Storm In a Teacup

by Fabian Black

  "No, I'm not happy, not happy at all." David placed a marker pen on the table, his face grim. “Closed until further notice, write it down.”

  Lin blanched. “What exactly does that mean?”

  “It means you don’t flout my authority. It means you don’t try to manipulate me. It means that instead of being closed for one evening The Venus is now closed until further notice and I and only I will decide when that is.”

  Lin's heart fluttered against the wall of his chest. He stared at the pen and then at David whose eyes were as unyielding as granite.

  “Write the notice. You have ten seconds to comply.”

  Picking the pen up Lin uncapped it, his hands trembling. Putting the top aside he pressed the round nib to the board, hesitated, and then scored a thick defiant black line on the white surface before hurling the pen across the kitchen. "Write it yourself."

  In a flash David hoisted Lin to his feet. Taking his place on the chair he yanked him forwards over his lap, slamming his hand against the seat of his white cotton work pants. The spanking was over in seconds, but was intense enough to regenerate and add to the heat from his earlier punishment. Dishevelled and perspiring he was put back on his feet.

  "Pick the pen up."

  Lin's blazing backside was a deterrent against further rebellion. He did as he was told. Returning to the table he wrote the required closure notice through a miasma of tears.

  “Thank you." David put the top back on the pen with firm efficiency. "Now get upstairs and get changed and then come back down here. Don't keep me waiting."

  Running upstairs Lin dragged off his chef whites, flinging them on the bedroom floor. Pulling on loose jeans and a t-shirt he headed back to the kitchen. The board had gone from the table. His stomach bubbled sending little spits of acid up into his throat. It was done. The Venus was closed until further notice.

  Taking hold of Lin's arm David escorted him to a corner of the dining nook near the fireplace, manoeuvring him into position. "Stand here until you have my permission to move. I'm going for a shower."

  Lin longed to say something defiant, something cutting, but he didn't. He stared at the wall, hating it, hating David with a sincerity birthed in the moment.

  Storm In A Teacup

  Nine

  The shower refreshed David's body, but did nothing to soothe his unhappy concerns about Lin. He again cursed village gossip surrounding the sale of the old Methodist chapel and its intended purpose.

  It wasn't the first time the building had been a cause of tension between them. When they had arrived in Stanes the chapel had been boarded up and out of use for over a decade. Lin had vague memories of going to Sunday school there when he was a small child. He recalled it having a wooden spiral staircase leading up to a wide balcony area and had always said it would be perfect to convert into a restaurant. He had been wildly excited when it came onto the market and had wanted to buy it.

  At the time they'd just opened The Transit of Venus. Lin's plan was to transfer business over to the much bigger chapel premises. It would mean more tables, more seats, and more people necessitating a proper kitchen with a team of staff. He had overflowed with ideas, barely able to sleep as they formed and reformed in his mind. It would be a fabulous venue that would re-establish him as a star on the culinary stage and this time in his own right with his own restaurant instead of a figurehead at the helm of someone else's business.

  David had no intention of allowing Lin to replicate the exhausting ball breaking work model they had left behind in London. He put a block on all plans. Lin had been furious, spitting spite and acid as only he knew how, but they'd worked through it, just as they'd work through this crisis.

  Showered and changed David stripped the stained sheets off the bed, replacing them with fresh. Picking up Lin's chef's whites he smoothed them and put them away and then closed the bedroom blinds, also drawing the curtains across in a bid to keep out some of the stifling heat.

  He gathered together all the dirty laundry, including the shorts Lin had been wearing, which were now tattered and torn, holed back and front. In the heat of lust they had played out a hot little scene from one of the stories in the book he was reading where a Master ripped strategic holes in his sub's clothing, revealing his genitalia, prior to fucking him. It had been fun, the ruination of the shorts a small price to pay for intense and satisfying sex.

