Wine and oyster

So I'm back in the north, once again. I plan to stay till the end of the work week. Last night i took a late flight, with a two-hour transit stop. While waiting in the airport, I wrote a new scene for my so-called novel.

The plot is pretty much lined up, chapter by chapter. I write the scenes in random order, depending on my mood. This is what I wrote last night, approximately 700 words:

Chapter 11: Wine and oyster

He couldn’t help it. Tom Snare was nervous when he was going to visit someone in their home. Meeting people in a bar or a restaurant, no problem, but coming into someone’s private sphere always made him feel uncertain.

He walked up the stairs, to the third floor and pushed the door bell. Nothing happened. She had invited him to come, for white wine and oyster, but maybe he was wrong about the time? A minute passed by, it felt like an hour. Then the door opened, and Marions’s smiling face appeared.

“Hi, Tom, come on in”, she said and pushed the door wide open.

“Thanks”, he said, and stepped into the hall.

He took off his jacket, and hung it on a hook in the corner. She looked at his black T-shit with a white scull printed on the chest.

“You look so scary in those T-shirts, but I know you’re pretty harmless”. She touched his chest with the palm of her hand. “Harmless and sweet”.

Snare captured her green-brown eyes and then glanced down her body. Her chunky thighs were squeezed into a pair of black tights. The red T-shirt stopped above her wide hips. She was barefoot, toe nails painted dark red. His heart was beating a little bit faster..

“I just came back from the gym”, she said, when she sensed his eyes sliding down her curvy body. “I just need to take a quick shower”.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes, a little bit, but no hurry. Just take your time”.

“Did you come straight from the office?”

“Yes, it was hard to break loose today. I’m working on some really interesting stuff, and so close to get all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. It’s a new mathematical formulation of … ”

“Stop it, Tom, before you get into it again. I bet it’s just another obscure geophysical imaging method that doesn’t work in the end”

“Yes, maybe”

“I’m just teasing you”, she said, with a caring smile. “Tonight we will just relax”. She paused for a second, “and have a good time”

“And I was thinking about the student that died”, he said.

“They guy who died in the bike accident?”

“I’m not sure it was an accident.”

“Hobby-investigator Snare has a new hypothesis”, she said with a touch of irony. You must tell me more about it later. I have to get into the shower”.

“There’s s bottle of white wine and glasses on the table. Why don’t you have a taste and make yourself comfortable while you wait. I’ll give you something to eat in a few minutes”, she said, in an increasingly louder voice, as she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

He poured a glass half-full of wine, and leaned back in the sofa. His eyes fell on the bookshelf, and then on the pictures on the wall. Three lithographic prints in pale blue and green. The colors matched the furniture. Landscape-like half-abstract features, the kind pictures women tend to like. The kind of pictures he found annoyingly tasteful and boring.

He wanted to take a closer look at the bookshelf, but he didn’t. A bookshelf can tell a lot about the owner. It would be impolite, like peeping into someone’s privacy. He took a sip of the wine and just waited.

After half an hour, she came out from the bathroom, with a purple bathrobe wrapped around her body. She crossed the room, and stopped three steps from the sofa where he was sitting.

“Didn’t you like the wine, Tom?”

“Yes, I did”, he said. “But I wanted to wait for you, so that we can enjoy it together”

“You’re charming when you try to act a gentleman. It’s not your natural style, but I know you’re doing your best”, she said and smiled.

She flung her hair backward and raised her arms, with hands gripping around the hair to gather it into a pigtail. He suspected that she did it on purpose, when the bathrobe slid open, and revealed her belly, and her dark-blond bush, gently trimmed along the bikini line. It was just the way he liked it.

The oyster was served.