Tag Archives: martini
The dazzle of the evening – fancy cocktails, lots of cleavage, rolled up sleeves – was eclipsed by the weight of inevitable failure.
She took me to a french restaurant, where we sat rooftop and looked out at the decaying skyline. Ever the portrait of dark sophistication, she sat contemplatively in the embrace of the day’s remaining shadows, her gaze drawn to something beyond my right shoulder.
“There’s a building on fire over there,” she said, removing the olives from her martini. “It’s pretty bad.” When I first met her, she was, to me, impossibly unapproachable. I made up a bullshit story about wanting to adopt her dog.
“Is there a lot of smoke,” I replied, losing myself in her eyes.
“Yeah.” She lifted her martini. “People are jumping.”
“I imagine it’ll spread soon.”
She scrutinized the scene behind me. “Probably. We’re the only ones left up here. At least we won’t have to pay. But my martini is almost gone.”
She was right. I could feel an uncomfortable warmth biting at my neck.
“Do you want some of this?”
“I think mezcal is disgusting.”
“Are we in trouble?”
She nodded silently, took my hand and pressed her lips to my knuckles.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, alcohol, death, disaster, fire, flash fiction, french, french food, martini, mezcal, relationships, rooftop, Short Fiction, short story, smoke | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
For a moment neither of us spoke. She had taken up smoking, was practiced in exhaling through her nose. It was cool, I admit. She leaned hard on her elbows, took a moment to glare at me, and jammed her cigarette violently into its ashtray. Music from a neighbor’s stereo was stirring somewhere outside.
“It’s a terrible thing, what happened,” she sighed, lighting another cigarette.
I couldn’t disagree, but I said nothing. She had painted her apartment this odd shade of light blue. Through the haze (she had been smoking all night), the walls took on a dinghy, worn look – like a discarded Tiffany’s bag.
“What did you expect,” she said abruptly, pissed that I wasn’t listening. “You left. I had to stay here. I threw out all your shit and painted over your poems. They were good, really good. But they had to go.”
My eyes burned from the smoke, and from fourteen hours of driving. I swallowed the rest of my martini.
“I write fiction now,” I said in a way that I found impressively detached. Then I walked to her desk and unearthed a Sharpie from under a pile of cords, papers, and letters (unopened) from me.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, alcohol, art, cigarette, fiction, flash fiction, heart break, life, love, martini, music, poetry, relationships, Sharpie, Short Fiction, short story, smoking, Tiffany & Co. | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
“Anything at any price,” read the inside of the card, which featured a cat sleeping in a martini glass.
The attending package – displaying no return address – contained a cylindrical fish tank, complex instructions, and laudatory remarks:
Congratulations! Your new jellyfish will arrive tomorrow. Make sure your tank is calibrated to the appropriate temperature. Jellyfish are temperamental creatures, so handle your new friend with care!
I assembled the tank, placed it on my dining room table. I filled it with water and spent my evening hours envisioning various scenarios occurring within its narrow walls. In my mind, I saw her treading water, face creased with deceit, anger, and hatred. I saw her puff her cheeks up before descending toward the bottom of the tank for no reason in particular. I saw her begin to convulse and spasm, unable to ascend to the surface. I saw myself jump into the tank to retrieve her from the bottom.
The creature arrived the next day. It was dead already. I placed it in the tank and watched its tentacles gently keep it afloat. Then, thinking I could revive it, I jumped into the tank and pressed my lips to the top of its hood.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, death, fiction, flash fiction, jelly fish, love, martini, pain, relationships, romance, Short Fiction, short story, suicide, tank, water, women | posted in Her, Me, Uncategorized
Overcome with self-loathing, K nevertheless continued to coax the girl. He sighed to himself, wondering what he got out of these rituals. He sighed again, then ordered her another martini.
A practiced man in this regard, K already knew what she would look like underneath her top. Her breasts would be decent, her stomach would be tight. She would have a tattoo decorating some body part. This did not excite K. But he pressed on. He had already determined that she was wearing a thong and made inferences about her grooming customs that were probably correct.
He knew what it would feel like. The bodies of women are always the same on the inside. He knew that she would thrash and moan and that he would respond accordingly. She would say amazing things under his spell. He would do the same in kind.
