The Full Platter
The Taste of Velvet

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Paris. 10:30 pm. I am sitting at a cafe sipping red wine and watching people walk by. The stars shine in the sky. The sky is coal black, shot with shades of blue. I have a velvet sky and a velvet wine; one blue-black and the other a deep red. My skin prickles a bit in the November cold. 

 

The breath of air is slow against my neck, like a caress holding the promise of love.

 

Then he appears and I push my shoulders back, pout my lips. I have been waiting and now the time has come to let him know how much I want him. His stride is long but leisurely and he seems in no hurry to reach my side. I slide my leg out so that he may see the curve of my calf and the slimness of my ankle in the black, silver-tipped heels I wear. They are sharp and can dig a hole in the sidewalk when I walk, if I let them. But I move too fast and they do not manage to stay long enough on the ground to 

make an impression.

 

I, too, have been like them, sharp but only moving on the surface, never staying long enough to make a deep impression. Paris for me was meant to be just a stopover on the way to London where I was to meet a friend. And then he happened as a chance encounter, a friend of a friend. I stayed on, extending my stay in Paris by a few days, for his pull had been strong. And now I wanted more. at is how things are between us when he walks up to me. My eyes smoulder and he gasps; feels the intensity of my gaze on him.


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“How are you?” he says.
“Sorry, I was held up at a meeting and could not be here in time. I was afraid you might have left. Glad to see you are still here.”

He does not know that nothing can take me away from him at this time. He sits down and signals the waitress. She is slim and blond and I hate the way she looks. And the way she looks at him. But when she walks away after taking the order, his eyes do not follow her but stay steadfast. Looking at me. He must have seen my quick look of jealousy for he reaches his hand out to touch my shoulder. My skin burns.

We eat some food but I don’t know what it is we eat. We speak a few words but I don’t know what it is we talk about. I watch his hands as they move, listen to the tone of his voice. I see and taste velvet. I wait for us to finish all this and take the night forward.

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