What do you want to do? Dinner? Drinks? Walk in the park?

Previously…

She stayed at the bar past midnight, although her shift had ended at eleven thirty. It was hard for her to leave work on a busy day, leaving her co-workers overwhelmed with orders. She stayed to help bring the last meals from the kitchens to the half-drunken customers.

Her mind was struggling with the fact that two nights ago she was left by herself in the bar. “There’s a natural unfairness in this world,” she thought while placing an order of fries next to the last carrot cake, “I should’ve gone home already. Or I should’ve asked him to…” She stopped herself. She didn’t want to explore that train of thought.

Early that day, the regular customer who comes and reads, who orders a hot chocolate with Chantilly or just tea, the one she had been bantering with for the past days, had asked her out. He proposed to pick her up tonight, but she knew she was not that kind of woman, she didn’t want to be someone who simply got picked up. She, in turn, played him and the date was set for the day after.

The next day she woke at nine twenty-seven. In her tiredness she managed to prepare a cup of coffee, and walk around on her old t-shirt that acted as pyjama. Her flatmate was gone, and she could just linger in the kitchen with her warm coffee and exhausted thoughts.

“Do I want to go dancing? I do, I need some good music, and a good cocktail, but does he dance? He spent his afternoons reading big fat books that I would never consider, he is for sure some kind of an intellectual guy. Maybe he just wants to have dinner, and talk.” Her thoughts trailed off in the anticipation of a complicated evening

She looked at her empty cup, and thought about getting another one. She resisted the temptation, and looking at her phone she realised she had a long list of errands to run today. “I need to get a different job.” Her hours barely allowed her to deal with admin paperwork for her to validate her diplomas in the new country, she spent her time commuting, waiting tables, and applying for jobs while being dead tired. “It is hard,” hopelessly she sighed.

“He’s creative, always with a quip or a pun, he’s social and comes to the bar with friends both male and female, one of them referred to him as ‘the poet’ and that girl,” she winced to the thought, “The blond with green eyes, always pays for his drinks with the expression, ‘thanks for the therapy, I’ll take this one.’ This one? How many ones he paid for?”

She put all the dishes and thoughts on the sink, let water run for a few seconds, “He is taking me dancing, and he doesn’t dance, he’ll have to figure it out!”

She played music on her phone, undressed on her way to the bathroom, and in the freedom of her nakedness rehearsed a couple of dance movements.

Her day unfolded with little intention, as a pre-cooked meal that just needs a microwave to be mediocre. She had to collect the translation of her transcripts, and take them to the university for the validation, those simple tasks took more than three hours, mostly waiting for buses, and dealing with receptionists that confused her more and more.

Her frustration and tiredness hijacked her hunger and thirst, and when she arrived home at three, she simply collapsed on her bed, “I need a power nap, twenty minutes, then I’ll cook.” She said while kicking her shoes off,

The noise of keys and the door opening woke her. Her swollen eyes saw, ‘7:38:24 PM’ on the wall clock, and her soul made her jump. “ ‘ello, ‘ello”, the French accent of Maelle, her flatmate, was her second alarm. She had slept the entire afternoon, she hadn’t eaten, and she had to be ready in about twenty minutes. “I can do this!!”

“Hi Maelle, good to see you!” She said on her way to the bathroom, “I have a date in twenty minutes, and can’t talk right now, sorry.” She apologised in advance, although she knew that Maelle would grab a yogurt from the fridge and shadow her speaking about her day oblivious to what was going on.

7:58 PM, from her window she could see him calmly walking, “Hi, hi, I will be a bit late, sorry ;)” she messaged him. From behind the curtains she saw him checking his phone, answering a stoic, “ok, no problem” and sitting on the sidewalk to read. “It seems we’re going to have some dinner and talks. Only talks.” She sighed in frustration with a broken expectation.

She shook her thoughts, but they didn’t leave, and a voice in her head said, “you allowed him into your flirting too, and you have him waiting, own the moment!”

