No one tasted quite like Anna.

She’d often turn a bushel of one or two fruits or vegetables into a day’s 3 meals. She never cooked anything, but insisted flavors could be manipulated with intense concentration followed by precise rips and tears. In addition to creating portions with her bare hands, she experimented with different tools: screwdrivers, cleavers, car keys, citrus reamers, corkscrews, and, once, a shiv she claimed her gypsy uncle smuggled out of the Don Jail.

We’d have a board spread across our naked laps--our backs propped up against the unpainted wall behind our mattress. She’d split and carve one- and two-bite-sized chunks that we’d feed one another till our bellies, pleasantly plump, called us to sleep. Minutes or hours later, one of us would turn sharply, the cutting board would hit the floor, and our bodies would stir to half-alert mutual physical affection when the day’s menu could be resampled through our fingers, mouths, or pores, delivered sharp or subtle in our own juices.

I loved most the taste of fresh mangosteen creeping out or over ripe areolas. I’d slurp and mmm and she’d exclaim, “Ontario-grown!”, laughing each time at the same joke.

She comes to me now with four small fennel and a razor blade, determined to make my prick into her personal Twizzler. I prop myself into position and help her into bed, her welfare body glazed in sweat and ready for a delicate but man-sized portion.