372DELICIOUS:
A Bodacious Tale of Seduction Through Baked Goods
Franz was handing out brownies in Biology class. Not because she wanted to—she didn't know anyone in the class and hated the dissections which she had to do alone—but because it was required of her and of every other student in the class to bring in snacks at least once. She'd stayed up late baking the damn things, too, so people had better be appreciative of her treat-making awesomeness.
"No thanks," an anorexic blonde murmured, and Franz moved on to the next person without even looking at them. It was a mistake. If she had, she would've been prepared for the fact she was about to give brownies to one of the most beauteous and popular guys in the school, which couldn't fail to impress her just the tiniest bit.
"Can I have two?" the guy asked, looking extremely hopeful and unfairly gorgeous, a combination that forced her heart out of rhythm. Franz was a bit miffed by that.
Even so, enough of the skinny pretty girls had turned down brownies, so it would've been mean to deny him. "Sure," Franz said, holding out the tin.
He carefully picked out the two biggest pieces and jammed one into his mouth, closing his eyes, and an expression of intense pleasure came over his face. Franz now knew what he looked like when having an orgasm. The knowledge did not displease her.
"These are amazing," he mumbled, spraying brownie crumbs all over his desk. "Oh my God."
"Thanks," Franz said, and walked away, trying to calm her overly-impressionable self down.
After she was done handing out her delicious baked goods to the undeserving masses, the teacher started up the lecture and she sat alone at her pair of desks, taking notes on the digestive system of a cat fetus, which they were dissecting the next class. It came as a surprise when someone catapulted themselves into the desk beside her.
"Hey," the gorgeous guy said. "Have any more brownies?"
Franz stared at him, and said slowly, "Uh, yeah, sure, take some."
"Awesome, awesome, awesome," he said, and commenced with the mowing down of the remaining brownies, again with the moaning and orgasm face and general awkward sexual feelings towards her baked goods. "I love you," he groaned.
Franz felt her face turning red. "Uh, thanks."
When he finished, he didn't go back to the skinny pretty girl, but instead made himself comfortable in the chair beside her. "What's your name?"
"Franz."
He looked surprised, and then slightly offended. "You don't have to lie to me," he said. "If you don't want me to know your name, that's fine."
"No, my name is really Franz."
"I think you're lying."
Franz glared at him, and he raised his hands, though he still looked dubious. "Fine, sorry," he said. "You can be Franz if you want."
Shaking her head, she returned to colouring the brain of the cat fetus orange, which is what they were supposed to be doing instead of galloping around taking brownies and denying truths, like the gorgeous guy was doing. She expected him to leave in a moment.
But no, instead he leaned into her personal space and breathed into her ear, "Franz, will you marry me?"
Franz's hand jolted and created a long orange line across the paper, which made the cat fetus's brain look like it was exploding. "What?" she said.
"Seriously, marry me and bake me brownies every day. I'll do anything you want."
"I don't feel prepared to settle down with you yet," Franz said, recovering and now starting to feel like he was pulling a cruel joke on her, like in the eighties movies where they tormented innocent yet geeky girls because they were douchebags. She'd hoped that he wasn't a douchebag, but apparently he was. "We've only known each other for about thirty seconds."
"Be my girlfriend and make me brownies?" he asked, green eyes limpid with devotion.
Her heart skipped a beat, but she said, "No."
"Please?" he asked. "They're so good."
After a second of thought, Franz reluctantly admitted to herself that he was adorable, but he wasn't using his good looks responsibly. "You can be my friend," she allowed.
He looked genuinely pleased about that. "Really? Will there be food in this friendship?"
"I can bring you some cookies tomorrow."
"Really? REALLY?" His voice skipped up a couple octaves and kept getting louder. "That's AWESOME. I LOVE YOU."
Then he attempted to embrace her skull like a head-crab, which Franz ducked away from in time. As she did, she'd reflect that if she'd known cooking for people would make her friends, she would've baked the whole damn school some brownies before that.
The next day, Franz brought in a bag of three cookies, and sat by herself in the hallway, listening to her mp3 player and not waiting for him to show up at all. She was pretty sure it was just a one-day thing where a beautiful person forgot their place on the totem pole of ranking and came down to visit with the lowly commoners. She was probably going to end up eating the cookies herself. Life was sad.
"FRANZ!" someone yelled, and came skidding to a stop beside her.
She looked over and saw a pair of scuffed red shoes, looked up and saw the guy beaming down at her. "Hi," he said.
