PTU Kitchen

By BigIronMarla

I've always been of good use in a kitchen.

A lot of folks who are into service really dig personal service, but I don't actually worry that much about it; I don't need to have access to bedrooms, I don't need to help with dressing or other intimate things. I'm about something I've always considered more elemental than that: food. Shapes our culture. Quite literally shaped our brains! Food is amazing.

And really, even when you're someone's subordinate... and -very- subordinate at that! ...you're kind of the master of your fate in the kitchen. You know how things are done. You know how things -must- be done, what can be done, how to arrange and adjust and make certain everything comes out right. For a full dinner, even with a staff helping out, it's a lot of work and organization.

That's not to say I don't feel like a slave because I'm a kitchen-slave; rest assured, I do! And I've always both loved and been fascinated by food.

So, uh... the game we're playing right now is driving me fucking nuts. It's not a game to me -at all-. Not remotely. It's elemental! Wind, water, fire, earth... and pizza, just like Quest for Glory said.

While I'm cooking, I have to taste, of course. It's weird, though; the adjustment I'm having to make now is that I'm not -excited- to eat anything I'm making. It isn't because I'm not into food; I've already made it clear that I am, I think. It's because my owners think I'm -too- into food. Y'know what that means?

It means my PTU's telling me how good I am for taking it easy, how easy it is just to not mind when food passes me by. It's encouraging me and giving me points when I taste the barest amount instead of taking a proper spoonful, when I try for texture and spit the rest out instead of taking it all in. My owner said 'don't be into food', and now... the unit's running my intake. All of my intake.

Grey protein shakes. That's it. Water, and grey shakes. They don't taste like a Goddamn thing, and I can only tell that it's like drinking liquid Styrofoam when I'm not too faded and tranced-out to know the difference. PTUs're really, really good at getting you to relax, and sometimes time just slips by. In those slips, I 'eat'. Kind of. Between, I drink plenty, because I'm meant to stay hydrated, and because another of the games we play is seeing how bad I can possibly need to run to the bathroom before I finally give in and do it.

I get rewards the longer I wait, the less I eat. My owners thought I was too comfortable, a bossy kitchen-bitch getting too big for her britches in her element, and by God, they were right.

So here I am, cooking. When the texture looks right - it just coats the back of the spoon - I dab a little up on my pinky. Just enough that it stands up in a glossy bead on the sort-of hydrophobic exomaterial of my stimsuit. I'm cool, comfortable, and relaxed, but when I taste this (perfect, just enough salt), I don't even want to swallow.

It's -better- not to swallow this.

It's like trying to gulp down a brick. I feel like a snake with a pig two sizes too big, and that's just a bit of liquid. That's my owners' food, not mine.

As a concession to my profession, I can reach my own mouth. This is important, since the PTU series has a tendency to use oral musculature as part of its subvocalization tech, but for me it's in the collar of the suit instead. It works equally well, more or less, when the Unit needs to know what I'm trying to say to it. Even so, I can't remember the last time I actually used my voice. I think of what I want to say, the PTU understands it, and my staff's Units relay the relevant information.

It's quiet in here, save for cooking sounds. Even clinking and clattering are at a minimum, since by and large we're all taking at least some pains to be careful, to be kind to our things, to be mindful of the way that we batter our equipment or, in our cases, how we don't.

It's -better- to preserve your things.

It's -better- not to make too much noise.

It's -better- to be mindful about the way you move.

So we do, and we don't, and we do.

I feel like... I'm -aware- of the fact that this should be an intensely frustrating experience, and in a kind of way, it is. It's unfortunate that I can't enjoy the fruits of my labor at the same time as it's... intense, elemental in its own way, that this pleasure is preserved -purely- for my owners. It's hard to get across what that's like if you're not fundamentally -like me-, in this way.

I really, really want to eat this. I -love- the dish I've made. I know, I've made it for myself a hundred times, and even now the request brought real joy to me. I know the recipe by heart. Tonight I'm only serving six people but this recipe makes -four-. I have to make two sets. There's spare. I could just have some!

...but it's -better- not to partake.

That's not mine, it's my owners' and their guests'. I can taste it because it's very important for me to ensure it is its absolute best, but once I've felt, once I've tasted, once I know it's right and it's delicious...

...I can't swallow. And I don't. I tip my visor up, and lean over the bin, and drop the morsel back out.

My mouth doesn't even fill up with saliva at the thought. I'm not overwhelmed with eagerness or hunger. -The food doesn't matter-. That's incredible. It's -incredible-. I'm sated; I've been sated since before I started cooking. I don't need to eat or drink. Subtle variance in the material, there's always some, means that I'm necessary for tasting and testing, but the parts here that I'm usually subject to are gone. I'm subject to my -owners-. I belong to -them-.

Even my joys belong to them. The PTU helped me get here. It helps me with my staff, it smooths over operations, the little network we've installed here makes us -all- much better at our jobs, makes our owners glad they made the investment and enforced the early, uncomfortable changes.

It's quiet, and active, and we're all working in a weird, beautiful harmony that has... oh. That's why the food doesn't matter. The harmony's where the joy is.

It's -better- this way.