"To me it's not really a green. When I think green, I think of grass. That's more like lemonade color." Erica's nose was far too close to the glasses for my taste.
Pouring the nearly clear absinthe over the rough-cut, cane-sugar cubes I favor, I tapped my spoon for a second to get her to back up. I wished I had my full setup here like I have at home, my Absinthe fountains water drippers are missed when I began to try and slowly pour water over the sugar cube.
"Don't you light it on fire?" she asked.
"Never."
"But I've seen that done?"
My hand steady as I could keep it, I glanced up at her eyes. "That is Bohemian style, I don't do that. That's to caramelize the sugar and add that flavor; I use raw, cane sugar cubes to get the same thing."
"Flavor? HA! Suck on a Ricola cough drop and you'll taste the same thing." Timothy's laughter came from the kitchen with the sound of the refrigerator slamming shut. I heard him pop open his beer from across the room.
I saw Erica give her husband an annoyed look that make me ponder their marriage's possible duration. Together not six months and she was already giving him that kind of look? Alrighty then.
"Why was it called the Green Fairy?"
"Because some of the bottles had a green fairy on them," answered her husband, incorrectly, as he walked in taking slugs of his beer. "Duh."
I didn't bother to enlighten him ... or her either for that matter. He was, and always had been, the type of person that had to prove he was right. If I tried to argue a point he would argue for two days to show me I as wrong, especially when I wasn't. And she had married ... him. Besides I was too enthralled, as always, by the smoky fog of the
louche
clouds in these two glasses. I was carefully watching the dripping water falling through the holes in my century old slotted spoon.
"Seems a lot of work for one drink," she said when I--with a small flourish--handed the milky glass to her.
"The Devil is always in the details," I told her with a grin. She gave me a smile back. She was cute in a slightly
odd
way. A never could quite place just wasn't perfect about her face but there was something there that did not blend, I just couldn't find it. And that little detail kept her from being called beautiful, but made her all the more interesting at the same time.
She was out of Tim's league by miles. Normally mine too for that matter, but that flaw ... whatever the hell it was ... made her seem more accessible. Hell, before they married, I might have even asked her out, if I thought she had two brain cells to rub together. Call me a weirdo but I like a woman to be able to hold an intelligent conversation once the sex is over. Don't get me wrong I like a woman with her curves and valleys. But, a few brain cells helps to pass the night when the fucking is done.
And, at times, a few seemed to be all that Erica had. I looked over at Timothy--sitting on the couch scratching his crotch, looking at his wife's ass, taking shot-sips of Miller Highlife--and knew that he didn't feel the same as I did. He didn't marry her for a conversation. He would often brag, in her presence or not, that she was spectacular in bed or he would have never have "put a ring in her nose" as he put it.
And she put up with that shit? To each their own.
Watching her take tentative sips, I lifted my glass and let a long, slow sip wash my tongue with the anise flavor. I closed my eyes breathing deeply the black liquorish scent that was under my nose. Enjoying the "Ricola" like herbal smell that had first driven me to drink this once forbidden drink.
The artists drink.
Behind me Tim finished his fourth beer, and belched. Not an Absinthe fan, old Tim. He had tried it once spit the sip back into the glass and said it was nasty. I saw that his wife didn't seem to agree with his tastes either. She was making odd faces but seemed to like it.
Tim went for his next beer, pausing to take a pass by the bathroom for a piss. I looked at the color of the beer in his bottle when he came back and mentally chuckled at the fact it was probably the same color coming back out as it was going in. Piss yellow.
Even when I drink beer, something that is not often, I am more a fan of Stouts and Porters. Shoe leather black Guinness and Avery Mephistopheles stout topping my list. As I watched him guzzle this beer down as well I mentally sighed. Apparently volume, not taste, seemed to be more his style anyway. I looked at Erica realizing she was similar to his taste in beers.
I smiled as the inward mental clarity of my favorite drink began to appear and I felt the buzz forming. So different for all other alcohols I had tried.
"I like it ... I think."
Looking over to Erica, I saw her give her head a nod and take a longer sip. I smiled and raised my glass in salute.
"À votre santé."
