Women And Wine

"Thy vulva is a rounded bowl,

That never lacks mixed wine."

The Song of Songs, 7:2

Reaching into the darkness, I touch the soft curve of a shoulder, a slender, tapered neck. I lift the bottle out of the closet, into the light--Vosne-Romanee 1978, a wine that in a less prosaic and technical time would have been called feminine. The term has gone out of fashion-- politically incorrect, I suppose--but I still find it evocative. Not in a stereotypical way, either: great Burgundy is not shy, unassertive, weak, or demure; nor is it unrestrained, promiscuously generous, or shallow. It is reserved but earthy, delicate but powerful, flirtatious but demanding,a challenge to the senses and the mind. It is not a beginner's wine.

Even lesser Burgundies can be difficult for beginners; but they were the wines I began on when I was nineteen, a novice in both wine and women. The woman I drank them with was Susan, a tiny, dark-haired girl who was at least as much of a challenge as the first Cote de Bourgogne I bought to impress her. It was the 1970s, and the drinking age was still 18. We went back to her dorm room and drank most of the bottle. I found the first sip strange, almost unpleasant, less friendly than the fruity, slightly sweet California Burgundies I had been drinking, heavy with aromas of peat, mushrooms, tar, and less speakable things. But then it slid over my tongue like a feather, leaving behind a lingering radiance of ripe plums and cherries, fennel and cloves, overlaying that fundament of earth. I wasn't sure if I liked it, but I couldn't help being fascinated, even charmed, by the perfect integration of incongruous flavors. By the end of the first glass, I was in love. After the second glass, Susan and I fell upon each other with an intensity of lust that surprised even me.

I tasted traces of wine on her tongue as she probed my mouth; we tore at each other's clothes, somehow fighting through buttons and zippers. I reached behind her back, fumbling for the clasp of her bra. She laughed, popped open the hook in the front, and shrugged her breasts free of the tan lace. I took a nipple in my mouth, circled it with my tongue, then sucked hard. Susan moaned and thrust her hips against me.

Emboldened, I moved down, running my tongue over her navel and moving on to my goal between her thighs. I had read about this, but had not dared to do it with my two previous girlfriends. I was afraid I'd do it wrong, that they or I would be disgusted. But with two glasses of that wine in my belly, I was as courageous as I was amorous. I plunged my face into her damp fur, my tongue probing deeper into her.

Her aroma was dark and heavy; I had a momentary image of a cave, a burrow, warm and filled with animal smells. A place to crawl into and hibernate, safe and comforting; or perhaps a place with hidden risks and mysteries. Then my tongue, exploring, flicked over a tiny button of flesh and she whimpered as fluid, thick and salty, gushed over my chin. I rubbed my face in it, thrusting my nose into her center and breathing deep to take in all I could.

A sudden inspiration, impulse, a madness unlike me–I reached over, took up the bottle, and poured the dregs of the wine over her. It filled her deep, oval navel, ran down the slopes of her rounded belly, trickled between her thighs and into every cranny, its essence of fruit and earth mingling with her essence of animal musk in an archetypal wildness. My lips and tongue were everywhere, lapping up every drop as she squirmed and cried out, then she grabbed my arms and pulled me up and into her in one motion, thrusting her tongue into my mouth, sucking her own juices from my lips. I felt as if I were falling into a warm, dark, cavern.

* * *

Susan was gone eight months later, into the bed of a pre-med student. I took a semester off to nurse my broken heart and found a couple of unmemorable girls to fill the time, but spent more of my time with wine than with women–more than was good for me, no doubt, but educational nonetheless. Then I came back to school and met Laura. She was Susan’s opposite–tall where Susan was short, blonde, large-breasted and wide-hipped; not out of proportion, but lush and expansive where Susan was snug and compact. And unlike Susan, cautious and inexperienced. She told me she had only slept with one man, three times, and hadn’t found it very satisfying. She wasn’t sure she was ready to do it again.

I wasn’t used to talking about things like this–my experience with sex had entirely to do with reading nonverbal signals and hoping I read them right. Laura, disconcertingly, insisted on talking everything out. She would allow me to kiss her, caress her breasts, suck her nipples, insinuate my hand into her panties and stroke her; she would even unzip my jeans and touch me gently until I spurted into her hand. But if I tried for more, she would stop and insist on talking about what felt right, what didn’t, and why she didn’t feel ready to fully open herself to me, or anyone, quite yet.

I might have given up had I not been so fascinated with her composure, with the contrast between the urgency with which she thrust her crotch against my fingers on the rare occasions when I was allowed there, and the calm restraint with which she discussed her difficulty feeling sexual pleasure–or at least sexual pleasure given by another. Because in spite of the urgency of her desire, she never actually came under my fingers, even after my hand was cramped and aching from thirty minutes or more of devoted caresses. She did not complain–she had never had an orgasm in the presence of someone else, and was not sure she could. She quite frankly acknowledged that she had no difficulty pleasuring herself, but refused–without any sign of embarrassment–to show me how she did it. “That’s too private,” she said.

I took her out to dinner at a French restaurant on a Friday night. I hadn’t been there before, and didn’t really know French food as well as I tried to pretend. I ordered a half-dozen oysters on the half shell as an appetizer, and a glass of Muscadet de Sevre et Maine because I remembered reading in a wine guide that it was the right thing to drink with shellfish.

Laura made a face when the waiter brought the oysters. “I don’t know how you can eat those–aren’t they still alive?”

