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“Hello there, children.” Kenny McCormick greeted from his spot behind the school cafeteria counter as he was approached by four of his favorite students. He wore a chef’s hat and apron (with the words don’t kill the cook written on it, done by himself with a permanent marker) over his favorite short-sleeved plain orange t-shirt, though unlike his predecessor from many years ago, Kenny remained pretty skinny.
“Hey, Chef.” The quartet replied in unison as they grabbed their lunch trays from the counter.
Interacting with the four always made him nostalgic for the times when Kenny himself was part of a quartet who greeted the school cook that exact same way.
“How’s it going?”
“Chef, what’s a prostitute?” One of the boys asked.
“Ask your grandma, Chris.” Kenny replied without missing a beat.
His name was Christopher Cartman, the only son of his childhood friend, Eric Cartman – only son that he knew of, at least, because Kenny hadn’t seen Eric in many years; Chris himself was raised by his grandmother Liane and, of all people, Butters.
Before he got the job as the elementary school cook, Kenny had seen Butters and Chris around town many times, usually giving the boy piggyback rides, to the point where he believed Chris to be Butters’ son rather than Cartman’s – mostly due to the blonde hair Chris more than likely got from his mother.
Kenny had since been made aware that Chris was the byproduct of a drunken one-night stand after a girl offered Eric a pity-fuck when he was at a low point in his life. Kenny asked many people who the girl was, but the only concrete answer he got was that she wasn’t Heidi Turner.
By the time the mother realized she had gotten pregnant it was too late to abort, so she dropped the baby off at Cartman’s doorstep and walked away. Cartman himself wasn’t any better, because he pushed the responsibility of raising the child onto his own mother and skipped town not long after.
Kenny couldn’t help but feel for the boy, but he believed Chris to be in safe hands; Butters had always been the most caring, loving and compassionate of his friends, though Kenny never had the chance to ask him why he took it upon himself to help Liane raise Chris. Was it out of the goodness of his heart? Did he feel responsible because Chris was his childhood best friend’s son? Or was it to prove to himself that he could be a better parent than his own mother and father had been?
Whatever his reasons had been, the influence he had on Chris was noticeable: the boy was far from overweight, very friendly, responsible and smart, if a bit naïve. He may have had Eric’s last name and genes, but in every other aspect he was Butters’ son.
The second kid was also the first girl of the group, a little ginger kid ironically named Ginger O’Connell. Her father was Dougie O’Connell, and she was yet another child Kenny had no idea who the mother was. Unlike Chris’ mom, however, the reason he didn’t know Ginger’s was simply because the two had yet to be introduced. Butters probably knew her name, since he had been good friends with Dougie since their days of playing Professor Chaos and General Disarray as children, but Kenny always forgot to ask him.
Ginger was a bit blunt at times, speaking her mind without a care even when she came across as a bit rude, but Kenny knew she was a good kid at heart.
The second girl of the quartet was Daniella Donovan, commonly known as DeeDee, the daughter of Bebe and Clyde Donovan. The couple, despite being just like Wendy and Stan – i.e., regularly breaking up and getting back together some time after – sort of faded in the background when they were kids. Up until Stan broke up with Wendy for good in junior year, that is, once he realized that he liked boys about as much as she did and decided to get together with Kyle instead. After that, Bebe and Clyde became the school’s “it” couple, but that didn’t stop them from fighting, breaking up and getting back together at least once every semester. That only stopped after graduation, when Clyde proposed and the two got engaged.
DeeDee had inherited her mother’s blonde hair as well as her love for meddling with other people’s business. She also had the uncanny ability to sneak up on people completely unnoticed; whenever Kenny spotted the other three kids without her in tow, he would turn around and, sure enough, there she was, ready to ask him personal things about either himself or someone he knew.
As for Stan and Kyle, both moved away not long after graduating high school to attend college out-of-state and had not returned since. Kenny still had their phone numbers, but he rarely spoke to either of them outside of special occasions such as New Year’s.
