Tea Keeper

This is a story I wrote as a private audio script for Wkdaudios based on their original concept and refined with their help and encouragement. Go to their Literotica page to hear an audio performance if that's your preference. It is posted as text here with their permission.

I was a fool when I stumbled into your shop. Not a fool. Ignorant. I was avoiding some parade. Some protest. I don't know. I backed into your store to keep from getting trampled. It seems appropriate now, that I backed in. It could have been an electronics store. It could have been a fucking travel agent. It was your tea shop and I was holding a dripping frozen Starbucks concoction I had seen on the Internet. Extra pumps, skinny. I don't even remember.

I know you don't like it when I call it "your tea shop" but I don't care who the owner is. It's you that infuses every inch of that shop. Every shelf, every box of tea, every piece of equipment smells like you. Without you it would fail.

I backed into your store with my Starbucks and it took me a long time to realise that you were grinning at me. A grin I've come to know. It means "You are lost right now, and I am not." You are not lost. Not in your shop anyway. I am not lost in your shop either. I am not lost with you.

You gave me your first command that day. "Put it down," you said, "It's okay." So I did. I put that corporate milkshake down on your glass display case. It formed a wet ring immediately, and began to spread onto the glass. You ignored it, of course, because you can do that. Ignore things that do not interest you.

You paid attention to me. I was Winter windblown, awkward, disorganised. My scarf hung crookedly. I was there by accident. You pretended I walked in on purpose though. At least, you pretended that Fate had pushed me through your door. "Can I help you find something, ma'am?" you said, "Something delicious?"

I only remembered about my drink days later when I replayed those moments in my mind. You said the word "delicious" and you had me. Your shop was overwhelmingly fragrant with tea and spice, with oiled wood and old paint.

"Yes?" I said. I did not have many questions in my life. I couldn't afford them. Questions are the luxury of those who are not in charge and I was always in charge, but not in your spaces. Not when you smiled at me. "Yes." I said, more confidently even though I couldn't remember the question.

"A blend? A single origin? Or are you a blank slate, waiting for a story?"

I waited too long to answer. You laughed.

"Blank slate it is. Do you have some time? This will take time."

I mentally cancelled the grocery store and the meeting with Jennifer. "I have a little time," I said, "I just..."

I pulled out my phone to tell Jennifer and you crossed your arms. I put the phone away. I know why I did that now, but I didn't know then. I was still foolish then. Ignorant, although to be fair, you were too. But I remember what happened last time I said that.

"We're not after fair," you said, "We're after beauty, and beauty is not fair." What you did to me then wasn't fair at all. I keep waiting for you to do it again.

You looked the part that chilly afternoon. Round glasses, a dark apron over a taupe cardigan. You looked overqualified to be selling cheerful boxes of tea bags to phone-addicted shoppers.

When they bumped out of the store with their purchases and the door slammed shut behind them we were alone and the shop became itself again. I'm not sure how to explain it... It seemed like customers were intruders on something much deeper-- something meaningful. I didn't realise it then, but I was part of the meaning. You never saw me as a customer. I've never made a purchase.

You flipped the store sign to "Closed" and waved me upstairs to a loft overlooking the shop. It was hung with tapestries, cluttered with bags and boxes of loose tea leaves labelled in Chinese, in a curly Indian language, in block lettered English.

I followed you, and you took my scarf, my coat, my bag, and set them on a chair at a small table in the middle of the loft. Sound from the street did not reach here. You had me sit in the other chair. We were in a temple to tea, with everything anyone could need to brew. A little sink, a stove, shelves of kettles and crockery. Every other space was filled with banks of tiny drawers, carefully labelled by hand. Your handwriting, I realised, even the Chinese characters.

"I want to make a portrait of you," you said, leaning forward. "I am an artist."

The room cuddled me. I was warm and disoriented, but I felt safe. It's impossible to believe, but it's true. I vaguely wondered how much it would cost, but my business was humming along prettily at the moment. Not that it didn't take constant vigilance, but I was good at it.

"How much," I said, and you sat across from me and smiled fully. "One cup," You said.

Your hands were folded on the table. Long fingers, expressive, and they squeezed a little when you said "cup."

