This is a story of love based on my own passionate relationship with an amazing vintage wine. Most of the characters in this story are in fact based on various Czech wines, which are often delicious. Each wine has its own personal flavour, which, as with women, is unique to it, even though it may appear to be superficially no different than others of its kind. Both with wine and with women, our perspective of them is dependent on the setting and the mood in which we enjoy their company. More particularly, they are dependant on how we treat them. These aspects I have tried where possible to incorporate into this short tale.
Important note: the narrator has a pronounced English accent. Exactly which accent, I leave to you.
The Wine of My Life
I remember when I first met her, at the barbecue, how she stood with a fixed smile and unhappy eyes, as though praying to be rescued. She stood alone in a group of swarthy yokels who could not appreciate the delicacy of her sublime femininity. Their round red faces beamed at her through the trickles of sweat, as they did their best to cheer her up. She was a solitary rock in a sea of unreserved compliments. Flattering remarks poured over her thick blonde hair, simple praise splashed about her curvaceous form, kind words were lost in her deep blue eyes. How could those bumpkins hope to win over this woman, this goddess, so easily? Had they said anything she had not heard a thousand times before? To a beautiful woman such compliments are but cheap wine.
In that moment I felt nothing but pity for her. She would be rescued. I walked behind the group to where she could see me clearly, then pulled a sour face at her. She started, taken aback by the unexpected action, and then burst into a laughing smile. I winked and turned round. Her eyes were on me as I walked away. I remained with my back turned at one of the tables, waiting. A moment later I heard her voice.
“Why did you pull that sour face at me?”
Turning, I gave her a casual smile, “It was the natural reaction to seeing your face.” And before she could react I added, “You seemed in such a pickle.”
She laughed, then said, “I was until I met you,” and she gave me the full blast of her voluptuous gaze.
“Don’t be to sure about that,” I said as I spiked an onion from a nearby bowl and held it up towards her. She leaned towards it, sensuously parting her bright red lips, while our eyes remained connected. At the last moment I pulled it away and popped it in my mouth.
“Mmmmm,” I said, “these really are very good. You should try one.”
Her name was Silvia Orire and she was the regional vice-miss, a perfect beauty and certainly a ‘good catch.’ But for me she was to mean more than that. We spent the whole evening together. I had a good time teasing her, and making her laugh at every opportunity, never once letting out how much I wanted her. She offered me her number and I made a show of having nowhere to write it, so she had to go and borrow a pen and paper from our host. As we shook hands before parting, I countered the look in her eyes with one bordering on casual indifference. Her eyes began to crease with disappointment, but at that moment I pulled her towards me and leaning over her, kissed her fiercely on the lips. Then we parted. I watched her taxi disappear into the night.
I didn’t phone her straight away, but instead left her to stew for a couple of days. I let the anticipation build up, then I phoned her. She wasn’t in. Damn! I tried later, she wasn’t in. Double-damn! I wasn’t about to phone three times in one day so I left it at that. A couple of days later I discovered she had gone abroad.
* * *
And I saw her coming towards me, dressed only in flowing strings of pearls. A slow but powerful wind blew her golden hair towards me and her eyes gazed into me unflinching. I reached out to touch her stretching fingers and then she was pressing against my body, her hair in my mouth.
I awoke with my heart pounding like a mad gibbon. The hair was rich chestnut in colour, not blonde and the girl cuddling against my side was not Silvia. She was gorgeous though. I tried to remember the events of the night before. With friends at a party – alcohol – dancing – more alcohol – a bet – the deep-tanned athletic prize lying here by my side. Pulling her hair out of my mouth I ran my fingers along her skin fantasizing she was Silvia from my dream, Silvia whom I hadn’t seen for almost a month. I realized how deeply I must have been struck when even Silvia’s phantom could compete with living breathing luxury goods. The goods stirred.
“Hello,” she murmured.
In answer I began kissing her face and brow. She arched her head away from me with a blissful expression and I ran my lips down her neck. Then I pulled away.
“You were sublime, darling,” I said, looking her in the eyes. “What’s your name?”