The charade bored K. It even disgusted him. Yet after tonight, he would do it again. He was probably already thinking about it.
“Be rough with me,” said the girl. K sighed and retrieved a knife from the kitchen, eliciting a frown from the girl – not that rough!
K handed her the knife and closed his eyes.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, alcohol, body, boredom, flash fiction, knife, martini, masochism, sadism, sadomasochism, sex, sexuality, Short Fiction, short story | posted in Her, Him, Short Fiction
“What are you reading,” I inquired in my best disinterested voice.
Silently, she held her book to her face to reveal its title: An Exegesis on Repressed Masculinity.
I suppressed an eye roll. “Is it interesting?”
“Interesting enough,” she shrugged. “It’s probably the story of your life: sex and anguish, sex and decay, sex and self.”
“That sums it up.”
She smiled.
“May I?” I extended a hand across the bar top.
My name, in elegant font, was printed along the book’s spine. And my photo – an old one, taken with my now dead dog – was on the back.
“Where did you get this?”
“That guy over there. He’s the author. And” – she raised her ring finger – “my husband.”
He kissed her on the cheek and drank the rest of her martini. “Ready,” he asked in my voice.
She nodded, and then addressed me: “Keep it. I’ve read it eighteen times.” She had written her number on the first page.
We had sex two days later.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she breathed heavily afterward, “but my husband would like to join us now. Come on out, K.”
I watched in terror as I stepped out of her bedroom closet.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, alcohol, bar, book, dog, flash fiction, martini, masculinity, picture, relationships, sex, Short Fiction | posted in Her, Him, Me, Short Fiction, Woman
We hadn’t seen each other since college. Our friendship ended abruptly because we were in love with the same woman. He wanted to fight over her. I politely declined and wished him well.
I wasn’t surprised when he told me of their breakup. Everybody knew that this particular woman had been adamant about remaining a virgin until marriage.
“You lucked out, K,” he said with a mouthful of vodka. “She never caved.”
The way he described their sexless courtship – hours of cuddling and making out – was rather charming.
His eyes lit up. “I saw her last week. She called and told me that she’s married now. Then she invited me over. Before we broke up, she promised to have sex with me once she was married – even if she wasn’t married to me. I guess she was serious.”
“Did you?”
“Of course.”
“And her husband?”
“She told me that you’re her husband and that you’ll probably kill me. She said you’ll have a sharp knife with you.”
I put the knife on the table and shrugged. “I’m not going to kill you with this.” I nodded toward his empty martini glass and watched his throat tighten. “Thanks for the drink.”
Leave a comment | tags: affect, alcohol, bar, body, death, flash fiction, love, marriage, martini, murder, relationships, romance, sex, Short Fiction, short story, virgin, virginity, vodka | posted in Her, Him, Me, Short Fiction, Uncategorized
“Nervous much? Or do you always never look a girl in the eye?”
Her grammar—not necessarily incorrect—bugged me. It reminded me of the way a graduate student would address some pressing social concern.
“Sorry, habit I guess.” I attempted to elaborate on a study some sociologist conducted that proves men are poor at maintaining eye contact.
She rolled her eyes. “Here,” she said, grabbing the expensive vodka from my bar cart without asking. I had upset her. Moments earlier she had gone on a rant about how women shouldn’t wear underwear when they wear tight dresses. I, naturally, hadn’t minded the conversation, though I did wonder about sanitation.
But now she sat before me with her head cocked way back like you do when you catch the rain in your mouth. She filled her mouth with vodka and waited for me to drink from it.
I didn’t want to, having the day prior watch a documentary about birds feeding their young. I made a joke about liking “my martinis dirty.”
She displayed two fingers, reached under her dress, and then used them to stir the vodka in her mouth.
She tried to meet my gaze. I looked away.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, alcohol, dress, eye contact, flash fiction, gaze, gin, martini, relationships, sex, Short Fiction, underwear | posted in Her, Me, Woman
I didn’t ask–you don’t ask women about their bodies. But she obviously felt like explaining. She put her martini down.
“I adopted this bird–a macaw. Birds are really affectionate, and she loved to cuddle. But whenever I tried to set her down she’d get upset and latch on. I had to take her back.”
