my eyes right now is because I caked myself with makeup like a nineteenth-century French hooker, but we rule.”
“Speaking of which...” – he parted from her gaze momentarily to look at the clock on her kitchen wall – “we got off work basically right before dinner and it’s already ten. Perhaps we should be getting to dessert soon?”
Caroline rolled her eyes and then looked back at him. “We still have a bit of time, and I’m still full. I do have a comfy couch and a fake fireplace though...”
He finished his beer and then grabbed a mint from the bowl on the table. She turned off the tap and then did likewise, plucking the largest one. They walked back out to her living room, leaving the dishes, their empty glasses still on the counter.
Turning toward him deviously, her eyes gleamed. “Race you there?”
“I don’t know-”
She had only moved into her condo a couple months earlier, but she trod the couple of turns through the dining room into the living room as if she had known them for years. The patter of her black socks against the light-stained hardwood floor was quick if not impatient, and the seat of her form-fitting jeans slid against the tabletop like she was jumping over a car. She spun around a pedestal lamp gracefully, her hair brushing the expansive red shade, before diving onto the overstuffed cushions.
Martin walked into the room at a more relaxed pace, albeit more quickly than he had intended. By the time he sat on the couch, she had already cleared an area for him, nestled between her and an accumulation of pillows. He settled in so their thighs touched; when they turned to face each other, their faces were no more than a foot apart.
The synthetic fire crackled, its flames lapping at a fire log that didn’t exist. Much like in the dining room, the flames played off of the walls, although the lights were even dimmer and the walls were black. Martin wasn’t overly fond of black walls, and knew William was even less so, but Caroline had a habit of getting what she wanted. Considering her big brown eyes, pale complexion and ability to plead, Martin wondered how she hadn’t convinced their landlord to waive the rent requirement. Maybe she had.
“I can’t believe we’ve only been here about an hour,” Caroline said, without any particular idea of what she hoped to impart. “It feels like I’m still roasting the potatoes.”
“You’re just tired,” Martin replied. “I am too.”
“I know – it was really good of you to come all this way just to see me. You think you’ll be able to get home okay?”
“Yeah. The buses run late, you know.”
“Since you mentioned it, I am tired. I think it’s either the fourteen hours I worked today or the fire.” She laughed.
The room felt oddly spacious despite the black walls. The white couches were pristine, a long-forgotten cranberry juice spill so invisible that Martin didn’t even know he was sitting on it. Caroline’s three excitable young guppies frolicking in an aquarium by the opposite wall were her only pets, so there was no concern of the couch becoming inundated with animal fur. There were only a few stray strands of her hair, but they had slid so far between the cushions that she couldn’t have found them even if she had known they were there.
A few minutes of catching up were all the two friends needed. They had known each other so long a
month’s absence hadn’t made a difference to them; they bantered as though it had only been a week, and they felt so attuned to each other that each of their factoids told the other a lexicon.
“I think I’d better get dessert now,” Caroline said gleefully during a short break in the conversation.
Dessert was their usual and favourite. It was a solitary white apple. She brought it on a small plate, walking so swiftly that the apple wobbled a little as she went. The only piece of cutlery was a single knife, albeit a sharp one. Holding the plate in front of her as she went, Caroline could have passed for a ring bearer.
They licked their lips, Martin as he awaited the apple, Caroline before she set it down on the end table nearest her seat. She pressed on the sides of the apple with her thumb and index finger, careful not to create an indentation in the flesh, and cleft the fruit with one quick stroke of the blade. She had cut the apple so cleanly that two of the seeds within it were chopped in half.
The apple’s entrails varied from white near the skin, through darkening shades of pink, until they culminated in a vibrant crimson at the core. The texture was far softer than any other apple Caroline or Martin had ever tasted, the flesh seeming to pulsate as it bled. Juice trickled from where Caroline had made the incision, pooling at the rim of the plate. The halves fell apart, each multi-coloured inside facing the ceiling. Caroline’s knife dripped until she licked the flats delicately and then placed it on a coaster on the end table.
Caroline turned around, still seated, so that the plate was between them. She held it gingerly, careful not to let any of the apple`s juices spill onto the couch. Martin accepted her invitation, picking the morsel closest to him from the plate and then licking the inside before taking a bite. She mirrored him, although she could not wait as long as he had to sink her teeth into the flesh.
“Best thing I’ve ever eaten,” Martin beamed as he chewed.
“Couldn’t agree more. They cost a bit much but this is a special occasion.”
“That it is.”
She swallowed a chunk of apple and then took another bite. “Ella never liked these apples, did she?”
“No, not at all. Nor did William, if I recall correctly?”
Caroline pouted. Martin loved it when she did that. “No, of course not,” she said plainly. “He just finds them unnecessary. Unnecessary, really? The way he says it, you’d think they were fatal. Sure, they’re a little saccharine, but I think I live healthily enough. I’ve been married two years, eating white apples with you for far longer than that, and my figure hasn’t changed a bit.”
“Ella’s the same way. Always worrying that eating these apples will do horrible things to us. I think she’s okay with it, though. She knows we do this.”
Caroline paused. “Now that you put it that way, I guess William’s fine with it too. I mean, he might not think it’s wonderful that we sit around eating them like this, but he never tries to stop me. Besides, it certainly beats pottery club.”
They ate the rest of the apple in silence. The only sounds in the room were the roaring of the manmade fire and the connecting of teeth against flesh, although the sights were very enticing. Caroline and Martin, both so well attired and so civilized, savoured their apple just long enough to appreciate the taste, wolfishly devouring the flesh right down to the core and then licking any excess juices off the plate. Their noses touched as they worked their tongues around the plate’s inner rim, the plate steadied by Caroline’s firm grip.
She set the plate back onto the end table, complete with two stripped half-cores. It shone in the candlelight, suddenly ignored after being so coveted only seconds earlier. The friends’ attentions had turned back to each other.
They licked the last droplets of juice off of their lips. “Kiss?” asked Caroline demurely, widening her eyes.
“Of course.”
Caroline and Martin pressed their lips together, as they had so many times before.
* * *
About the Author
Matthew Gordon is sporadically motivated and perpetually displaced. He writes stories just long enough to get to the point.