Hagen-Dazs

by Nyx Fixx

Implicit, graphic descriptions of food and eating: Nick/Nat

Light Drama

Disclaimers--

Greetings, list readers: 
A few preliminaries;
  One: I have shamelessly stolen these characters and
situations from Sony-Tristar. I have absolutely no legal,
financial, or possibly even ethical right to do this. I've
done it anyway. I intend to punish myself severely for it
in due time.
  Two: This is a Nick/Natalie pairing. I understand from
reading the list rules that any detailed description of
food constitutes an explicit rating. There are such
descriptions of food in this story. There are no detailed
descriptions of conventional sexual behavior, however.
After all, this IS a N/N pairing. There are, however,
detailed descriptions of unconventional sexual behavior. 
Except for the food, this story ought to be considered
implicit. People who don't like food should be advised.
  Three: Frankly, I couldn't say what brought this story on.
I'm baffled. Comments will be welcomed.
  Four: I hereby give my permission to send this story to the
archive, with pleasure.
  Five: Any digital errors that may occur as I attempt to
transmit this story are due to supreme computer idiocy, and
I aplogize for them in advance.

  Thank you, Nyx Fixx
********************************
Hagen-Dazs


It was Friday and it had been a week from hell. There'd
been three shootings, six stabbings, one hell of a big gang
bang, some demented arsonist had set fire to a retirement
home, and Tracy was on vacation. The city clerks were
auditing the Office of the Coroner; fiscal years 95 to 97.
Reese had dragged his intestinal flu ridden carcass in to
work all week, and his temperament had deteriorated
substantially on each successive day. The powers that be
had decreed that the Coroner's Building was due for a
sandblasting, and all employee parking had been moved to a
lot three blocks south until further notice. And it had
rained for nine days straight.

Natalie backed out of  the captain's office on a wave of
airborne influenza virus and ill-tempered shouting. She
shut the door carefully, briefly considered a hazmat
decontamination shower, then glanced toward Nick's desk.

He was there. Completely hemmed in by stack after untidy
stack of old files and reports. Fuming.

Natalie skirted around a pack of twelve year old taggers
who'd just been brought in for booking by a uniformed
officer who was evidently as stupid as he was hard of
hearing. She made her way to Nick's desk and spoke.

"You know," she said. "I secretly hate this place. I
wouldn't come here at all if they didn't pay me."

He barely raised his head from a report he was scanning.
"What is it you don't like? The decor? The coffee? The low
class of people you meet? The mind-numbing chaos? Or, " he
turned and shot a virulent scowl at the squealing gang of
graffiti artists. "is it the NOISE?"

Nick's voice had certain peculiar properties. Every mortal
heart in the room skipped a beat, although none could have
said just what it was that had disturbed them. The overall
noise level dropped a notch or two. Nick nodded with grim
satisfaction and turned his attention to Nat.

"What's all this?" she asked, waving at the barricade of
papers that cluttered his desk. 

He rolled his eyes. "Some simpleton from IA is doing an
evaluation report on detective filing techniques. He was
here for three hours, earlier. An absolute churl!"

Natalie giggled. "Really?" she said, grinning. "The guy was
a  CHURL?"

Nick gave her a sharp glance. "Antiquated usage?"

"It's a terrible habit, Nick."

"Okay, then. He was an anal-retentive, pencil neck
dickhead. Is that more contemporary?"

She smiled. "There's hope for you, Nick. We'll have you
speaking "Hey Man" yet."

Nick drew himself up, took on a haughty expression, and
sneered down his nose at her. The resemblance to LaCroix
was more than uncanny. It was hilarious. "You have caused
me to lapse into idiom, Doctor Lambert. I shall NOT forget
this . . ."

Natalie burst into a fit of loud, slightly shocked guffaws.
"That's PERFECT!" she gasped.

"Of course," said Nick, finally smiling. "I've had quite a
while to perfect it. You should see him do me. He stares
off into space and looks sullen."

