Deposition and a Dare

by Evelyn Adams

  The man directed the question at me. Our host greeted Erik when we arrived and the two of them shared a few words in a language I didn’t understand but my companion had been silent ever since. Even after all my study, I guess a part of me still associated dominance with bossing someone around, but Erik managed to maintain complete control of the situation without saying a word. And instead of telling me what to do, I found myself wondering what he liked, what would please him. Even in his silence, or rather because of it, he was taking up an awful lot of space in my head.

  I glanced over at him, but he simply smiled at me, a warm, steady presence, giving no indication which he preferred.

  “Black, please,” I said, opting for my favorite when faced with a vacuum.

  “Very nice,” said the man, rising with more ease than his apparent age should allow and going over to a collection of small jars on the far wall.

  As I watched, he set a wooden tray—marked and polished smooth from what I assumed was years of use—on the counter. He lined up three unadorned white porcelain bowls on the tray and put a scoop from each jar into them.

  “This one is pu-erh,” he said, offering me the small bowl to smell.

  I leaned in and inhaled the earthy, almost stringent aroma. Erik leaned in beside me and breathed in the scent, but he still didn’t comment.

  “I like that,” I said, not sure whether I was supposed to wax on, like at a wine tasting. Fruity but with a hint of bullshit or some such thing.

  Erik wasn’t offering me any clues and the older man studied me like he was trying to fit me for a wand. At least I hadn’t broken anything.

  “This one is lapsang suchong,” the man said, trading the bowl for the one next to it.

  I breathed deep and struggled to keep from coughing. It smelled like tea that had been parked in a smoker for a day or two. I couldn’t imagine brewing it would make any of that better.

  “Are you okay?” Erik rested his hand, warm and strong, on my forearm, his touch firm through the silk of the blouse he’d chosen for me. My senses were compounding each other, everything threatening to overwhelm me. His touch, my body’s reaction to him, the glide of fabric against my skin, the scents filling the space; I had no choice but to focus on the tea in front of me. If I thought about the man with the razor-sharp wit and kind eyes, I’d go over the edge. If I dwelt on the way he seemed to be trying to take care of me, I might not be able to climb out again.

  “Maybe not that one,” said the older man, setting the bowl down before picking up the next.

  When he offered me the tea this time, I inhaled carefully, breathing in just a whiff at first. The slightly citrus scent of bergamot filled my nostrils, overlaid with something else. It was so subtle, it took me a moment to recognize the lavender. It had none of its normal soapy scent, just a delicate floral aroma that complemented the bergamot and rich tea. I smiled and breathed deeper, losing myself for a moment in the simple sensual pleasure of tea. Tea I hadn’t even tasted yet.

  “That’s it. That’s the one,” said the man, taking away the tray and replacing the bowls with two tea cups and a low covered vessel that looked a little like a casserole dish.

  He took a metal teapot off a burner in the corner and set everything on the table in front of us. If he went back for anything else, I was going to have to jump up and help. Nothing but the older man’s appearance seemed frail, but it didn’t seem fair to let the smallest of us do all the work.

  “First we warm the Gaiwan.” He poured a bit of steaming water into the casserole-looking thing, waiting a few moments before emptying it into a bowl.

  Erik took my hand in both of his, cradling it in a touch that managed to be more tender than sexual. I glanced over and found him watching me with the same kind of intensity I’d been watching the tea-making process.

  “Now we bloom the tea.” The man took two big pinches of the dried leaves in his wrinkled fingers and dropped them into the white dish.

  Gaiwan. I filed the word away to turn over in my head later. I loved learning new words. It was like finding interesting beads to string together.

  He poured a small bit of water over the tea leaves and the heady aroma of bergamot grew stronger. Erik uncurled my fingers, cradling the back of my hand against his palm. Resting his thumb at the place where my pulse beat at my wrist, he traced the lines on my palm with his fingertips. My breath caught in my throat. It was nothing more than intense hand-holding, so why did it feel like his touch woke my whole body, making it bloom like the tea in front of us?