Two minutes later I was pulling on my trousers in the corridor outside her flat. To think that a girl could take so much offence at such a simple question! I finished getting dressed and took the lift. As it slid down the shaft I began to consider taking serious steps for finding Silvia again. I was pretty damn sure that she wouldn’t throw me out of her flat.
The cell-phone is the greatest idea since the pick-up line. Actually, pick-up lines are a stupid idea, but in the right hands a cell-phone can be a magic wand for conjuring up instant dates. I scanned my directory and selected ‘Lin,’ one of my numerous ex-girlfriends.
“What’s up,” chirped a voice on the other side.
“Hello Lin,” I said. “Are you free this evening?”
There was a pause on the other end. Then Lin said, “I do have a boyfriend, you know.”
“Glad to hear it. Now are you free this evening or not. I need a woman’s advice.”
That got her attention.
“Oh, I, er, I’d love to come, but Reg and I were thinking of going out someplace.”
‘You made that up,’ I thought.
“Cancel it,” I said. “This is important.” And then, as an afterthought, I added, “Reggie can tag along if you really want.”
“No, that’s okay. We can go out another time and—“
“Fine. I’ll pick you up at six.”
“Alright. See you then.”
“And be ready! Bye.” I hung up. Always be the one who ends the conversation, that’s my motto.
* * *
We sat opposite each other, sipping our cappuccinos. Our eyes met. She looked down, but I continued looking at her so that when she risked a glance she immediately dropped her eyes and blushed.
“So how’s your love life?” I said. “Hectic?”
“It’s very quiet and pleasant, actually. Reg is very kind to me.”
“Sounds like a fun person to be with,” I said, allowing just the tiniest trace of sarcasm to flavour the tone.
“He is fun, and you’ve no right to talk about him like that. You don’t even know him.”
I just smiled.
“Of course,” I said. “I was just testing you.”
“So what is it you wanted?“
I waited till she took a sip of cappuccino.
“It’s you I want, Lin,” I whined in high-pitched falsetto. “I found I just couldn’t live without you. Please come back to me!”
She sprayed the cloth as she almost choked trying to swallow and giggle at the same time. I grinned and handed her a paper napkin. At last she managed to speak.
“Can’t you be serious for just one minute?”
“Okay then.”
I looked at her intensely. She was wiping her mouth with the napkin. I leaned towards her over the table and whispered hoarsely, “I need to stash ten kilos of heroin at your flat for three days. Your cut is ten percent. Is it a deal?”
She froze with the napkin halfway to the table. I leaned back and burst out laughing. She threw the napkin at me.
“Just one minute, that’s all I ask!” she said.
I made a show of struggling to control my laughter.
“You really are intolerable, you know. Now please tell me what it was you wanted to ask my ‘advice’ about?”
“I want a girl,” I said, “and I don’t know how to get her.”
“Well you have to win her heart, don’t you?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Done that, been there, but right now I don’t know where to find her.”
“Who is she? A transatlantic stewardess?”
“She’s Silvia Orire, regional vice-miss and absolutely gorgeous,” I said.
“You always were modest in your tastes, weren’t you?”
Lin leaned back for a moment to consider.
“If she’s a vice-miss then she’ll quite likely be into modelling. Cosmetics firms and magazines often contract beauty contest winners.”
I smacked my brow, irritated beyond belief that I hadn’t thought of this obvious fact first.
“Say no more! She’s as good as mine!” I yelled, leaping up. I rushed round the table and kissed Lin on the cheek. “And the cappuccinos are on me!”
* * *
And I became an Internet stalker. At the newsagents I had found her face beaming from the front-cover of a fashionable woman’s magazine. It now beamed from my wall. I scoured the Net, looking for every reference to her I could find. I discovered her professional website and spent an hour drooling over her photos. Then I found her personal website and my jaw almost dislocated itself from my face. All I had to do was email her and then it would be a straight run to the finish line.
I started to type ‘Hey Silvia, you remember me from that party we were at? Maybe we could get together sometime.’ I stopped and deleted everything I’d written so far. I didn’t want to end up sounding like a boring, unoriginal twerp. Definitely not. I remembered hearing that generally speaking, it often helps to be absolutely honest.