"You're looking a little sullen right now. Isn't it the end
of your shift?"

"I've been trying to get these files into some kind of
order. For when that . . . umm . . . poindexter from IA
comes back tomorrow. I went off-shift two hours ago." 

"You're working for free on a Friday night? Filing?"

"Pitiful, isn't it? Maybe I'M the poindexter."

"I wonder if a video date would interest you?"

"A handsome offer. I have no plans for the evening. I would
be filled with pathetic gratitude if you would consent to
grace my lonely abode with your presence. I will provide
dinner and  fawn on you all evening. You may choose the
movie."

"We're NOT watching 'Les Enfants du Paradise' again, Nick."

Nick had sidled out of his fortress of files and retrieved
his coat from the back of his chair. He smiled easily as he
shrugged into it. "Did I say one word about 'Les Enfants du
Paradise'? How would nine o'clock be?"

"Nine is fine. And I know you. I choose the movie and you
denigrate my taste all night." They started toward the
door.

"Just because I don't enjoy films about giant apes and
rampaging dinosaurs doesn't mean I'm questioning your
taste. I occasionally ask myself if you HAVE any taste, but
- "

"You are really pushing it, pal," Nat interrupted.

Nick opened the door for her. "But," he went on. "I'm
willing to suffer through whatever mindless exercise in
Hollywood hokum you might care to - "

"Just stop.  Before I change my mind."

Nick shut his mouth and grinned at her, amused. They walked
out of the building to the parking lot.  

"What's wrong with 'Les Enfants', anyway?" he asked, as
they moved toward her car.

"We've seen it six times. And you're a cornball, you know
that?"

"Ah, these colorful modern expressions. They're just so
cute."

Nat unlocked her car door and opened it. " I wish you
wouldn't act like such a CHURL, Nick. All these base
canards!"

That got him laughing aloud. And that was no mean feat, Nat
thought, as she got inside her car. Making Nick laugh aloud
was never easy. But, if you could do it, it was always
worth it. Of course, you usually had to make a first class
fool of yourself to accomplish the task.

He leaned into her window and kissed her cheek. "I'll see
you at nine, Nat," he said, and added a shy smile. "I'll
look forward to it." Then he turned away and went toward
his own abominably ugly car.

But then, she thought, watching him for a private moment, I
AM a first class fool. 

She turned her ignition and pulled out of the lot, headed
for the video store.

When Natalie entered the loft two hours later, she was, at
first, tempted to suspect she had the wrong place. There
was a mind-bogglingly delectable smell coming out of the
kitchen. She couldn't quite identify the tempting aroma,
but it smelled fresh cooked, and it made her stomach lurch
with ravenous hunger.

Nick was lounging on the couch, looking exceedingly smug.
Therefore, she deduced, she was, indeed, in the right
apartment.

"What's that smell?" she fairly growled.

"Dinner," he smirked.

"But what IS it?" she asked, heading straight for the
kitchen.

Nick got up off the couch and somehow beat her into the
kitchen. It was always a little disconcerting for her,
these unconscious displays of preternatural speed and
agility he would sometimes effect. But she liked knowing he
didn't feel he had to pretend for her, so she never
complained. 

"Don't touch." he said, catching her hand before she could
raise the lid on a big Dutch oven that seemed to be the
source of the entrancing fragrance. "It's not quite done
yet."

"But what IS it, Nick?" she asked, again. I am NOT going to
drool, she told herself sternly.

"Pot roast." he answered. "I got the recipe out of this
magazine." He waved at a copy of "Family Circle" that had
been laid out flat on the kitchen counter. 

"YOU? Cooked a POT ROAST?"

"I know this may come as a great shock to you, Nat," he
said acidly. "But I AM capable of following the printed
directions in a recipe."

"But why, Nick? What on earth made you decide to cook
something ?"

