Our snacks were tasty and our drinks too as we talked with each other in the living room. All kinds of subjects came to the forefront but none really compared to discussing the weather, funnily enough. Claire and I were standing at the window looking outside, both of us leaning on either end of the window against the wall while snacking on some carrots with dip we had taken with us. While Anya and my girlfriends were currently looking at funny animal videos.

“Keeps coming down, doesn’t it?” Claire commented. The snow was still coming down incredibly thick. It was already hard for cars to drive earlier but now it was pretty much impossible apart from emergency vehicles from the fire department.

“Yeah, it’s going to be hard to get out of here tomorrow.” I looked up from the window to my friend. “Feel free to stay here as long as needed, by the way, you are really not intruding. I really wouldn’t be comfortable sending you two out when the weather is like this.”

Claire nodded. “We will see, but thank you. If it keeps snowing like this, we probably will need to take you up on your offer.”

“Sadly enough, the basement is not yet decorated as a lady cave. I’ve not yet had the time for that.”

“Hmm?” Claire smiled. “Then we must find some other way to keep ourselves busy, but I’m sure that won’t be much of an issue.”

“Exactly.” I smiled back and then looked outside of the window once more. “Let’s just hope the power stays on.”

“Don’t jinx it.” Claire laughed.

I nodded but it was still something I was going to keep thinking about. You’d often hear about areas that aren’t used to snowfall like this getting power outages because things tend to break in these situations. Then again, last time I checked, our city did have pretty good infrastructure works.

“Roraaaa?” Ria called me over from the sofa, when I looked at her, I saw that both Anya and Em were trying pretty hard to keep their giggles down.

“What is iiiit?” I replied in a similar tone.

“Can we have a snake?”

“Uh… I don’t think there was snake meat on that platter.”

“Noooo! As a pet, I mean!”

Claire chuckled.

“I’m pretty sure Shima would not like that. Why are you asking?”

“Look at this!” Ria pointed at Anya’s tablet, to which Anya turned the tablet in Claire and my’s direction. “Look how cute it is!”

In the video that Anya was playing, a rather small snake twirled in between the fingers of the owner. It did look rather fun to handle but owning a snake myself is really not something I was interested in. “It looks cute indeed. But I don’t think that owning snakes is something I want to do.” I admitted. “We’ve already got a tiger.” A tiger which was snoozing along on the backrest of the sofa my girlfriend and Anya were sitting in.

“The very cutest of tigers, if I might add.” Em commented and petted our little tiger cat.

“Then how about a hedgehog?”

“A hedgehog?”

“Yes, they are super cute too!”

“I don’t know if those are really supposed to be pets, are they?”

“One of my nieces has a hedgehog as a pet.” Anya replied. “They are rather unusual, but they are still pretty good pets. Maybe not a good combination with other pets, though, because of the spines.”

“Oh ye, I wouldn’t want Shima to get hurt.” Ria nodded. “Then maybe it’s fine to not have an extra pet. That means more love for Shima and she deserves it.” Ria then continued to pet our lovely cat, who liked the attention a lot.

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“It is quite a sociable cat, isn’t she?” Anya looked at how both of my girlfriends were petting her. “She didn’t even run away from us when we entered.”

“She’s used to being coddled by Em and Ria and pretty much everyone who comes around. Feel free to pet her too. I’m the only one who she tries to bite anyway.”

Anya chuckled softly and joined my girlfriends in petting Shima, who just rolled around, purring pretty much constantly now.

With snacks mostly depleted for the moment, even though we still had plenty in reserve for after dinner, we moved on to finally get our gourmet plates set up so that we could get cooking. Since there were five of us, one plate would still suffice, especially since I bought one of the larger models. Aside from that, I had bought two in case more of our friends wanted to come over one of these days. It’s always useful to have a spare lying around. These things don’t really tend to break, but in case my bad luck came rolling around, we have a spare.

We went downstairs to gather our plates of meat and then spread the plates evenly across the table while Em put some bowls of premixed salads on the table too. Some bread, garlic butter and other veg which also would taste incredibly well after an encounter with our gourmet table.

Claire held her hand in front of her mouth, sitting next to her girlfriend and watching the meat while the plates were warming up. “Dang, my mouth is starting to water just looking at all this.

“I know the feeling.” Ria giggled.

“What were you going to eat at your uncle's place, Anya?” I asked while eyeing the platter of food myself.

“My uncle likes to hunt, so we were going to get an assortment of wild dishes like pheasant and things like that, prepared in several ways and served with croquettes.”

“Oh, that does sound good too.” Em nodded.

“We were looking forward to it, but this is just as good, isn’t it, sweetie?” Claire put her hand on her girlfriend’s back.

“It is! And the company might be even better.”

“Awh, thanks.” I definitely liked receiving that compliment.

“And the advantage of having this much meat is that we can do this again tomorrow. It would be a shame to throw it away after all.”

“That’s true. With some other side dishes and some sauces, it might as well be an entirely different meal as well.”

The plates slowly but surely got to temperature, ready to receive the glorious meat on their surface.

“I suggest that we start with the wagyu meat.” I offered. “I think it might be best to do that, as we start cooking other meats, their taste might influence the wagyu.”

“Fair point.” Claire nodded. “I’m with you.” She took a slice of wagyu and waited for the others to do the same.

“We shouldn’t use oil, right?” Em asked as she prepared her piece.

“Yeah, I think so.” I nodded. “From what I’ve read, anyway.”

“Let’s go for it!” Ria went in gung-ho and put her wagyu beef on the plate, it immediately started sizzling the moment it touched the hot surface.

We all followed suit shortly after.

The rumours were true, thanks to the rich fat content of the wagyu beef we didn’t really need to add any oils or butter for it to cook, as it provided its own natural grease.

As the slices were rather thin, they also didn’t need much time either. After just a couple of minutes, the slices were done cooking and resting on our plates for a little bit.

“It’s so tempting to already start eating it.” Ria said, gaze locked on the expensive meat in front of her.

“It will taste even better if you give it some time, Ria.” Em chuckled. She had looked it up on her phone in the short time the meat was cooking.

“Okay.” Ria was pretty much drooling but she showed great resolve trying not to jump the beef.

A short time after, Em gave the go sign, albeit with a small warning attached to it, directly mostly at our hungry girlfriend. “Make sure to savor it and don’t just put the entire thing in your mouth in one go.”

Ria reluctantly followed Em’s instructions and so did the others at the table, cutting off just a small piece of meat at a time. But dang it was worth it. The beef was just melting on my tongue. The taste was so intense compared to all the other steaks I’d eaten before in my life, it almost made me think that what I was eating was a completely different kind of food. In a way, it almost edged out my new primary sustenance, although the feeling that accompanied that was still quite a bit better. But it was getting there.

Claire, who was sitting opposite to me, leant back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. “Goddess, this is like eating fruits from the garden of Eden itself. Forbidden but oh so delicious.”

“What’s so forbidden about it?” Anya chuckled, amusing her girlfriend with her question.

“It feels like we are savoring something we are not allowed to. Like we are about to be punished by the unseen forces above for stealing their delicious nectar.”

Anya giggled at her response, although Claire hadn’t really answered the question, just adding some more dramatics to her tale. Although, in a way, I did understand the feeling. This meat was absurdly good and luckily we had 20 of these pieces lying around, so we could divide it evenly, otherwise people might have started fighting over it.