I stared at the screen for a moment and then wrote, “Silvia, I’m madly in love with you. Please come straight to my flat so we can have passionate sex together again and again and again.” I looked at the screen in disgust. That was really going to win her over, wasn’t it?
I rewrote the letter, then rewrote it again. With every rewrite it got worse. My last recollection, before I collapsed exhausted, was of staring bleary-eyed at a blank email sometime around four in the morning.
* * *
I was chatting online with three women simultaneously. Their aliases were PortuGal, BlueIce and 2Nice, respectively. My fingers flew over the keyboard in a blur as I goaded and teased them everyway I knew how. And they were fighting back like bitches chasing a rat, enjoying every minute of it.
PortuGal: why r u teasing me like this?!
BlueIce: U r sooo bad
2Nice: Noone has ever said that to me!
I answered all of them the same. ‘Because you’re a spoiled little brat and you deserve it.’
They sent a flurry of emoticons. I wrote: ‘What do you look like?’ Then immediately added ‘Type faster!’
PortuGal: im 50kg/170cm with long black hair
Me: I’ll bet you’re really 100kg/120cm and bald ;P
BlueIce: my hair is black and my eyes are blue
Me: Look like you’ve been in a fight, do you?
Me: No wonder you don’t want to show me your photo.
2Nice: Just imagine the sexiest thing alive ;)
Me: No doubt preferable to the real thing, eh?
Within a minute I had three photos, which I proceeded to make fun of in as many ways as possible. Then I accused them of sending fake photos and declared I wouldn’t believe they were real unless they showed me proof. All three turned on their web cams. PortuGal and BlueIce had dark hair and black cheap-looking glittery dresses. They might have been sisters. 2Nice had deep chestnut coloured hair and a sexy tight-fitting outfit.
PortuGal: now u see me, what do u want me 2 do??
Me: You know EXACTLY what YOU want to do ;)
BlueIce: what do u think? need any more proof???
Me: Yes. You have to show me the strawberry-shaped birthmark before I’ll believe you. ;)
2Nice: Imagination can’t compare to the real thing, eh?
She really was quite cute and smiling in a smug way so I answered her:
I prefer women who are less frigid.
In a moment my screen was transformed into a sensual orgy. PortuGal, who was showering her screen with kisses, suddenly pushed her head right through the screen. Her dress tore away as she pulled herself out of my monitor and onto my lap. The next moment BlueIce had joined her and started to pull my shirt off. As it fell to the floor, they parted for 2Nice who seemed to swim right out of the screen, her hands pushing them to the side with a perfect breaststroke. She was on me, kissing my neck and body, pushing me backwards. As I arched in her grasp, I was suddenly confronted with Silvia, staring at me from the magazine cover on my wall. Her hair swirled and lit up like a glorious sun, transfiguring me with sudden awe. I thrust out my arms towards her, knocking the other three girls back into the screen. They disappeared wailing and I collapsed onto my keyboard.
* * *
I woke with my face pressed against something hard and knobbly. I pushed myself up and stared at the monitor in front of me. There was an email filled with random characters. Suddenly a window popped up. ‘Connecting to server…’ Then ‘Sending message…’ I stared in disbelief as the text changed to ‘Your message has been successfully sent to Silvia Orire.’
“Whu…?’ I said.
I looked down and realized what must have happened. As I had pushed myself up, my left hand had pressed ‘Tab’ switching the interface to the send button. My right hand had pressed enter and sent it. The fact that I had pressed a whole load of other buttons at the same time did not seem to worry my computer, which had in accordance with Murphy’s Law of Computing interpreted my actions in the most frustrating manner possible. I had just sent the most exquisite girl I’d ever met an email full of rubbish. How sublime! If I knew her current number I could call her and have my text-to-speech program read it to her too, just to show her I was in dead earnest.
