Do Me a Flavour

On that first morning, the bacon and Swiss crepes tasted like the smell of an old sock. Normally, after a night of bar hopping, the trifecta was the only thing to raise Jess from the deadweight of a hangover. Jess spat out the rubbery contents onto the plate and shuffled back to the kitchen to check the expiration dates. Finding nothing past its prime, she tried to remember what swill she’d downed at the last club but could only remember walking down a long hall to the toilet, her right shoulder pressed against a red wall and keeping her from falling.

She grabbed a cracker and lavished it with a creamy dill spread but it tasted of sawdust and turpentine. The Fox’s chocolate chip cookies which were meant to get through the afternoon until she could order Chinese delivery tasted like cardboard laced with shoe polish. Unable to problem solve on an empty stomach and with a throbbing skull, she told the kitchen to “fuck off” and crawled under the crumpled bedding and went back to sleep.

That night she greedily grabbed the brown paper bags from the bewildered delivery driver and inhaled its oily sweet and spicy fumes before paying and sending him on his way. When she impaled a piece of General Tsao’s chicken and stuffed it into her mouth, she was horrified to taste vomit. She tried another piece with more of the sticky sauce and found the bile flavour intensified. The accompanying spring rolls tasted like plastic teething rings before they’re stuck in the freezer.

She jammed the cartons into the fridge and consulted the only expert she knew—the internet—which promptly told her she could be pregnant, have mouth disease, a cold, diabetes, anxiety, or cancer. After two hours spent in the on-line medical wormhole and deciding she would drop dead in two weeks, she went back to the kitchen. Within minutes the contents of the fridge and pantry were on the counter in a makeshift buffet. But the Serrano ham tasted like nylon; the expensive parmesan ham crumbled like chalk in her mouth; cheesecake had turned to urine, and Smarties were coal. Celery, Granny Smiths, and smoked salmon were flavourless and so edible. She stood in the kitchen, staring into space, saddened that the loves of her life had betrayed her.

For the next two weeks, the only foods she could stomach were celery, apples, fish, berries, and rocket. The internet continued to be 50/50 on whether she was going to live. Something started to happen in the third week. Compliments were accompanied by smiles and thumbs up and her ever faithful muffin top was shrinking. As she sat and forced down a “superfood” salad, minus the nail polish remover flavoured dressing, thank you, she realised she didn’t feel tired and her head was frighteningly clear. Though her synapses fired in the most pleasurable of ways, she longed for just one bite of a chicken wing dipped in bleu cheese or an onion ring.

At the end of the month, Jess was doing her usual on-line banking and noticed she had a charge from a place called “Hip-no Café” from the beginning of the month, around the time she and some mates had gone bar-hopping. But it wasn’t their style to go to a café after a night on the lash. She texted Sarah who replied that she’d never heard of the place and had she been doing drunken on-line shopping again?

Jess sighed and looked up the number, surprised to find it pop up first on her google search.

“Yeah. Hi. This is going to sound weird, but I spent 75 quid here at the beginning of the month and I’d like to know what the hell I got.”

“You a smoker?”

“No”

“Gambler?”

“No”

“Sex addict? Stalker?”

“What the fuck? NO!”

“Ah you musta got the ‘Slime to Slim’ special.”

“Huh?”

“You know we do hypnotherapy here, right? Have you lost weight recently?”

“Yeah, some.”

“Food tastes like ass?”

“Yes!”

“Dr. John convinced your brain that bad foods taste like shit and then you can’t eat those and voila, the weight comes off. Same method for smoking. Porn’s a little trickier.”

“Jesus. Can you reverse it?”

“So you WANT to go back to stuffing your face with cheese fries?”

“Well….”

“It only works about 10% of the time, if even that. You should be thankful and just get on with your life.”

“Is this legal?”

“You signed a waiver.”

“But I can reverse it, right?”

The man sighed. “Yeah, it’s a tenner, though. I can book you in for next week.”

“Ok.”

For the next week, Jess noticed how many surfaces reflected her image—windows, puddles, bus mirrors, and the weird globe sculpture outside the bank. She barely recognized the person gaping back. She found herself staring more than once at women who fell in the “slightly plump” category, trying to objectively gauge if they possessed the right amount of femininity. Weren’t they just normal beautiful women going about their day? But how far would they go to have this gift that unceremoniously dropped into her lap on a night on the piss?

But a lifetime of salad?! She was already bored out of her skull with every meal. Sure, the food didn’t taste like vomit or cleaning supplies, but there was a distinct absence of flavour. Even bright fresh blueberries tasted like little spheres of water. She touched the new curve of her waist, and rubbed the flatness of her tummy, but it was the sense of lightness and radiance, that made her want to run with arms flung wide.

A week later, Jess shifted anxiously on the slick vinyl of the diner booth. A cheeseburger the size of a tower was placed before her, cheese oozing down the sides and onto a wall of chips below. She could hear a faint sizzle and a meaty steam wafted towards her.

She closed her eyes, knowing exactly what she should do.