I have a culinary experiment going on. It's called "poule au pot for the completely lazy cook." Authentic poule au pot recipes all rely on an awful lot of frying and fussing. The ingredients have to be fried in butter or olive oil - yes, that includes a whole chicken, also a side of ham, since European bacon is closer to what we Americans think of as ham than it is to what we call bacon - before being simmered on a stove in a large casserole dish or roasting pan, just long enough to cook all the way through but not so long that the meat falls off the bone and the contents become soup, then transferred in the roasting pan to the oven so that the cooked meat cooks even longer, which means frequent basting to ensure the meat doesn't dry out and become tough. Then all the ingredients have to be removed and set aside while the broth is reduced into gravy. The result is delicious, but very time-consuming and labor-intensive; also, it practically orders arteries to harden ("Toughen up! We know you can take more butter! Wimps!") and I think the ingredients would taste almost as good if they were simply boiled into a stew. The only way to prove my hypothesis correct, of course, is to test it, so I have a frying chicken and a small ham boiling in a stockpot with some wine and herbes de Provence added to the water. In a couple more hours I'll add the carrots, leeks, celery, mushrooms, and potatoes. All the vegetable ingredients will be tied into pretty little bundles or sectioned off in cheesecloth bags, just like in the original recipe, so the presentation shouldn't suffer too much. The dish will be ready in time for supper.

Another, even lazier version of poule au pot, also one I invented, involves simmering everything in a crock pot in a base of homemade gravy. I'll try that on a day when we both have to work and so won't be home until after nine.

Shortcuts are not cheats. They're creative variations.

They let me do things like dance with Magister while I'm cooking dinner.

This afternoon, I presented him with a mix tape I'd made earlier in the day. I used to make mix tapes a lot when I was a teenager, but that was when I had a stereo of my own and a library of records, cassettes, and compact discs. I left those behind in one of my moves. However, public libraries have extensive music collections of their own, and Magister has his small stereo in the living room, and blank cassette tapes aren't very expensive, so I decided to make him a present. The music is mostly classical. There are a couple of New Age pieces on it, though, and some pop songs - one a Bryan Ferry song that reminded me of him, a couple of Moody Blues pieces, and a few others, most of them from the early to mid-seventies. They seemed to fit.

Magister found the latter selections amusing.

"You do realize these were hits when I was young, don't you? Was that deliberate on your part?" He smiled at me when he said that. "Trying to make me feel old?"

"Bah. You're not old." I hadn't thought of that while I picked the songs. For the most part, I don't usually think about his age. I'm aware that there are two decades, an entire generation, between us, of course, and I can't say that I see him as a peer, exactly, but neither do I think of him as an "older man," let alone as old. He's just himself. "I thought they suited us."

And so, we're dancing, like twin planets in search of a sun, slowly orbiting the chest that sits more or less in the center of the living room. Then the Jefferson Starship song that I put on the tape starts playing, and I catch my breath.

"They're singing about Thelema, aren't they?" I ask. "Or at least about sex magick."

"Entirely possible."

I stop our rotation to sway in place with him. I'm listening to the lyrics, and for some reason, I have a hard time moving my feet or otherwise dancing when I'm concentrating hard on the music or the lyrics to which I dance. This is probably why I don't dance often. "They are. The song isn't just a metaphor. The singers are ascending through love and sex. It's about Thelemic sex magick. It's got to be. Oh, my Erastes. This needs to be our song."

"Hmm. It does seem to suit us, doesn't it? All right. We'll have a song." He smiles. "I suppose if we're going to do something traditional and sentimental like having an official song for our relationship, we might as well use one that references Aleister Crowley. However obliquely."

We sway together, memorizing each other's faces with our lips and fingers as we do so.