"I'm confused," I said, feeling warm drunk and a little dizzy.

"I'm not confused," you said. "I want to make your portrait in tea. You are different, fascinating. You are beautiful."

I wrinkled my nose at you. "A portrait in tea? You mean like a blend or something?"

"If you say 'yes' I'll show you. Will you trust me?"

I nodded, my heart in my throat.

You nodded back. "Good. I don't think you'll regret this, but if you want to go, just say you'd prefer coffee. The front door is unlocked."

I shuddered when you said "coffee." I've always enjoyed it. I think I enjoyed it, but there was such an otherness about your tea shop, about you. Nothing about coffee sounded right.

"What do I do?" I said, feeling out of my depth.

"Just be. Breathe. Look. Feel. Tasting comes last. I'll ask you some questions. Answer them and watch what happens. It's most fun if you just watch."

I wondered if you'd ask me my sign or something. My name, my age, my address. You didn't care about any of that. "What brings tears to your eyes?" you said, and it brought tears to my eyes. It had been so long since anyone cared enough to ask. I opened my mouth to speak, but you held your hand up and gazed at me, at the tears shimmering in my eyes.

"Tell me what flusters you," you said, "Tell me what embarrasses you," You watched me wipe my eyes. I remembered the wind catching my skirt once as I got off a city train. You saw me remember. My face betrays me so badly sometimes.

"Tell me the truth," you said, "It's much more compelling than fiction."

"There was a man on a train once, downtown, and I..."

You stopped me with a finger. "Slow down. I need to savour this."

"Um, well, it was a metro train, and I was going home after an interview with an intern."

"Good," you said. "Go on."

"And I... was, um, 'flustered' because the intern was... this is very inappropriate."

"You had a physical response to your intern? Did you act on it?" You leaned forward, your left hand beginning to toy with small bags of tea on the table between us.

"No, of course not. It's just... the sensation lingered. And then there was a man on the train, and I remember his clothes more than his face. He wasn't forbidden, anyway. He watched me step into the train, sit, cross my legs. I was wearing a skirt. It was Summertime. Warm. I don't tolerate the heat well."

You picked up my jacquard scarf and ran it between your fingers as you listened. You held it up to your nose and breathed and I felt like you were that man on the train. Maybe you were. I felt exposed.

"Anyway, maybe you haven't noticed that sometimes there's a puff of wind that comes up between a rail car and the platform as you step from one to the other. I usually do something about that. You know. Hold my skirt down. And that time I didn't. I have good legs and I wore pretty knickers and he was watching me and I was... flustered."

"Flustered" you said, raising an eyebrow.

"Excited."

You waited, took off your glasses and polished them with my scarf. "Your let your skirt blow up under your armpits for an interesting stranger on a Metro train because you were 'excited?'"

"I was desperately fucking aroused. Sexually, okay? Are you happy?"

"Smell this," you said, holding what looked like a dried piece of orange peel.

I thought it was citrus, a little like pine, maybe, or gin, but gentler. You had me off balance again. My annoyance melted. And fuck, if I wasn't getting flustered. Aroused. "What is it?"

"Bergamot," you said. "A kind of bitter green orange." You walked around behind me, took some of my hair in your hand and breathed my scent from it. "It is like the smell of your desire. But that is not where a portrait begins."

I swallowed, feeling the blood rush to my face. "Where does a portrait begin then?"

"With fear, but this is your first time sitting for a portrait, unless I miss my guess. I can make a sketch, a beginning."

You poured water into a small kettle on a stove and lit the burner. You began to pull pinches of tea and spices from the bags on the table, from tiny drawers in spice chests that crowded the loft. You handed me the sliver of bergamot.

"I want you to crush that with your fingers. This won't take long now."

I crumbled the dry rind and its scent got a little stronger. You didn't wait until I was finished. You swept it with a tiny broom onto a square of stiff paper and slipped it into a green teacup. You had collected maybe four ingredients. Oolong was one, I knew, because you said it as you dropped the pinch of leaves into the cup. The bergamot, of course, and two others. I couldn't tell if they were leaves or bark or bits of dried fruit.

You did not let the water boil, and when you poured it over your mixture the room filled suddenly with a fragrance that was at once new and familiar. I laughed, I think, and there were tears in my eyes again.

