The Cheesemonger – Part 2: The Cellar

The cellar was cool, dark and fragrant.

Mere led Katrin down a narrow stone stair under the market building, with a torch and a ring of keys. At the bottom, a low vaulted room opened out, lined with wooden shelves, and on every shelf, rows and rows of cheeses, round and pale and slowly breathing. The air smelled of earth, milk and old wood.

"Welcome to my favourite place," said Mere.

"It's magnificent."

"It's damp."

"It's magnificent and damp."

She laughed. They walked slowly down the aisle, Mere pointing out wheels: the washed rind that was turned every day, the blue that needed piercing, the little goat's cheeses wrapped in ash. Katrin ran a finger along the cool rind of a great round wheel. It felt like skin.

"They're like children," she said.

"They're like old ladies. They get cranky."

"You're very tender with them."

"I'm tender with everything alive." Mere hesitated. "Mostly."

Her voice caught slightly. In the dim light, her face was soft and a little shy. A drip fell somewhere in the dark, a clear, slow note.

"I've abandoned the article," said Katrin.

"Have you?"

"I wrote nine pages. It was all about you."

"That's not a food article."

"It's a very good food article."

Mere laughed, and then did not. They stood close together between the shelves, in the cool dark.

"Can I ask you something?" said Katrin.

"Yes."

"May I kiss you? In your cellar?"

"Yes," said Mere, almost a whisper. "And if you say stop, you must work the stall every Saturday."

"I'd do that anyway."

Katrin kissed her, soft and a little salty, a hand rising to the curls under her scarf. Mere kissed her back with a bright, grateful warmth, tasting of cheese and rain. The cellar was silent but for the faint, slow sounds of a hundred wheels ripening.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" asked Mere.

"Green," said Katrin. "Very green."

The article ran in the spring. Nine pages. The title is The Woman Who Tastes Like Rain. She asked permission first.

More lesbian romance stories: Tea at the Conservatory · Bookshop at Midnight · Ballroom Rivals