by Неизвестный
I put the dough in to bake and set the timer, glad when the beeper went off just as Paula was getting into full flow about her boyfriend’s flaws.
The bread looked brown enough. It smelt cooked. I tipped it out of the tin, tapped its bottom. It sounded hollow all right, but with a rather deep tone. It still hadn’t risen much. I wondered if Joel Watson’s bottom had a hollow ring when you tapped it. Or Tom’s.
“Isn’t it supposed to be bigger than that?” asked Paula.
“I don’t know why it won’t rise. The only thing I can think of is the yeast. The book says to use a liquid sourdough starter but I couldn’t find any so I used dried.”
I carved off a couple of steaming slices and slathered them in butter. “Don’t you have any low-fat spread?” Paula said. “I’ve got to watch my weight.”
“No, don’t you know how bad that stuff is for you? Hydrogenated fats.”
“Who cares if you can fit in a size six?”
“Well you’re the one talking about steak baguettes.”
The loaf was softer than the last one. But chewing it still made my jaw ache. Paula usually spoke her mind, but I could see her trying to put on an appreciative face.
“Don’t worry, I know it’s awful.”
“Steak baguettes it is then?”
“I’m just going to make a call about the yeast. You know that bakery I’ve been going to. I don’t suppose it’ll be open on a Sunday, but I’ll give it a try.” I didn’t mention Tom and his warm, twinkly eyes in a face that would be dimple-cute without the skinhead.
“Hello, Village Bakery.” That accent.
“Oh hi. I’m Emma, I’ve been coming in for your Campagne recently. I was wondering whether you sell sourdough yeast starters?” My voice was nervy; I couldn’t shake the feeling that Tom might have some mind-reading superpower to see the filthy things my imagination had made him do to me.
“Oh hi, Emma, you’re the one who likes the cherry cupcakes, aren’t you?” I flushed as I thought about Tom biting my ripe red nipples. “Nice to hear from you. But we don’t sell starters, no.”
“Oh, well, thanks anyway.” I went to hang up.
“No, you don’t understand. We don’t sell it—we give it away. Don’t you know about the old bakers’ code?”
“Code? No. I don’t know what you mean.”
“We’re not allowed to sell yeast, some ancient rule. I can bottle some up for you. What are you baking anyway?”
“Oh, just bread. But not very well. I think it must be the fast-action yeast.”
“Probably. Yeast’s a living thing, you can’t go drying it out and expecting it to work instantly. And there’s no such thing as ‘just bread.’ Look, I’m not open today, but if you come round I’ll get you some starter, and I can give you a few tips. Just knock, I’ll be in the back trying out new recipes.” I couldn’t believe I was getting hot just over his voice. I really needed to get laid but had settled for celibacy rather than dull sex on a one-night stand.
“Okay, I’ll be there soon.”
As I hung up, Paula looked at me suspiciously. “Why have you gone all red?” I pretty much shoved her out of the door.
I knew I was going for more than a few tips. Maybe a swapping of phone numbers, a tentative agreement to meet for a drink. I drove into the countryside trying to rein in my fantasies about my Joel Watson/Tom-the-master-baker fusion. My cheeks had a telling flush by the time I parked and checked them in the rearview mirror.
Tom was wearing a novelty blue apron covered in pictures of pink- and purple-iced cakes. He still managed to look hot, the sort of man who’d make a kids’ party hat sexy. The sleeves of his casual white shirt were rolled up. He had more stubble than usual, enhancing his not-really-trying good looks. He was actually quite different from the neat and, if I had to admit it, slightly arrogant Joel Watson. But the impressive forearms were there.
“You look younger in your civvies. Come through to the back. I’m just experimenting with some chili wholegrain for baking tomorrow,” he said, holding up floury hands in explanation.
His timings confused me. And had he just insulted me over my age? I followed him. That was when I noticed the dusty line across his backside.
The working area was mostly clinical stainless steel and health-and-safety notices but Tom headed for a well-scrubbed wooden table that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a farmhouse kitchen. There was a mound of tan-colored dough on it, spiked with chopped red chili, along with piles of grain-dotted flour and gleaming bottles of oil. The dough was ten times the size of anything I’d worked with.
