The Possibilities of Tea

Robert made his way easily through the woods. In just a few days he'd become completely familiar with them for some distance around. He chose the most direct route to Rose Cottage. He would see the woman home safely then retrieve his axe and hatchet. Aware there was water in his boots, he also wanted to return home and change clothes.

As he walked, he looked down at her face. She still seemed very pale to him and he noticed how the red of the scratch on her cheek stood out against the whiteness of her skin. She kept her eyes closed the whole way, which concerned him as to the state of her health. Perhaps a husband awaited her to whom he could transfer responsibility for her care?

Reaching her door, he asked, "You have the key?"

"I didn't lock it," she murmured, feeling so comfortable with her head on her shoulder she didn't want to lift it.

Shifting her slightly, he managed to open the door and walked in to her living room. All the furnishings looked old and very expensive, with exquisite upholstery and he didn't know where to set her in her wet things and not ruin something. "Where?" he asked.

"Hmmm?" she opened her eyes. "Oh, near the bathroom, I guess. It's tile there."

He carried her down the hallway and began to stand her on her feet. She still felt as though she were beyond that crevice, on the other side of somewhere, and blinked at him vaguely, swaying slightly. It looked to him like she might simply topple over, so he lifted her again and sat her on the side of the large bathtub. "Will you be all right?"

"Hmmm? Me? I just need tea. Yes, that's what I need."

"You need a warm bath first," he stated, turning on the faucets and holding his hand there until the water was a temperature he liked.

She saw what he was doing and some part of her began to wish he would bathe her here like he'd done at the stream. Maybe if she wrote the sentences in her head, he'd actually do so? She shook her head. What was she thinking? She didn't know him. Why did she want his hands on her? It was, she knew, because of the way they'd felt on her back in the stream. "Do you like tea?"

"I'm English," he stated. "Yes, I like tea. But you need a bath. I suggest you take advantage of the tub filling beside you." "Will you have tea with me after I bathe?" What an idiot she was. This was not how she ever acted! She just felt...strange. Alice in Wonderlandish.

"I am wet. I need to change clothes."  Actually, he thought, I need a bath now almost as much as she does. For a moment she actually considered inviting him to share hers. That was how strange she felt. "Do....do you live far?"

Not far enough, he thought to himself. "No," he replied. "Just beyond that copse of trees."

"Really?" She had no idea another house was over there. She thought she was pretty much by herself out this far.

"Really," he repeated, impatient to be on his way. He was not ready for entanglements of any sort. "If you think you
can manage, I'll go now."

"Bath," she said. "Yes, I do need a bath." Her blouse was sticking to her breasts and she was aware that mud grit remained uncomfortably here and there about her person. She pulled at her buttons.

He turned to leave. "Please," she said, "will you come back and have tea with me?" Who WAS he? She didn't know his name.

"I was...," he began evasively.

"Please." She lifted large, pleading eyes to him.

Damn! The woman was too appealing like that. "You are home, and safe. Is that not enough?"

"I...I don't know why. But...but it's not."

"Will your husband not be home soon? You should have your tea with him."

"There's not one. A husband, I mean."

He licked his lips. This was not going the way he wanted. "You live here alone? Way out here?"

She nodded, her wet hair clinging to her neck.

"Why?" he asked.

"To write. I write books. I...I need quiet."

"I also require quiet," he replied enigmatically. "I shall be on my way. Good day."

"Would you?"

"Would I?"

"Please consider having tea with me?"  How dreadfully idiotic she felt. But now he'd become a story in her mind and she simply had to find what came next.

"Why is that important?" He was being blunt.

"I don't know. But...will you?"

"It matters that much?"

"It seems to, yes."

He sighed deeply. "I will go home and change. Possibly I shall return." That was as much as he could grant her.

She didn't press him more. She simply wrote sentences in her brain in which he did come back.