A cup of my special tea
They were newlyweds, but they were not young. She was thirty-five, and he would never see forty again. He had lost so much hair that she had encouraged him to shave his head. She had told him that she liked it better that way, but she would have preferred hair.
They were both successful professionals, well-established in their professions. She was a physician in a family practice clinic with one other doctor, in Richmond, British Columbia. He was a partner in a medium-sized, but highly regarded, Vancouver law firm.
It was her first marriage, and his second. They had dated for almost two years before deciding to live together. The decision to marry had come along very quickly after that, and without any of the angst they had anticipated.
They lived in a two-bedroom penthouse in one of the many new high rise condominium buildings that had irrevocably altered Richmond’s horizons. They were healthy, in the prime of life, they loved each other, and they had no reason not to be as happy together as they were.
Amy was a first-generation immigrant from Hong Kong. She had come to Canada when she was a child, and she spoke English fluently, but with the musical trace of a Cantonese accent. At least, to Max, who was in love, her voice sounded like music.
Max was also an immigrant to the Great White North. He and his first wife and four children had emigrated from the United States. He was of one hundred percent Ashkenazi Jewish stock, except, as he sometimes joked, for the Tatar genes that might have entered the gene pool during a pogrom in nineteenth century Russia.
From their living room window, they could see the modest but ample green expanse of Minoru Park, the dramatic, wide, inverted snow capped cone of Mount Baker, shadowy Gulf Islands and the long undifferentiated blue grey spine of Vancouver Island. From their bedroom window, they could see the City of Vancouver and the North Shore mountains. They were happy with their views. Who could blame them for that?
Insofar as they may have disagreed and argued, it was always about small things. Which restaurant was better for dimsum? Which friends were too boring? Which show should they go see? What colour to paint the living room?
Their neighbour, Dr. Wu, a professor at the university, had specialized in paper ephemera of the nineteenth century. He wore a traditional Chinese tunic, and he had a full head of lustrous black hair that Amy admired. He had proudly showed them his prized possessions - two, consecutively numbered, yellowed and faded, torn ticket stubs to the performance of, “Our American Cousin”, at Ford’s Theatre, the night that Abraham Lincoln was shot.
Dr. Wu was older than Max, but only by a few years, and he lived by himself. His only visitors were his two nephews, young men in their late teens or early twenties who laughed easily and with genuine feeling. Max dubbed them Heckle and Jeckle, after the two wisecracking magpies from cartoon lore, but he only called them that when he and Amy were home alone. Amy laughed, but she reproached him gently, saying that they were fine boys.
Once a week, or so, Dr. Wu would invite Amy and Max for a cup of one of his special teas. In addition to his esoteric interest in old paper products, Dr. Wu was a connoisseur of rare, fine teas. He would brew them each, separately, thimble-sized cups of teas that tasted unlike any of the tea they had had before. The teas were sometimes red, sometimes green, and sometimes of an indeterminate colour, but never bitter, and they always had an exotic, far away flavour to them. Far away in place, but also in time.
One day, after Amy and Max had been living in the new building for about six months, Max was in the bathroom, watching Amy brush her long, straight, black hair in the bathroom mirror. When she lifted the hair up from her neck, he noticed a large, reddish purple mark on the nape.
“Amy,” he said, “What’s that mark on your neck?”
“What mark?” she said, trying, without success, to see it over her shoulder in the mirror. Whichever way she would twist, it moved out of her field of vision to the other side.
Max came closer and could see that it was the mark of a love bite. There were clear traces of the impressions made by a set of teeth. The purple colour had started to dissipate slightly, and he thought it must have been a few days old.
For some reason, it never occurred to Max that Amy might have been unfaithful. He did not think he was in denial. It just seemed so out of character for her and for the nature of their love and relationship and trust. Not that he took her love for granted.
By this time, Amy had picked up a hand mirror, and lifting her hair and adjusting the way she held the mirror, she could see the round bruise. Max had been right in guessing that it was a day or two old.
They both knew that Max had not bit the back of her neck that way. It was a piece of evidence, but what did it mean, they wondered.
Max said, “I think it means that you were bitten by someone, probably a man. I think it means that a man likely had sexual relations with you, from the back.” It was as if he was addressing a jury, laying out the case for them, dispassionately, in words that they would understand and remember.