8:45 PM, feeling not ready, yet brave enough to step out her house, she opened the door expecting to see him absorbed by his book, “I like when the world is a parade of people around him and he’s floating in a parallel world.” But she found him in front of the door, smiling and ready to go.

“Sorry, to make you wait…” She was interrupted by him.

“No problem at all, the best things in life come at the right time, and in small doses.” He captured her profile and gait with his eyes and added, “you look bonita”

“Thank you.”

“What do you want to do? Dinner? Drinks? Walk in the park?”

“I want to go dancing! I want to paint the town red, I want to party.” She said letting her body summarise her thoughts. He saw her approaching, her legs set the beat for her hips. Her seductive gait and eyes drove him to grab her hands, and softly kissed her lips.

“It’s early for this,” she thought, “oh, who cares!” Her lips quieted her thoughts, and kissed him back.

“So dancing, why not?” He said, she felt some scepticism in his voice, she felt he would dodge the request. “I can do some dancing, but before I want to eat, do you mind if we go for sushi first?”

“Sushi and then dancing?”

“Yes!”

“You promise we’ll go dancing after dinner?”

“Of course.”

They walked across the city centre, he held her hand and she played along, she told him about her paperwork, and about her goals to quit the bar and work for a digital marketing company. He asked about her previous project, she showed him her portfolio. They walked across the city centre showing photos and websites on their phones. “I can talk to him for hours,” she thought feeling a buzz in her stomach.

After the sushi, he suggested a few places where they could dance, and she in turn declined all of them, she had one in mind, and her mind was set. He agreed, acknowledging he had never been there before.

“Do you dance?” She asked timidly.

“I can defend myself,” he dodged the question, and kissed her hand.

“I am serious, I do dance, a lot! I can spend hours jumping, singing, sweating in the dance floor. If this is not for you, let me know, we can do something else.”

“It will be fine, don’t worry about me!” He answered with his well-rehearsed therapist voice, and in her mind the blond girl with green eyes appeared.

“Ok, ok, but I am telling you, I will not leave the dance floor until I am dead tired, and if you need to go and sit, don’t worry, I will find another partner.” She was not sure what pushed her to say that, but managed to grin in time to turn the threat into a challenge.

“Deal!” He said, and kissed her lips sealing the deal, this time the kiss was not timid, and she didn’t hold back either.

Two hours later, they were sweaty and happy swaying to the chords of old bachatas. “And here we are, he saw my hunger, and fed me; he saw my desire, and kissed me; he saw my energy, and matched me. He didn’t force himself to do it, I can feel he’s not trying to please me or impress me, yet he’s giving what so many others can give me, he simply met me where I was. None of those things are what I was looking for; suddenly I no longer know what that was.”

Their hips tuned to the congas, their shoulders to the clave, his hands drew constellations over her head, and she became a meandering ribbon of light. “I could devour him,” she said trying to keep up with his sprightly movements. He never missed the main beats, but the beats in-between were where his sensuality lived, in the ritardando of his body, that seemed to innocently wait for her to rain on him. “Why does this feel good, yet he doesn’t feel the one I see at the bar, what is missing?”

“Let’s leave, I am tired. Let’s walk.” She said breaking the spell that the dance had put on them.

While leaving, she felt again that she could talk to him forever. It was an exquisite feeling that also felt wrong.

“Thanks for dinner,” she finally said, “I had had only breakfast today, and napped the entire afternoon, that’s why I was late.”

“You looked hungry, and although you wanted to be in a dancing mood, you were hungry, I could see it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.” He was about to say more, but she stopped him with her hand.

“What are you reading? Wait, don’t tell me, let’s sit somewhere, read it for me.”

“That’s a strange request.” His eyes fluttered in shyness.

“Would you do it?” She pressed, and for the first time she saw him unsure of himself, doubting his next step.

“Sure.” He opened his book, and..

It was about his eyes, when he read a chapter for her, they overtook the universe, they devoured her.

They walked to her place. They were too tired to know one another as man and woman, and too passionate to sleep without each other.

Dawn found them in an embrace, he offered to make coffee, she wrote her thoughts on a piece of paper.

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Until it is Sunday again,

—Rene