When a day starts as bad as that, it rarely gets better. I was going to be late for work so I skipped breakfast. My car was almost out of petrol so I had to stop at a pump, wait ten minutes for my turn in the queue, and therefore come even later. My boss was in a foul mood and threatened to sack me ‘if it ever happened again.’ Brainless ass. The way things were going I decided to postpone my quest for Silvia and just try to have a good time that evening. I went to a punk disco and flirted with three gothic birds so cheap and nasty they might have come straight from my dream. We got gloriously horribly drunk together, so it seemed the natural thing to do, to make love together in the toilets. The bouncer must have had a different opinion because he threw us out. One of the girls (don’t ask me her name) suggested we go over to her place and ‘get high.’ You’ve got to draw the line somewhere so I declined, saying I had to go to work tomorrow. Then I drove home. Thank God I didn’t meet the police (or anyone else for that matter). I dragged myself into bed and collapsed, a black lump spread-eagled against crumpled white sheets.
* * *
For reasons of decency, I won’t go into what I dreamed that night. Besides, it’s none of your business. Suffice to say I awoke at four in the morning, sitting bolt upright to see Silvia staring at me from the wall. I relaxed, set my alarm clock and fell asleep.
At work that day I made good use of my time to find out about Silvia’s agent from the Internet. I would visit the agent that afternoon and see if I could find a way to contact Silvia. I smiled. Today would be different.
I never got to the agent. Instead a miracle happened. I met Silvia in the street. Alright, maybe it wasn’t such a miracle considering she was just leaving her agent’s office, but you didn’t expect it either, did you?
“Silvia!” I called, unable to believe my eyes.
She spun around, her eyes widening in surprise.
“Hullo,” she said. “Where have you been hiding all this time?”
“You mean where was I seeking all this time,” I said. “I tried to call you but you were away.”
A rather sly smile slid over her face.
“So now you’ve found me, what do you think?”
“Almost as sexy as in my dreams, but less convincing.”
“You dream about me?” she said. “What kind of dream?”
“Nightmares, all of them,” I said and grinned.
She smiled and her eyes said ‘I don’t believe you.’
An idea crossed my mind.
“Say, I’m throwing a party tomorrow. Would you like to come?”
She tilted her head and frowned.
“Hmm… I’m rather busy tomorrow evening. It’s not really convenient.”
“What about the day after – would that be okay?”
“That would be better, yes.”
And she gave me a look. In a moment I realized the test, the pitfall and the incredible blunder I had just made.
“You see, I like to party the whole weekend,” I said in a last ditch attempt to cover up. “Sometimes I party non-stop from Friday night to Monday morning.”
She looked blankly at me, and I felt my ears turn red.
“So you’re coming to my, uh, Sunday party then,” I said. “Can I pick you up at six?”
She considered. “Half past six would suit me better.”
I was too flustered to argue so I just said “Right. Can you give me your number in case I need to call you? That’s assuming the one you gave me previously is still no good.”
“I can never remember it,” she said, smiling sweetly, “but if you give me yours I’ll call you and you’ll get it that way.”
“Right. Here you are.”
I gave her my number.
“I’ve got be running along now, so see you then,” she said.
I licked my lips and was going to kiss her cheek, but she turned away to leave.
“Bye,” I called out after her.
* * *
I invited all my best friends, having made them first promise a solemn oath not to ask her for her number. I then went out and bought a load of food and drink, taking care to get some pickled onions. I tidied up my flat and that’s saying something. To my dismay I didn’t have anything clean to wear, so I went out again and bought a new shirt and trousers, cool and casual. I made every preparation that could reasonably be made; I left nothing to chance. This was going to be the perfect party.
* * *
She phoned me at quarter past six to say that she wasn’t ready yet and whether I could pick her up at seven o’clock. I said “yes” and added ‘Silvia’ to my phone’s magic list. It annoyed me though, because I wouldn’t be able to greet all my friends personally. I made a call and asked one of my mates to fill in for me. I wouldn’t normally stand for this kind of thing, but I had a nasty suspicion that if I’d have said ‘no,’ she would have stood me up.
