Wordsmoker

I dream of the perfect night—or to be more accurate, the perfect date. A flawless evening with a woman who I find irresistible. I don’t know who she is, or what she looks like, but I do know what I want from her: a pristine faultless evening of raw, exquisite, romantic and emotional lovemaking.

I meet her that day at the grocer, the cleaners, or the body shop. I work up the nerve to talk to her about who it is she’s texting on the cell phone. “He’s a lucky man,” I say. She looks at me as she brushes a wisp of hair from her face and says, “It’s my mother. I’m checking in on her. Poor thing. I don’t even know if she knows how to receive texts.”I immediately notice two things. The first is that she sounds well educated and her voice has the hint of a British accent. The other is that she hasn’t used the opening that I provided to tell me that she’s involved with someone. I notice that she has neither an umbrella nor a raincoat, and I have both. It had been threatening to rain all day. I decide to press my advantage As if on cue, thick pellets of rain slap against the window of the shop. I extend the hand that’s holding my closed umbrella.

“No, I couldn’t. That’s yours,” she protested.

“I can walk out with you and get it back from you when you reach your car. Or we can go over to that little diner for a cup of coffee until the storm subsides.”

She quickly checks a simple but elegant wristwatch. Somehow I find it charming that she doesn’t use the clock on the cell phone that’s still in her hand. She tells me that she has a few minutes to sit with me, but that she doesn’t drink coffee.

“That’s why you have such a pretty smile,” is my lumbering response.

We sit at the diner and talk. I drink coffee. She has an ice water with lemon. I try to get her to tell me as much about herself as possible—not just because it’s good form, but because I’m interested. When I realize that an hour has elapsed, I ask her about the appointment she mentioned earlier. She furrows her brow momentarily, but then smiles.

“I guess it’s really not that important,” she says with a small laugh.

Stricken by an impulse, I ask her to dinner. Not just sometime, but that very night. She points out that it’s Monday. I’m not sure if my reaction is visible, but I’m crestfallen.

“Do you cook?” she asks.

“I dabble at best. I know a few bachelor meals,” I reply shyly.

“I’d like you to make me dinner, at your place, tonight. I’m not being forward, so don’t get the wrong idea, please,” she mockingly wagged a finger at me, “I don’t have much time to date, and I think I could get to know you a lot better if we socialized in an environment where you’re comfortable.”

“I am comfortable,” I protested.

“You, sir, are most decidedly uncomfortable. The waitress brought your coffee over an hour ago now, and you’ve just been stirring it with that spoon despite the fact that you’ve put nothing in it. You haven’t taken your coat off and you haven’t told me a thing about yourself. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a bit of a challenge, but we need to pick up the pace a bit here.”

I’m smitten. I write down my address and ask her if 7:30 is good for her.

“Smashing. What shall I bring?”

“How about a backup meal in case you hate my cooking?” That earns a laugh. “No, seriously, nothing.”

“You’ll do fine. I’ll bring some wine. I only drink red.” Of course you do, beautiful. Of course you do.

I have several appointments, but I cancel them from my car as I drive to the grocery store. I buy beef, poultry, and some vegetables to make a stir-fry. I drop the food off at my apartment and head to the mall. Not the close mall, the good mall. There I buy slacks, a new shirt, and some very expensive, casual shoes that I believe look like something that I should wear around my apartment, even though I never would.

I have about four hours before she arrives so I decide to skip rope in the living room while I watch the news. After my shower, I set about the place cleaning and polishing everything, but paying particular attention to the bathrooms, the kitchen, and my bedroom. At about quarter to seven, I start tearing the tags off of my new clothes, jump in the shower, shave, and dress. I look in the mirror and decide “as is” was as good as it was going to get, so I move to the kitchen to do the prep work for dinner.

When the doorbell doesn’t ring exactly at 7:30, I’m nervous. I don’t have her phone number, but she has mine. Am I getting blown off? We had such a great time earlier. What if something’s happened to her? Before I can contact the police or start phoning the local hospitals, the doorbell rings.

Amazing, fantastic, stunning—all clichés fail miserably. There are no words to describe how lovely she looks. She’s modeling a black cocktail dress, and is wearing her makeup a bit differently—darker. I’m enamored.

