Candy had a few things to look forward to now. The women’s bathhouse. A place where she could sink into warm water, breathe in lavender and vanilla, and pretend for an hour that she wasn’t living in a cage. Having friends there, Alyssa and Vivian, greatly added to the experience. Friendship, as a woman. It was different, certainly, not what she expected. But it was good.
Then there was the self-defense class. A place where she could fight back, even if only against dummies and sparring partners. Plus the literary society. A place where wives could laugh at the absurdity of their situations together, usually with wine. Copious amounts of wine.
None of those things was freedom, exactly. None of those things undid the metaphorical (and if Marcus had his way, literal) collar around her neck. But they were hers, for now at least. And if she could find those things, maybe she could find more in this suffocating world that spanked her ass, made her bow and curtsey to men, wanted to brand her rear like livestock… maybe she could carve out spaces for herself. Maybe, just maybe, she could survive.
So, emboldened by recent successes, Candy took out the package the Ministry of Domestic Reclassification and Integration had sent her home with homework for her to achieve in the next 9 to 13 months.
It was a long list, across several papers. She hadn’t even read them all yet. If she had, she would have balked at the one on page 8, nestled between "Attend ballroom dance lesson" and "Attend hairstyle tutorial". No, what she focused on was the order to take a cooking class and/or make a passing meal signed off by your husband and marital advisers, Mrs. Primm and Sergeant Strapforth. Huh, well, her mother-in-law had sent her a cookbook… how hard could it be?
An hour later, Marcus was watching her from the doorway, arms crossed, his expression a careful mix of amusement and concern.
"Candy, do you need help?"
Candy, standing over an increasingly ruined pot of stew, gritted her teeth.
"No."
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
"You sure? Because it smells like something’s burning."
Candy scowled.
"It’s fine."
She stirred furiously, hoping that somehow if she just kept moving things around, it would magically fix itself. It did not. Marcus sighed.
"Look, I know you want to do it on your own, but—"
"Marcus, I swear to the gods, if you come over here, I will throw this at you."
Marcus held up his hands in surrender.
"Alright, alright. You’re the boss."
Candy narrowed her eyes at him.
"Nice try."
Marcus chuckled, stepping back to lean against the wall.
"Suit yourself."
Candy turned back to the stew that was quickly becoming inedible.
She was supposed to be learning this. She was supposed to be a good little wife, feeding her husband with warm, home-cooked meals. It was one of the expectations, societally and legally, from the ministry, and she was failing miserably.
The bread was too hard. The hand squeezed lemonade sour as all hells, and it only got worse with the carrots. The shiny metal grater had looked innocent enough, and for a few blissful minutes, Candy had actually felt competent. Until the carrot slipped, her knuckle hit the edge, and she cursed loud enough that the mirror in the parlor blinked off in protest. For a moment, she stared at the spot of blood in disbelief, then she wrapped her hand and kept going.
The stew was already a mess. She had chopped the onions too early and let them sit too long in cold oil, which made them turn bitter and chewy. Then she added the garlic, but forgot the meat, so by the time she remembered, the bottom of the pot was already scorched.
The meat. Gods, the meat. She hadn’t defrosted it properly. In a panic, she tried to thaw it faster by running it under hot water while cutting it. This made it somehow soggy and sinewy at the same time. When she dropped the cubes into the pan, they hissed, spat, and welded themselves into one big clump that refused to separate. She tried to break it apart with a wooden spoon, then a knife, then out of sheer desperation, the heel of her hand, which only resulted in a meat-slick thud and a spray of boiling oil that nearly claimed her left eyebrow.
By now, the entire kitchen smelled like desperation, overcooked fat, and something faintly medicinal, possibly from the time she mistook baking soda for salt.
By the time dinner was served, Candy was exhausted, frustrated, and entirely out of patience. Marcus, to his credit, sat at the table without complaint, picking up his spoon and taking the first bite. Candy watched him closely. He chewed. He swallowed. He considered. Then, very carefully, he set the spoon down.
"So," he said.
Candy’s eye twitched. "Say it."
Marcus cleared his throat. "It’s… warm."
Candy glared. "Marcus."
"It has… texture."
Candy folded her arms. "Marcus."
"It is… food?"
Candy groaned, dropping her head onto the table. "I hate cooking."
Marcus laughed, shaking his head. "It’s not that bad." Candy lifted her head just enough to glare at him.
"Then eat it."
Marcus hesitated. Then, after a long pause, he picked up the spoon again, hovered it over the bowl, and then put it back down.
"…I’m not that hungry."
Candy threw a rock-hard bread roll at his head. Marcus dodged, laughing harder.
“So," she scoffed, “I guess I’ll have to take that damn class after all.”
Marcus nodded. He pitied the instructor who got Candy.
“Well,” he replied, “you have a year. Keep practicing, take the class on the 13th month so you’re most prepared, you’ll get better along the way," he said, still grinning.
Candy sighed. "No, I won’t."
Marcus shrugged. "Yeah, probably not." Candy couldn’t help but smirk because, for all her failures, for all the ways the world tried to break her, for all the ways she had been forced into this life, she’d always have the joy of serving bad food to her mildly willing best friend turned forced husband.
That night, after the dishes were scrubbed and the kitchen aired out, Candy sat at the little desk by the window and unlocked the small wooden box where she kept her real words. Her handwriting hadn’t changed. Not really. The letters were still his, Cameron’s, the same slant, the same odd way of curling R’s, but a bit smaller now. Her hands were smaller. She hoped no one would notice.
She hadn’t written in a bit. She’d gotten caught up in cooking trials and curtsies and the thousand quiet humiliations of being Candy. Tonight's failure in the kitchen had lit something under her. It reminded her she still had time, still had the right, for now, to be Cameron, and she was going to use it. She dipped the quill in the ink:
Hey Luke,
It’s been a while. I’m on a long-term assignment, classified, censored, very hush-hush. Can’t share where or what. Just know I’m alive and still writing with all ten fingers, which is saying something.
But hey, if I told you I nearly burned a carrot, bruised my knuckle on a grater, and accidentally welded meat into one giant lump... would you believe me? Of course you wouldn’t. You know no one in their right mind would let me near the galley!
She smiled. Just a little. And kept writing.