A Matter of Taste - Chapter 16

Elodie was even more affectionate than usual over the next few days, and I tried hard to convince myself that it had nothing to do with any effect that Bansi's departure might have had upon my mood or my bearing. The idea that he could affect my relationship with my daughter even now infuriated me, and that only made Elodie grow more somber and more determined to plaster herself to my side and drown me in her sweet, murmured reassurances that I was the best papa in the whole world and nothing anyone else said about me mattered more than that.

A few days passed, and we had almost reached an equilibrium. We were just finishing supper, and I was trying to compel Elodie to eat her vegetables without giving away how much her refusal delighted me. In the days before, she would have choked them down and watched me with every bite, as though to judge whether her sacrifice had served its purpose and made me happy.

That she refused me now, twisting her face up in an exaggerated expression of disgust and trying to wheedle and bargain her way to my surrender, eased the concern in my heart over how my upset might be affecting her. I liked her better this way, a fierce, stubborn force of nature, wholly and completely herself, better than the wide-eyed somber thing she had been over the past few days.

We were laughing, teasing and playing with one another despite the battle of wills between us, when a knock at the door made her leap from her chair. "I'll get it, Papa!"

A Matter of Taste - Chapter 15

I dozed, rousing occasionally to register Bansi shifting against me or to kick a leg out from beneath the blankets, and woke to a room that smelled like sex and glowed with the light of late afternoon.

Bansi still slept, sprawled on his back with all four limbs splayed haphazardly across the mattress. I climbed out gingerly, hoping not to disturb him, but he just snored loudly and rolled over to bury his face in the pillow.

I picked my way across the room, gathering my scattered clothing and donning it all again. When I went out to the sitting room in search of my boots, I found the dishes from our meal still scattered about, forgotten, and I gathered them up.

I carried the dishes to Bansi's kitchens and left them there to be washed by Bansi or, more likely, whatever staff he hired to handle the cooking and cleaning for him. When I returned, I found Bansi up despite my care to be quiet and circumspect, leaning naked against the doorjamb and scratching a hand through his hair. He looked muzzy, still half-asleep, but his gaze sharpened when he spied me. "You were going to leave without waking me?" His words were soft and wounded.

"No. I was going to come and kiss you good-bye," I said, and did so now, sliding into his arms and leaning in to press my lips to his.

A Matter of Taste - Chapter 14

We returned home half an hour after departing with enough food between us to feast on for a week. Bansi had charmed the cafe's chef, wheedled and smiled and talked them into sending us home with our dishes. Bansi slipped him a bill I didn't dare look to see the value of, to speed the bargaining along. And thus we came to be walking down the street, back to Bansi's new home, with baskets of food set on the cafe's own tableware and kept warm under heavy silver cloches. The aroma of the food wafted between us, and if it tasted half as good as it smelled, then Bansi's recommendation had been justly deserved.

We sat on the floor in the middle of his sitting room, surrounded by boxes and draped furniture. We balanced our plates on our knees and laughed that we ate like paupers from plates fit for royalty.

The food was divine, even better than I could have hoped for. You never found food this good, cooked to perfection and flavored so delicately, in the lower city. I sighed and leaned my back against a trunk and didn't let myself think about how nice it would be to be able to eat like this all the time. That way lay madness, or at least resentment and bitterness, and I was enjoying the meal too well to want to spoil it with such things.

Besides, there were other, more pressing things to spoil the mood with.

A Matter of Taste - Chapter 13

The next day, I made sure to check the front step before I woke Elodie. I felt only the heavy weight of inevitability when I opened the door and saw another package waiting there, wrapped and tied up neatly and addressed to me in that same familiar scrawl.

I brought it in and opened it carefully, holding my breath that the rustling of the paper wouldn't wake Elodie prematurely. The wrapping fell away to reveal an ornate teapot made of ceramic so fine it was nearly translucent, glazed with an intricate ironwork pattern and accented with bits of gold. Bundled up inside the teapot was a small paper sack that, upon opening, proved to be a tea blend that smelled of the same intoxicating spices that the cup he'd brought me the day before had. He'd also included a small jar of honey and a pot of cream sealed up with wax.

I kept the tea and its accompaniments for myself, a small indulgence, but packed the pot back up in its wrapping and set it aside, to sell at the market the next chance I had.

