Rioja
First Date 1999
After the last bite of medium-rare but before the last sip of Rioja , she leaned her perfumed shoulder against him. Under the table, her hand moved to his thigh. But only after she let him feel her breath on his neck did she open her mouth to let the very tip of her tongue make its way from the top of his collar to just beneath his ear.
Still, he did not shiver until she whispered, in her dark plum accent, “I do not want to be free.”
He was aware of the couple at the next table, their furtive glances, the hostess across the room straightening her skirt, the snow beginning to fall outside. Then, too quickly, a voice he did not recognize as his own answered, “I don’t know how to do that.”
She turned her eyes away first. But it was the slow dark sweep of her hair moving away from him that made him understand how the door to regret opens always on quiet hinges.
As they waited for the check, she sipped the last of her wine, savoring the already fading memory of black cherry and sun and oak.
The waiter arrived to pour a last wash of clear water into their silence. And the diminishing sound of her call and his response receded away from them like a crested flood making its slow way back to the rocky bed of its own dark river.
Any Date 2005
He rides the el home from the office and settles in before supper to watch the world falling apart on CNN. On the weekends, he fixes things that need fixing. He pays his mortgage on the first, fucks his wife when he’s supposed to, and faithfully masturbates beneath his keyboard every morning before work.
Occasionally, he remembers that winter night, the red cinnamon candles in the café, the warmth and secret scent of her breath, her quiet anger underneath.
At night, when he’s drunk and it’s quiet, he can even sometimes close his eyes and recall her delicious voice in his ear. But he can never remember why he didn’t fuck her. Mercifully, he always decides that it must have been something she said.
And she… well, she still eats her steak medium-rare at that same little Spanish place on La Salle. She still orders a Rioja Riserva ; her waiter knows which one.
Often, as she finishes her glass, she can recall the richness of his voice, even though his words have become nothing in her dreams. But even when she dines alone, her hair a lighter shade now and unbound, she remembers how much she still does not want to be free.