  “Now that it’s awake, we brew.”

  The old man filled the Gaiwan with hot water and covered it, but I was more focused on Erik’s hands. I didn’t know what brewing translated to in Erik’s hand dance, but I’d never been a fan of public groping. I’d read too many of those forced orgasm stories to not assume Erik had a similar scene planned. The don’t let the waiter know you’re coming while he reads you the specials ones. As much as I wanted his hands on me—I could admit that much to myself—the idea of squirming in my seat opposite the tea-making man while Erik fingered me under the table didn’t make the top twenty list of things I wanted to experience.

  I tensed up, shifting slightly in my seat in case I needed to make a quick escape. My entire focus shifted from the tea brewing process in front of me to the man beside me, and I had the same predator/prey feeling from earlier. When he leaned in to press his lips to my ear, I couldn’t hide the way I flinched.

  “Relax, Alexandra.” His breath felt hot against my ear, and I had the crazy push/pull desire to curl into the shelter of his body at the same time I wanted to move away. “I’m not going to do more than hold your hand. Pay attention so you remember the steps.” He pitched his voice low enough that I was sure the older man didn’t catch his actual words, if he was even paying that much attention to us. He seemed completely focused on the tea.

  I nodded, shifting my attention back to the process in front of me, both grateful and disappointed when Erik leaned away.

  “Now we decant.”

  Less than half a minute had passed, which seemed awfully quick to brew tea, but when the man poured the steaming liquid into the shallow bowls, it was a rich amber color. Erik let go of my hand and a sense of loss overwhelmed any relief I’d been feeling. I missed his touch the instant it was gone. He picked up his cup and waited for me to do the same before bringing it to his nose. I watched his chest expand out of the corner of my eye as he breathed in the scent. The handle-less cups were thin porcelain and the heat from the tea warmed my hands almost but not quite to the point of burning.

  I held the cup for a moment, simply feeling the warmth transfer from the almost translucent clay to my palms and the place Erik had been touching me moments earlier. I didn’t know whether I wanted the heat to burn away the sensation of his touch or call it back to life. Honestly, either was a lot to expect from a cup of tea. With the care the older man had taken making the tea, rushing to taste it felt wrong. Lifting the bowl, I inhaled and breathed in the rich scent. I took a moment to try to discern the different notes: the sharp scent of bergamot, the tannin-rich tea, and overtop of it all, the delicate clean floral of lavender.

  I’d already experienced so much just from the process, tasting the rich amber liquid felt almost secondary. Until it hit my tongue and everything I’d been breathing in exploded in my mouth. I was never going to be able to look at good old Lipton the same way again.

  “You can brew many cups from these leaves. Each will have its own taste and characteristic.” He lifted the domed lid to show me the tea leaves, plumped up and dark-green/brown instead of the black they’d started as.

  When he went to get the kettle of boiling water, Erik took my hand in his, bringing it to his lips to brush a kiss across the back of my fingers. The gesture was almost chivalrous, but it sent heat unfurling through me and for a moment I felt a kinship with the tea—blooming under his touch.

  “THANK YOU FOR taking me there,” I said three cup
s of tea later when we were back in Erik’s car.

  I felt like I might float away on a sea of tea, but I’d loved everything about the tiny shop and our host. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d paid that kind of focused attention to such a simple task. The ritual changed everything—made it more important. It wasn’t like I’d never experienced the power of ritual before. I grew up taking communion alongside everyone else in the Methodist church in the town I grew up in. I’d just never felt the shift from mundane to sacred quite as clearly. The man at the shop did more than brew tea. He turned the whole process into a kind of prayer.

  “It was my pleasure,” said Erik, sounding like he was talking about more than the tea lesson.

