Telephone Tag - June by Nagiko

September 28, 2003 12:42 a.m.

Rencontrer

I can only be honest. Remember rule one in literary analysis. Take what you want from my tale.

I'm the quiet type, not given to living out the fantasies that spice my afternoon breaks. I brood in coffeeshops, browse bookstores, and snap my fingers to the street musicians' tunes that dance through my head after lunch.

It doesn't take much for the hum of voices and clinks of glassware around me to melt into capuccino froth. Or for the roaring of city buses to become nothing more than a jet plane flying me away to the Virgin Islands, where I would finally become anything but.

It was that voice I overheard yesterday afternoon that tore me away from the myriads of leggy girls fawning over my musical prowess. That voice, rich with overtones of mystery-- undertones, rather--reminded me of chocolate. A cocoa martini, so wonderful because it's my latest vice mixed with a favorite childhood treat. Chocolate milk for alcoholics.

Her voice burned my tongue, scalded my throat. I gulped the latte and stared into the empty mug, listening.

The words mattered little. Eavesdropping was never my forte. But from her vowel sounds I felt the oceanliner lurch in midnight waves. I tasted the salty air of sea spray and cliffs. Pinpricks at my neck, I knew she was one who Knew.

Her face took form, angular with a sensual mouth. Hair she would fling behind her shoulder. No, it would be held back with sunglasses.

I nodded. Sunglasses, dark so that no one could witness her eyes as they bored into his soul or gazed beyond her at a painting hanging askew on the wall.

Twenty-eight years old, I guessed. Older than me by at least five years. And she imagines life a conquest with rules intended to be bent by her will. She has met her match, once or twice. Perhaps more. Each meeting giving her voice another layer. A wall, perhaps. A soldier proud of her battle wounds.

She's distracted, I thought. After ordering her drink (what was it? I couldn't hear), she asked the waitress twice for an extra napkin. A pen from her tablemate.

"You're a goddess, thank you," she breathed.

I looked at my watch. Perfunctorily, I might add. Time to swivel from the bar and face this woman's voice.

"You're a cultured man," I told myself. "You can handle an older woman. You have a high paying job and afford frequent vacations to the Caman Islands."

I nodded again and turned around.

But the woman left. All I saw was a group of college girls. Maybe sorority sisters. Dressed in black, jeans, and high heels. The dark haired one took a drag on her cigarette. Her other hand busily sketched on the spare napkin. Black sunglasses rested folded next to her steaming mug.

I walked needlessly toward the restroom, the girls' table in my path.

On the napkin was my face in bleeding black ink.

I stopped. She spoke. And awoke in my bed.

~ Nagiko