Because of the calm way in which he laid it out, Amy was not angered or offended by Max’s surmise. It made sense, but she had no recollection of any such encounter.
“Max, I’ve never cheated on you. I don’t know what this is about.”
“Oh, Sweetie,” Max assured her, “I believe you. Do you think you could have been given that date rape drug by someone?”
Amy felt dizzy with revelation and possibility, and sat down hard on the closed wooden toilet seat, making it clatter. She tried to remember if she had had any unusual physical sign in the past few days, but could not. “Max, I’m certain I would have felt sick or drunk or confused if someone had given me Rohypnol. I haven’t felt any of that.”
But, there was the evidence. Someone had had her under his control and used her. Amy tried to think of alternatives, but at the same time, she tried to retrace her steps over the preceding seventy-two hours. She was having difficulty managing the two lines of inquiry, and found them crossing over and intertwining.
Max suggested, “Could someone have hypnotized you?”
Amy said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” She was extraordinarily grateful that Max had not leapt to the conclusion that she had been having an affair with another man. It made her glad that she had married him.
“Do you think we should call the police?” he said.
“Why? What can they do?” Amy wondered.
“Well, they might be able to keep this person from hurting you again.”
“Oh, I don’t know. What could we tell them, that I have a hickey on the back of my neck and I don’t know who did it or when? You believe me because you love me, but why would they?”
Max could see her point. “We could hire a private detective. He would believe what we paid him to believe. Or, you could talk with a psychologist who understands hypnotism.” Amy thought that the latter made the most sense.
“Do you think we should take a picture of the mark?” Max asked.
“Why?” Amy asked, although she could think of the reasons why Max had made the suggestion. It could dispel some doubt that outsiders might have about the incident. He was always the lawyer. In the end, they decided not to take a picture.
“Max, I don’t want to be alone for the next few days. Please take me to work and pick me up. Just for a few days.”
“Of course, Sweetheart. Of course.” And they embraced and told each other that they loved each other still.
Amy told Max that they should be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, just in case, to be on the safe side. He agreed. She did not say that she would have a pregnancy test, as well, and take the, “Morning After Pill”.
Amy said that she knew a psychiatrist at the medical school who worked with hypnotism and that she would consult with her. Max drove her to the clinic and made arrangements to pick her up that evening.
Taking Amy to her clinic made Max later than usual, and caught him up in more traffic than he was accustomed to. It gave him time to think. He tried to remember what he had done over the previous three days and nights. It seemed to him that he had come home and went to bed early while Amy was watching a Chinese movie on television. The small subtitles always made him sleepy. Later, she had come to bed and they had made love and fallen asleep. They were newlyweds, and they still made love several times a week. Nothing seemed wrong or out of place. How could he have missed it?
That morning, before she saw patients, Amy telephoned Leila Tepfer. Dr. Leila Tepfer was a psychiatrist and a professor at the medical school. She had been a classmate of Amy’s. Amy knew that Leila was an early riser. “Leila”, Amy said, “I need to see you. Something disturbing has happened to me.”
Leila asked Amy if it could wait until that evening. They made arrangements to meet at her university office at eight o’clock. Amy would ask Max to drive her there and wait.
Although he was not happy to make another drive home and to the city and home again, Max knew that Amy should not be alone. He took along a book to read while he waited, a collection of stories written by a lawyer in his firm.
“Leila”, Amy said, “look at this.” She showed her friend the red, round bruise that was now somewhat more faded than the day before.
Leila thought, ‘What’s all this fuss about a hickey?’ but her years of practice had taught her that even the most trivial of things could be momentous for a patient, and this awareness had schooled her in the habit of watchful silence. Amy told Leila what she knew.
Leila asked, “Are you and Max happy together?”
Amy insisted that they were happy, that they still were happy together.
“And you’re not calling the police because you don’t think they would believe you?” Leila probed.
“Do you think they would?”
“What you think is more important than what I think. Why do you think they wouldn’t believe you?” Leila asked.
Amy thought this line of questioning was a waste of time, and more than a little insulting. “Leila, I came to you for help. Max and I wondered if someone had hypnotized me.”
“All right, but you should still give some thought to why you don’t think the police would believe you.” Leila told her some of the generalities about hypnotism, about how, generally, a subject will not do something that they would not have done if not in an induced hypnotic state.