“Here’s your starter. I’ve put it in a bottle, hopefully it won’t leak. Don’t want to mess up your nice clean jeans.” My pussy clenched at the thought of sticky, white liquid messing up my nice clean jeans. God, I really, really needed to get laid.
“Can I just ask?” I said. “You say you’re getting dough ready to bake tomorrow, but my book says it takes two hours to rise and half an hour to prove, so how can you be doing it now?”
“Oh, and I suppose your cookbook’s always right, is it?” he said, good-humouredly. “It all depends—on the type of dough, the temperature, the hardness of the flour. Whose book is it?”
“Joel Watson’s.”
“That fraud? He wouldn’t know his baps from his bagels.”
I subconsciously stood taller, pushing my chest out, as he mentioned baps. His eyes glanced down. Had he done it on purpose? “Oh, I saw him on TV. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. And when he kneaded the dough, er, he looked experienced enough.”
“He’s all show. You can’t teach that sort of thing on TV or in a book. You have to get a feel for dough.” He flexed his fingers as he spoke and I imagined him taking a breast in each hand. “You can tell when it’s soft enough, risen enough, stretchy enough.” His voice made me think about my soft pussy, swelling with arousal and stretching around his cock.
“Wow, and I thought I could just follow the recipe. I really want to be able to bake, but my loaves have all been bricks. I wish I had the feel for it, it would have saved me a lot of wasted effort.”
“But that’s what it’s all about. It’s a slow process, you have to get to know the dough.”
“Sounds like a blind date. Do you have to buy it a drink as well?”
“Only if it’s lukewarm tap water. I was just kneading this batch,” he said. “You have to be gentle and firm at the same time.” My knees went a bit wobbly. I watched him gently stretching the dough away from him, then pulling it back, folding it over. “It doesn’t want pummeling. You have a go.”
I copied his actions, trying to be gentle but firm, but I couldn’t do it as smoothly, as effortlessly as he did and all I could think about was the word pummeling. The dough clung to the scrubbed grain of the table. “That’s good,” he said. “Now fold it back.” But he was just being kind.
“You do it,” I said. “It’s much nicer watching you.”
“Well, you’ll never learn that way, but all right, for now,” Tom said with a smile. He carried on and the dough began to change, to look silky and soft. “That should do it, you can see it’s had enough now. We’ll give it a rest next to the oven and let it rise.”
He set it down in a big earthenware bowl beside a brick structure. “I like this oven best,” he said. “But it takes a while to heat up so I keep it lit, in the winter anyway. It warms my flat upstairs.”
“Is it wood fired?” I asked. “There’s a smoky smell. It’s like my mum’s wood burner.”
“Yes, lovely isn’t it? In the autumn I get prunings from Howarth’s orchard and then it smells really sweet.” Surely he was too good to be true, not just any old baker but a man who understood wood and fire.
“Well, now we have to leave it,” he said, and paused. “So, do you want to buy me a drink? That’s if you’ve no Sunday dinner to get back to.” He started washing his hands at the obligatory health-and-safety sanitation station.
I smiled
at his cheek. “No, just bread and butter in front of the TV.”
“A drink it is then.” He pulled off his apron. “A present from my mum,” he said, explaining the cakes.
“You’ve got flour on your…” I began, gesturing toward his backside, “on your jeans.”
“Oh?” He tried to look over his shoulder to see. “So have you,” he said.
“No I haven’t.”
“Yes, you have.”
“No, I…” As I turned to try to see, brushing my jeans just in case, I felt his arms around me. I looked back at him and he kissed me. Gentle but firm. I leaned against the wooden table.
“You have now,” he said.
“Do you want to skip the drink?” I said, bold with arousal. I hardly knew this man.
