THE INCEPTION CAKE
All roads lead to cake and cake will manipulate people to do what they want. Sophie Coventry pays a surprise visit to Neal armed with dessert and an intriguing proposition.
Sophie surprises Neal with dessert. She's baked an inception cake, a cake within a cake within a cake. She has a proposition for him; as they eat through the cake layers each person must reveal something to each other no one else knows about them. To make the experience even more intriguing and mysterious, Sophie has added secret ingredients derived from a closely held family recipe into the layers. Clothes will be shed and truths revealed.
The game, each layer they consume leads to an increasing loss of inhibition and matching desire to tell the truth. In other words, each layer is laced with an elixir of abandon and truth serum. As you eat your way farther in, boundaries shift and slide. Can you tell what's real and does it matter? When you get to the center, you can decide to take the last bite or not. If you do, you won't remember what went on previously.
Chapter 1
"Sophie," he smiled.
"Hello, Neal. June let me up. I guess I looked harmless enough. I hope it's okay."
"Of course, come in."
"I have something for you. It's a bit of a surprise."
"I love surprises," his smile widened.
"You were kind to make me dinner. I've wanted to reciprocate ever since. So I brought dessert." She lightly set the box she carried on his table. It was exquisitely wrapped. He recognized handmade papers from the bark of the Daphne bush which grows high in the Himalayas. Spun silk bejeweled ribbons crisscrossed in a dizzying display of color. If the contents of his mystery package rivaled the exterior, he knew he was in for quite the treat.
"May I?" he unwrapped the gift. "Wow!"
"I hope you have a sweet tooth." Her eyes were crystalline blue and wide in anticipation.
"Cake," he all but purred.
There was an immediate jolt to his senses, as this intense chocolate perfumed scent filled the air.
"I thought I just might have a shot with the owner of The Greatest Cakes. But I have to warn you, this is no ordinary cake. It requires a certain set of skills to maximize full enjoyment."
Maximize full enjoyment, his head all but reeled with the possibilities that those three words held. Sophie was as ravishing as her cake. Exquisite on the surface while holding the promise of something even more extraordinary inside.
"This recipe was given to me by mother and her mother passed it down to her just as her mother before her had. Let's just say it's been in the family for quite a long time. There's even some speculation our descendants and the recipe can be traced all the way back to Salem."
"Why am I not surprised by that," he lifted the perfectly tiny cake from the box.
"Creating a cake is a form of art, but you already know that. Like with all great art, it invokes feeling, stirs a passion. The tastes come to life, same as a canvas. Unfortunately, my ancestors lived in a time when women were not as free to explore the boundaries of their pleasure. Baking however was safe and sanctioned."
It was hard to take his eyes away from her. He felt a giddy rush not unlike what he felt the first time he encountered her and she made off with his fedora. What he felt now was definitely neither safe nor sanctioned.
"You might say this recipe was born from need. Sensual pursuits for women then could be dangerous and required the utmost discretion from both parties. Kiss and tell could actually lead to death."
"My lips are sealed," he sat next to her.
"Well, we can't have that. Not just yet, anyway." She pressed a finger of raspberry chocolate ganache into his mouth. The flavors mingled and morphed on his tongue in the most extraordinary explosion of flavors.
"Should I go on?" she teased.
"Seriously? Spoon or forks?"
"Neither. I'm a hand's on kind of girl."
"And I was kind of hoping you'd say that."
"So, as I was saying, she fed him another morsel of frosting. A secret sisterhood devoted to the pursuit of sensual pleasure was born. They experimented with local herbs and elements considered aphrodisiacs, to heighten arousal. These elixirs were incorporated into their confections. When the right balance was struck, they enlisted a select group of men into their circle."
"I can only imagine the vetting process that must have been. Wine?"
"Yes, thank you."
He poured two glasses of Merlot as Sophie watched him like a cat with a prized mouse in her sights.
"The men were sworn to secrecy, but soon they wanted more than sweets and sex. Some could not hold to the secret, others wanted to possess them solely. They wanted not only a claim on their freedom but their lives."
"They would be at their mercy," Neal sighed. He knew something of indentured servitude and a freedom denied.
"Exactly. Necessity being the mother of invention … my great, great, great gran's charm of another kind came into being. It was sheer brilliance, added to food it had the ability to produce a sort of dissociative amnesia. It prevented current experiences from being transferred to permanent memory."
"Genius, he grinned always appreciative of a well-crafted con. So once the men took it, they forgot the entire event."
"Yes and they were incapable of any deception while under the influence. An unanticipated bonus was subconsciously they retained a positive connection to the women, but wouldn't be able to put their finger on why."
"I'm sure the ladies used that to great advantage."
"Over the years the recipe was refined into what you see before you. There are three layers to this cake. Each laced with an element that expands sensual awareness and lessens inhibition. Each layer is more potent than the previous one."
He poured her another glass of wine careful to keep his hands steady against the mounting excitement and anticipation flooding him.
"So it's the ultimate roofie, a potent blend of mind/body altering truth serum, aphrodisiac and amnesia," he offered.
"Unlike the original men you do have an option. You can stop when you choose, first layer, second layer, third. If you stop before the center you remember everything."
"And if I chose not to, and have the center layer?"
"If you eat to the center, you will forget what transpired from the beginning taste. Do you sacrifice truth?"
"And this applies to you as well as me."
"Yes."
"So if I have this right. Each layer will progressively expand and heighten our sensual awareness and deepen sexual pleasure with the center being this DEFCON 1 of arousal."
"Precisely. Are you in or out?"
"I'll go first."