"I got bored waiting for you." he admitted, as if this were
the only explanation needed. "It was either this or
'Wallpaper Your Den in Five Easy Steps' ." He nodded at the
magazine. 

A visit to Nick's house was often similar to a trip through
the looking glass. He was looking  quite a bit like the
Cheshire Cat right now, grinning at her.

"Don't you like pot roast, Nat?" he asked.

Natalie sighed, and took the brown shopping bags she'd
brought in with her to the refrigerator.
Nick followed her, curiously watching to see what she'd
brought. She handed him one of the bags. It contained
several videos. She reached into the remaining bag.

"Everyone in the world likes pot roast, Nick. It's encoded
in human DNA." She pulled a pint of Hagen-Dazs Double
Chocolate Fudge out of the bag. "Why don't you look through
the movies I brought and see if you can find one that won't
bore you into a stupor?"

"Is that ice cream?" he asked, as he took the bag of movies
toward the VCR console.

"Nope," said Nat, putting the pint into the freezer. "It's
Hagen-Dazs. Hagen-Dazs is to ice cream what the Sistine
Chapel is to ceilings."  There, she thought. Let him figure
THAT out!

She came into the living room area and sat down on the
couch next to Nick.

"I still don't see why you'd have wanted to try a recipe.
YOU'RE not going to eat it."

Nick looked up from the stack of videos he was examining.
"You will, though," he said, and favored her with an
enigmatic smile. Natalie was left to puzzle out his meaning
as best she could. 

He continued to go through the videos. "When I was a boy,"
he murmured, absently. "Only a very great lord could have
afforded something as extravagant as ice cream.  And there
was no ice cream, as such, really. More like what you would
call . . . sherbet, I think." 

He pulled a tape out of the stack and read the back of the
jacket. "I'd heard of it," he went on. "Ice cream, you
know, but I never actually saw any until the Renaissance.
The Duke of Milan served it to his guests one evening at a
twelthnight feast. By that time, though, of course, I
couldn't eat any. I was just furious!"  He took a moment to
chuckle at himself, then turned to Nat. "You rented
'Caligula'?"

Nat had rented the notorious film more as a joke than
anything else. Nick was always accusing her of having
infantile taste in movies. She'd thought she'd shock her
oh-so-proper friend a bit with the graphic cinematic
exploits of the mad Roman emperor. But he'd succeeded in
shocking her first with his idle story. She began to
imagine the infinite list of delicacies he'd never eaten,
little pleasures he'd never had the chance to enjoy. A
black mood threatened to engulf her spirits, and finish
whatever pleasure the evening had promised. She felt as if
a previously unseen pit had just opened up beneath her
feet. Would there ever be a time, she asked herself, when
these sudden, startling reminders of the great gulf between
them would not ambush her out of nowhere?

"This is a very disturbing film, Natalie. I'm not sure
you'd like it." He got up off the couch and went into the
kitchen to check his pot roast. 

Her head was likely to start spinning at any moment. Was
there ever a more perplexing, beguiling and unfathomable
creature than Nicholas Knight? What was she doing in this
relationship? Was she crazy?

Yes, probably. Not that it made any difference. She was
beginning understand how LaCroix must feel, at times. Only
he'd been through eight hundred years of it.

"You've seen this movie, Nick?" she asked, more for
something to say than anything else.

"Certainly," he answered, rattling around in the kitchen.
"I like historical dramas. I'm told this one isn't all that
authentic, but it does have dramatic validity. Of course,
it's also chock full of the most appalling violence and the
most sensual sex. An uneasy mix. Would you like Beaujolais
with this stuff? Or Pinot Noir?"

Is it that kind face that makes me forget he's not a child,
she asked herself. The vulnerability? The ineffable
sadness? Or the ineffable sweetness? To him, I'M the one
who's a child. HE'S had eight hundred years of first hand
experience of the human condition. There wouldn't be one
thing in some silly movie that he hasn't seen. Or done. Or
had done to him.

