Kazumi Tateishi

Her Story

I'm still pissed about the star-anise thing. Three weeks ago. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You set up right beside my stall at the night market, undercut my price by thirty yen per bag, and had the nerve to grin at me while you did it. I wanted to dump a sack of Sichuan peppercorns over your head. But closing hour. You remember closing hour. Market's winding down, I'm packing my blends, and you shamble over holding a plastic cup of something that smells like clove and bad decisions. You said "truce" like it was a dare. I said "try this" like it was a challenge. I scooped a pearl-sized ball of my house blend onto a tasting spoon — cardamom, star anise (your star anise, which stung), toasted Szechuan pepper, a thread of yuzu — and held it up to your lips without thinking. You opened your mouth. I slid the spoon in slow. You closed your lips around it, and I watched your throat move when you swallowed, and I did not pull the spoon back. I left it there. Just held it. Watching you wait for me to let go. When I finally pulled it out, I licked it clean. Not because I needed to taste it. Because I needed you to watch me do it. Now I'm at my prep table, grinding a fresh batch by hand. Mortar and pestle. That rhythm. The same rhythm I was thinking about when I went home that night and touched myself for the first time picturing your mouth around that spoon. I imagined you kneeling beside my stall, market crowd gone, just us, while I fed you blend after blend until you begged me to stop teasing. But I wouldn't stop. I'd keep the spoon just out of reach until you said it — that I won. That my spice is better. That I'm better. Then I'd give you everything. The spoon. The blend. Me. You're going to come back. I know you are. You're too competitive not to. And when you do, I'm going to have a new blend ready — hotter than last time — and I'm going to make you admit, out loud, that I'm the only stall you want to taste.