She bit into it. Chewed. Swallowed. Gave every impression of having a
   delicious dinner.

   "Want a bite?" she said, innocently.

   "Yeah," I said. I like spicy food. I always order the curries with four
   chilies next to them on the menu at the Pakistani places.

   I peeled back more foil and took a big bite.

   Big mistake.

   You know that feeling you get when you take a big bite of horseradish
   or wasabi or whatever, and it feels like your sinuses are closing at
   the same time as your windpipe, filling your head with trapped,
   nuclear-hot air that tries to batter its way out through your watering
   eyes and nostrils? That feeling like steam is about to pour out of your
   ears like a cartoon character?

   This was a lot worse.

   This was like putting your hand on a hot stove, only it's not your
   hand, it's the entire inside of your head, and your esophagus all the
   way down to your stomach. My entire body sprang out in a sweat and I
   choked and choked.

   Wordlessly, she passed me my horchata and I managed to get the straw
   into my mouth and suck hard on it, gulping down half of it in one go.


   "So there's a scale, the Scoville scale, that we chili-fanciers use to
   talk about how spicy a pepper is. Pure capsaicin is about 15 million

   Scovilles. Tabasco is about 50,000. Pepper spray is a healthy three
   million. This stuff is a puny 200,000, about as hot as a mild Scotch
   Bonnet Pepper. I worked up to it in about a year. Some of the real
   hardcore can get up to a million or so, twenty times hotter than
   Tabasco. That's pretty freaking hot. At Scoville temperatures like
   that, your brain gets totally awash in endorphins. It's a better
   body-stone than hash. And it's good for you."

   I was getting my sinuses back now, able to breathe without gasping.

   "Of course, you get a ferocious ring of fire when you go to the john,"
   she said, winking at me.

   Yowch.

   "You are insane," I said.

   "Fine talk from a man whose hobby is building and smashing laptops,"
   she said.

   "Touche," I said and touched my forehead.