Covered Bridges-4.
Chapter 4
I let John kiss my hand because he’s doing it right and when a guy does it right and not too over the top or sloppy it’s just one of those things that’s kinda nice and kinda timeless.
I smile and take my hand back and set my book away into my bag. “I’d prefer something red John I ordered the duck.”
He waves over one of the waiters in an ease that shows he’s a regular and a decent tipper. “The duck’s done really well here.” He orders us a bottle of Shiraz which while not really a french wine it’s one I really like and fairly common down in South America. It’s got a spicy undertone that works well to cut rich foods like duck.
“Good I’m really going to enjoy this then.”
“Been awhile?”
“Been awhile for this kind of meal, I’ve spent awhile in Japan teaching ESL courses and while they do great things with duck there it’s not the same. And well good wine like this over there is always really expensive.”
“I thought it was the Chinese that did stuff with duck.”
“They do but so does every country, Japan does some great things with theirs.”
“I’ve only had sushi a few times so all I really know is that and buckwheat noodles.”
“They do a nice one that’s a standing rotisserie with this glaze of soy and palm sugar and miso that is really incredible.”
“Sounds good, I take it you missed home?”
“Don’t really have a home John. I’m hoping to find one.”
“That sounds sad.”
“It is if I let it get to me like that or it’s just that I haven’t had the right time and place meet up with me yet. I’m kind of hoping that this’ll be my last of my wandering ways.”
“So you moved here?”
“No I’m back in Canada early I have a job waiting for me in B.C. but that doesn’t start until the middle of next summer.”
“So what you’re?”
“Sight seeing and taking in things as I travel across the country. I’m not going to rush it just really take time to see the stuff I’ve always wanted to see and some of the stuff that I discover along the way. I figure I’ll get there and I’ll settle into my place over the winter and kind of know the town by the time I start working.”
“So how are you traveling.?”
“I’m taking the train.”
“How is it?”
“The maritime route trains need a lot of work, the passenger trains should go back to being the works of art they were.”
“Works of art?”
“I’ve always thought there was a certain romance to a train but like going by plane now it’s all been so watered down here in North America.”
“You sound pretty contemptuous about that.”
“I am, I’ll admit the good old days really were the good old days but back then there where a few values that I really miss.”
“Like?”
“Dressing up, the atmosphere. When you took the train back then you had cabins if you paid for that, nice cots or even a bed in the really nice ones. Men wore suits and ladies could wear a nice dress and a hat and the dining car was a dining room…now…at least this far I’ve been reminded too much of the bus.”
He looks at me and smiles. “You are talking like a girl after my own heart.”
“Really?”
“Really, you give me HBO or Turner classic movies and I’ll take that classics a whole lot more that the new stuff.”
“Oh why.”
“The way they talked back then, it was a lot more plot and dialog but also the women there in a lot of those movies were just so…”
“So…?” I raise my eyebrow and take a sip of my wine once the waiter had poured our glasses.
John points at me. “Exactly, you’re one of them.”
“One of them?”
“One of those women that’s not afraid to be a woman but at the same time she shows off that wit and the brain in her head and can just turn heads with just the way that she can smile, or look at you or turn a phrase.”
I smile and there’s this part of me that knows he’s not bullshitting me even if it has that sort of thing about it because he’s too excited about it. Like this is one of his favorite arguments even. It really shows off the artist in him. That spark of wild, sweet I don’t see the world like everyone else but here look let me show you thing.
I love artists.
“That has to be one of the best things anyone has ever said to me John, I’ve always admired women from that genre. But a lot of people wouldn’t hold me anywhere near them though.”
“Oh? Honestly Haley I don’t get why not you just sort of have all of that going on in spades.”
“Adult film.”
He actually rolls his eyes. “I know lots of people get all bent out of shape about porn but they’re just people like the rest of us and honestly it takes a lot of guts to do something like that.”
“She-male porn.”
I take a sip of my wine again and to his credit he doesn’t freak out and get violent or go off screaming into the night. Actually he takes it sort of like I was expecting he might. That artist interest in the interesting fused together in that french like way of calm les affairs thing that they have about everything. He’s so picked up on the french attitude of living.
The French, the French are cats.
“You pass really remarkably.”
“Thank you, I work hard at keeping myself looking as good as I can without being all OCD about it.”
The food arrives and I have fried breast of duck with a white peppercorn jus and bits of foi floating in it with garlic roasted potatoes and long skinny baby carrots and french greenbeans. John has something similar only I think I see beets and smell parsnip with his. We quietly eat and he refills our wines and then after the first sip of that he looks at me.
“So, how would you like to come with me to several nice places for a few different tastes of desert and some more wine and a little dancing?”
“Even knowing what you know?”
“Because I know what I know.”
