“The Taste of Pleasure” by Ron Koppelberger

The woman abandoned the white liquid reflection of what seemed to be a dream, a dream of youth and beauty, for the advance of time and age, lines and wear. She separated the pale brown eggs and mixed the yellow yolks into the cake mix. A rush to the abandon of another year, another way to the end of her hidden, secret stay on planes of what is and what has been. She whipped the answer to her birth and homespun, silky trappings of sugar storm brewed in the eye of desire. "A cake for my birthday, a cake for the tide of leather skin and ancient eyes alight," she sang in rhythm to the gentle stirring of the cake mix.

She greased the cake pan liberally as she poured the mix into its tin confederate. All ovens and frosting, cooking and curing what will be a ripe wine and a moment of sweet assured joy. A birthday to remember. She thought as she waited in ageless entitlement. The old wife of a constant destiny and chaste pleasures, the purest of ascensions, attired in firefly candles and heightened pallets. The taste, the breath of another love, the love of confection in creamy crumbling slices of cake.

She opened the oven door after an hour had passed and heat raged in aromatic waves of mist. "Done," she said with a touch of glee, "done."

She withdrew the cake from the oven and luxuriated in the warm sensation that poured through the oven mitts. She surrendered to the urge, the primal instinct in wild loves and unwavering passion as she cut herself a piece and devoured it. "For my birthday in silent old pleasures of divine flavor," she sang, "Like the hourglass and a taste of wine ever so sweet."