“There is no greater ecstasy than the liminal state of two lovers about to touch…” I whispered seductively to the heap of dough before me (2 cups all-purpose white, 2 1/4 cups coarse grain whole wheat, 2 tbsp cayenne pepper, 2 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp salt, 2 tsp dry yeast). The mound of slightly wet and sticky concoction responded easily to my firm probing, gently enrobing my fingers with its floury folds. Grasping a wine bottle (its contents formerly used to seduce a person from Porlock), I rammed the mound of dough over and over in an orgiastic reverie akin to the impassioned violin solos of Niccolo Paganini. The mound was pliable from such violent thrusting efforts and yielded softly to my vision of two perfect pizza crusts, their bottoms lightly greased with olive oil by intrepid palms.
My finger rested ever so delicately upon the oven dial, I traced her ivory curve in a tantalizing fashion, the thin knob pulsating with potential energy yearning to unfold like a lotus bloom. I finally coaxed her dial to 500 Celsius – the scientifically-proven temperature of carnal hunger – and basked in the radiant glow as she heated my large… round… pizza stones. After two minutes in the raging convection of desire, my pizza crusts emerged slightly hardened and ready to be lavished with attention.
Grabbing the nearest can opener with the eagerness of a celibate monk released from his vows, I pulled back the lid of tomato paste and lathered its contents onto my waiting crusts, pausing only to sprinkle a smattering of oregano, basil, and cayenne over the steaming disks. Now in the throes of scullery, my hands seemed to move of their own accord with some esoteric or atavistic bodily knowledge. This is madness! Thought I, as my eyes turned salaciously towards a giant calabrese sausage. The sausage was three-fingers thick and as long as a forearm, as if its Italian makers were paying an homage to the long-forgotten statues of Pan’s phallus. Grasping the sausage firmly with the grip of a mid 19th-century washerwoman, I gently circumcised the protruding tip and chopped up its reddish remains with a knife from Solingen. One sweet onion, one crimson bell pepper, four artichoke hearts, and two cloves of garlic all succumbed to my rapacious blade, its manic chops reducing them to a diced collage of Pollock-esque art. The cheese was in my hand before I knew what was happening, a fresh ovular creation, hard steel biting over and over into the pure white lactation to create a host of 1/2 cm disks.
“The asiago! Where is the asiago?” I demanded of my stolid refrigerator. Cold, ever so cold and devoid of all sensuality it sits in the merry kitchen like a pernicious maternal figurehead mocking my pansexual transgressions (I was literally rubbing my genitals on a pan at this point). “The asiago!” I shouted and all at once realized it was sitting next to the cheese grater, awaiting my tortuous embrace. “Mistress Asiago, the sharp and tangy purveyor of my wildest oral fantasies… let us dance.” The asiago seemed to groan with unrestrained pleasure as I rubbed her over and over onto the grater, its steel claws grasping hungrily at the bare white flesh. Her creamy tailings exploded onto my countertop in an orgasm of ripened fury as I scooped up her savoury secrets and sprinkled them liberally onto my crusts along with the aforementioned ingredients. Subdued and satiated – for now – I wrapped her delicately in the preservative layer of ziplock like a deceased lover waiting to be unearthed for one last embrace (next week’s lasagna).
In the oven once again, my fresh nubile creations hissed at their naked exposure to the intense heat and after ten minutes I removed them from the temporary prison. Golden brown and still emanating waves of heat like a desert mirage or Scheherazade dancing on the 1000th night, I placed six leaves of fresh basil on each and left them to cool on a wire rack. One bite later, I knew it was meant to be.