The fourth and final child was Steven Black II, the son of Tolkien and Nichole, who looked like a carbon copy of his dad when he was that age, except his hair was longer and styled in cornrows. Steven was named after his paternal grandfather who had become an unfortunate victim of South Park’s notoriously bigoted police force when Kenny was still in middle school. The incident became worldwide news and Sergeant Yates was unsurprisingly not able to justify his department’s actions. He eventually cracked under the pressure and finally resigned.
Tolkien followed in his father’s footsteps and became a defense attorney while Nichole, determined to change things for the better from the inside, joined the police force. She dealt with prejudiced colleagues, endured lots of ridicule and harassment, and worked through the pain until, against all odds, she became the current chief of police.
Steven had his parents’ sense of morality and justice, always standing up to bullies and protecting those incapable of defending themselves, but he constantly got in trouble because he took the PC Principal approach to dealing with oppressors and got himself into fights all the time. Still, he was a tough kid and probably knew some style of martial arts because he always came out on top.
Other kids related to people he used to know also attended that school, such as the adopted son of Tweek and Craig, who was a fifth grader but didn’t interact with him as much as the fourth graders did, and Shelly Marsh’s daughter, a second grader – much like how he didn’t know the mothers of Ginger and Christopher, Kenny had no idea who Shelly’s husband was. He really needed to pay more attention to that kind of stuff.
So many of his friends and classmates led successful and interesting lives, yet Kenny did not envy a single one of them in the slightest; so long as he had a roof over his head and enough money to feed himself and his family, he was content.
“Chef, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.” Steven spoke up, snapping Kenny out of his thoughts, before pointing at the wall behind the counter. “You’re the one who put that there, right?”
Kenny didn’t need to turn around and look to know what Tolkien’s son was talking about: hanging from the wall there was a framed photo of a large black man in a chef’s hat waving at the camera. Kenny had been given permission by the principal to hang that there (it took some convincing and a lot of help from the guidance counselor, but he made it happen), as well as the nameplate located directly underneath it:
Jerome McElroy
Employee of the Century
“It sure was.” Kenny replied.
“Who’s that?”
“Believe it or not, children, but once upon a time I, too, was your age and attended South Park Elementary. He was the school cook back when I was in fourth grade, and he was damn good at it. But that’s not all, Chef was a great man with plenty of wisdom to spare; he always knew what to say to help us solve our problems, how to cheer us up when we were feeling down, and had plenty of catchy tunes to sing that taught us important life lessons.
“Every time you children come to me for advice and I’m not sure how to help, I ask myself: ‘what would Chef do?’ Usually that does the trick. He cared about us kids more than most adults did, but unfortunately he was taken from us way too soon. My friends and I loved Chef like a father and I’m sure he loved us like we were his own children, too.” Kenny sighed wistfully. “Man, I miss his chocolate salty balls.”
“That’s gay, Chef.” Ginger spoke flatly, causing Kenny to chuckle.
“It sure is, children.”
“My mom said this morning that you’re laying pipe to the school counselor.” DeeDee spoke. “What does that mean, Chef?”
“Are you a plumber too?” Chris inquired innocently.
“That’s… a little hard to explain in a way that will not get me fired. But hey, let me sing you a little song that might help you understand.” Kenny cleared his throat before he started to sing. “When a man loves a woman and a woman loves a man, the magic starts to happen and the two take off their—”
“Alright, that’s enough.”
The four kids jumped in surprise when the voice of an adult woman suddenly spoke from behind them. They all turned around and there stood the guidance counselor, wearing her usual navy blue skirt and purple shirt.
“DeeDee, that’s a very inappropriate thing to ask.”
“But Ms. Testaburger, my mother won’t tell me what that means. I wanna know. I need to know!”
“I understand you kids are smart and curious, but you are still too young to learn what some things are. Now the four of you move along, I need to have a word with the cook in private.”