"Hi," she replied. "I brought you cookies."
"Awesome," he said, dropping down beside her. She handed him the bag, which he tore open and chomped down on the first cookie.
Once again, his eyes drifted closed, and he hummed deep in his throat. Franz could probably make quite of a bit of money selling pictures to a gay porn magazine if he kept up with the orgy expressions. "The cookie has peanut butter inside it," he said. "I want to marry you. Like, for real. I'll buy you a nice car."
"How nice?" she asked.
"Like, Lamborghini nice."
She raised her eyebrows. "Can you afford that?"
"I'll sell my body, I don't know." He ate another cookie. "OM. THIS IS SO GOOD. I want to have epic sex with your baking skills."
Franz started to turn red again. This time, he noticed, and made a sheepish smile. "Sorry," he said. "I have really creepy thoughts and no mental filter, so, you know, sorry in advance for all the stupid stuff I'm going to say. But we're friends now, so I guess you'll put up with it. But still. We can be more than friends. Marry me."
"No," Franz said.
"Be my girlfriend?"
Franz could picture it now. Everybody in the school who knew the popular guy, wondering why he was dating the girl who was—well, curvy, she wasn't really fat but the amount of baking she did left a fair bit of jiggle on her thighs and hips—not slim as a twig and had no friends. "No," she said. "Not your girlfriend."
"Best friend?" he offered.
Franz sighed. "Fine."
"Yay!"
She felt compelled to add, " I'll bring you some other food tomorrow."
"I love you," he said sincerely.
She assumed he had to get back to his friends, but instead he sat with her and talked to her about the fact he actually had a modeling career—it doing pretty good, although he thought it was as boring as hell waiting around and being airbrushed, and he was scared of the female models because "they seriously look like aliens, OH MY GOD, you have no idea how much they photoshop them to make them look human again IT IS SO TERRIFYING";—his ambitions in life—to marry her, to live in Amsterdam, and to be a chemist, in that order—and his surprisingly insightful comments on the high-school hierarchy.
"I've been here for a month," he said. "And it's kind of weird, because nobody ever talks to anyone outside the specific group. And I like talking to people, even though they think I'm challenged because I go off on rants like this so much."
"I've been here for a six months," Franz said, not adding that without the gifts of charisma and beauty, nobody was inclined to include her in their group.
He beamed at her. "I'll introduce you to my friends. They'll like you."
The warning bell for the next period rang, and Franz gathered up her stuff. "Wait," she said, and the guy hopped to his feet. "I don't even know your name."
He beamed. "Call me Ferdinand, Franz," he said, and ran off into the night. Well, down the hallway, really, but it had the same effect on her. She scowled after him.
The next day, at lunch, Franz brought a whole tin of date squares to Ferdinand, who led her to the cafeteria table where all the prettiest and most popular people were. "Jake," he said, plopping down next to a really buff guy. "This is Franz, my future wife."
Jake eyed her for a second before his gaze dropped to her cleavage, and then slowly went to the box she was holding. "Hey," he said. "What's that?"
At loss of what to say, she took off the lid and offered them to him. "I made date bars," she said. "Want one?"
"See? She is amazing," Ferdinand said cheerfully. "And loquacious as well, after you talk to her for a while. Sit down, Franz. Take the bar, Jake."
Somewhat dubiously, Jake took the bar and examined it, then shrugged and popped it in his mouth. He chewed. Franz sat down, feeling her stomach squirm uncomfortably, and wondered if she should just leave and avoid the embarrassment of being shunned by the popular people.
Jake stared at her. "That was the best date square I've ever had," he said slowly.
Franz, unable to hide her smile, looked down at her lap.
"I told you," Ferdinand said, looking pleased as he grabbed a bar for himself. "I told you she was amazing."
Jake didn't look away from her. "Franz," he said. "What are your feelings about coming to live with me?"
Abruptly, Ferdinand started scowling. "No, you can't. I have first dibs. She is my future wife, not yours, you filthy bastard."
"Maybe she doesn't like you," Jake said. "Maybe she likes me better, huh?"
Both of them looked at her expectantly. "Uh," Franz said.
"What's going on?" one of the other guys asked. "Oh, hey, can I have one of those?"
"Sure," Franz said, completely at loss of what to do about Ferdinand and Jake, who were both giving her strangely serious looks.
"Cool, thanks," the guy said, and ate one. "Hey, these are pretty good. What's your name?"
"Franz."
"I'm Leon, nice to meet you."