  He took the laundry downstairs along with Lin's uneaten sandwich and his own remnants from lunch. The ruined shorts and dried up sandwich were stuffed in the bin and the sheets and other clothing in the washing machine.

  Lin was exactly where he expected him to be, stiff backed and angry, but obedient. Ignoring him David washed up and then made a pot of Darjeeling tea, putting it on the table along with a couple of mugs. Leaving it to brew he slipped on his summer trainers before taking the pedal bin outside to empty into the main bin. Because of the heat the prawn shells he'd put in earlier were already beginning to cast an unpleasant odour.

  Returning to the house he put a fresh liner in the bin and then washed his hands. Fetching a glass bowl out of a cupboard he sat down at the table to shell the peas Lucy’s father had sent. Only then did he speak to Lin. “You have my permission to move.”

  Lin stalked towards the door, but a cold voice halted his progress.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Out for a walk.” Lin refused to look at David. “I need some air and exercise.”

  “All right. Give me five minutes and I’ll come with you.”

  “I want to go on my own.”

  “You go with me or not at all.”

  Lin turned a dirty look on David. “I don't want your company."

  "Too bad. You're not leaving this house alone."

  "Fine. I’ll watch television in the snug instead, on my own.”

  Stretching out a leg under the table David used his foot to push out the chair opposite him. “Sit down.”

  Lin considered walking off for a moment, but only a moment. David was wearing his dangerous look. His eyes were as hard as polished pebbles beneath the canopy of his brows, a stern almost cruel cut to his mouth. It was a look that could both scare and excite Lin, part of the aura that had first attracted him, part of the ethos of their relationship. He did as he was told. Sitting down on the chair he folded his arms, studying the wall behind David’s head.

  David poured out two mugs of tea, pushing one across the table towards Lin, who rejected it with a shake of his head. "I’ll get you a glass of water if you prefer?”

  "I'll make myself an espresso."

  "No coffee. You're jittery enough."

  "I don't want anything then."

  "As you please." David took a drink of tea. “I'm cooking dinner this evening. Thought I might have a bash at making Paella, or a seafood risotto. I could use up some of the mussels and prawns and the calamari. These peas can go in it as well. I’ll follow one of your recipes, which one do you recommend?”

  Lin shrugged, reaching for a magazine from the pile on the table.

  “What shall I do with the rest of the stuff Seth brought, freeze it?”

  “Do what you see fit. You've made it clear you're in charge around here. I couldn’t give a damn. You can bin it for all I fucking care.”

  “My patience is running out, Linval.”

  “Oh dear, is it really?” Lin glanced up from the article he was pretending to read, a sarcastic twist to his mouth. “Perhaps I can find a coin to slip in your slot and top it up again.”

  David popped a peapod. “You've already tried that as a sly method of getting your own way, only the coin was a cock.”

  Lin flushed. “As I recall it was you doing all the slipping into my slots and it was you who initiated sex in the first place.”

  “Was it?” David scooped a sweet row of peas from their green sleeve, popping them in his mouth, crunching them. “I’m not so sure about that. I get the feeling I may have succumbed to a craftily baited hook.”


  Lin scowled. "You spoiled my best cycling shorts, ripping bloody holes in them, expensive they were."

  "I didn't hear you complaining when my cock was pounding your hole through a hole, you were too busy begging me to fuck you harder."

  "Complaining wouldn't have done any good seeing as you never listen to me, and you can replace the shorts."

  "Be quiet. I'm tired of your whining." David reached into the paper bag for another peapod.

  Lin bent his head back over his magazine, screwing up his eyes in an effort to bring the wavering print properly into focus.

  "Put your glasses on."

  "I don't need to put them on. I can see perfectly well without them," snapped Lin.

  "You'll end up with a headache."

  "I already have a twatting headache, it's sitting opposite me."

  Reaching out a hand David closed the magazine, pulling it slightly away from Lin. "No glasses, no reading."

  Lin folded his arms again, deliberately turning his head away from David.