“Oh…”
“Haley, not only are you brave enough to have made the choice to be who you really are inside you’re that kind of woman that so many guys really wishes that she’s cross his path and show him just why that fantasy of being with a charming, intelligent, brave and very beautiful woman is really like.”
“The of course it’s a yes. But you left me a little worried.”
“Worried?”
“You said all of those wonderful things it’s like I’m scared that I just might not live up to the hype.”
“But only a little worried?”
“Well I am the kind of lady that actually likes a challenge.”
I finish my wine and he pays leaving a very good tip and over what he just figured in his head the check would be for the meal. He helps me into my light jacket and he escorts me through the seating and them offers me his arm and I get close enough to smell that heady scent of a man and soap and a touch of sweat but that’s all cut with the scent of paint lingering and Old spice aftershave.
Corny ads and stuff aside, my grandfather and my father both used that. The shaving soap in the cup they made and the aftershave and that’s a very metal triggering scent for me and it just added to everything tonight and I can’t help but get the tingles that I get when I’m really attracted to someone.
I’m still not sure what’s going to happen and the night’s pretty young yet and I’m really looking forward to tonight more than anything in a long time.
It’s been awhile since any man has made me feel this special.
Comments
nice
scent can be such a turn on or off. I know when my brother and his son were staying with us, the stench of whatever he was wearing would linger for a hour after he was out of the house. I can't imagine being in a classroom with that or a bunch of competing thats. the same goes for some perfumes too. looks like some great chemistry brewing here.
thanks
Scent is a powerful thing and can be a great device:)
I love the thoughts of using it too. Like Brandon...after a typical morning he has this scent of hints of soap from the shower and shaving. The hint of hay, and sawdust and wood shavings from the barns, a touch of earth from the greenhouse and the hint of the stetson cologne he wears all touched off by the scents of leather. I feel that is something the would just wind around the brain of any girl he was with.
The whole thing just takes you places sometimes like Jenna in Images...Skin so Soft lotion and baby powder and just that hint of female sweat/shine and sweetness from the kiss of the smells of her cinnamon rolls.
I can commiserate about your brother Lonewolf. I had the great joy of working with a girl that wore so much vanillia musk perfume you could taste it.
I'm glad you're liking the chemistry here I like John, he's based on a RL person with of course my own twists for the story:)
*Hugs and Howls*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
Do you mind Bailey!
Girls don't sweat they Glow.
I remember 'Old Spice', the early beginning of male cosmetics being acceptable to the mass market.
I like the Kalvin Kline range. Obsession and Midnight.
Can John be trusted, I hope Haley is ok, however it appears she can look after heself.
I've never taken the train across Canada but I may one day, hope it will be better than Haley's experience.
Although, my last long distance train ride in OZ was from Cairns to Brisbane about 2,000 Klm in the late 1940's: Steam trains, every time you put your head out a window it got covered in coal dust, AC on trains wasn't invented then, I'm sure it's better than that, I hope so?
Good story Bailey, thank you.
Age is an issue of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter!
(Mark Twain)
LoL
Rita
It's a bit better than that but...
Passenger service has gone downhill a huge amount on the trains here unless you're traveling through central Canada to the west coast. It cost as much as airfare sometimes if not more and you certainly don't get the service that you used too. Going on a train used to be an elegant thing.
Oh and if you asked Jenna she'd say she sweats.
Haley...she's more girly in her own way and would go with glow.
Sam...she's a soldier so it'd all depend on what part of the world you're in.
*Great Big Hugs*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
Haley is definitely an
Haley is definitely an interesting character, I have to agree with them both todays society has destryed a lot of the romance that existed before, the term "lady" doesn't really apply in modern society, sure the term is still used but its requirements have been diluted, women no longer get taught to be ladies the get taught to be female but ladies back then were completely different.
Girls these days don't get a book on their heads till they can glide into a room, the range of facial expressions have also gone maybe not completly but are nowhere near what they used to be, I loved the "Airforce Sweetheart" story because the time period still had that, mother teaching her daughters that while a lady can act like a scullery maid in private a maid can never act like a lady because they are not taught to be ladies
Anyway good chapter I think I share a lot in common with haley, thanks for sharing.
Big hugs
Lizzie :-)
Bailey's Angel
The Godmother :p
"Airforce Sweetheart." was a great read and I liked that
part of it too. While I'm all for feminism I'm not in favor of the dropping of feminine class. I've always loved that classic way that women were really ladies in the old movies and yet still were strong as steel under it all and one could only imagine what they'd be like in the privacy of the bedrooms.
Honestly there needs to be a return to just making things classic and romantic to the world.
I'm glad that you can find things in common with Haley:)
*Great Big Angel Hugs*
Bailey.
The Godfather;)
Bailey Summers