I arrived at seven sharp, but she still wasn’t ready. After about five minutes a policeman informed me I was parking in a ‘no parking’ area and would I please remove my vehicle. I argued that I was allowed to park for the minimum length of time necessary for loading or unloading my vehicle, and that it wasn’t my fault if the cargo needed an extra ten minutes to get dressed. The policeman smirked and fined me. Silvia came out of her flat and got in the car, while the policeman remarked that now that my ‘cargo’ had been ‘loaded,’ I had best be off. I stalled the engine and swore. The policeman, who appeared to be enjoying himself, asked to see my driving licence. I handed it to him resisting the temptation to ask him if he hadn’t got anything better to be doing with his time, like say catching bank robbers or drug dealers or something.
“Fresh out of driving school,” he commented loudly, as though it were last week and not two years ago that I passed my driving test. I flexed my fingers on the wheel and writhed until he handed me back my licence.
“Do your seatbelt up and drive carefully, son,” he said, to which I smiled wanly and nodded.
I clipped it on and jerked the car forward as I finally made my escape. I didn’t dare look at Silvia the whole trip.
She was the star of the party, a burning beacon of glory in my grubby little flat. All my friends hit on her and she gave at least three of them her number. I love my friends. Gradually, one by one, they took their leave, the last one leaving with a wink while she was in the lavatory. I put on Bad Love by Bernard Allison, pulled out a bottle of chilled vintage wine and took a seat. The toilet flushed. I uncorked the wine and poured two glasses.
“I ought to be going,” she said as she came out.
“You’ll take a glass of wine with me before you go, won’t you?” I said.
“Very well.”
She sat down. I held up my glass so that I was looking at her through the wine. She was like an amorous water nymph, rising from the depth of sweetness.
“Beautiful,” I said.
She took her glass and drew in the wine’s fresh bouquet, then looked up. “I think I know where you’re trying to lead this.”
“You do?” I said, lowering my glass, but not my eyes.
“Yes, and I just want to say that it’s been a lovely evening and I respect you very much, but we are never going to be more than friends.”
My world froze and I had a moment of perfect realization. I had only two possibilities: the first was to run to the window and throw myself out, thus forever distancing myself from my pathetic failure to get laid. I chose the second.
“Then let’s be friends,” I said, “great friends!” I raised my glass. “A toast to our friendship!”
We touched glasses.
“I’m sorry to disappoint your expectations in me,” she said, unsure how to take my reaction.
“Don’t worry. I know just how you can make it up to me. You’re a model, aren’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“So you must have a great many friends who are also models?”
“Naturally.”
“Great, because now that we’re friends, you’re going to introduce me to all of them!”
And to the sound of her merry laughter I took a draught of the most amazing, the most refreshing, the most delicious wine of my life.
The Wine List
The Cast | The Wine |
Silvia Orire | Irsai Oliver This is the first wine I ever felt passionate about. I discovered that when combined with pickled onions it creates a heavenly experience that fails description. It irks me that to this day I cannot recall the year of its vintage. |
Girl Whose Name I Forgot | Wish I Knew A beautiful red wine, whose name I have alas also forgotten. |
Lin | Ryzlink Rýnský A classic Czech table wine, originally from Germany. Simple, white and boring. |
PortuGal & BlueIce | Modrý Portugal An average red wine, two bottles of which I enjoyed with some friends one evening. |
2Nice | Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 A delicious red wine I enjoyed the same evening before going onto the cheaper ‘Blue Portuguese’. |
Three Gothic Girls | Some Red Wine Memorable only by the piercing hangover I suffered the following day. |
Silvia Orire | Irsai Oliver 2003 The second time I had this wine I took care to take note of the vintage. I believe it was a different year than the first time, but can’t be sure. Anyway, I took it to a party were it clashed horribly with all the sweet stuff. Even the pickled onions I’d brought with me were sweet! |
But then why worry when the world is full of so many other wonderful wines to choose from? Somewhere out there the perfect wine is waiting for you! Just make sure you don’t spoil the moment when you meet or let it pass you by.
Disclaimer:
This story in no way represents the opinions or lifestyle of the author on women in general, nor is it intended to promote promiscuity or sexual/emotional irresponsibility. The author is in no way responsible for your death by STDs, unwanted pregnancies or loss of sleep due to imitating the behaviour of characters here depicted. ;-)