  It was as if the man had a dial that let him turn up the heat between us with nothing but his voice, the same way the shop owner turned up the burner under the kettle. I was well on my way to scorching when Erik reached for my hand and resumed tracing the lifelines etched in my palm.

  “Thinking of giving up law for fortune telling?” I had to do something to break the tension I felt building inside me. It was a classic smart-ass defense mechanism, but just because I realized it didn’t mean I could do anything about it. I was afraid being too honest with Erik for too long might be dangerous for my mental health. Not that wisecracking like a sullen teenager was a much better stance.

  “Some days there’s not much separating the two. Both professions depend to a certain extent on performance.”

  And lying. I’d gone with some girlfriends in high school to see a fortune teller at the county fair. Madame Zelda had promised me fame and academic acclaim. It’s not the reason I’d gone the whole way for a PhD. I wasn’t that fickle, but I’d thought about it over the years. The dusty incense-filled tent and the turbaned soothsayer spinning fairy tales that promised each of us exactly what we wanted and made a part of me believe I could have it. But Erik had been uncharacteristically nice. Calling him a liar seemed like a bad way to repay his effort, so I managed to hold my tongue.

  He played with my fingers, stroking my hand and my desire—honestly, it was like the man had installed a link between my clit and my ring finger when I wasn’t looking—as we headed downtown.

  “So explain to me what today had to do with dominance and submission.” Holding hands in the car felt too much like being on a date. It seemed prudent to drag things back to the reason we were spending time together.

  “Today, Alexandra, is about you learning how to please me.”

  He said the words as if it were the most natural assumption in the world—that I’d care about his pleasure and want to be the one to please him. I opened my mouth to refute his claim and then shut it again. I actually did want to please him, which I have to say shocked the hell out of me. Maybe it was being raised to be the good girl. To be agreeable. But I didn’t think so. That felt inauthentic. I shoved the thought into a box to look at later or to ignore if it messed too badly with my self-identity.

  “And how would I go about doing that?” I swallowed hard, hoping he didn’t hear the way my voice hitched and knowing he did. With his thumb pressed against my wrist, he’d feel my pulse hammering away. I could spin with the best of them, but I didn’t stand a chance at pulling off disinterested with Erik. Not anymore. We’d gone too far for that.

  “I’ll show you when we get to my place.”

  THE CAR MADE THE TURN off Canal and headed toward the Garden District. I tried to justify taking Alexandra to my house, but even I wasn’t that good of a liar. The club was too overtly sexual, her studio would make it too easy for her to fall into old patterns, I couldn’t keep trying to feed her—the baby bird thing wouldn’t work more than once with Alex. Honestly, it hadn’t worked all that well the first time. To varying degrees, it was all true. And a complete load of bullshit. I was taking her to my house because I wanted her there. I wanted to see what it felt like with her smart-ass energy filling my space, to smell the delicate floral of her perfume mixing with the sandalwood and sage scent of the old plantation house I’d inherited from my mother, who’d inherited it from husband number three.

  “Are you sure we have time for whatever you’ve got planned? Don’t you lawyers have to work all the time?”

  Alexandra feigned disinterest and I smiled to myself. She clearly lived by the best defense is a good offense motto. The more nervous she got, the more bravado she wore. I could tell by the way her gaze tracked my movements and her pulse raced under my thumb that she was nervous.

  “I can go back tonight to finish anything I need to. If you’re worried about the length of our session, I’d be happy to pay for the extra time.”

  I had no trouble throwing money at problems, but we were going to have to come to some kind of resolution to the financial situation we were in. I wanted her submission willingly given, not paid for. And every time we traded money, we slid further into escort territory—a place I was pretty sure neither of us wanted to go.

  “No, you have time left. You haven’t exactly taxed me up to this point.”

  I caught and held her gaze, seeing what I hoped was anticipation in her eyes. She was nervous, but she was also interested. That was something I could work with.