  The air thickened, syrupy with heat. Even the seagulls that constantly circled the sky above Stanes seemed subdued by it, their calls less energetic. Outside the garden hummed, vibrating like a taut violin string as the sun blazed down. A honeybee flew in through the open window knocking against the glass as it tried without success to negotiate a path back from whence it came. It turned into the room instead.

  “Oh look,” Lin curled his lip. “One of your little buzzy mates has called to see if you’re playing out. Off you toddle.”

  David said nothing, popping a peapod, thumbing the contents into the bowl.

  “You think more of those bloody insects than you do of me. I bet if a rival hive set up next door to them, you’d be out there gathering pollen on their behalf to keep them ahead.” The popping of another pod irritated Lin prompting him to take a step closer to danger, “but when someone threatens me your brilliant solution is to aid and abet them by closing me down.”

  “No one is threatening you. So far it’s all pie in the sky. Storming and fretting about a nonexistent rival is pointless. Even if rumours do turn out to be true it’ll be months before they’re ready to open. The chapel will need extensive renovations.”

  “It’s all right for you.” Lin picked at an imaginary stain on the front of his top. “You have lots of business interests outside The Venus, but this is all I have.”

  “You have me,” said David softly, “or am I less important to you than proving points you don't need to prove?”

  “If you really loved me you’d understand and let me open tonight. You’re being cruel, flexing your macho muscles.”

  David gave a mirthless smile, “nice touch of emotional blackmail, Lin." The smile switched off. "The Venus is closed and will remain closed until I say otherwise.”

  Silence grew between them, punctuated by the ticking of the kitchen clock and the gentle drone of the honeybee. It began investigating the growing pile of spent pods on the table, enticed by their sweet odour. Lin picked up the magazine rolling it into a tight baton.

  “Leave the creature alone. It isn't doing you any…" David shot out a hand as the baton flashed in an upward arc catching Lin’s wrist before he could bring it down.

  Bent over the back of the chair he’d been sitting on with his jeans and briefs around his knees and the would be bee killer utilised in an unexpected way, Lin found himself fully au fait with the meaning of the phrase, sting in the tail.

  “Seeing as you’re determined to drag this out, let’s illuminate a few points.” Holding a hand against Lin’s back to keep him anchored over the chair, David whipped the tightly rolled magazine across his bare bottom. “Why did I close The Venus this evening?”

  “Because you're a heartless bastard,” shouted Lin furiously.

  “Answer me in a civil manner and without abusive name calling.” David whipped again.

  It hurt and Lin howled, “for throwing the vase on the floor.”

  “No.” David added several more stripes with the magazine. “As you know I slippered you for that bad tempered display. You haven’t even had the decency to offer an apology for the cut I got as a result of your tantrum. I have feelings, Lin. I get hurt by things.” Swatting the tattered magazine one last time across the red mottled globes, he threw it aside.

  Lin was re-trousered and re-seated almost as quickly as he had been unseated. He fought back tears as David put a hand on the back of the chair and leaned towards him.

  "The Venus is closed because you’ve worked yourself up into a state over a conjectural rival. You’re incapable of running a bath with any degree of competence let alone a restaurant this evening and you only have yourself to blame for The Venus being closed beyond this evening. You don’t ever go against me like that, Linval, not ever. It tells me a lot about your emotional state that you imagined you’d get away with it.”

  David straightened up, running a hand through his hair. “All I want is your happiness. I know from bitter experience that you being overstressed, overanxious and obsessed with who you 'think' is better than you won’t make you happy. It will make you miserable and ill, which will make me unhappy. We both end up suffering.”

  He slipped his hands into the back pockets of his shorts, sadly surveying Lin. “I've been there, done it and I don’t ever want to do it again. I won't do it. It's why we came here, to get away from all that, to focus on our relationship.”

  “You’re angry with me.” Lin’s tears overflowed. “You hate me.”