“Generally? Are you saying that I wanted to have sex with another man?” This was not at all how Amy had imagined their meeting would go.
“Did you?”
“No, of course not. Max and I are very happy together that way.”
“So, you never imagined what it would be like to make love with another man, a man other than Max?”
Amy hated that kind of question. There was no right answer. Of course she had had fantasies. Everyone did. But a fantasy lover hadn’t put a hickey on her neck. “Leila”, Amy asked, “Can you tell if I have been hypnotized by someone?”
Leila said that she would try. If Amy agreed, she would put her in a hypnotic state, a light trance, and see if Amy could remember. Amy was uncertain, but she agreed.
“All right Amy, look at the bookshelves in this office. There are many, many books. Without counting, concentrate on the number of books that you can see. If you concentrate, you can know the number of books without counting them.”
Leila was surprised by how easily and how quickly Amy was induced. She thought that her friend must have been very susceptible to post-hypnotic suggestion. “Do you remember being hypnotized before?”
Amy answered, “Shortly after we moved in together, in the new place, Dr. Wu invited Max and me over for a cup of his special tea. He told Max that the English subtitles on the Chinese movies had made him sleepy, and that he should go home and sleep soundly until I came to bed and that he would be very glad to see me, and that we would make love.” Amy paused.
“What happened then, Amy?” Leila asked.
“Dr. Wu told me to get undressed and come to bed with him. We made love. And then I got dressed and went home and made love with Max.”
“Did you see Dr. Wu again?”
“Yes, two or three times a week.”
“And he made love with you, every time.”
“Yes.”
“And after, every time, you would go home and make love with Max?”
“Yes.”
“Amy, did Dr. Wu bite you?”
“No, not Dr. Wu. He was very gentle, very kind. He was a very considerate lover.”
“Amy”, Leila asked, “Do you know who bit your neck?”
“Yes, it was one of his nephews. The younger one. One night, Dr. Wu showed me to the boys. He showed them how he was able to make Max and I do what he wanted. He told me to make love with the boys that night. They were so young and impatient. He said that he wanted them to know what it was like to be with a woman of quality.”
“Is that when the younger nephew bit your neck?”
“No, not that time. It was when Dr. Wu was away at a conference. They were clever boys and they had remembered his words. They invited Max and me over for a cup of special tea. Then they sent Max home. They made love with me all night. At last, just before morning, when they would have to send me home, the younger nephew sodomized me. He used lubricant. It didn’t hurt. But he bit my neck.”
Leila had to decide whether to let Amy remember what she had told her. ‘What good would come of that?’ she wondered. Instead, she told Amy that when she awoke, that she would firmly decline any further invitations from Dr. Wu or his nephews. She told Amy that when she awoke, she would realize that she did not really like the taste of Dr. Wu’s special tea.
Leila asked Amy to wait outside while she spoke to Max. She discovered that he was only slightly less suggestible than his wife. “Max, you must decline any further invitations from Dr. Wu or his nephews. You don’t like the taste of his special teas. And English subtitles in Chinese movies do not make you sleepy.”
When they left her office together, Amy and Max were as in love as they had ever been. Leila found Dr. Wu’s telephone number in the university address book. “Dr. Wu, this is Dr. Leila Tepfer. I want to talk to you about your neighbours, Amy and Max.” She intended to give him a piece of her mind. She knew exactly what she was going to say.
“Of course, Dr. Tepfer. Why don’t you come over for a cup of my special tea?”
To her surprise, Leila heard herself saying, ”Yes. When should I come?”
BOB FRIEDLAND was born in New York City in 1947. He has been the Sheriff of a Judicial District; an investigator for the United States Treasury Department; a Regional Director of the Alberta Human Rights Commission; Human Rights Advisor for Malaspina University College; a two-term City Councillor in Victoria, British Columbia; and, Chief Lawyer for a group of seven First Nations in the Interior of British Columbia. He currently practices human rights and administrative law in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a widely published commentator on the international, Canadian, and British Columbian political scene. His fiction has been published in Canada, the United States, England, and Japan. New World Press, Beijing, China, will be publishing a translation of Bob Friedland’s short story collection, Faded Love, in 2011.
