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She giggles, bringing her drink toward her mouth. “Am I wrong?”
“I’m—I’m—I’m—”Dammit, Solomon.“A phoenix! I’m a phoenix.”
The swan flushes. Imagine that, a blushing swan. “Oh! I see it now! The flames on the?—”
I touch the crown of my mask. “Yeah, they’re flames.”
Leaning forward, she examines my mask. She’s so close I could grab her and kiss her. Although that would surely get me slapped.
I want to, though. Almost to the point of despair.
Her finger comes up as if to touch the mask, me, but she drops her hand before I get that lucky. “And the bottom is all black like it’s been charred. Huh. That’s beautiful…”
You’re the beautiful one.
Suddenly, she withdraws, tilts her drink in my direction. “Cheers.”
Before I can say another thing, she floats off as easily as a swan on a placid lake.
I stare after her, mouthajar.
Did she really call me a rooster and then walk away?
How dare she make me feel like this, leave my body all hard and wanting, and then walk away from me?
I clear my throat, down my whisky, and then get Kelsey’s attention.
“Another. Make it a double.”
Over the nexthour or so, I keep having brushes with the swan. I interrupt a conversation she has with another man, we brush past one another as she returns from the billiards room where I catch a whiff of her perfume, I watch her bobbing her head and hips to a song as she eats a canapé in the corner.
I watch her with all the wanting I have in me. And when I see her bobbing to the music all alone when she should be swept across the dance floor in the arms of a man, i.e. me, I give up this game of cat and mouse.
I might be a rooster in her eyes, but here, at the Lyons Club, I am the cock of the walk.
She doesn’t need to know who I am or what I do here to feel my confidence and pride pouring off me.
As I cross toward her, her gaze shifts to me as if she is able to feel me coming. I’d like her to feel me coming in so many ways, but I’ll settle for this for now.
She wipes her hand on a cocktail napkin, knocks back the rest of her drink, then dabs her mouth.
“You’re all alone,” I say, planting my feet beneath me and sliding my hands into my pockets.
She looks side to side and shrugs. “Guess so.”
I hold out my hand to her.
She looks at it. “What’s that for?”
I ignore her question and grab her hand.
She does not resist, letting me guide her toward the dance floor at the center of the room.
“What’s going?—”
“Has a man never asked you to dance before?”
“Well, usually, they use their words,” she says with a playful, glinting smile.
