Sister Lenora Likes Jek’s Gumbo
Sister Lenora Likes
Jek’s Gumbo
Lenora stood on the small porch of the infirmary, waiting for Jek. She smiled into the noon sun. Such a glory in the nippy cold air.
She returned to the maze of convolutions in her life.
Jek was everywhere inside every feeling she possessed.
She was no longer living under the same rules she had most of her life and it had her revisiting terms and definitions.
Machines and marriages to be specific. Was a cyborg actually a husband if he wasn’t human?
Wasn’t he more like a tool for a job? Wasn’t she charged with training and maintaining this tool, like an… operator? Not a wife?
Even if it turned out that she had to use her body to do it…did that make it…
She sighed. Same wall every time. No matter how she flip-flopped the problem, using that part of her body to create a marriage-like bond—even with a machine—seemed to require honoring that bond. To her at least.
“You ready?”
Lenora spun to Jek and the paradox scattered everywhere in her mind. “Yes! I’m starved. I still can’t believe we did all of the shelves before lunch!” Her face hurt from all the laughing and attempting a fake smile was hard. She didn’t want the work to be over.
“I can’t believe they came out straight,” he marveled, heading down the steps, bringing her real smile at what he might mean. Always something funny.
“Because I can’t shut up and you couldn’t think,” she guessed, falling in step with him.
“No, because I was thinking about all the wrong things.”
Her pulse leapt. It did that every time he spoke because she never knew what would come out of his beautiful mouth. “What wrong things?” The second the question left, she regretted it. “No, do not answer that,” she admonished. “My nosy side is a horrible dictator, we shouldn’t feed it.”
“They weren’t wrong things, they were very right just at the wrong time.”
She sucked in a breath, jaw dropping. “That’s cruel!”
He threw back his head and laughed and of course she loved it. Loved that he knew why it was cruel, loved that he liked teasing her, loved that he meant what he didn’t say, and loved that he seemed to truly care for her.
Her heart exploded in her chest as she replayed his words. Did you know I will do whatever it takes to protect you?
That promise would never leave her mind. It would always light her up so bright that she’d never lose her way.
“Fine, tell me,” she begged. “It can be the last divulgence!”
“Oh, Sister,” he began, his warning tone full of teasing and naked truth. Her heart raced as she waited hungrily for it.
“You’re stalling!” she cried when he took too long, making him laugh. “That’s a form of torture for me you realize.”
“No, no, not for you, Sister. For your nosy dictator,” he said, all cute grins. “And my apprentice needs to learn patience, I think.”
“Okay, fine!” she surrendered. “I’ll learn it, now tell me!”
Her contradiction was hilarious to him, and she giggled about it too. “What were all the wrong right words, Jek!” she pled, smacking his shoulder and getting zapped by that electrical barrier in his skin. It made her need to touch more to learn all about what that was.
“Your mouth speaks and the secrets of the universe unfold,” he said. “It’s kind of blinding.”
She stared at his profile knowing he was being sincere while baffled that he was. “You see my words like this?” she marveled.
“You don’t believe me?” he challenged.
“Oh I do believe you. I believe that you believe that,” she corrected.
“You don’t believe that about you?”
She snorted. “How could I? The light can’t see its own light, I think?”
He jerked back and shielded his eyes with a hand. “There it is again! So much light!”
She cracked up.
“I’ll go blind at this rate,” he said, his serious tone not helping her growing need to touch and get zapped. It was the most addictive feeling, an itch that was getting worse by the minute.
A north wind whipped at her dress and lungs as they arrived at the small park. “So pretty,” she said, looking around at the huge oaks draped with moss.
“It is,” he said, setting down the lunch pail, which was a clever, literal pail she intended to get for herself.
She found his eyes repeatedly looking at her till warmth and wonder filled her at what he was thinking.
She loved when he spoke his mind. Loved what was in his mind more.
She held her mouth shut when it insisted on asking.
Like an incessantly needy child looking for compliments. Look at me, see me, love me.
“How is it having so many siblings?” she asked when they finally got to eating. “Oh my goodness, I must apprentice under your mother and learn how to cook this,” she said around her first bite.
He smiled around his own mouthful then said, “You’d be apprenticing under me if you want to learn how to cook that bowl.”
Her eyes widened. “You cooked this?”
“Yes ma’am,” he chuckled. “I learned how the hard way.”
“Trial and error?” she wondered.
“No, swallowing my pride and asking to be taught by the master.”
