The Florist – Part 1: Thorns

The shop smelled of roses, lilies and cold green water. Buckets stood in rows on the tiled floor, overflowing with peonies, delphiniums and tall, tight tulips. A brass scale hung over the counter. The blind was down, the sign turned to CLOSED, and a single lamp lit the wide wooden workbench where she tied her bouquets.

Delphine stood behind the bench with a pair of secateurs in her hand. She was forty, the shop's owner, composed and precise, with dark hair under a headscarf and a talent for command. Mark was thirty-five, her assistant and partner, calm and diligent, who had told her one dawn market morning that he longed for someone to take all the decisions for an hour.

"Come here," said Delphine.

He came to the bench. She slid a florist's tag across the wood. Terms of Trade. His limits and hers, in her small tidy hand: no marks, nothing painful, no real humiliation, nothing beyond the shop, no one else. The word was Thorns.

"Say it."

"Thorns."

"If you say it, the Florist puts down her shears. I am Delphine. We have tea and flat white tulips."

"I understand."

"And every half hour, I ask if you wish to continue. You answer honestly."

"Yes, Madam."

"Not yet." She took off her headscarf and put on a long green apron and a pair of thin leather gloves. Her voice dropped, low and unhurried. "Mr Hale. Your arrangements today were careless."

"I am sorry, Madam."

"You will be." She pointed at a patch of tile between two buckets of white roses. "There. Stand. Hands behind your back. You will not move."

He stood among the flowers, with the heavy sweet scent rising round him. She worked at the bench, stripping thorns from a long bunch of roses with her secateurs, a slow, precise snip, snip, snip. She did not look at him once. The petals fell softly on the tile. He felt his pulse slowing and his shoulders unlocking.

"Are you content, Mr Hale?"

"Content, Madam."

"Good. A bouquet takes time."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Full Bloom.