I pour two glasses of wine from the bottle she’s brought. While I’m ladling the stir-fry, she walks over to the turntable and starts flipping through my album collection. Music, wine, a passable meal, and the right person to share it all with. There is nothing else. She tells me that I’ve outdone myself.

“This swill? I may have found the first chink in your armor: an unrefined palate.” It’s the first decent joke I’ve made in the short time I’ve known her.

She insists on clearing the plates, so I change the music to something vintage and sultry that I hope matches the mood. I pour some Napoleon brandy from a Steuben decanter—my sole family heirloom.

When she walks over to me, I lead her outside to my apartment’s small balcony. A full moon reflects across the placid ocean, but it’s bittersweet. While Luna casts a brilliant radiance over my beautiful date’s visage, her ambient light obscures the stars. It’s there that I begin to truly feel myself; I start to open up. I tell her about my passions: Astronomy, Navigation, Sea Vessels—the things that really make me who I am.

“Wait. Where did you say that this submarine was docked?”

“I didn’t.”

“You said you have a submarine.”

“Yes.”

“Well, where do you keep it?”

I speak into the transmitter on my wristwatch. She doesn’t seem to believe that I’m talking to anyone. I start to wonder myself, but then she surfaces in all of her shiny metallic glory.

“So, would you like to see her up close?” I offer.

“May I bring my brandy?”

Once on board, I order the robot executive officer to turn screws for twenty knots on a South-South-East heading at a depth of seventy-five feet.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“I feel like a midnight sandwich. Ever been to Cuba?”

“You’re incorrigible,” she titters.

In my boldest move yet, I ask her if she would like me to have the robot yeoman bring champagne and strawberries to my quarters. Without waiting for her response, I take her soft hand and lead her down the torch-lit corridor.

In my cabin, the robot dims the light and quietly moves about lighting candles while slow guitar music plays from its speakers. I remove the shoes from her petite, perfectly manicured feet. I run the fingertips of one hand across the top of her foot as I loosen my tie with the other. I’m trying to read her face in the dim light. She’s propped up on both of her elbows, and she looks slightly flushed. From my position at the bottom of the bed, I began to crawl up to kiss her supple, painted lips. Before reaching her face, I start to say something, but she interrupts.

“Please, don’t talk. I mean, I want you to talk. Just not right this second. Everything is so perfect as it—”

I don’t let her finish. We’re Frenching and it’s hot. My tongue is in her mouth and hers is in mine. We can’t keep our hands off of each other. She’s unbuttoning my shirt and I’m unzipping her dress. After a few passionate failures, we manage to get each other completely naked. Her body defies the notion that all men are created equal: whatever man is with her is set above the rest. My hands explore her with some trepidation. They find her shoulders, her back, legs, stomach. I want to touch everything, but I also know that self-restraint will only heighten our anticipation. I carefully manage to avoid her privates.

Finally, when the moment comes, I position myself between her legs. Our kissing has slowed. Our eyes are locked. I slowly insert the head of my engorged penis into the entrance of her mound of love. She’s tight, but well lubricated from my tender kisses and gentle foreplay. I ease it in little by little. As her love flower opens, I gain new ground. I oscillate to and fro, careful never to break our passionate eye contact or the steady rhythm that I immediately establish. My hands are pushing against the mattress to prevent my body weight from hurting her. I speak to her in tender tones: “Shhh. There you go, beautiful. That’s it, darling. Just relax and let me make love to you. Doesn’t that feel good, sweetheart? Shhh.” I don’t put my penis all the way into her fleshy petals—it isn’t time for that yet. After an amazing thirty minutes, I feel the pressure of my orgasm coming on, I nuzzle my head into her neck and hug her arms. Her hand finds the back of my scalp just as my fluid escapes from my body and into hers. I tell her that I love her and she says nothing. She knows that I can read her thoughts, and those are thoughts of love. I begin to quietly weep into her bosom with the intention of using her long, draping hair to dry my amorous tears, but then the robot rolls over to the bedside and hands me a tissue with its telescopic arm per Protocol X-Ray1459ZedAlpha.

And that’s all I really want.