Page 35 of Tarek

“That’s delicious.”

“Right,” he replies while opening a glass container with a thick orange sauce inside, and he begins to sprinkle on his food.

“What’s that?”

“This is what Tobagonians call pepper sauce. It’s made out of scorpion pepper, scotch bonnet and some other things that is not for the faint of heart. Be warned.”

I chuckle to myself; this white man is telling me that this sauce is hot. Be warned? I want to roll my eyes in my head.

He doesn’t know what heat is. Taking the glass container, I begin to cover my food in blobs of the hot sauce. It smells like vinegar and spice.

“Um, Penelope, I don’t think you should?—”

Covering the sauce, I look down at my plate seeing the large blobs of pepper. “Breathe, Tarek I like spicy food. I can handle it.” He must think Red Hot is super spicy.

He leans back into his chair and folds his arms. “You can, huh? Okay, enjoy.”

The first bite of the pepper douse dumpling, I don’t feel a thing, as expected.

“See, I told you have nothing to worry about—” As I am talking, my ears begin to ring at a high pitch. Then Satan’s anus begins to rub against the back of my tongue. The heat is migrating from the back of my tongue to my lips. My breathing feels constricted. What the hell is this?

My watery gaze flicks to Tarek who is now smirking, silently judging me. “You okay there?”

I shrug my shoulders, because I’m unable to form words since my tongue is on freaking fire. My eyes tear up, like someone died.

Tarek casually pushes a glass of water toward me. “Drink that.”

I nod my thanks as tears run down my face, with trembling hands I begin to gulp the water.

“No please don’t finish.”My brain screams as the cup drains.

Gasping for air I touch my throat. “Why is it so hot?” Beads of water roll down to the side of my face. I’m losing all sense of decorum, my mouth is hanging open, dribble is hanging from my lips. Lord, even the air I am breathing feels hot.

“Well, I did tell you there were scotch bonnets and scorpion pepper in it. You didn’t listen,”

To add to my pain, Tarek reaches across with a linen napkin and wipes my mouth softly and closes it. In some hours when I go through this scenario in my mind I will be dying from embarrassment. Right now, in this moment I have no sense of pride.

“As I was saying I don’t think you should put that much on your food.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“Hi, I am Marco. This should help?” a kind face young gentleman presents me with a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

“Thanks, Marco,” Tarek says. “Can you get my phone from the office please”.

Within seconds Marco returns with the phone. All the while I’m trying to cool this burning sensation.

Have I ever soaked my lips in a spoon of ice cream? No, but right now it’s the best thing I have ever felt.

Time ticks and the burning session has waned, my embarrassment finally begins to creep in.

Primping my hair, trying to regain my pride which is currently in shambles.

“I must look a mess.” Turning to the side, I gently wipe my eyes.

“Well, I think you’re fucking sexy, runny eyeliner, swollen lips, gagging sound. Sounds like a good time for me,”

Mid wipe, my head flicks toward him. “Are you flirting with me?”

His brows furrow, as he scratches the side of his 5 o’clock shadow.

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