  “Oh, Lin!” David threw his hands up in despair. “You’re being childish. Of course I don't hate you. I love you but I’m not putting up with your shit and I won't stand by while you kill yourself competing at an impossible level. You’re going to have to keep this in proportion, or,” the phone rang and he moved towards it, “I’m afraid I’ll close the bistro permanently.” He picked the receiver up.

  Lin shot to his feet with such force that his chair overturned. He all but ran out of the kitchen, ignoring David’s order to come back. Snatching up his shoes from beneath the coat rack he yanked the door open, his temper flaring hotter at sigh of the closure notice on its front.

  David flinched at the crash. “No, mother,” he spoke into the phone. “It wasn’t gunshots. It was Lin going out. The wind must have caught the door.”

  After righting the chair he leaned against the worktop only half listening to his mother's voice. Fortunately she much preferred a silent audience to her spoken oratories, participation was seldom necessary and ordered when required. The few replies he did make were made in his usual courteous way, his voice revealing no trace of the displeasure brightening his eyes. Linval Larkin was in one hell of a lot of trouble.

  Pulling his sweat sodden t-shirt away from his back, David wandered around the kitchen as far as the landline telephone wire allowed. Stanes was a mobile free zone when it came to phones, the high cliffs all around made receiving a signal nigh on impossible. You had to climb the steep bank leading away from Stanes if you wanted to use a mobile.

  Pearls of sweat formed in his hairline as the heat intensified still further. The atmosphere felt weighted, heavy with some undisclosed tension, perhaps a reflection of his inner tension. He didn't want to fight with Lin, he didn't like there being discord between them, but he would do whatever he had to do to prevent Lin from destroying himself.

  The distant rumbling of thunder testified to a storm approaching. Vague feelings of unease crept over him, crackling across his skin like static electricity, making the hairs rise. Oh please, mother, he made a silent prayer, please think of something urgent you have to go and do.

  He stopped pacing, noticing how eerily silent everything was. Except for the voice at the other end of the phone, there was not a sound. Even the voluble gulls had fallen dumb.

  A wave of dizziness washed over him, he had to lean a steadying hand on the wall. Everything went into soft focus, everything except his auditory nerves, which sharpened. He honed in on
the low buzzing of the honeybee, which still inhabited the kitchen. The sound reverberated around his skull like a thousand whispers, sweat rolled into his eyes and unease turned to a fear so powerful he thought he was going to pass out. The next thing he knew he was outside racing down the narrow cobbled street towards the seafront.

  Storm In A Teacup

  Ten

  There wasn’t a soul on the streets. It was the lull time of evening when most day-trippers were making their way home and the locals were engaged in the evening ritual of eating or preparing to eat. Any would be lingerers had been encouraged to make moves as the storm announced its presence, growling warnings as it darkened the sky, blotting out the sun with clouds of ire.

  Sweet Christ! David rocked back on his heels with shock as he cleared the Crab and Lobster public house, looking towards the sea.

  He’d never seen anything like it in his life. A dark monster was rising from the deep to confront and merge with the lowering sky. Its massive unseen hands were slowly tipping the seabed up, intent on emptying the ocean onto the land.

  His eyes turned to the seawall. Lin was right in its path. He’d be swept away like a piece of flotsam. Time and place became meaningless. There was only him, Lin and the monster that seemed poised to part them forever.

  Clearing the esplanade rails in one almighty leap he raced over the short beach, clambering over the rocks throwing himself up the stone steps onto the wall, running like he’d never run before, shouting at Lin to move, to get down off the wall, but Lin was paralysed with fear. He’d dropped to his knees, huddled, struggling for breath as panic gripped him.

  There was no time for finesse, for coaxing. David skidded to his knees beside Lin, dealing a sharp open-handed blow to his face, jolting him out of his mesmerised state. Dragging him to his feet he used aggression to spur him to movement, shouting. “Run! Fucking run or I'll give you the hiding of your life!”