"I think it's time for a dip," he says. "It wouldn't be a romantic slow dance without a dip, now, would it?" Seconds later, I'm leaning back, giggling, with my head suspended above the floor. When he pulls me back up, our mouths meet briefly. And then I feel his teeth on my neck, biting slowly but firmly; my knees give in as the sweet, inexorable spasm grips me between my legs. I tremble in place, braced only by his arms, tossed by orgasmic pleasure; a tree in wind.

Within a few short moments, we're both on the floor, seeking each other, and finding.

"I love being able to cry with you if I cry," I say, as I get the buttons of his shirt open, and he works at the zipper on my pants. "Did you know I never used to cry much, until you somehow got me to do it? I don't even know if it was the pain. I've been hurt before, after all - it goes along with being bullied in school. It wasn't the same. Somehow you find ways to get under my skin. But if I'm going to cry, I want to do it in your arms. It feels good when you hold me. Your holding me when I cry feels good even when you were the one who made me cry. It makes the crying itself feel good. Isn't that weird?"

I feel him smile against me as he buries his face in my shoulder, planting sharp little kisses along my neck and chest. Little kisses, little bites that make me gasp. "It's supposed to feel good, eromene," he murmurs. "Otherwise, there wouldn't be much point."

His silvering hair is soft and fragrant when I kiss the crown of his head. When I concentrate, I can feel a slight glow, and I bask in warmth.

Our naked bodies embrace each other, melting into each other, trying to forget that they are two instead of one. He pushes my legs apart and drives himself into me deeply, making me cry out. It hurts; it feels good. I want more.

The lyrics break through the heat of my passion again for a few moments, because one word that I'm sure I used to be very familiar with is now unfamiliar to me, and I find that distracting and can't let it rest. "My love?"

"Yes, eromene?" Of course, he isn't stopping; he doesn't have my distraction-by-nitpicking problem. His focus, as always, is unbreakable. The way he's doing what he's doing almost makes me forget what I wanted to ask him.

"What does it mean when... when the lead singer is... singing 'Allez?' I... I haven't studied French since... I was... in lower school. Oh. Oh, my. That... I like that..."

"Good angle? You like that, do you? I'll have to do more of it. Like this?" He smiles down at me. I have no idea how he can keep talking so calmly while he is pushing into me like that. He isn't even breaking his rhythm.

Meanwhile, I'm groaning hoarsely, bucking my hips, desperately impaling myself on him.

He pins me down with one hard rocking of his pelvis and resettling of his weight, making me cry out from a bizarre combination of frustration and pleasure. I can't move anymore, although I try anyway. "Ask me nicely, now. Your voice sounds so sweet when you beg."

"Please. Don't stop. Please, more, my love, please, I'll do anything for you..."

"Yes. You will." He leans down to cover my mouth with his as he thrusts, taking my jaw in one hand and holding me in place. His kiss enters me, insinuating, stealing my breath away. I gasp in sudden weakness and dizziness. "And I will always love and cherish you for it, among many other things about you. I think later tonight we'll see what else you'll do for me if I ask. Oh. Loosely translated, it means 'let's go,' or 'come with me.' Allez, beloved," he murmurs in my ear, as he grabs my calves and pushes my thighs higher to drive himself into me even more deeply. "Allez... Allez..."

With every thrust, he wrings a sharper cry from me.

When we are both spent, I find myself gazing at his naked body, how it glows in the square of golden afternoon sunlight that we are lying in. If I wanted to look away, I couldn't, but I don't want to. The glow is warm, as warm as inner light. My own body lies next to his, and my arm, next to his arm, is white stone, reflecting sun. We are alabaster statues in a temple, illuminated by warmth.

I whisper, "I love you more than words can say."

"That's what making love is for." He covers my mouth with his. He strokes my forehead; his fingers feel like velvet against my skin. We have more to tell each other, so much more, that will not fit into words. Some of it needs to be told now, sharply and sweetly, but of course, there is still so much more to making love after that. A lifetime of telling would not be enough to tell it all.

Oh, my Erastes.