The Suugo Secret
"Suugo is the Somali pasta sauce—a secret recipe passed through generations. She teaches cooking classes, sharing everything except her famous suugo. When he stays late to learn the secret ingredient, she shows him it's not about the sauce at all."
Everyone wants Maryam's suugo recipe.
The famous Somali pasta sauce. Rich with tomatoes and spices, the exact blend her grandmother created in Mogadishu.
She never shares it.
Fifty-one years old. A widow. She runs cooking classes in Cedar-Riverside, teaching everything except the suugo.
She's thick.
Two hundred and forty pounds of culinary authority. Wide hips. Heavy breasts. Hands that move through a kitchen like magic.
I sign up for every class.
"You keep coming back," she observes. "Canjeero, hilib, bariis—you've learned everything."
"Not everything."
"The suugo?" She laughs. "That secret dies with me."
"Then teach me something else."
"What else is there?"
"You."
The cooking class empties.
Only we remain, surrounded by pots and spices.
"You want my secret," she says. "Everyone does."
"I want you."
She sets down her ladle.
"My husband was the only one who knew the suugo. We made it together for thirty years. Since he died—"
"Four years?"
"Four years of cooking alone. Four years of keeping the secret. Four years of no one tasting me."
"Let me taste."
She leads me to the storage room.
"The secret," she says, undressing, "isn't in the sauce."
"What is it?"
"Love." She pulls me close. "The ingredient no one can buy."
Her body is thick and warm.
Heavy breasts. Soft belly. Wide hips. The body of a cook who's tasted everything except affection.
"Four years," she gasps. "No one has—"
I taste her.
The secret ingredient.
She screams.
"ILAAHAY!" Among the spices. "ALLA—"
"Coming—" She's shaking.
She explodes.
"Inside me—" She's pulling at me. "Ku soo gal—give me the love—"
I position myself.
"Ready?"
"Haa."
I thrust inside.
She screams.
"Alla—dhammaan—"
I start to move.
I make love to the cooking teacher.
Among her recipes. Her secrets.
"Dhakhso—faster—"
I pound her.
"Coming—" Her eyes roll back. "Ku shub—"
I let go.
I flood Maryam.
The ingredient she's been missing.
We lie tangled together.
"Macaan," she breathes. "You found the secret."
"Will you teach me the suugo now?"
"Haa." She kisses me. "But only if you keep adding the secret ingredient. Every time."
One Year Later
I make the best suugo in Minneapolis.
No one knows why.
"Macaan," she moans, as I take her in the kitchen. "My secret ingredient."
The recipe requires love.
I provide it every night.