They were newlyweds, but they were not young. She was thirty-five, and he would never see forty again. He had lost so much hair that she had encouraged him to shave his head. She had told him that she liked it better that way, but she would have preferred hair.
They were both successful professionals, well-established in their professions. She was a physician in a family practice clinic with one other doctor, in Richmond, British Columbia. He was a partner in a medium-sized, but highly regarded, Vancouver law firm.
It was her first marriage, and his second. They had dated for almost two years before deciding to live together. The decision to marry had come along very quickly after that, and without any of the angst they had anticipated.
They lived in a two-bedroom penthouse in one of the many new high rise condominium buildings that had irrevocably altered Richmond’s horizons. They were healthy, in the prime of life, they loved each other, and they had no reason not to be as happy together as they were.
Amy was a first-generation immigrant from Hong Kong. She had come to Canada when she was a child, and she spoke English fluently, but with the musical trace of a Cantonese accent. At least, to Max, who was in love, her voice sounded like music.
Max was also an immigrant to the Great White North. He and his first wife and four children had emigrated from the United States. He was of one hundred percent Ashkenazi Jewish stock, except, as he sometimes joked, for the Tatar genes that might have entered the gene pool during a pogrom in nineteenth century Russia.
From their living room window, they could see the modest but ample green expanse of Minoru Park, the dramatic, wide, inverted snow capped cone of Mount Baker, shadowy Gulf Islands and the long undifferentiated blue grey spine of Vancouver Island. From their bedroom window, they could see the City of Vancouver and the North Shore mountains. They were happy with their views. Who could blame them for that?
Insofar as they may have disagreed and argued, it was always about small things. Which restaurant was better for dimsum? Which friends were too boring? Which show should they go see? What colour to paint the living room?
Their neighbour, Dr. Wu, a professor at the university, had specialized in paper ephemera of the nineteenth century. He wore a traditional Chinese tunic, and he had a full head of lustrous black hair that Amy admired. He had proudly showed them his prized possessions - two, consecutively numbered, yellowed and faded, torn ticket stubs to the performance of, “Our American Cousin”, at Ford’s Theatre, the night that Abraham Lincoln was shot.
Dr. Wu was older than Max, but only by a few years, and he lived by himself. His only visitors were his two nephews, young men in their late teens or early twenties who laughed easily and with genuine feeling. Max dubbed them Heckle and Jeckle, after the two wisecracking magpies from cartoon lore, but he only called them that when he and Amy were home alone. Amy laughed, but she reproached him gently, saying that they were fine boys.
Once a week, or so, Dr. Wu would invite Amy and Max for a cup of one of his special teas. In addition to his esoteric interest in old paper products, Dr. Wu was a connoisseur of rare, fine teas. He would brew them each, separately, thimble-sized cups of teas that tasted unlike any of the tea they had had before. The teas were sometimes red, sometimes green, and sometimes of an indeterminate colour, but never bitter, and they always had an exotic, far away flavour to them. Far away in place, but also in time.
One day, after Amy and Max had been living in the new building for about six months, Max was in the bathroom, watching Amy brush her long, straight, black hair in the bathroom mirror. When she lifted the hair up from her neck, he noticed a large, reddish purple mark on the nape.
“Amy,” he said, “What’s that mark on your neck?”
“What mark?” she said, trying, without success, to see it over her shoulder in the mirror. Whichever way she would twist, it moved out of her field of vision to the other side.
Max came closer and could see that it was the mark of a love bite. There were clear traces of the impressions made by a set of teeth. The purple colour had started to dissipate slightly, and he thought it must have been a few days old.
For some reason, it never occurred to Max that Amy might have been unfaithful. He did not think he was in denial. It just seemed so out of character for her and for the nature of their love and relationship and trust. Not that he took her love for granted.
By this time, Amy had picked up a hand mirror, and lifting her hair and adjusting the way she held the mirror, she could see the round bruise. Max had been right in guessing that it was a day or two old.
They both knew that Max had not bit the back of her neck that way. It was a piece of evidence, but what did it mean, they wondered.
Max said, “I think it means that you were bitten by someone, probably a man. I think it means that a man likely had sexual relations with you, from the back.” It was as if he was addressing a jury, laying out the case for them, dispassionately, in words that they would understand and remember.