You closed your eyes, taking in the scent of the tea you had made for me. You picked it up, breathed it in, licked your lips and sipped once. You held the heat in your mouth for a moment, smiled, and swallowed.

"Can I...?" I said, longing to taste what you had made. You waited a long time, your fingers curled around the steaming cup, then you picked up a tiny spoon and dipped it into the tea and held it out for me. I sipped it and I felt known somehow. I felt like you had seen something I hadn't ever seen in myself.

"The art does not belong to the model," you said then, and you took a long sip, and held my eyes as you tasted and swallowed. I felt like you were tasting me, my confusion, my happiness, my comfort, my desire. I was desperately needy and you were making me watch you drink my tea. I couldn't take my eyes off your mouth.

"When you come back tomorrow, I'll make something for you as well." You said it like it was a concession. A gift you could just as easily have withheld. You set the cup down, the dregs covered in a thin layer of liquid that I stared at thirstily. You saw me.

"Dump it in the sink," you said, pointing your chin at the cup. "The dregs are not for you. They lie, and we will not lie here. Do you understand?"

I nodded. I didn't think I could speak. I obeyed, even though it felt like destroying a work of art. I rinsed the cup and put it upside down on the drying rack.

"When you return, wear something red, and don't wear perfume" was the last thing you said before I left your store.

~~~~

I don't remember arriving home. I don't remember stepping out of your shop, the smell of the air outside, none of the sounds. I do remember smelling the bergamot on my fingers that night. I touched my nose and I was with you again. I wasn't angry with myself, exactly, but it bothered me how quickly you had controlled me. I was alarmed. Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I was ready to be the subject of a real portrait. I washed my hands, but the scent lingered.

I ran the business the next day. Sold and purchased, although what and to whom I couldn't say. I kept bringing my hand to my face and the scent brought me back to your loft, your mouth, the way I had done everything you said. I still didn't understand exactly what you had done to me, but I liked it, whatever it was. I wondered... if the potion you made was just a sketch, what would a complete portrait be like?

I got to your shop just before closing and I walked in, butterflies in my stomach. I dressed for you- a short knit dress under a long coat, tied with a sash and short boots. Nothing that would fly up in the wind, but it didn't hide my shape. Then the fragrances hit me and I forgot that my nerves mattered at all. You were there behind a counter, consulting a thick book. There was nobody else there, but you didn't look up. I stood, waiting, until I wondered if you even remembered who I was. I had tied a red ribbon into my hair for you. To please you.

I took off my silk scarf and knotted it with my hands and that is what you seemed to notice first. Your nostrils flared and you looked me full in the face. Finally.

I laughed nervously. "Draw me like one of your French girls," I said. My wrists were tangled in the scarf and you reached over the counter and grasped it. You pulled me close to the counter. I was almost on tiptoe. You smiled, smelled my fingers, and laughed.

"I will make whatever I please with you," you said, "but I like how you think. Go lock the front door and turn the sign over. Then come back here and show me everything you want me to see."

I obeyed. I turned the sign, walked back to the counter. I put the scarf on the counter and kicked my boots off. I untied the coat and shrugged it off. There were no curtains. I could see pedestrians outside clearly, but you made no move to take me to the loft. You made no move at all except to watch me with interest. Maybe with amusement. I looked nervously toward the street and you rolled your eyes at me, reached under the counter, and flipped the indoor lights off.

I paused a moment and then pulled the dress over my head. I could feel my hair crackle with static and I knew I would look mussed. I wish I had thought it through, but it was too late.

I stood in front of you in just lingerie- bra and knickers I had chosen because their green reminded me of little citrus fruits.

You waited. I couldn't play out the rest of the afternoon in my mind. I tried, but the only thing I could think was that if I went on, I would be naked and you, a man with the most sensitive sense of smell, would be following me up the stairs to the loft.

I watched your face and I knew you were thinking the same thing. I went on. I dropped my bra on the counter, slid my knickers down around my ankles, bent, picked them up, and puddled them over my bra. The only thing I was wearing then was the red ribbon in my hair. I picked up the end of my scarf and played with the fringe.