“Uh-oh, Chef’s in trouble!” Ginger said before the quartet scattered.
Wendy walked up to the counter after making sure there were no more students within eavesdropping distance.
“You know kids these days have unrestricted, unmonitored access to the internet, right?” Kenny spoke while wiping the counter clean with a piece of cloth. “I was gonna ease them into the concept before they look it up online and discover more than they bargained for.”
“I’m fully aware of that, but Sheila Broflovski is still the head of the PTA and I’d rather not give her any reasons to put us on her shit list.”
“Then it’s a good thing I kept my mouth shut when Chris asked me what a prostitute is, huh? I had a song for that, too.”
“I know that took a lot of restraint on your part. Thank you for that.”
“It’s not like James Taylor is returning my calls anyway.”
That got Wendy to smirk a little bit, which caused Kenny to grin in return. He liked to make her smile.
Wendy Testaburger was special to Kenny McCormick; she had saved his life in more ways than one and not a day went by without him being grateful to her for it.
SOME TIME AGO
Kenny was going to die.
He was lying face up in an alley, being pelted by heavy rain as he bled out from a stab wound on his gut, his orange parka soaking up rainwater and blood.
He had been accosted by a trio of muggers that beat him up then stabbed him because he didn’t have any valuables on his person to hand over – Kenny always left his phone at home unless he was sure he was going to need it; if anyone called while he was away, his mom would answer it for him.
Kenny had gotten rusty after retiring his Mysterion persona for good. Back in the old days he would have knocked them all unconscious without breaking a sweat.
As his vision started to darken, he was approached by a raven-haired woman so gorgeous that she could only be described as an angel, although she wasn’t naked like the angels that usually welcomed him into Heaven were. Her mouth was moving but he couldn’t hear any words because her voice was drowned out by the rain.
The last thing he saw before closing his eyes was her pulling a phone out of her purse. Did they have phones in Heaven? They had PSPs, so it might not have been that much of a stretch.
His final thought was that the pink beret sitting on top of her head looked somewhat familiar.
When Kenny regained consciousness he expected the cloudy night sky to be replaced by the ceiling of his bedroom, like every other time he came back from the dead, but the ceiling that greeted him was white and pristine instead of brown and damaged. His body felt stiff and heavy, and he could barely move his limbs. It took a few moments for him to realize he was in Hell’s Pass Hospital; somehow he managed to survive.
Kenny hated the hospital. All it did was postpone his inevitable demise in the most agonizingly slow way possible while making his family worry about him needlessly. Every time he was admitted to the hospital, his little sister Karen would visit him every day, and the concern in her eyes always tore him up inside. It was especially painful when she cried. Kenny hated seeing her cry more than he hated the hospital.
His older brother Kevin visited sometimes, but not as regularly as Karen. His parents rarely visited, though not due to being neglectful; when Kenny was in high school, his father Stuart got into a car wreck because he thought he was sober enough to drive then crashed his truck, ending up paralyzed from the waist down in the process.
His mother Carol had to stay at home in order to take care of her husband while Kevin became the breadwinner of the family. Kenny wanted to drop out of school and find a job as well, but neither his parents nor Kevin would allow him to, so he didn’t start working full-time until after graduation.
Even if Karen visited him every day, she couldn’t stay by his side 24/7, so most of the time Kenny had to lie there in silence all by himself, bored out of his skull.
If only Hell’s Pass Hospital had some hot nurses in sexy outfits to keep him company…
That time, however, Kenny received an unexpected visit: Wendy Testaburger, whom he had seen neither hide nor hair of since her valedictorian speech on graduation day. Clyde, his occasional drinking buddy, had told him that he heard from Bebe that Wendy had been accepted into Harvard University, but that was it. What was she doing back in South Park?
“I knew I’d seen that pink thing somewhere before.” Kenny said with a smile as she walked into his room. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been wearing the same one since elementary.”