"She's my future wife," Ferdinand added, breaking eye contact to raise his eyebrows at the other guy.
Jake snagged another date square. "Or mine. She still hasn't answered us yet."
"Really," the Leon said, intrigued. "Hey, Franz, marry me instead, I give awesome foot rubs and I'd only charge a cookie a rub."
"I'm not marrying anybody, you Amish bastards, I'm only sixteen," Franz said, turning completely red.
By the end of the lunch break, she knew all the guys at the table, the girls were all giving her half-confused, half-envious looks, and she had promised to bake a pie for them all the next day.
"Marry me. Please. I will provide for you."
"No," Franz said, handing Ferdinand the pie. "It's apple, and I couldn't bring any ice cream to school because, well, it would melt, and I like having my ice cream to myself. But yeah. I'm going to take a break from baking after this. You'll have to go back to school lunches."
Ferdinand's green eyes went wide, and he slowly turned the pie on his hand, as if unable to comprehend the sheer wonder of it. "My God," he breathed. "You really did make me a pie."
"I made everyone a pie," she corrected.
"I still love you," he said, looping his free hand around her shoulder and leading her to the cafeteria, where all the guys waved at her. "Look, guys! A PIE!"
"Shit, really?" Leon called, eyes wide.
"REALLY."
"A PIE?" they all questioned, like they couldn't really believe it but wanted to desperately.
"IT IS MADE FROM APPLES," Ferdinand thundered, holding it aloft and effectively silencing everybody in the room. "AND IT IS FOR US."
"FUCK YEAH," Luke called, punching the air.
Ferdinand bore the plate over to the table and placed it in the center with the utmost of respect. "We all get a slice," he said. "And we all say thank you to the love of my life, Franz."
"Thanks, Franz," they chorused, diving in. Luke flashed her a smile, and one of the other guys, Gabe, licked his lips at her, which was either sexual or because he was really looking forward to the pie. Gabe was kind of weird.
"Franz," Luke said, closing his eyes. "I'm being completely serious when I say that I want to go out with you. We could go to the movies or to a concert or anything you want. I will do whatever it takes. I adore you."
Franz shook her head. "You're all sluts for baked goods," she said.
"It's true." Gabe waved his fork at her. "I will give it up to you for another pie. Any way you want it. You want to do some kinky shit, fine, I'll do anything for you. Anything." He waggled his eyebrows.
"Stop talking to the dove of my soul that way, you fiend," Ferdinand said, glaring. He picked up a piece of the pie with his fork, but didn't eat it, and his gaze went over to Franz. "Thank you," he said. "I really do like you. And not just for your baked goods. You are an awesome person."
"Whipped," Gabe called down the table, and most of the guys laughed. "I didn't mean it, Franny. I love you."
"Yeah, yeah," Franz said, waving off the compliment, but on the inside she was all tingly and warm, like on the first day after winter when the sun is actually warm and the snow begins to melt. She smiled at Ferdinand.
After smiling back, he popped the piece of pie into his mouth and chewed. And then stopped, a look coming over his eyes, almost glazed. He swallowed.
Then, with unexpected speed, he half-stood up, braced himself with both hands, and leaned across the table to plant a kiss on Franz's mouth.
She was too shocked to even move away, and he lingered despite the catcalls of their friends, lips warm and soft against her own, tasting like apples and cinnamon. Franz closed her eyes and savoured the moment.
Eventually, he pulled back, only to smile so widely at her it kind of hurt to look at. "I love you," he declared. "I don't care who knows. I've only known you for three days, but I think you are the mate of my soul, the penguin to my ... well, my other penguin, the person I would sing awesome Journey ballads to at karaoke bars, and I will have to go stand outside your window with a boom box if you refuse to go out with me."
"Uh..." Franz said. "Seriously?"
"Yes," he replied, looking straight at her with his green eyes all fired up with longing and indeed, great affection. "Please. Go out on a date with me."
"I don't know," Franz said, watching his face collapse in slow-motion with a certain evilness in her heart. She waited, then grinned. "You might have to kiss me again."
All the guys at the table hooted. After a startled second, Ferdinand's face split into a wide grin. He looked kind of funny smiling that hard, nothing like his usual model-face, but Franz wanted to attack his face with her mouth so hard at that very instant she almost blacked out.
"Babe," he said, leaning forwards again. "I think I can do that."
Then they made out, right at the table, while the guys ate the pie and Franz thought to herself, I knew baking those brownies was a good idea.