  “I’ll see what I can do about that,” I said and had the pleasure of watching her cheeks flush a rosy pink. Her skin blushed beautifully. I couldn’t wait to color her ass with my hand.

  “This is your house?” The disbelief in her tone dragged me away from the fucking spectacular image in my head, the one where she stretched out naked over my lap, her breasts bouncing against my thigh as I spanked her round ass.

  “Not what you pictured?” I searched her profile as she leaned toward the window to take in the massive white painted façade with the two-story-tall Doric columns flanking the entrance.

  I could appreciate the beauty of the majestic old house but even after all these years, it still didn’t feel like home. I’d never lived there with my mother. I’d been off to law school by the time my mother married number three. His family was part of the old South, and the house had been in his family since before the Civil War. I think my mother loved the house more than she loved him, but they seemed happy together, on the surface at least. My mother rarely went deeper than that with anything. Unlike my father and husband number one, the last guy had been good to her and that’s all I’d had to care about anyway.

  When he’d died and she followed, the big old house had come to me. It was when I was up for partner and the grandeur of the place became another prop for me to use. It looked like the home of a partner in one of the most important law firms in New Orleans. I’d taken on the house the same way I donned my custom-made suits, playing the role until it was mine.

  “I guess I’d assumed you were more of a modern loft kind of guy. This is so beautiful. When I first moved to the city, I used to walk from Magazine to St. Charles, looking at all the gorgeous houses and wondering what kind of people actually lived there. I’d never have guessed it was you.” She smiled over her shoulder at me and despite her credulity—hell, maybe because of it—her enthusiasm was contagious.

  “Come on. I’ll give you a tour.”

  I opened my door and hurried around to her side of the car, waving away the driver when I got there. It was suddenly very important for me to be the one to help her out of the car and lead her to my front door.

  I wanted to see her reaction to my space. I rarely brought women I was seriously interested in there. I’d rarely been seriously interested in a woman, so it wasn’t exactly a hardship. Not until Julie and no one since.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve ever considered opening the house up for the Garden District Home Tour, have you?”

  “Good Lord, no.”

  The last thing I wanted was a stream of strangers parading through my home, even if it was for a good cause. I’d much rather write a sizeable check and be done with it. Disappointment shaped her expression and I wondered why she cared so much. Before I could ask, the look was go
ne and we only had one room left. It was the spare bedroom I’d converted into a playroom back when I still thought Julie and I would be able to make things work.

  The room was small—nothing of the scale of Alex’s studio—and intimate. Although I wasn’t sure if that was inherent to the space or my history with it. Up until that moment, I hadn’t thought about sharing it with anyone else. The few times I’d played recently had been at Bacchus. I expected to connect the space with Julie and shocked the hell out of myself when I didn’t. I debated not showing the space to Alex, but I wanted to see her reaction. To see if she’d blush again.

  “I’m not sure how I’d explain this to the organizers,” I said, keying in the entry code and ushering her into the room.

  I studied her as her gaze took in the deep-blue walls and dark furnishings made up of a rough wooden St. Andrew’s Cross and padded bench. Alex wrapped her hand around the square stock of the four-poster bed I’d had custom made for the space. Its sturdy frame and hidden rings offered all kinds of opportunities and I started picturing the way Alex would look stretched out for me across the silver-blue comforter.

  I watched as she moved around the room, her fingers tracing the wood. She was a chameleon for so much of the time, only showing what she intended to project, but in less guarded moments, she wore her thoughts and feelings on her face for anyone willing to pay attention to see. I planned to pay attention to everything where Alex was concerned.

  “You could always leave the door locked. They let owners do that when they don’t want people in certain rooms.”

  It took me a second to realize she was talking about the home tour again. It didn’t make sense. As far as I knew, she didn’t have any connection with the Historical Society.

  “I’m not interested in having my house included on the tour, Alex.”

  “You might change your mind.”

  “I won’t,” I said, holding the door to the hallway open for her.