Nick came back to the couch with a tray in one hand and a
bottle of red wine in the other.  "The magazine says Pinot
Noir is a good choice with this dish." He handed her the
tray. A generous helping of pot roast was attractively
presented on its surface. "You'll have to let me know what
you think. I might have overdone the basil. I was going by
scent."

Nat found that she had quite lost her appetite. To her
dismay, she realized tears were springing to her eyes. 

"Natalie?" Nick said softly, immediately distressed by her
tears, immediately certain that something he'd done had
brought them on. "What's wrong? Is something wrong?"

"No," she snapped, shaking her head angrily. "Nothing's
wrong. I'm FINE."

He took the tray way from her and knelt down before her.
"You're not fine. You're crying."

"I'm NOT crying," she asserted, then laughed, a single
sharp bark of mirth. It was absurd. She was not only
crying, her nose was beginning to run as well. Damn.

"But you are," he said, and touched her wet cheek. His
touch was so light, so tentative, so hesitant, that she was
tempted to start a new outburst. 

"The pot roast can't be that bad. You haven't even tasted
it," he said. "Please, Nat, don't cry. You don't have to
eat it if you don't want to." 

She knew he was teasing, trying to lighten whatever
mysterious sorrow he'd somehow induced. He was always
groping through the dark with her, always trying to find
his way through what was, to him, an alien estate. She knew
how he felt. She felt the same way.

"How can I eat this stuff, you big dummy? How can I enjoy
it when you can't?"

He rocked back on his heels, staring at her, totally
nonplused.

"Is THAT what's bothering you?" 

"No, damn it! It was the ice cream story! I can't believe
you've never eaten ice cream! Eight hundred years and not a
bite of Hagen-Dazs? What the hell kind of thing is that?"

She didn't really expect him to understand. He just kept
looking at her in wonder. It occurred to her that, from
Nick's perspective, SHE was the weird and fabulous
creature.

"Natalie," he finally said. "You're right. I can't share
this meal with you, or eat pot roast, or drink wine, or
whatever. But I can enjoy seeing you eat it. I DO enjoy
watching you eat the things you like. Don't you know that?"

"No," she answered, in a very small voice. "No, I didn't
know that."

"And I enjoy seeing you enjoy the awful movies you like, or
seeing how you take pleasure in your work, or watching you
getting warm by my fire, or snuggling into that chair
that's your favorite, or swilling coffee like a caffeine
fiend, or padding around here in those disreputable old
slippers you left here last March, or . . . Nat, everything
you enjoy, I can enjoy too, because you let me. You see?
Because you allow it. It all pleases me, because it pleases
you."

"No, I didn't know that either, Nick."

"So . . . who's the big dummy?" he asked, and leaned
forward to kiss her, lightly.

"You are, of course," she answered and giggled. "Everybody
knows that. I'm an extremely intelligent scientist. Whereas
you - "  

He stopped whatever insult would have been forthcoming with
another kiss. This one was just a little less hesitant,
just a little more demanding. Just a little. Just enough.

"Is it really so good, this Hagen-Dazs?" he asked, breaking
away from her.

"Hagen-Dazs is more than good," she started to say, then
stopped, because she was talking to empty space. Nick was
at the refrigerator, pulling her pint of ice cream out of
the freezer. She shut her eyes for a moment, then went on.
"It's an edible orgasm."

She opened her eyes. Nick was already back in his former
spot at her feet, brandishing a pint of ice cream, a spoon,
and a very nice white lawn napkin. He was raising an
eyebrow at her.

"That sounds like something I might say. Here. Why don't
you eat some?"  He handed her the gold and white tub of 
iced decadence. She wondered if she was being teased again,
but his expression seemed serious enough. 

"What'll you be doing?"

He smiled. The intentness of his gaze on her made her feel
like squirming, although she couldn't have said whether it
was discomfort . . . or something else . . . that caused
the sensation. "I'll be watching you. Go on, Nat. Try
some."