Because of the calm way in which he laid it out, Amy was not angered or offended by Max’s surmise. It made sense, but she had no recollection of any such encounter.
“Max, I’ve never cheated on you. I don’t know what this is about.”
“Oh, Sweetie,” Max assured her, “I believe you. Do you think you could have been given that date rape drug by someone?”
Amy felt dizzy with revelation and possibility, and sat down hard on the closed wooden toilet seat, making it clatter. She tried to remember if she had had any unusual physical sign in the past few days, but could not. “Max, I’m certain I would have felt sick or drunk or confused if someone had given me Rohypnol. I haven’t felt any of that.”
But, there was the evidence. Someone had had her under his control and used her. Amy tried to think of alternatives, but at the same time, she tried to retrace her steps over the preceding seventy-two hours. She was having difficulty managing the two lines of inquiry, and found them crossing over and intertwining.
Max suggested, “Could someone have hypnotized you?”
Amy said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” She was extraordinarily grateful that Max had not leapt to the conclusion that she had been having an affair with another man. It made her glad that she had married him.
“Do you think we should call the police?” he said.
“Why? What can they do?” Amy wondered.
“Well, they might be able to keep this person from hurting you again.”
“Oh, I don’t know. What could we tell them, that I have a hickey on the back of my neck and I don’t know who did it or when? You believe me because you love me, but why would they?”
Max could see her point. “We could hire a private detective. He would believe what we paid him to believe. Or, you could talk with a psychologist who understands hypnotism.” Amy thought that the latter made the most sense.
“Do you think we should take a picture of the mark?” Max asked.
“Why?” Amy asked, although she could think of the reasons why Max had made the suggestion. It could dispel some doubt that outsiders might have about the incident. He was always the lawyer. In the end, they decided not to take a picture.
“Max, I don’t want to be alone for the next few days. Please take me to work and pick me up. Just for a few days.”
“Of course, Sweetheart. Of course.” And they embraced and told each other that they loved each other still.
Amy told Max that they should be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, just in case, to be on the safe side. He agreed. She did not say that she would have a pregnancy test, as well, and take the, “Morning After Pill”.
Amy said that she knew a psychiatrist at the medical school who worked with hypnotism and that she would consult with her. Max drove her to the clinic and made arrangements to pick her up that evening.
Taking Amy to her clinic made Max later than usual, and caught him up in more traffic than he was accustomed to. It gave him time to think. He tried to remember what he had done over the previous three days and nights. It seemed to him that he had come home and went to bed early while Amy was watching a Chinese movie on television. The small subtitles always made him sleepy. Later, she had come to bed and they had made love and fallen asleep. They were newlyweds, and they still made love several times a week. Nothing seemed wrong or out of place. How could he have missed it?
That morning, before she saw patients, Amy telephoned Leila Tepfer. Dr. Leila Tepfer was a psychiatrist and a professor at the medical school. She had been a classmate of Amy’s. Amy knew that Leila was an early riser. “Leila”, Amy said, “I need to see you. Something disturbing has happened to me.”
Leila asked Amy if it could wait until that evening. They made arrangements to meet at her university office at eight o’clock. Amy would ask Max to drive her there and wait.
Although he was not happy to make another drive home and to the city and home again, Max knew that Amy should not be alone. He took along a book to read while he waited, a collection of stories written by a lawyer in his firm.
“Leila”, Amy said, “look at this.” She showed her friend the red, round bruise that was now somewhat more faded than the day before.
Leila thought, ‘What’s all this fuss about a hickey?’ but her years of practice had taught her that even the most trivial of things could be momentous for a patient, and this awareness had schooled her in the habit of watchful silence. Amy told Leila what she knew.
Leila asked, “Are you and Max happy together?”
Amy insisted that they were happy, that they still were happy together.
“And you’re not calling the police because you don’t think they would believe you?” Leila probed.
“Do you think they would?”
“What you think is more important than what I think. Why do you think they wouldn’t believe you?” Leila asked.
Amy thought this line of questioning was a waste of time, and more than a little insulting. “Leila, I came to you for help. Max and I wondered if someone had hypnotized me.”
“All right, but you should still give some thought to why you don’t think the police would believe you.” Leila told her some of the generalities about hypnotism, about how, generally, a subject will not do something that they would not have done if not in an induced hypnotic state.
