Kane

We were both in the kitchen and Kane was asking yet another question but as I reached up for the lasagna dish on the top shelf, all I could hear in my head was 'Missy! Missy! Come on, girl! Ben's getting the lasagna dish out!'. Then, using his best over-acting skills, he'd grab her leash, and, far more importantly from Missy's point of view, her ball, and tip-toe out in the exaggerated way a burglar in a kid's TV show might. 'Let's escape, girl! Gonna be a long one if the lasagna dish is coming out!' But, just before they left for their long walk, he'd stick his head round the kitchen door with the cheekiest grin known to man and in his most innocent, 'oh, by the way' voice, he'd say 'What time's dinner?' It might be in his best interests to leave me alone for an afternoon but his stomach's interests also deserved consideration.

Michael knew me. How l would mull an important decision over as I chopped and whisked! He used to tease me in front of close friends, saying that I marshalled the positive while making the meat sauce, the negative as I stirred the Bechamel and the battle as to which side won took place as I sat and watched 'the flipping thing cook'! It wasn't quite as clear cut as that but he was right about how I need to look at things from all sides, before feeling justified that l could reasonably allow myself to make a final decision. I used to joke back that his decisions were only 'quick' or 'decisive'if I agreed with them. Otherwise they were 'arbitrary' ones!

The lasagna dish had got itself down onto the work surface somehow and Kane was looking at me.

'Sorry, what did you ask?'

'You thinking about Michael, weren't you?'

'Yeah. Something that he always used to say whenever I cooked lasagna! Only give a half-portion to people called Kane!'

The look of horror on his face was brief but worth the slap on the arse I got in return!

'What's this for?', he held up a garlic press.

Already amazed at the size of the kitchen, he was going through the drawers meticulously and questioning me about the considerable number of kitchen gadgets I had accumulated. Most recently, we'd covered melon baller, apple corer and potato ricer with quite a few drawers as yet unexamined. All quite understandable given he'd only really known Domino's or McDonald's since the age of seven but it wasn't doing my mental health any good! So much for me using the afternoon to weigh up a trip outside the M25 down to Cornwall or not?

He picked up a box-grater.

'Right, sit down here!' I stood behind him and, puttting my hands on his slim hips, propelled him onto a stool on the breakfast bar side of the island. In exchange for the box-grater, l placed a knife and chopping board in front of him. Onions and garlic were produced and l showed him how to peel and chop. An instruction to grab peppers from the vegetable rack had him flummoxed and me shocked that a red pepper in its raw state was unknown to him.

But I utterly loved watching him as he browned the meat and added this ingredient, then that one, getting him to taste as we went along. He visibly baulked when I said to pour a bit of red wine in but did so with some hesitation eventually. I got called 'a smutty bastard' when l said his 'wrist action was so good his right hand must've had a lot of practice' as we were making the Bechamel!

I was only really able to sit back and think as he was layering up the final dish. For purely selfish reasons, I did not want the hassle of explaining to PC Plod about Ug and how Kane was in my house. Not now, anyway. I wanted a bit of distance, space to breathe. Space to mourn Michael too maybe. But how would Kane react to Cornwall and not being in the city that was all he had ever known? And to being totally reliant on me? Having to trust that he wouldn't end up in a shallow grave on Bodmin Moor! Or I wouldn't!

A beep from the oven announcing it was up to temperature made us both jump but the look of complete satisfaction on his face as he closed the oven door was just brilliant!! He looked at me with the hugest grin ever:

'That was awesome!'

'Well, I'll sack you if it's no good! I'm a bitch of a teach, you know!'

'Right, in that case, Teach can give me swimming lesson no 2!'

Before I could argue, his hands were around my hips and this time, it was me who felt himself being propelled, gently but firmly, in the direction of the stairs.

'You learned that trick pretty damn quickly, didn't you?'

'You're a pretty damn good teacher already then, aren't you?'

The minute we got there he was stark naked and in the pool, practising his leg-kicks using the plastic bottle as a float as he went up and down. I stripped off more slowly, timing it, strategically I thought, so that as he was heading off away from me down to the far end, I just happened to be dropping my Calvins and climbing into the pool.

I showed him how, that in order to breathe and not swallow half the pool at the same time, he needed to rotate his body and head on an imaginary axis from his head to his bum, how to bend his arms as they entered the water, keeping his hands cupped, to better push the water back behind him. I attempted not to look at his firm buttocks as they poked up out of the water, or at how the muscles in his back and shoulders rippled as he moved but I failed. I pretended not to see glimpses of his dick or balls and told myself I was mistaken if I felt something brush against me. When he stood in front of me and the beads of water ran down past hard, dark nipples and washboard abs, l had to look away but immediately regretted doing so.

I needn't have worried about getting out in front of him for as soon as I said 'We probably should be getting out ..', he was out like a shot and, having dried little more than his feet, was charging up the stairs muttering 'My lasagna, my lasagna!'. Once I had at least got pants on, I followed ... to find him standing at the top of the stairs, still naked and dripping, and holding the lasagna in oven gloves, beaming because it was just 'awesome' which i took to mean 'not burnt'.

'I didn't know where to put it!?'

'Shove it back in to keep warm ... it'll be fine for a bit if we turn the oven off. And we'll have enough time to make the dressing for the salad.'

He looked at me as if I'd suggested putting a pair of knickers on a lettuce.

'Go get your clothes on and I'll show you!'

He turned tail and once again gave me a view of how beautiful he was. Broad shouldered but slim waisted, a small round butt and long, lean legs which tapered down to the soles of his feet, their beige-pink in contrast to the rich blue-black of the rest of him.

I'd laid the table in the two minutes it took him to return and then dress in front of me in the kitchen! Not the first naked man who'd dressed in my kitchen but the first in a good while! I then took out the small screw-top jar we reserved for making our own vinaigrette and got him to measure out the oil, balsamic vinegar and taste how it changed when he added mustard and honey.

But the pride on his face as he placed the lasagna, his lasagna as it now was, on the table had to be seen to be believed.

'I think we should take a picture!'

He stared at me, loving my idea but not knowing what to do next. I took my phone and clicked away madly as he posed holding it, cutting it, serving it, blowing on it too. And his first mouthful!!

'It's really good!! Like really good!!! Awesome!'

I swear if he said that once during the rest of the meal, he said it a hundred times!! Home cooking clearly was a revelation. He'd half-demolished his plate when I got up to take out a bottle of water from the fridge and place it on the table. He watched me pick up the bottle of red wine from before, hesitate, and then replace it on the work surface.

'It's ok. Have some if you want!'

'Are you sure? I don't want to upset you. I know you don't approve. Are you Muslim?'

He laughed 'No, it's not that.' He sighed and the smile slipped from his face. 'I'll explain why! I owe you that.'

'Sure?'

'Sit down! With your wine!'