Dinner with Mal
Today we’re having dinner with Malthus Krayl, the adrenaline junkie, bad-boy hero of Sins of the Flesh. He has some very interesting ideas about the ideal dinner date.
The chop of helicopter blades hacks at the quiet. A dark saucer of pre-dawn sky stretches overhead, star flung and beautiful. Mal grabs Calliope’s hand.
“Kind of early for dinner, isn’t it?” she asks over the noise.
Mal laughs. “Ski first. Dinner later.” He dips his chin toward the rotating blades. “Duck.”
He needn’t have bothered with the last bit. Calliope knows what to do. This isn’t her first helicopter ride.
Once they’re settled and up in the air, she regards Mal with that cool, even look, the one that makes his blood heat to a boil. Because he knows that when it comes to him, she’s only cool on the surface. He makes her hot; he makes her crazy; he cuts through her layers of protective ice—and he loves that he’s the only one who can.
12,000 feet up the chopper makes the drop. The sun’s up now, a bright ball in the cloudless sky, and they’re gliding in the shadow of the summit of Le Grand Combin. Mal grins, loving the high, loving it even more because Calliope is there to share it with him. For all her cool reserve, he gets to her. For him, she lets down her walls. For him, she perches on the razor’s edge, riding the adrenaline surge right there with him, and allowing herself to enjoy it.
The wild run at near vertical down the mountain with Calliope racing him every inch of the way is Mal’s idea of perfection.
Hours later, they’re back at their private chalet in Verbier cuddled on the couch sipping crisp, dry Gewurztraminer from a shared glass and taking turns dipping bread and meat in cheese fondue, feeding each other, laughing, kissing. A perfect dinner. An almost perfect end to an adrenaline junkie’s dream day.
And then Mal scoops Calliope up in his arms and carries her, not to their bed, but outside to the balcony, where they make love with the cold air on their naked skin and the majestic mountain peaks rising above them. And now it is the perfect end to the perfect day.