A Matter of Taste - Chapter 12

Morning dawned too early, and I woke groaning at the hour, at the long day ahead of me. Mostly, I groaned at the certainty that I would see Bansi again. I didn't know how to face him. The kisses we'd shared the day before had been different. Something had changed between us, the ground shifted and suddenly uneven beneath my feet, and my life was already a carefully-orchestrated routine, like one of those street entertainers one sometimes saw in the Walk, who somehow managed to dance and perform acrobatics all while keeping half a dozen balls or apples or melons in the air. That was my life, that was how I kept a roof over our heads and food on our table, the shop running and coin trickling into savings for Elodie's education. It was a dance I knew by heart through years of routine, and one in which only a hair's breadth separated success from failure. I couldn't be off balance. I couldn't afford to stumble.

And Bansi was like an earthquake, tossing the ground beneath me and throwing everything to chaos. I had to keep my feet under me. I had to keep him at a distance.

I opened the front door, ushering Elodie out before me into the chill morning, and felt the ground tilt off its axis at the sight of a little package on our front step, something small and rectangular, bundled up in brown paper and twine.

A Matter of Taste - Chapter 11

The smooth paving stones of Regent's Walk gave way slowly to the uneven cobbles of home. I lifted my gaze, then, and filled my lungs with the air of my city, my home. It was unscented here, plain like everything else we had for our own, and I liked it better. There was an honesty to it that Bansi's fine house and broad, peaceful streets lacked. We didn't try to pretend things were other than they were down here. We didn't spray perfume on the air to cover up our stench.

I stopped, then. Bansi was still walking, still had his arm hooked about me, and it pulled him around a few steps until he noticed, and stopped as well. I moved one step to the side. Bansi's finger pressed against my skin, then abruptly released, letting me go. I felt as though I'd finally shaken a mantle from my shoulders, and I could breathe again. "I don't need an escort here," I told him. "I know my way."

"Escort?" He smiled, laughed, made light once again. "What about a companion?"

"I don't need one of those, either."

"Do you think so?" He slid sideways, closer to me. This time, he looped his arm through mine. I looked down at where we were joined, twisted together like two strands of a braid, and had to swallow the knot in my throat. "Everyone needs companionship."

A Matter of Taste - Chapter 10

Bansi held me pinned, the wall at my back and his chest pressing against my front. I kept my legs banded about his hips and gripped his shoulders to take up some of my weight while his hands roamed over my sides. He pulled my shirt out from my trousers with a sharp tug, then slid his hands underneath and scraped his callused fingers over my skin. I shivered and arched beneath his touch, but there was nowhere to go but forward, pressing in harder against him.

"Gods. Fuck." He held me up with one hand curved under my thigh, and with the other he fumbled at the front of his trousers.

A Matter of Taste - Chapter 9

I did not hold out any measure of hope that Bansi might fail to return to my shop. I knew him better than that. I only hoped that perhaps the opportunity to laze about at home for the past six months had weaned him of his eagerness to meet me at my door in the cold hours before dawn. 

My hopes were founded, in this at least. I worked diligently through the morning, fueled by the knowledge that whenever he chose to arrive, it was going to spell disaster for my productivity for the rest of the day.

I did not suppose, after six months gone, that Bansi would count himself satisfied with only an hour during lunch in which to spend with me. Before, when he had returned from his long visits home, he had wanted to be at my side from waking to sleep for the first few days, as though he had starved in my absence and the only way to sate his need for my company was to gorge upon it. He was like a hurricane ripping through my life, when he had set his mind to something. The only thing to do was to hunker down and hope to ride it out.

He showed up at midday, looking bright-eyed and immaculate. He swept in like a king come to let his vassals pay homage, and caught me up about the waist while there were still customers in the shop to witness.

I fought him back and glared at him. He grinned at me and swept aside my work so that he could sit on my counter. "Ah, there's that look I've missed so much." He leaned in, elbows braced on his knees, as though expecting a kiss. I just gave him a flat look, and stayed well out of reach. His smile broadened, brightened. "Other lovers, they yearn for their sweetheart's smile, or miss the doting look of love in the other's eye. Me, I go too long without you to glare and snap at me, and I start to feel like something's missing." He sat back, then, leaning back on his hands, and smiled expansively at my little shop. "It's been godsawful dull without you, Ren."