I burned and shivered. I thought I would be more comfortable if you would frown, or laugh maybe. "You don't seem like the type that would watch Titanic," I said, trying for a smile.

"I haven't," you said, your eyes laughing. "But I doubt I need to watch it. It can't add anything to what I can learn from you."

You flicked your eyes to the staircase and I began to walk, dragging the scarf behind me. You followed, and I realised that I didn't fear what my body would betray to you. I wanted you to know. We were halfway up the stairs when you said, "Didn't you have an orgasm last night?"

I kept walking, stunned. How could you have known? At the top of the stairs I turned and faced you. "No."

"Why not?" You said, You untied your apron slowly. "You were desperate with desire when you left yesterday."

"Yes. I was. I am now. I just... didn't want to have to decide to do it."

You touched my cheek, the first time you touched me. "You will not leave unsatisfied tonight."

You took your apron off, then your cardigan. You held it in your hands and walked around me. I felt your eyes take me in, my mussed hair, my neck, my left shoulder, my back, my ass. You stopped and I heard a drawer open behind me.

"I have thought about you every minute since you left last night," you said, "I dreamed about you and I woke up in the dark, hard for you. When I slept again I dreamed of your mouth and what your eyes would look like with my tea in your mouth. I dreamed of what you would look like with my cock in your mouth. We are not responsible for what happens in our dreams, but I had hoped for these dreams. I want you."

I almost fell. My toes curled into the rich rug and my hands clenched. I licked my lips to speak, but I couldn't make words. I think I whimpered.

You finished walking around me, and I felt your eyes on my right shoulder, my breast, my stomach. You held up a small vial filled with gold.

"I prepared this as soon as I came in this morning. It's honey. The bees made it from beebalm flowers. Wild bergamot. It's for your portrait. Are you ready?"

I remembered what you said about portraits and fear, but I nodded anyway.

"You're a brave girl aren't you? Curious and shivering. Look at you. I will not waste this."

You put the honey vial in my left hand and closed my fingers around it. "Give it your heat. Make it thin and flow. It is too cold to use now."

You took my scarf from me and draped your cardigan over my shoulders. I could smell you- spicy and wild. You left it open and you stood back and gazed at my breasts framed in your cardigan as you picked a pinch of tea from a clear plastic bag. "Kneel," you said, and I did. I watched you, burning, seeping. I wondered why that honey still flowed thick in its vial. I was burning.

You moved in your space confidently, your hands reaching for drawers, bags, vials. You didn't combine them. You just placed about two dozen different ingredients on the table within reach. Every time you approached I let my lips part, hoping.

Then you knelt in front of me, looked into my eyes and watched. You took my right hand in yours and placed it over your heart. "Tell me what you are most afraid of," you said.

I don't think you cared much what I said next. You watched my pupils dilate, my lips open. You felt the twitch in my fingers on your chest. You took it all in. You watched me hesitate, open my mouth, close it. I blinked.

You leaned forward and kissed my neck under my left ear, lingering, listening to my breathing, and picking up the scent of my hair.

"Invisibility," I squeaked, my skin going to gooseflesh with the touch of your lips.

"Water from a well then," you said, smiling. "I'm so glad you told me. I would have started pure, with distilled water. It would have been a mistake."

You cupped my right breast with your left hand and lifted a little. You bent down, rocked your nose against my nipple, and I felt the heat of your breath on my skin. I knew I would wrinkle first, I was wrinkling already, but it wouldn't last if your heat kept burning me. I felt my nipple swell, proud and desperate.

"Fennel," you said, "Maybe. Just one seed. Half a seed."

I wanted you to just tumble me over the table and crush all those bags, ravish me in a cloud of spices. Instead I knelt and waited and leaked.

You put the tip of your finger on my tongue and watched my eyes. Then you put your finger in your own mouth. You kissed me and I felt the animal rise up in you. I thought I might get pounded after all and I prayed for you to lose control. You didn't. "Darjeeling, but not Puttabong," you said, breathless, trying not to meet my eyes. "Makaibari, I think. Yes."

You stood in front of me, looking into your hands as though the ingredients you imagined were spread out in them, cradled. I held the honey against my thigh, trying to warm it for you.

You poured water from a thick glass jug into a brown kettle. Different from yesterday's.