The women I have an accustomed taste for are women that exude cleanliness. Women have a feel for Beluga caviar and smell like cucumber soap.
The first time she came to my house, I had just come from locking up the freezer that I kept in my garage. I was expecting her, but not that soon. We had agreed the previous evening that I would cook her a meal of something exotic, something she had yet to try.
The doorbell disturbed the silence of my house, but greeted my ears. I jolted through the garage door that lead to my spotless kitchen and stopped when I got to the hallway. I could see the outline of her beautiful face from the glass stained window of the door. There was a tint from a purple flower glowing vaguely from the window. I shifted the collar of my shirt and casually walked to the front door. The doorbell rang again. My long fingers pursued the golden doorknob and it clicked open, the dusk of the day creeping in my hallway. She looked up at me and a flirtatious smirk arranged itself on her face as I returned a cool smile. The purple flower winking at me from behind her ear.
“Gabrielle, so nice to see you. I see you received my bouquet of Lilacs.” I wiped my palms on my sides, my pants drinking up their sweat.
Her hair were like ringlets of brown fusilli noodles, eyes pre sweetened. Nectarous lips, supple skin. From her white and purple sundress to the small shine of her heels, I couldn’t help but undress her thoughts with my mind. I could only hope she wouldn't do the same.
“Jeffrey," She nods. "I thought you’d never answer.” She walked in past me and my nostrils flared in response. Lavender aromas with hints of ginger.
“I hope you’re not starving. Dinner may not be ready for awhile." I concentrated on the sound of her heels snapping behind me.
“Don’t worry. I never expect a man to be punctual anyway." She winked as I stopped in the squarely shaped archway that divided the hallway and the living room.
Gabrielle floated straight from the window lit hallway to my dimly lit living room. Her healthy sized chest lead her curvaceous bones to the masterpiece that was my living room. Nothing illuminated that wall to wall sanctuary but my distant fireplace and the bookshelves that surrounded it. Mahi Persian rugs covered the hardwood floors, like Heaven for your feet. She stopped on her way to the bookshelves to admire the vase on the top of my table. Filled with flower heads that lacked their stems. Lilacs and lilies, tulips and roses. The ones in the bottom were crunchy and expired. The ones on the top were a little fresher. It was like a graveyard for beheaded flowers. Gabrielle clicked along, showing indifference to the vase as she walked to the bookshelf.
My lips couldn’t help but curl into a sideways smile at her curiosity. Allowing her to snoop, I made my way to my perfectly polished kitchen. China filled the cabinets and imported wine managed to rent a place on almost every inch of my countertops. I opened my mahogany cabinet and pulled out my gold plated Le Creuset wine opener and de virginized a bottle of 1961 Chateau Lafite. I inhaled it’s sex and devoured a sip with my lungs.
The silence broke in the next room. She found my antique record player, and from that came tunes of Frank Sinatra.
After I stole the wine from the bottle and captured it in our glasses, I walked into the hallway and eyed a bottle of clear liquid. A small hand towel underneath of it held up on top of a triangular desk behind the wall that separated the living room and the hallway. The phone sat next to the bottle. Eyeing it, I set the the two glasses of wine on the table and utilized the phone. I peered around the corner as Gabrielle still browsed my selection of books. My pencil like fingers tip tapped the appropriate numbers.
It rang once.
“Hello?”
“Melanie, I need you to make dinner. We have company. It’s go time.” I hung up the phone and slipped the bottle and small towel in my back pocket.
Picking up the two glasses of wine, I then glided around the corner of the hallway toward Gabrielle, handing her her glass of wine with a smile of encouragement. She looked up at me with wondering eyes.
“So, is it really true that you and Olivia split up? She’s so depressed. Apparently, she hasn’t contacted anyone for at least a week now.”
“Let’s do both of us a favor and not talk about Olivia. Or any exes for that matter.” I pointed to a book set on the shelf with her glass of wine still in my hand. She quickly grabbed the book out of embarrassment, desperately reaching for change of subject.
“You must take pride in your work, Jeffrey. I admire the heart of a surgeon. I just couldn’t do it.” I handed her her glass of wine and I tried not to smile.
“It’s far more enjoyable than you’d think. Relaxing actually. Take a look at the second one to the left.”
Gabrielle turned her body to do what was told of her and I set down my glass on the coffee table behind us. Her ringlets cradled the back of her neck and the back of her body stood like an hour glass, seasoned like a real woman's body. I took one cautious step closer towards the back of her neck and the aroma of ginger spice enticed my body, while lavender scent dislocated the human being that was supposed to be me. My eyes rolled into the back of my head and it gave me the same shiver that three pills of ecstasy might of. She began to talk about the contents of the book, but her words were like a silent wind to me. Her head was still turned away from me, my body still quivered. Quietly, I turned, resting the glasses of wine behind me on the coffee table. I pulled the towel and bottle from my back pocket and twisted the top with my pulsating palms. Her head began to move and I quickly poured the chloroform on the towel, a little dripping onto to the floor due to my clumsy grip. I looked up from the towel and she had turned to look at me, confused, maybe even a little scared.
“Jeffrey?” Her eyes became wide, afraid like a child that had just realized that the monster under her bed was finally real.
“It's okay.”
I yanked her by her pasta hair and her arms flew back to restrain my hands. Her legs gave out as I violently pulled her toward me, reminding me of a struggle between wolf and fawn. I suffocated her lips with my towel and waited. The click of a door requested my attention from behind me, and shortly after, Melanie was standing in the archway. She let out a light chuckle. She rested against the archway, bending her left leg over her right and let the tips of her toes rest on my hardwood floor. Gabrielle stopped moving and her arms fell to her sides, slightly waving back and forth for another couple of seconds. Holding my breath, I managed to drag her across the floor and onto my couch.
“Jesus Christ.” Melanie unfolded her arms and took a cigarette from her back pocket, stuck it to her mouth and lit it. She inhaled, exhaled, and arrogantly smiled for a heavy moment. “I’ll get the anesthesia and the tools.”
“Wait,” I took what seemed like my first breath and walked towards Melanie. I kissed her red lips, stroking her black hair with my chloroform touched hand. “Olivia’s thawing on the counter. Figured we’d have liver tonight.”
I winked, kissed my Melanie and wiped the sweat from my face off of her upper lip. She smirked and walked into the kitchen. A few moments later, she came back with my surgical tools and an IV of anesthesia and naturally, made her way to the kitchen once again to season the likes of my ex girlfriend, Olivia.
I watched her walk away, switching her bones back and forth, like a malnourished horse. I could smell her scent of whiskey and cigarettes from the living room. Black hair and fingernail polish, careless in her dress. Washed up like one of these sexy prostitutes you see in Las Vegas. What can I say? I like my food clean and my girlfriends dirty.
I gawked at Gabrielle’s rich, but feeble body and my stomach snarled. Smiling, I stood over her and collected the purple flower that laid within her pasta hair. I walked back over to my living room table and stood over the vase, never mourning above the graveyard of flowers. I dropped Gabrielle’s purple flower on the top of the corpse of a dandelion, becoming a piece in my lifeless garden.
-Violetta Alexis Copyright 2012
