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“It’s a hot piece to put in your mouth,” he said.
April licked her lips. “Sounds like the perfect appetizer.”
They ordered the spicy thruster, their entrees, and a bottle of wine. Raul ordered the wine, and they toasted.
“To casual encounters,” he said.
“To casual encounters,” she replied, and felt a small amount of relief mixed with confusion. As she gazed at Raul and sipped her wine, she felt stirrings in her stomach that suggested at least a small part of her thought of Raul as something possibly worth more than just fucking. She tried to shake the thought, but the more she pushed it away, the more insistent it became. No, she thought. He’s not boyfriend material. But, the voice, the insistent one, came back to her. Why not?
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“Just savoring the flavor of this wine,” she responded. “So, can I ask you something?”
“What’s a poor guy like me doing in a place like this?” he asked, a small smile playing at his lips.
“Something like that, if that’s not too offensive of a question.”
“Not at all. I came into some money awhile back. My father passed away,”
“I’m sorry,” April interrupted.
“It’s okay,” Raul said. “We weren’t that close. It was sad, of course, but most of my good memories of him are from my childhood, and that was a long time ago. Anyway,” he reached down and massaged her foot with his hand. It felt divine. “He left me the majority of his estate. It wasn’t enough to make me a millionaire, but it was definitely enough to give me the opportunity to enjoy some of the finer things in life, like good meals and good company.”
April watched him as he spoke. There was something in his story, or in the way that he told it, that suggested he wasn’t telling her everything. She thought about whether or not to call him on that, see how he reacted, but she didn’t want to risk him ending the evening early, before she could find out more about him. Besides, she reasoned, it was very possible he was telling the truth and she was just misreading him. Though, she thought, that’s rarely ever the case.
They talked easily throughout dinner. They actually, to April’s surprise, had quite a bit in common. Raul practiced yoga as well, and had even gone through a teacher training program nearly ten years earlier, though he didn’t teach. They had both moved into the city at around the same time, neither had ever been married but both had been close, and they seemed to have the same perverted sense of humor about the silliest things, like the fact that their server’s hair looked like he’d stuck his finger into an electrical socket.
“Do you want dessert?” he asked when the server cleared their entrée plates.
“Of course I want dessert,” she responded, reaching across the table and taking his hand. Stop that! She thought to herself. Stop acting like you’re actually on a date here. This is foreplay, and to think of it any differently is a mistake.
“Do you want dessert from Armada’s menu,” he paused, squeezed her hand, “or from mine?”
“That sounds like a trick question,” she said, not taking the bait. “You know what my best friend always tells me?”
“What’s that,” Raul asked with a “this ought to be good” smirk.
“That our lives would be greatly enhanced if we deleted the word ‘or’ from our vocabulary and, instead, replaced it with ‘and.’”
“As in, you want dessert from Armada’s menu and mine?” he chuckled.
“Exactly,” she said, putting her fingertip to her nose.
“That sounds a little greedy of you, April dear,” he said. The smile on his face said he was teasing her.
“I’m a greedy girl, Raul darling,” she matched his tone.
“You also appear to be a girl who knows what she wants. I like that.” He signaled for the waiter to return. When he did, immediately, Raul ordered a chocolate gelato for them to split. “Extra cherries,” he said, looking at April. When the server walked away, he continued. “Because I know there are no other cherries at this table.”
“You’re terrible,” April groaned. “A cherry joke? Really?”
Raul laughed and shrugged. “We’ve been here for nearly three hours! I only have two hours of good material. We’re down to potty jokes and cherry jokes.”
Three hours! April looked at her watch for the first time that night to see that he was right; it was nearly closing time at Armada. She took a sip of her wine and smiled.
“Well, as long as you don’t whip out a whoopee cushion,” she warned. “I think I can still agree to be seen with you in public.”
The chocolate gelato was absolutely delicious. There were some foods that put April in the mood to fuck not because they were necessarily aphrodisiacs (though chocolate certainly was), but because the sensory experience of eating them was so acute, so distinct, she felt as though she could just as well be fucking someone.