She smiled, going warm inside. “Awww. You had such a great mom, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. But it was my father that taught me to cook.”
She stared happily at him about that. “I love that you have two amazing parents.”
“Me too, teet pah-trawn,” he said softly.
She grinned. “Pah trawn? What is that? Is that a nickname for me?”
He grinned back, his dark eyes oozing into her. “It is.”
She waited with wide eyes then blurted, “Tell me!”
“It means little boss.”
Oh how funny! And accurate. “Mr. Bishop calls his wife something like that.”
“Oui. Ma Petite.”
“And that means?”
“It literally means My Little but to him it means his little everything.”
She sighed with a smile. “How very romantic.” She wondered then. “Why is mine teet and not petite? Is there a difference?”
“It’s just a lazier version of little.”
She realized too. “So, I’m Little Boss. Without the Ma or my. Is that a cultural distinction? Requires marriage?”
“No, it’s just maybe more endearing, I guess to some.”
She studied him, crossing her arms on the table, wanting to ask too many questions.
He smiled at her. “You want me to say petite and not teet for you?”
“Pfff!” she said with an eyeroll. “I want you to call me whatever you want, ma petite this or ma teet that, it’s entirely up to you. I do believe in freedom of expression and opinion. How do you say apprentice?”
“Ah-pran-tee?”
“So how do you introduce me to others with that title?”
He folded his arms on the table, his smile playful, his eyes on her mouth. “Mah teet ah-PRAN-tee.”
She raised her brows. “Why not just teet ah-PRAN-tee?”
His smile got bigger. “Because you are my apprentice. You are not my little boss even if you want to be.”
She assured him, “I do not want to be your boss or your anything, I’m just wondering about the difference, that’s all.”
“What do you want from me, teet suhr?” His mouth softened with his voice and gaze. “Little Sister,” he translated.
Mercy. Watching and hearing him speak French like that made it very difficult to think. “Speak something in French, something longer than a few words.”
He looked out at the swamp, his tongue slowly cleaning up his lips before he eyed her. “Why?”
She held her mouth shut for two seconds before giving in to her addiction for honesty. “To hear you speak it.”
He tilted his head a little, looking suspicious.
She sighed and gave up the full truth. “I want to hear how you sound.” Half a truth is half a lie. “I like how the language sounds,” she added, fighting with the words. “When you speak it,” she finished.
He looked curiously amused. “Why was that so hard to say for you?”
She looked away and had to make herself find the answer. Why was she suddenly hiding from him? She didn’t want to hide from him. “I think because the reasons are…” she chickened out and lowered her gaze.
“I have a nosy dictator in my head too, petite Suhr.”
Little Sister. She didn’t like that name. But she did love the way it sounded when he said it. “Because maybe I like it… for silly reasons.”
“Oh, teet pah-tron, tay zah-preh tah-tee-ray doo gro troob.” Whatever he said felt like a warning.
While his smile tugged with something close to mischief.
He was having fun with her and she liked that.
She liked having fun with him too. But this fun felt like it was turning into something else.
Something beyond fun. Something scary, but she wasn’t scared.
She felt like she was on a thrilling ride.
Mercy, she was sweating under her clothes.
He chuckled, lowering his head. “What on earth is going on in that pretty head of yours, teet suhr?”
“I’m being patient like you said!” she gasped. “Surely you will translate the language I don’t speak, I don’t need to pounce on you about it. Do I?”
His big laugh exploded in her body and blood. The wind whipped at her hair, and she was suddenly hyper-aware of how much of it had escaped her careful hairdo. Great. She must look like a comedic sight.
“I said you were about to get yourself into big trouble.”
Her spine straightened as she struggled to remember context. “Why? What kind of trouble? You took so long, now I’ve lost the thread.” She smoothed her hair with both hands.
“You were about to tell me your silly reason for wanting me to speak to you in French.”
She connected the thoughts. “And that would get me in big trouble?”
“Yes,” he assured, factually.
She stared at him, her excitement at what he could be saying making her shiver uncontrollably. “I’m not good at reading between certain lines. So I don’t see the trouble part.”
His eyes moved to her hair and her cheeks burned. “Why don’t you wear it down in the winter? It is your natural covering,” he reasoned.
The question was unexpected. “It’s a mess while bound, imagine if it were loose!”
He stood and came toward her, removing his coat.
Her pulse tried to run out of her body as she watched him. “What are you doing?”
He put his coat around her. “Being bossy, I guess.” He stayed behind her and she angled her head. “Now what are you doing?”