She grinned and gave me a wink. "À la vôtre."
Well ... well, could I have been wrong about her brain cell count? Humph.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
The night had been as insane as the eve to All Hallows in New Orleans could hope to ever be. We went to a play house and drank the cheap wine they sell there. Then we stopped by Fredric's and spent hours sipping his Cognac, talking of the show, and smoked his cigars. His old ex-slave maid brought us sweetmeats tidbits and candied fruits. Then, giggling the whole way, we drifted to The Absinthe Room to let Cayetano Ferrer mix us far too many Absinthe frappes.
And now we were here, where ever that is, and my worlds was all softness and anise spiced. I had decided to simply let myself drift into total decadence tonight. I had long ago freed my breasts from confinement and now my skirts were gone as well, though I know not when or how. I cared not either. The cool air on my cunny felt delicious. That air was sick with the sweet stench of Chinese pipes, perfumed bodies and sex. Oh, and the smell of sex.
That delicious musk.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Randal had shown up with enough weed to get all of Orleans Parish stoned. A few others had drifted in and out never staying long. There were too many
wilder
parties than this little gathering to haunt this Halloween night.
Timothy was tore-out-the-ass drunk. He had been his normal life of the party for hours, laughter grating enough to make paint peel. Joining him in that state was a half-dozen others draped in various poses of lubricity. And nudity. The constant chatter was on everything but nothing of interest.
Randal had almost everyone that walked in the door stoned and happy.
Me? I was a mixture of drunk and stoned but neither to a level that I wasn't functional.
Looking around, I noted that Timothy's wife, Erica, had vanished at some point. Drifting off into the back of their apartment maybe seeking some alone time. I had noticed that the ever changing guest had seemed to get to her nerves. She was possibly not used to her husband's type of party yet, but how that could since she had met him at one I couldn't fathom.
She had liked the Absinthe.
Picking up Erica's empty glass, I began to make her another and myself one more at the same time. As she had said, it was a bit of work for a drink. Especially when you stop in mid-mix and just stand there looking at the spoon. A hundred plus year old relic, I had picked it up in an estate sale. The seller had no idea what it was and had placed it in a box with common silverware. Gazing at my own reflection in the metal, I popped a sugar cube in my mouth and crunched it into sweet sandy grit wondering how many drinks this one spoon had made. Thousands surely.
I set it down on the glass and let the water poor over the sugar, quicker than I normally would have.
A glance at the couch showed me that Tim was out. Dribble down his chin out. Sitting next to him Randal kept talking, but I'm not sure he was any more awake than Tim. In fact I'm pretty sure he was just too slammed to know to stop talking while asleep.
The other guests were either in a similar state or gone.
Finishing my glass I went to find Erica, I wanted a conversation, I wanted to talk to a woman, I wanted ... who the hell am I trying to kid, I knew what I was wanting. Her. The alcohol fumes had taken away any normal level of decorum in me.
Leaving Sleepy and Dopey, I followed the sound of soft music to its source.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
There was the sound of someone playing on a harpsichord. Leaning back on the velvet covered divan, I absently toyed with my button, enjoying the slickness of my cunny as well. I was wanting a man inside me, but the boars! They were all too drunk, or sleeping off the smoke of the Chinese pipe, to be bothered with the wishes of a woman.
Then he appeared.
I smiled seeing the drink he was bringing me.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Leaning against the doorframe I stood and watched her. A smile that was half-grin on my face. Gone were the too tight jeans from earlier. Now she was in just a long t-shirt and panties. A pink lace thong, which her right hand was under, her fingers moving slowly in circles.
"Want some help?" Her eyes popped open suddenly and her hand shot out of her underwear as if scorched. I held up her glass. "I've always said this was the perfect lubricant to help get the juices flowing."
Walking over to her, I held out the glass so she had to take it with her left hand. Then, sitting down on the mattress next to her, I watched her take a sip. When she was occupied with her drink I moved my hand to her right wrist. She gasped.
"What are you?"
"Shush. Timothy is sleeping. Wouldn't want to wake him." I dipped two of her shiny wet fingers into my glass and then brought them to my mouth, sucking the anise taste and her juiced off them.