“I’d like that.” He leaned in for another kiss and I grabbed the back of his neck to pull him in harder. Stubble prickled my chin. His warm hands edged under the hem of my jumper and in one big fuck it moment I pulled both jumper and T-shirt off, threw them aside and slid out of my bra. His fingers went straight to my nipples, the pads circling and making my spine tremble.
“Just like those cherry cakes you like so much,” he murmured, bending his head to take one in his mouth and nip it. “Or are you more of a savory dish?” he said, dipping his fingers in flour and dusting my breasts like soft luncheon rolls. It made his warm hands glide drily over me with just a hint of grit from the coarse grain. I pushed my backside up to sit on the edge of the table, careless of the mess on my jeans. “Yes, more like firm, sharp olives than cherries,” he said, easing me back to lie on the wooden surface. I let him undo my belt and zip, lift my butt off the table and slide my jeans and knickers off, my shoes clattering to the tiled floor. I reached down and finished the job by thumbing off my socks before shimmying up so I could get my heels on the edge.
That was when the reality check hit me. “Tom,” I said. “I’m really not normally like this. And I don’t have any condoms.”
“You’ve been flirting with me for weeks. I was going to pin you down to at least a drink this week anyway. But now you’re here. All naked.” He ran a finger down between my breasts and over my stomach. “We might as well make the most of it. And I could probably find a condom somewhere in my flat.” I wondered if his choice of the words “pin you down” had been intentional. They certainly made my pussy pulse.
“You’d better go and look.”
“Don’t move,” he said, as he disappeared through a back door. My nipples were still tingling. In fact, they were tingling with a hot, itching sensation. Tom was back quickly, holding up a silver packet.
“Tom, my nipples seem to be burning,” I said.
He looked confused and then horrified. “Shit, I’ve been chopping chilies. Oh fuck, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I like it. I want to feel it all over.”
He raised an eyebrow and reached for my breasts again, kneading them in exactly the way I’d imagined. My pussy swelled like rising dough. “I have some chili oil,” he said. “If you’d like a massage.”
“Oh yes, please.”
He took one of the bottles and glugged bright yellow-green oil into his palm. I held my breath, waiting to feel it on my skin. He started with my breasts, of course, slicking over every inch of them and paying particular attention to my hard nipples. It took a moment for the tingle to begin, the skin to prickle, heat to build. Tom’s hands moved down over my belly, squeezing and pressing, stretching and rolling my flesh into glossy smoothness. I realized the heat was not the same all over. On most of my skin it was a pleasant warmth just on the edge of discomfort, but on my nipples it was a hot flame that made me want to rub and scratch.
“Do you like that?” he asked.
“Yes.” I wanted to know what it would feel like on the damp, tender membranes of my pussy. “I want it everywhere.”
He knew what I meant. He poured more oil and slicked it over my thighs, thumbs gliding in to tease the edge of my labia. Then he stopped teasing and pushed his dripping fingers into my slit. At first there was just the gliding feel of oil lubricating my lips and clit. Then the warmth began. Tom massaged firmly, sliding the tips of his fingers just inside me and back up to my clit. I moaned loudly as the sensation intensified. The burn took hold. I wanted to claw my fingernails against the tender, itching flesh and had to concentrate hard to keep my hands on the table, pressing my fingertips into the grooved wood. I thought of a harsh brush scrubbing every speck of flour and oil off the surface with steaming hot water.
“That’s so good,” I moaned. “But hot.” I lifted a hand. “I want to stop you, but I don’t want to stop you.”
He took the waving hand and pressed it to the wood. “Lie still and enjoy.” He stopped massaging and took my other hand, pressing my wrist into the table, then knelt so his arms were stretched over the edge to mine and pushed his face into my cleft. His warm, wet mouth soothed my swollen, flaming flesh for a moment. But the soothing didn’t last. His tongue flicked my clit while my skin burned and my pussy longed for friction to salve the irritation around my entrance.
“Fuck me,” I groaned, lifting my head to look at him. “Please fuck me.”