The blackish rings looked like railroad tracks traveling from wrist to shoulder. They were too symmetrical and evenly spaced to be the work of an animal. But her story seemed reasonable.
We went to her apartment. I saw an ugly green birdcage on the floor.
“I’m going to paint it black,” she said proudly. “Then I’ll keep my victims in it.”
I smiled.
Another martini. Her body invited me in. I turned it down. She seemed feeble, breakable, all of a sudden. She said she “like[s] it rough.” But women always say that, especially when you don’t really know them.
I went home.
At 3AM someone knocked on my door. I hoped it was her (men always hope for this). It was a gray bird. Slightly taller than I am. Probably stronger too.
We locked eyes.
“Stay the fuck away from my woman,” it said.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, bird, bruises, drinking, macaw, martini, pets, relationships, sex, Short Fiction, short story, violence | posted in Her, I, Me, Short Fiction
“That’s her,” I gestured with my chin toward a woman sitting at the end of the bar. I watched her order a martini. If she noticed me, her neighbor, she pretended otherwise.
I turned back toward K. “She brings me a cucumber every so often–she has ever since I moved in. Winter, spring, summer–whatever. And never anything else. And always just one cucumber. She leaves them in front of my door with a note attached: FOR YOUR HEALTH.”
I could tell by the way K was eyeing her that he was interested. “Don’t,” I said. “Every man she gets involved with goes missing.”
K scoffed.
“That’s the gossip, anyway,” I clarified.
K waved away my warning and marched over to her. K was good with women. She smiled at him. I finished my drink and left. I never saw him again.
……….
A few months later an article appeared in the newspaper. K’s body had been found in a shallow grave along with the remains of ten other men. Their penises had all been severed.
What a shame, I thought, still pissed at K for ignoring my advice, as I bit into my freshly delivered cucumber.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, bar, cucumber, death, drink, flash fiction, food, gossip, health, love, martini, murder, newspaper, relationships, sex, vegetables | posted in Her, Him, Me, Short Fiction
So he ripped his heart from his chest. Thrusting it into the hands of the woman he loved, “Make me rich,” he said. She said nothing in reply–an ominous sign, potentially–but nodded slightly in implicit agreement.
[A risky investment, indeed, he had heard (though he couldn’t remember from where). But if it paid off, it really paid off, he also heard (same as above).]
Always one to never shy from opportunity and the possibilities of increased wealth, regardless of risk, K eagerly awaited payoff. Yet he wondered how long he could survive without his heart. He passed the days and nights trying not to think about the woman he loved and what she was doing with it.
As it turns out, the woman he loved was careless with his heart, squandering all of its worth in illicit ways. “Sorry,” she said over martinis one night, hands empty. “I lost it.” She showed him her empty hands.
Left with nothing, K naturally hurled himself from the top of a building, a trail of desperation following him to his death. Which is unfortunate, because a hot woman is going to find his heart tomorrow in the most unlikely of places.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, heart, investment, love, martini, opportunity, relationships, risk, romance, stock market | posted in Man, Woman
The clerk leaned across his counter and whispered: “Did you know that if you send the US Treasury a $2 bill, they’ll send you back $2.15?” He went on to whisper related information, but I stopped paying attention.
……….
When I was a kid my father stockpiled $2 bills in the basement of our house, sure that one day $2 bills would be the only viable currency. After he disappeared, I took his cache of $2 bills and folded things out of them.
I folded boyhood things: submarines, rocket ships, best friends. After boyhood, I folded my father’s $2 bills into weapons and electric guitars. Most recently I folded a woman and fell in love with her.
I promised to provide for my origami woman. She dismissed my masculine posturing, however, and asked only that I never unfold her, echoing a promise I had already made to myself.
………
I unfolded her that night, the clerk’s whispers of “profit” ringing in my ears. But not before taking her out to an extravagant dinner–like, candlelight and oysters flown in from faraway. It was out of my price range, but, envisioning the money I would get for my origami woman, I wasn’t too concerned.
I ordered us another round of martinis.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, candlelight, capitalism, family, martini, money, origami, oysters, relationships, shopping | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction, Woman
