Mascara

The fickle flame of the tea candle threw a warm orange halo onto the lace-trimmed table linen. A bottle of Carruades de Lafite Pauillac stood tall, brave and exhausted before me. With lithe fingertips, I’d picked at the label, removed it whole, folded it, folded it, fumbled it, and folded it again. The night was lame with disappointment— a night like any other. That was—until you walked in.

With a collective breath, the once bustling restaurant fell still in your presence.

So silent.

Waiters stopped waiting, cooks stopped cooking, bus boy’s stopped bussing.

I watched in awe as rudely, the eyes of beasts left their wives, girlfriends, dates, family, friend’s, focused immediately on you. But that’s how you are, how you’ve always been— how you always will be. And still you love to think you commanded the attention without the intention.

Still, so silent.

In that fleeting moment, I noticed everything about you.

You moved with an air of reticent grace— Se Magnifique. A pair of midnight stiletto’s forced you five foot nine. Your legs, lean, satin, and tanned, gave way to the flowing blood-red evening dress which dove off your shoulders, down over your long chest, into a deep V, before it finally criss-crossed your breasts, tied off elegantly around your shapely waist.

Your chest grew flush with the attention.

Two thin waterfalls of coffee-black hair held the outer lines of your oval face, tickled your jaw-line when you moved; the rest, wavy with giant looping curls, sat pinned up in a bun by a pair of authentic, white, ivory, Oriental chopsticks. A natural tinge of rouge held the apples of your porcelain cheeks while your cerulean eyes lovingly destroyed everything, and everyone, in your path— a beautiful disaster caused simply by the delicate batting of your eyes.

Your full pouting lips, as dark as my Bordeaux, drew me in, and I begged to drink in their sticky sweetness.

The silence now deafening.

You approached.

I stood.

You hovered, smiled.

I smiled back.

You passed; lacing the air with your scent.

I breathed; my eyes fell shut.

And then I, too, died in your wake.