Wendy smiled back at him, glad to see that he was recovering. “Of course not, that beret doesn’t fit me anymore.” She then took a seat on the chair next to the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ll live, surprisingly. I take it you’re the one to blame for that?”
“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”
It wasn’t, but it sort of was at the same time – dying and reviving in his room would have been painful, sure, but faster and much less of a hassle, even though she had no way of knowing that. The fact that she cared enough to call an ambulance for him was leagues above what he expected from the average South Park citizen.
“Sorry, I’ve never been too good with words. But why’d you do it?”
“Why wouldn’t I? I saw three thugs running out of an alley and leaving someone seemingly dead on the ground, I had to do something. Didn’t even know it was you until I got out of my car and saw the orange parka. Guess I’m not the only one whose sense of fashion hasn’t changed since our school days, huh?”
“You got me there.”
“How did you even get yourself in that situation? It wasn’t…” She lowered her voice a little bit. “It wasn’t a drug deal gone wrong, was it?”
“Nah, I don’t mess with that shit anymore.”
Kenny did not have a happy life and needed some form of escapism to cope with his situation. He started by sniffing cat piss in fourth grade and moved up to harder stuff as he grew older, but it was only after he OD’d on heroin right in front of Karen that he stopped doing drugs altogether. She didn’t remember it happening, of course, but the look on her face as he died in her arms had haunted him ever since.
One of the perks of being immortal was that he got a fresh new body every time he died, meaning he did not have to go to rehab in order to kick the habit.
“I was looking for a job, actually.” Kenny continued. “The restaurant I worked at closed, so I was going from door to door looking for a place that’s hiring, but didn’t find anything. Then those assholes jumped me, but didn’t realize that I’m probably even poorer than they are. Since I didn’t have anything to hand over, they just beat my ass and left me for dead.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Kenny. Is there anything I can do?”
“You? You saved my life! I’m the one who should be asking what to do to repay you.”
“Don’t be silly, I would have done that regardless.”
“In that case, It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you started visiting me while wearing a sexy nurse costume from time to time.”
Wendy sighed and shook her head, but he could tell that she was more amused than irritated.
“You haven’t changed a bit, Kenny McCormick.”
“But you did, Wendy Testaburger. You look ten times hotter than you did back in high school.”
She playfully punched him in the arm. “I bet the reason you survived is because most of your blood is pooled in your dick. If they stabbed you in the crotch instead, you’d be gone by now.”
“That’s not an impossibility.”
They shared a laugh for a moment.
“Look, you can forget about the nurse costume, but I’ll come back and see how you’re doing every once in a while. Deal?”
“I’d like that, thank you. Staying in the hospital is, above all else, boring as shit.”
Wendy kept her promise; she didn’t visit him every day like his sister did, but she was still there very often. She even got to know his siblings a little – Kevin was a construction worker while Karen worked retail; the three of them together didn’t make an exorbitant amount of money, but it was enough to get the family by. Soon they would even be able to move out of their rundown shack in the abandoned ruins of SoDoSoPa.
“Hello again, Wends.” Karen greeted her when the two crossed paths in the hospital corridor. “Here to see your hubby?”
That sentence gave her pause. “I’m… what?”
Karen smiled. “I overheard some nurses gossiping. Apparently they think you two are married because of how often you come by.”
Wendy was unable to fight back the blush that was forming on her cheeks. “That’s…! Th-They need to mind their own business!”
Kenny’s sister laughed. “All kidding aside, I never had the chance to tell you how grateful I am. Thank you for saving my brother’s life. Now that his idiot friends aren’t around to drag him along for their stupid antics he doesn’t get in as much trouble anymore, but trouble insists on following him everywhere he goes. After I was told that he had been stabbed I thought that was it for him, but thankfully you were there. You’re Kenny’s very own guardian angel.”
“Thank you, Karen, but I don’t think what I did was that big of a deal. Anyone would have done the same.”
