As her bag slid off of her shoulder and choreographedly onto the back of her chair, she already knew what she would order. No, the menu had never resided in her hands, nor her body upon this chair, but both her and her company were well aware of her planned dinner. She always ordered a cocktail. Every time she went out for dinner, she always ordered one. Two if she was with her father, or knew it was the last night she would have the opportunity to for a while. Never understanding why people enjoyed beer at all, she would nevertheless scowl at any man ordering a cocktail, since she was raised traditionally and rather strictly. Unless, of course, the man was less of a man, and more of her fabulously boisterous gal pal, with whom discussing boys was equally if not more entertaining than doing that with a girl.
Our young girl had always been one for red wine and sugary liqueurs, defending those choices through the fact that bubbles do not agree with her. Beyond that, the decoratory glasses these beverages would often arrive in made her feel elite and exquisitely feminine, in the way grazing on fruits laying naked on a sun-warmed mattress does. Our girl adored those small delinquencies in life. Drinking till late with her friends, laying naked in a bath, cooking in lingerie, swimming entirely bare beneath the stars. As she writes that, the realisation dawns upon her that most of her favourite activities are participated in nude.
She does so, in hindsight, to bring herself closer to nature, and within that, to herself. She likes the water to caress every part of her body, to robe her in its reflective velvet and cleanse her from the urban scent she carries. The stars bring light to her equally as scattered birthmarks as the moon illuminates the roundness of her head, rising homogeneously from a plunge. She loves the world to be reflected against her skin, for her eyes to be likened to its colours, for her lips to be touched with its flavours.
As they now are. Unless a description is of an astounding length, she sticks to her habitual choices. If not a passion fruit vanilla or a mojito, she orders a negroni. They are no better than Campari, yet the name sounds so much more sophisticated, and her appearance on her company’s sober perception is highly important to her. Aperol is restricted to sunny terraces of Italian restaurants. Preferably, on the lakeside of Geneva, they must serve pomme frites and seat six very specific girls. They were not there, she remarked automatically, as passionfruit and liquor hit the walls of her empty stomach. She enjoyed the warmth it lit, like a fire within a cave, mining away at any barrier between her mind and her mouth. Above all of her little delinquencies, she particularly enjoyed her speech. It worked equally as well without external influence, unless the influence was his arm around her. Then her speech worked excellently.
She spoke of all, but not to all. Those select few that became the honour of hearing her unfiltered thoughts left with new perspectives. They were of life and living, the differences between the two, and how to connect them. She spoke of how one does not begin to live, until they have found something worth dying for. She spoke about that something the most. She spoke of its touch, the caressing waves of its eyes and the silks of its hands. She spoke of the ripple and chirp of its voice. She spoke not of nature, but one of her favourite creations of its; him. She craved him beyond a wave or a splash, she craved him to drown her. She craves him on a level deeper than her clothes and skin, but a level vested in the very atoms of her soul, percolating and swirling at any memory or thought. She craved him from her first sip to her last, and with that rather clothed and distanced realisation, she permitted herself another.