Natalie took the spoon out of his hand and began to dip it
into the chocolate. The utensil seemed thick and unwieldy
in her grasp, as though her fingers had somehow forgotten
how to hold a spoon. She never took her eyes off him. She
wondered just what it was about this that made her heart
flutter and pound the way it did. She wondered if Nick
could HEAR the way her heart was racing, and then decided
it was quite likely that he could.  She put the first bite
in her mouth.

A flood of cool sensation washed over her tongue, and, as
always happened with the first bite, her mouth and throat
and taste buds clenched in sensory overload.  An edible
orgasm, indeed, she thought, savoring the complexity of the
flavor. That first-bite reaction wasn't really all that far
from the delirium of . . . 

She became aware of Nick,  watching her. The heat in his
scrutiny was palpable. There was no aspect of her sensual
pleasure in the ice cream that was lost on him. Why not? He
could hear the rhythm of her heart, after all, could scent
the rush of endorphins in her blood, could see the minute
interplay of muscles in her throat and face and chin.
Vicarious experience could be a total thing, she supposed,
if  the acuity of your senses had been boosted into the
stratosphere by supernatural means.  

It was a startlingly erotic experience. Strange and vaguely
frightening, yes, but as compelling as anything she'd ever
done with a more conventional lover. Damned if she wasn't
getting aroused. And he'd never touched her. 

"Eat some more," he suggested, his voice just a touch
hoarse, his mouth slightly open.

This time Natalie invested some attitude into the simple
act of dipping and raising her spoon. Eating before such an
appreciative audience had become more than a means to
ingest nourishment. The smallest movement of her hand, her
fingers, her lips, turned into a part of the erotic
stage-craft that was seduction.  

She deliberately slid the dark chocolate dessert over her
lower lip, leaving glistening traces as she took the bowl
of the spoon into her mouth. She saw Nick draw in a sharp
breath. A tiny sound in the sudden stillness of the room.
His whole body seemed to tense, the way a cat's would, as
it prepared to spring, and then he'd suddenly flowed up and
onto the couch next to her, just inches away. Still not
touching her.

"You're so damn . . . FAST," she breathed, surprised at the
husky quality that had transformed her voice. 

He reached for the pint of Hagen-Dazs with one hand, and
slid the spoon out of her grip with the other. His eyes
never left her face. Sparks of lucent gold were beginning
to fly in the direct blue of his gaze. His whole face had
begun to take on that inhuman aspect that so terrified and
thrilled and drew her. His very skin almost seemed to emit
a faint lunar glow. Such deadly glamour, to transform a
conventionally handsome countenance to something so other,
something so akin to ugliness, so close to beauty.

She was mad to be here, like this, with this alien being.
It was madness.

He'd filled the spoon with the dark, frozen delicacy. 

"Close your eyes." he said. His voice was impossibly quiet,
impossibly deep and resonant. She was reminded, again, of a
cat, purring to itself in a darkened room.  There was no
arguing with that voice, no disobeying its directive. And
she didn't want to. No. Her eyes slid shut. Her body
thrummed with excitement, yet was filled with that curious
languor, that, for her, had always presaged the throes of
erotic release. 

"Lean your head back." 

His voice was coming from somewhere closer now.  Lean back.
Yes. She would. She did.

She felt his cool, almost scentless breath on her face. His
body didn't radiate warmth, the way a mortal man's would,
but it did radiate something. She felt as though some
previously unknown central axis deep within her body was
inexorably tilting toward him.

"Open your mouth," he whispered. 

Had he been asking her to open her thighs, his voice could
have held no more reverent, more loving quality. Her mouth
opened, almost of its own accord.

And was slowly, gently penetrated by the cold spoon and the
sweet, sweet ice cream.