“Anyone? In this town? Wends, you have too high an opinion of the people of South Park. I doubt anybody else would have even noticed, and if they did the best they would do was check his pockets for loose change.” Karen pulled Wendy into a hug. “South Park doesn’t deserve someone as nice as you.”
“Karen, I…”
“Thanks again for looking after my brother and keeping him company. I’d stay longer if I could, but I gotta go to work. Go on, don’t keep your betrothed waiting.”
“Karen!”
The younger woman winked playfully at her before getting into the elevator and waving her goodbye as the doors closed. Wendy sighed and kept walking. When she reached Kenny’s door, a nurse stepped out of the room.
“Welcome back, miss.” She greeted. “Mr. McCormick is doing much better and will probably be discharged very soon. You’ll have your husband back home in no time.”
“He’s…! I’m not…! We’re…!”
By the time she was able to formulate proper sentences once again, the nurse had already moved on. Wendy simply gave up and walked into the room.
“Hey, Wendy!” Kenny greeted.
“Hey. Have you heard the big news?” She spoke as she sat on the chair by the bed. “Apparently we’re married now. Congratulations, I guess. Wish I’d been invited to the reception, though. And the wedding too for that matter.”
Kenny raised an eyebrow. “Are you, like, coming onto me or something?”
“N-No, you doofus! The nurses just don’t know what they’re talking about. You know what? Forget I said anything. How are you feeling?”
“Mentally? Confused. Physically? Great! I could run laps around the hospital if they’d let me.”
“That’s good. I was told you’ll soon be discharged.”
“Awesome. I need to get out of here and find a job ASAP. I know Karen and Kevin can take care of things, but I still feel bad being unable to do anything.”
“It’s not your fault you got stabbed, Kenny.”
“Speaking of jobs, I never did ask what you do for a living.”
“Me? I’m the guidance counselor at South Park Elementary.”
“For real? Old Man Mackey finally retired, or did he kick the bucket? I remember him saying he’d never quit the job unless his successor was someone he felt was right for the job.”
“He told me something to that effect, yes. But you wanna know what the funny part is?”
“What?”
Wendy smiled at him. “Mackey told me he was happy that I’d be the one taking the job off his hands, but he let it slip that if he had to pick a successor, it’d be you.”
That actually gave Kenny pause for a moment.
“…Yeah. Mr. Mackey was one of the few people who believed in my potential. Shame I never did live up to his expectations.”
Wendy placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Kenny. You got dealt a bad hand in life, but that never stopped you from doing your best.”
The two stayed in silence like that for a moment, until Kenny finally voiced the question he had been itching to ask since that night in the alley:
“Wendy, why did you come back here?”
“You asked me to, what do you mean?”
“No, not here here, I mean to South Park. When we were kids I figured you’d be the first to walk away, never to return. And you did! You left. You went to Harvard. You had the opportunity to have a fresh start anywhere you wanted. So why did you come back here? Why did you give up that freedom?”
Kenny used to think that only three types of people were born in South Park: those like Clyde, Tolkien and Butters who don’t want to leave, those such as himself and his siblings who want but can’t leave, and those who leave for good without looking back like Stan, Kyle and Eric. Wendy was an anomaly, the only person Kenny knew of who quit South Park but eventually returned, and he was damn curious to know why.
“It’s funny that you say I was free, because I didn’t feel that way at any point even for a moment. If anything, I felt lost. Since I was eight years old, there was nothing I wanted more than to move away and live my own life outside of this town, but from the moment I stepped on the plane to Massachusetts I felt out of my element, and it was… it was scary. Not a day went by when I didn’t feel on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and that only seemed to subside when I came back during the holidays.
“I felt lonely even when I was hanging out with the friends I made, getting drunk, getting laid, getting high, and on more than one occasion I found myself comparing them to the friends I left behind and realizing that I didn’t enjoy their company nearly as much. The only time I really felt free, that the shackles finally came off, was after I got my degree and came back to South Park. That’s when I realized that this is my home. This is where I belong. And I’m honestly fine with it. South Park has its ups and downs, sure, but so what? So does everywhere else. At least I don’t feel like a fish out of water here because here is where everyone I love is.”