“Generally? Are you saying that I wanted to have sex with another man?” This was not at all how Amy had imagined their meeting would go.
“Did you?”
“No, of course not. Max and I are very happy together that way.”
“So, you never imagined what it would be like to make love with another man, a man other than Max?”
Amy hated that kind of question. There was no right answer. Of course she had had fantasies. Everyone did. But a fantasy lover hadn’t put a hickey on her neck. “Leila”, Amy asked, “Can you tell if I have been hypnotized by someone?”
Leila said that she would try. If Amy agreed, she would put her in a hypnotic state, a light trance, and see if Amy could remember. Amy was uncertain, but she agreed.
“All right Amy, look at the bookshelves in this office. There are many, many books. Without counting, concentrate on the number of books that you can see. If you concentrate, you can know the number of books without counting them.”
Leila was surprised by how easily and how quickly Amy was induced. She thought that her friend must have been very susceptible to post-hypnotic suggestion. “Do you remember being hypnotized before?”
Amy answered, “Shortly after we moved in together, in the new place, Dr. Wu invited Max and me over for a cup of his special tea. He told Max that the English subtitles on the Chinese movies had made him sleepy, and that he should go home and sleep soundly until I came to bed and that he would be very glad to see me, and that we would make love.” Amy paused.
“What happened then, Amy?” Leila asked.
“Dr. Wu told me to get undressed and come to bed with him. We made love. And then I got dressed and went home and made love with Max.”
“Did you see Dr. Wu again?”
“Yes, two or three times a week.”
“And he made love with you, every time.”
“Yes.”
“And after, every time, you would go home and make love with Max?”
“Yes.”
“Amy, did Dr. Wu bite you?”
“No, not Dr. Wu. He was very gentle, very kind. He was a very considerate lover.”
“Amy”, Leila asked, “Do you know who bit your neck?”
“Yes, it was one of his nephews. The younger one. One night, Dr. Wu showed me to the boys. He showed them how he was able to make Max and I do what he wanted. He told me to make love with the boys that night. They were so young and impatient. He said that he wanted them to know what it was like to be with a woman of quality.”
“Is that when the younger nephew bit your neck?”
“No, not that time. It was when Dr. Wu was away at a conference. They were clever boys and they had remembered his words. They invited Max and me over for a cup of special tea. Then they sent Max home. They made love with me all night. At last, just before morning, when they would have to send me home, the younger nephew sodomized me. He used lubricant. It didn’t hurt. But he bit my neck.”
Leila had to decide whether to let Amy remember what she had told her. ‘What good would come of that?’ she wondered. Instead, she told Amy that when she awoke, that she would firmly decline any further invitations from Dr. Wu or his nephews. She told Amy that when she awoke, she would realize that she did not really like the taste of Dr. Wu’s special tea.
Leila asked Amy to wait outside while she spoke to Max. She discovered that he was only slightly less suggestible than his wife. “Max, you must decline any further invitations from Dr. Wu or his nephews. You don’t like the taste of his special teas. And English subtitles in Chinese movies do not make you sleepy.”
When they left her office together, Amy and Max were as in love as they had ever been. Leila found Dr. Wu’s telephone number in the university address book. “Dr. Wu, this is Dr. Leila Tepfer. I want to talk to you about your neighbours, Amy and Max.” She intended to give him a piece of her mind. She knew exactly what she was going to say.
“Of course, Dr. Tepfer. Why don’t you come over for a cup of my special tea?”
To her surprise, Leila heard herself saying, ”Yes. When should I come?”
BOB FRIEDLAND was born in New York City in 1947. He has been the Sheriff of a Judicial District; an investigator for the United States Treasury Department; a Regional Director of the Alberta Human Rights Commission; Human Rights Advisor for Malaspina University College; a two-term City Councillor in Victoria, British Columbia; and, Chief Lawyer for a group of seven First Nations in the Interior of British Columbia. He currently practices human rights and administrative law in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a widely published commentator on the international, Canadian, and British Columbian political scene. His fiction has been published in Canada, the United States, England, and Japan. New World Press, Beijing, China, will be publishing a translation of Bob Friedland’s short story collection, Faded Love, in 2011.
