Belvedere Bliss
"Candle maker Amara fills Belvedere with fragrant creations. When home goods buyer Marcus commissions a custom line, she shows him the most sensual scents are made in darkness."
Marcus's boutique needed something special—candles that told stories. Industry contacts led him to Amara's Belvedere studio, where magic happened one wick at a time.
The space smelled of a hundred things at once—vanilla and sandalwood and something indefinably human. Amara emerged from the back, Eritrean-British, thick curves in a flowing apron, eyes that seemed to see through to his soul.
"You want to sell scent," she said after hearing his pitch. "But you don't understand scent. Not really."
"Teach me."
"That takes time. And intimacy." She gestured at her studio. "Come back tonight. Experience how fragrance is really made."
The studio at night was transformed—lit only by her candles, hundreds of them, flickering shadows on her thick body as she moved.
"Scent is memory," she explained, holding a candle close to his face. "Desire." Another scent. "Fear." Another. "Arousal." This one was muskier, headier, and it made his breath catch.
"That one—"
"I call it Intimacy. Want to know how I developed it?"
She blindfolded him with silk, surrounding him with darkness and scent.
"When you can't see, smell becomes everything. Touch becomes electric."
Her hands found him in the dark, her thick body pressing close. The candle scent was everywhere—on her skin, in the air, inside his head.
"Feel what this scent creates."
She kissed him, and he tasted wax and want and her.
They made love by candlelight, their shadows dancing on the walls. Her thick body glowed gold in the flickering light, beautiful and otherworldly.
"Yes... there... you smell so good..."
She came with a moan that could have been for him or for the scent or for the primal combination of both. He followed, overwhelmed by sense.
"This," she said afterward, lying among pooled wax and tangled limbs, "is how Intimacy was created. Real intimacy. Real scent."
"Can I bottle this?"
"The candle, yes. This?" She gestured at them. "This you have to make yourself. With me. Over and over."
"Research?"
"Inspiration." She pulled him close. "Every good scent needs continued study. How devoted are you to your craft?"
His Belvedere bliss had filled his senses completely. And Marcus had found a fragrance worth pursuing forever.