The Nasty Business of a Bodyguard by Elijah Douresseau (top books of all time TXT) 📕

a gluten allergy was a bit tame. The act was still mean-spirited, to knowingly include it in the food.

As far as Dean was concerned, Coco just confessed to shipping his entire family to the surface of the sun. His demeanor changed. He really was an entitled, privileged butthole, to think he was above any reproach.

“You bitch! You know how severe my intolerance is. I’m not going to be good to anyone for at least three days!”

“Allow me to make matters worse. And I hope your stomach was starting to cramp.”

Hendrix charged in with two more goons. The head guard held a cartoonish gun. Almost absurdly so.

“How did you get—”

“Goodbye, Dean.”

That was the cue. Hendrix fired his weapon and a harsh light emitted from the barrel, capturing Dean. The soon-to-be former leading man let out an unholy howl. And he exploded, erupting from his head down, like a hotdog in the microwave for more than two minutes. Blood and innards sprayed the killing floor, speckling Coco and Alvin.

The chef’s head was mighty close to blowing up on its own. The last fifteen minutes were utterly unimaginable, and yet, he could not stop playing it back in vivid detail.

“Outstanding.”

Coco turned directly to her personal chef.

“I think it’s time to deal with the main course. Wouldn’t you agree, Alvin?”

Her eyes had a renewed interest about them. Someone who knew a secret had those very eyes.

Alvin knew his time had come.

Historically Speaking…

Alvin did not enjoy cheesecake for a long time. It was an acquired taste he lost and reacquired after a traumatic encounter.

He had just warmed up to it, as a child. His preschool had gotten a generous inventory of it out of nowhere. So every other day for snack time, cheesecake.

Plain cheesecake.

The young boy could not stand the texture. At his several years of life, he understood cheese to be a lovely, savory thing he did not already enjoy eating cold. Let alone, as a cold snack all by itself.

Alvin could not stand when his cousin would nearly put up a fit for a slice of American cheese after church, if the service would go on longer than usual. Of course, his aunt had two slices waiting in a cooler knapsack. Every Sunday, without fail. One for after church, and who knew when the other slice was devoured, strip by uneven strip.

As far as Alvin was concerned, American or swiss cheese, the two most present cheeses in the boy’s life – up to that point – was best as a melted square on a slice of white toast. Wheat toast was only a terrible substitute at four and five years of age. It lacked the hint of butter that white bread had to it. Wheat also was not as good with eggs – which smelled good as they cooked, but had an elusive mouthfeel to the little boy. He still mostly enjoyed consuming them.

Cheese was supposed to be salty and be in minimal form. Sliced or nothing. Imagine Alvin’s confusion at the first sighting of cheesecake. The teachers were not the types to tolerate or reward too much curiosity. You got one question – “What is it?” – and you had better have kept the reluctance out of your voice. That was it. Whatever answer you received, you were expected to eat the manifestation of it afterwards. Eat it all.

Sweet cheese – softer than the sliced stuff, much colder than refrigerated cheese. And then, in nightmarish fashion, it took the form of cake. But it had the consistency of ice cream.

It was not elusive in the same way eggs were for Alvin. Eggs came in different forms and the different shapes made the shelled protein taste different. He hated when eggs had the yolk in the middle, only to bleed liquid, meat-tasting fluid onto the rest of his breakfast. But when it had a golden crust, or when it was scrambled into a fluffy bush of yellow and white, with black speckles, eggs were perfection with toast and grits and sausage.

Young Alvin could explore the depths of the different textures of eggs forever. He never wanted to eat them alone. It had to have a crunchy companion in the form of bread, but there were so many subtle recipes for what every adult could cook, as far as he could tell. So when the time came, he took the very first thing he was put on assignment to learn to cook – eggs – very seriously.

Cheesecake left a lot less to little Alvin’s imagination. Mostly because it was nasty. Way too mushy. It also seemed like much more than what he was served. Always. The slices were not slices of the whole cake. They were wedges. Thin, widthwise, but the constant white made the pieces seem to tower high above the plates they were served on.

The boy learned quickly to make sure he spooned in every chunk of the cake with the crust. It made the chewing bearable. And the crust tasted like graham crackers soaked in milk.

He was not the only child who did not care for the kind of savory, kind of sweet cake. There were methods to appearing like you were consuming your slice of cake, like an obedient child. None were too effective.

There was the plate smoosh. You ate a little cake, but you tried your best to finish your slice, while coming off as merely a messy eater. But the kids ended up separating too much cake for the trick to pass. And there were would be too much crust gone to justify the mounds of white remaining.

There was also the manner of going backwards. The best portion of your slice, no doubt, was the crust that folded over the wider end of the cake, not unlike the crust of a slice of pizza.