“I still think you could do better. South Park is like a wild beast that slowly sinks its claws into you the longer you stay here, and before you realize they are so deep inside your flesh that the only way out is death.”
“What about you, Kenny? Why didn’t you leave South Park and start anew somewhere else?”
“Leave South Park? I can barely afford to live in it. All that awaits me outside is a life of drunken homelessness.”
“So you can’t imagine yourself having a life anywhere else? Gosh, that sure does sound familiar, huh? You should know how I feel, then.”
“…I guess.”
Kenny was discharged after making a full recovery, and Wendy offered to give him a ride home, which he accepted. She drove him straight to his house, where his parents were eagerly waiting outside for his return.
“Seriously, Wendy, thank you. For saving my life, for keeping me company in the hospital and for the ride. I don’t think anyone other than my family ever cared this much about me.”
“Stay away from dark alleys from now on, will you?”
“I promise only to try.”
He opened the car door and stepped a foot outside, but before he could fully exit the vehicle, a thought crossed Wendy’s mind and she grabbed him by the upper arm.
“Wait!”
Kenny stopped and turned his head to face her. “Huh?”
“You said you used to work at a restaurant before it closed, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Can you cook?”
Kenny blinked in surprise. “I worked at a restaurant, sure, but I was a kitchen steward, I didn’t cook any meals. I was just a dishwasher who sometimes stirred the pot when everyone else was busy doing other things.”
“That’s not what I asked, Kenny, I asked if you can cook.”
“Well, I picked up a thing or two watching and helping my co-workers and sometimes I cook stuff at home when mom is busy. My skills are pretty basic, but I’m a quick learner.” Kenny then smirked at Wendy. “Why, are you on the lookout for a stay-at-home husband? That’s, like, the feminist dream, right?”
“No, dummy. The school cafeteria is a bit understaffed, and if you know how to cook then I can put in a good word with the principal for you.”
His eyes widened in astonishment. “Wendy, please. I owe you so much already and I still don’t know how I’m going to repay you. You can’t just keep on increasing my debt like that.”
“We’ll think of something along the way.” She let go of his arm and gave him a pat on the back. “I’ll give you a call if I manage to schedule an interview for you. Take care, Kenny.”
It was Kenny’s turn to surprise her with a kiss on the cheek.
“You’re the best, Wendy, thanks! Be seeing you!”
She stayed there a while longer and watched as Kenny gave his mom a big hug then crouched in front of his dad’s wheelchair and hugged him as well. When the three of them waved her goodbye, she waved back before starting the car and driving away with a smile on her face.
Wendy hoped Kenny would get the job, she wouldn’t mind seeing him on a regular basis outside the hospital.
Funnily enough, Kenny had not died even once since then, and he still had a big nasty scar to prove it.
“If I’m not allowed to sing inappropriate songs in front of the children, then I’ll have to do it in front of you to compensate.”
“Kenny—”
But she was too late. He reached for a nearby whisk to use as an impromptu microphone and started to sing:
“I’m gonna make love to you woman, gonna lay you down by the fire! And caress your womanly body, make you moan and perspire!”
Wendy anxiously looked around, then relaxed after seeing that all the students were far away from the counter.
“You’re not a bad singer, Kenny, but have you considered expressing your passion for music somewhere else? Preferably far away from the children?”
“Aw, thanks, Wendy, I think you’re a great singer too. Remember when Eric was holding auditions for our boy band? How did that song of yours go again? Oh, I remember!”
“Don’t you dare!” She warned him.
“Mrs. Landers was a health nut, she cooked food in a wok! Mr. Harris was her boyfriend and he had a great big c—”
Wendy forced him to shut up by covering his mouth with both of her hands. She could feel him grinning on the palm of her hand.
“Are you going to stop?”