“Not until you’ve come,” he said, before pressing his glistening face back between my legs. He circled the flat of his tongue over me, its abrasive surface almost scratching the burn away, but then switched to flicking with the hardened tip in a way that only enflamed me more. My hungry entrance alternately opened and clenched. I fought to keep my heels on the table edge as my thighs tensed. His hands were firm on my wrists. My orgasm built with a burning itch that was nothing to do with the chili. My throat tightened, eyes pressed shut and every muscle of my body tensed. I came with a yell of abandonment, squirting into Tom’s face.
Sheer embarrassment overwhelmed me. I rarely squirted and couldn’t believe it had happened on the first time with someone. It must have been the added stimulation of the chili. “Sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t realize that was going to happen.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Tom said, letting go of my hands and rising, his face obscenely wet. “I loved the feel of it. Although the taste is somewhat overwhelmed by the chili. It’s a good job I can handle eating hot stuff. Now I believe you wanted me to fuck you.”
He unbuttoned his shirt with agonizing slowness. I wanted him inside me. I squirmed and whimpered. He smiled. It only made me need him more. He shrugged the shirt off and undid his jeans, sliding them off with his boxers, shoes and socks in one move. I got my first view of his body and wasn’t disappointed. Strong but lean. A smattering of chest hair and an endearing line of fluff leading to his pubes. He pumped his semihard cock a couple of times then gasped. “Shit, that burns.” It was my turn to smile.
“I know,” I said. “Now fuck me.”
“Of course.” He took out the condom and rolled it over his shaft.
Tom guided his cock to my pussy and rubbed it up and down my slit as it hardened. He slid to my hole and pushed all the way in until I felt his head bump my cervix. The slip-slide of his hard shaft against my burning flesh was like a balm. He fucked me in a firm but controlled way for a while before his breath became ragged and his forehead tightened. I felt him grow bigger inside me moments before he came, grinding his pelvis against me with one hard, shuddering thrust.
The following Sunday morning, I waited for the oven timer to ping. The phone rang and Paula said, “Hi, Emma, how about that lunch we missed last week? I was talking to Mark, the new guy, and he said he might be in the Oak today.”
“Sorry Paula, I’m busy baking again.”
“Well that’s not going to find you a man, is it?”
“Actually, I think I’m going to stop looking for a while.”
Paula hung up in bewilderment, and I went back to the kitchen. Tom was slicing the still-warm loaf. He held a piece to my lips and I tore into it hungrily, chili heat spreading over my tongue.
WORK IT OUT
Elisa Sharone
January 1, 2012
Noon
New Year’s Resolutions
1. Eat better.
2. Relax more.
3. Travel somewhere amazing.
4. Only buy shoes that really fit, even if the sale price is insane.
5. Meet a nice guy. Or two. Or more.
6. Go to the gym at least two times per week.
7. Try a new workout class.
8. Don’t let the laundry pile up.
9. Clean off the desk every Friday afternoon.
10. Keep at least three of these resolutions.
Every year I make a list, and every year I fail to keep even one of the resolutions made in vain. But despite my continued abject failure, each January 1 I pull on my tattered terry-cloth robe, slip on my matted bear-paw slippers, straighten my HAPPY NEW YEAR! tiara, pour a large cup of coffee, pull out my journal and write my list.
Oh, the list. The list always has ten items on it, and the tenth is always to keep at least three of my resolutions. Each year I wonder if that’s too many, if my bar is set too high. And each year I remind myself that three isn’t such a challenge. That anyone should be able to manage a 30 percent rate of completion. Which, in the grand scheme of things, still amounts to abject failure.
In 2011 I managed to successfully accomplish one of my resolutions. A 33 percent completion rate of the 30 percent goal I’d set actually felt like progress for once! And yet, at the same time, I felt like shit for generally sucking at accomplishing even the smallest of tasks. So this year I’ve set the bar lower than I ever have before. I will travel somewhere amazing. In all honestly it’s not that hard. I will only buy shoes that really fit, because come on, why the fuck do I ever do otherwise? And I should be able to keep the laundry from piling up. Everything else on the list is a stretch goal.
Now, to the gym. May as well sweat out the hangover and get the first gym visit of the week on the books.
xoxo,