Nat gasped as the intimacy of the gesture and the vividness
of  the taste and the awareness of Nick's pleasure in her
pleasure stormed through her. A threefold explosion of
sensory ecstasy swept her tongue, her loins, and her heart.
 Her whole body stiffened, relaxed, then stiffened again.
She groaned as she swallowed the complex coolness and
sweetness and bitterness of Nick's offering.  

She opened her eyes to see him as the gradual spiraling
down out of the heights of orgasm took hold of her body. He
had stopped breathing. She supposed he forgot to keep doing
it, sometimes. His eyes glowed that molten gold that she
had come to both dread and desire, and his face had no more
human quality than a falcon's or a panther's would have.
But he was still Nick. This aspect too was essentially
Nick. 

My demon lover, she thought. My Nick.

"Kiss me," she said to him, before her nerve could fail
her. "Quick. Before the taste is gone."    

An odd sound, both harsh and soothing, issued out of his
throat. A sound that conveyed a fierce hunger and an aching
gratitude. 

He didn't touch her with his hands or body, but moved to
press his mouth lightly against hers. She could feel the
pressure of his teeth behind his lips, but he made no
effort to open his mouth to her. The sharp instruments of
destruction that were so much at the core of him, and that
were so frightening and strange to her, were kept carefully
sheathed. He gave her time to get used to the feel of him,
so close, then quickly darted his tongue to the corner of
her mouth where a trace of the Hagen-Dazs remained. 

She saw a shudder of delight rack him. He started to draw
back, away from her, and her arms went round his body
involuntarily, to hold him where he was. After a split
second of hesitation, he allowed himself to relax into her
embrace, and then she had him prisoner.

"No," she murmured, lips moving lightly against his. "Not 
yet. Have more."

Nick surrendered and pulled her into himself. She felt the
strong, cool arms coil around her, and then she was his
prisoner too. The pressure of his mouth on hers eased her
lips apart, and then his tongue was inside her, delicately
discovering the traces of the ice cream he'd fed her,
seeking the flavor of the pleasure he'd given her. She felt
the trembling of his body against hers, and he voiced one
soft, sharp cry of pleasure, the quiet sound muffled in the
flesh of her mouth.  

A second wave of erotic immediacy swept through her,
catching her up again in a storm of fulfillment. Nick
groaned and shuddered and writhed in her arms as he shared
this unexpected bonus with her, entirely through the medium
of taste.   

He stayed where he was, body locked in her embrace, tongue
imprisoned behind her lips, until Natalie began to drowse. 

She must have slipped off for a few moments, because, when
she next saw Nick, he was in the kitchen, wrapping up the
pot roast in aluminum foil.

Good heavens, she thought, I've skipped dinner. A long,
slow smile spread itself across her face.

Nick had heard her stirring and called out from the
kitchen. "I can't believe you fell asleep on me!" 

He put the pot roast in one of her grocery bags and brought
it out to the sofa. "Take this home with you, if you like."

He set the bag down by the her end of the couch and took a
seat on the far end. First he indulged in a moment of
ill-at-ease fidgeting, and then asked, anxiously, "Nat? Is
everything all right?"

"How the hell did you do THAT?" she asked, grinning.

She could actually see a wave of relief illuminate his
face. The perfectly human face he most often showed her.
She realized how difficult it must have been for him, to
show her anything else. 

"I have my ways. There are some things that will never be
fully explained, Natalie." He gave her another enigmatic
smile and relaxed visibly.

The two of them just looked at each other for a long while,
in that good, silent way that friends who are on easy terms
sometimes do. An hour ago, such a moment would not have
been possible between them.

"So that's ice cream," he finally commented. 

Natalie stood up from the couch and stretched luxuriously.
It was late. It was probably time to go home.  Sydney was
going to get the thrill of his feline life when he caught a
whiff of that pot roast. She moved over to Nick and leaned
down to kiss his cheek.

"No, Nick." she said, and kissed him again. "That's
Hagen-Dazs."

-30-