She lowered hands after he nodded.
“In truth, I tried to pursue a musical career a couple of times, but it never goes anywhere. I even tried being a rapper last year but I was told that my flow is so white I should be cleaning teeth with it instead.”
“I’m sure you’ll catch a big break someday.”
Kenny rested his forearms on the counter as he leaned forward. “By the way, the song from earlier wasn’t a demonstration, it was a declaration.”
“Wha—?” Wendy blushed profusely once her brain finally processed what he had just said to her. “I should have expected as much from the biggest pervert in our class. At least buy me dinner first.”
“I’ll do you one better and cook you a fancy dinner instead!”
“What happened to your basic skills?”
“Like I told you, I’m a quick learner! But I’m a little strapped for cash at the moment, though, so you gotta provide the ingredients.”
Wendy thought about it for a moment. Kenny eagerly awaited her response.
“You’re being serious about this, right? You’re not gonna shout ‘psych’ if I agree to it, are you?”
“Wendy Testaburger, I’ve never been this serious about anything else in my entire life.”
The school counselor sighed, then she produced a notepad and a pencil from her pocket and handed them over to the cook.
“Alright, fine. Tell me what I gotta have on the fridge.”
“Preem!” Kenny said as he started happily listing what he was going to need. “I’m gonna cook you my personal favorite recipe: Chef’s mom’s pot roast. I know that dish inside and out, believe you me, you’re gonna love it.”
“How do you know that recipe?”
“I found Chef’s cookbook forgotten in the back of an old locker. I took it home with me then started experimenting. Every single one of his dishes taste fucking amazing.”
“A good recipe isn’t worth much in the hands of an incompetent chef, I’m sure your skills play a big role. How long does it take to prepare?”
“About tree fiddy.”
“…What’s tree fiddy?”
“Three hours and fifty minutes. Four hours tops.” Kenny handed the notepad back and Wendy gave the list a quick scan.
“That’s doable, but isn’t there something missing from your list?”
“Missing?”
Wendy used the pen to scribble something real quick at the bottom of the list, then showed it to Kenny. The word she wrote almost made his eyes jump out of their sockets:
Condoms.
“Wh… Wha…” No matter how hard he tried, the words just wouldn’t come out of his mouth.
“Are you going to provide those yourself? Or do you intend to do it raw?”
Kenny shook his head to unscramble his thoughts after his brain went through a full reboot.
“F-For real?”
She winked at him with a smile. “For real.”
He returned the smile. “Leave it to me, then, I’ll take care of that.”
“In that case, see you on Saturday. 5 PM, sharp. You know the address, don’t be late.”
“I’ll be there!”
He watched the way her hips swayed hypnotically as she walked away. If only that skirt was a bit shorter and a little tighter around her butt…
Kenny hadn’t slept with anyone in a while and had died a couple of times since the last one, so he knew for a fact that his body was STI-free, but he still would rather avoid risking a pregnancy; as fond as he was of the students, he was far from ready to have kids of his own.
“Chef, are you gonna fuck Ms. Testaburger?” A child’s voice suddenly spoke up, startling Kenny and almost giving him a heart attack in the process.
DeeDee had once again used her power to sneak up on people and somehow materialized right in front of him while his attention was focused on Wendy’s backside.
“Dagnabbit, children, I told you not to do that!”
“That is not a proper answer to my question.”
“How do you know what fucking is but not what laying pipe means?”
“Wait, that’s what laying pipe means?”
Kenny slipped her an extra brownie. “Here. A gift.”
“What for?”
“For keeping quiet about this conversation. And as thanks for getting the ball rolling.”
DeeDee shrugged dismissively and walked away eating her free brownie.
Chef Kenny had a big goofy smile on his face for the rest of the week and, when Monday came around, so did Ms. Testaburger.
“They definitely fucked.” Ginger commented after seeing the two of them chatting and laughing by the counter during lunchtime.
None of her tablemates disagreed.