“I don’t know–I don’t think so.” I looked down, concealing my unease, not willing to admit that I had never eaten raw oysters before either. I squeezed the lemon over them, carefully speared one with the miniature fork, and thrust it into my mouth. The taste of the sea exploded in my mouth as I pressed it between my tongue and palate, and let it slide, slick and viscous, down my throat. I sat back, almost stunned with intensity of the sensation. I maintained my composure by picking up my wine glass and sipped the pale Muscadet.

I knew immediately why this was the right wine. Beneath the lemony fruit with its bittersweet lemon peel bite, there was a rough spine of flint and chalk, a faint suggestion of salt air, a briny edge that echoed and grappled with the slippery, salty sensuality of the oyster. A passion held in check by clarity and balance. Aggression balanced with subtlety, steel wrapped in silk. I swallowed and let the long finish fade on my tongue. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman at the next table ignore the fork and slurp her oyster direct from the shell. I picked up the next mollusc and looked at Laura. “You sure you don’t want to try one?”

“No...not this time.” There was something in her look, as if she had noticed how I had been affected by my first oyster. I held the second shell to my lips and sucked the creature down, with its salty liquor, chasing it once more with the elusive, austere, biting wine.

We went back to Laura’s apartment. As I closed the door, I took her in my arms and kissed her. She kissed back, then pushed me away. She pointed at me. “Stay right there,” she said.

She undressed slowly. For all our passionate groping, I had never seen her completely naked. Her deep golden hair just touched her shoulders. Her breasts were large, with generous pink nipples. Her hips were generous, though not at all fat, and below her belly the light brown curls burst out in a luxuriant bush that spread to her thighs.

She stood before me, and pointed again. “Don’t move.” She came closer and began to unbutton my shirt. Almost involuntarily, my hand rose to her breast.

She stepped back. “Uh-uh,” she said, “Gotta do it my way.” I let my hand fall.

She finished with my buttons, slipped my shirt off, unbuckled my belt, then looked down and stepped away. “You can take your own shoes and socks off.”

I did. She knelt and unzipped my pants, sliding them down; I raised my feet and let them drop on the floor. Laura took my hand and led me to the bed in my undershorts. “Lie down,” she whispered.

I fell back on the bed. She bent over and slipped her fingers under the waistband of my briefs, pulling the elastic out to ease it over my erection. I raised my hips to allow her to slide my shorts off, then reached up for her.

“No–let me look at you.” She sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at my body. She reached out and took my penis in her hand, squeezed it gently. It twitched in her grasp. She bent over and kissed away the clear drop that appeared at the tip, then circled it with her tongue.

She got onto her knees, crouched over me, and took me deep into her mouth. I reached out and slid my hand between her legs, easing my fingers into the wetness I found there.

Laura turned her body, swinging her right leg over me to straddle my face as her lips and tongue continued their work. I pulled a pillow under my head and pressed my mouth against her pink labia, bathing her with my tongue.

Laura’s scent was as unlike Susan’s as could be, as different as Muscadet from Burgundy. She had a sharp tang, a savage, salty tartness that called up images of storm-tossed seas, salt spray on the face, and echoes of the meal finished not an hour ago. I drank in the smell and the taste of her greedily.

Then she pulled away, turned to face me, and straddled my hips, easing herself onto me, opening to let me in, her eyes closed and her breath coming in shallow, irregular gasps. She paused a moment, then began thrusting against my pubic bone, squeezing me with her inner muscles. I reached up and pinched her nipples, not too gently. She let out a sharp cry and thrust harder. She leaned toward me, taking her right breast in her hand and offering it to my mouth. I flicked it with my tongue and took it between my lips.

She moaned; “Bite...” she gasped. I took her between my teeth and nipped gently. “Oh yeah, yeah...ah, ah–harder...” I did it harder, sucking the nipple between my teeth as I bit down. Her hips gyrated frantically, and I suddenly felt her fingers between us, rubbing desperately at her own flesh as she panted “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...”

It was too much for me at twenty-one. A part of my mind tried to hold back, but my body was having none of it and I came explosively, with guttural roar as my buttocks clenched and I bucked against her rotating, thrusting motion. Laura paid no heed, except to push her breast back into my mouth; her hips and fingers never broke their urgent rhythm. I returned to what I had been doing, indeed redoubled my efforts, hoping she was close.

Not close enough–I felt myself softening, and finally a vigorous twist of her hips pushed me out of her. Disappointed and even ashamed, I was about to apologize when she scooted up the bed and pressed herself against my face. Mingled male and female fluids oozed over me as I lapped at her, her fierce, salty musk blended with a pungency that I knew came from me. Her hips continued their thrusting against my tongue, but with smaller motions. I could look up through her pubic hair to see her twisting her nipples. I closed my eyes and focused on her taste and smell.

How long it took I don’t know–maybe only a few minutes, maybe longer. I was lost in Laura and she in her own feelings, but I was becoming aware of soreness in my jaw muscles and wondering how long I could keep it up. And then she drew a long, shuddering breath and let it out with a “Woooo! Ahh...” as a fresh torrent gushed over my lips and she nearly crushed my nose.

I was only twenty-one–I was hard again. I grabbed her hips and pulled her down, thrusting into her in time to feel the last contraction of her orgasm. It took no more than a dozen thrusts to bring on another one, and perhaps twenty more to trigger a third, in which I joined her. She collapsed onto my chest, kissed me, and rubbed her cheek over my face, which was wet and slippery from my eyes to my chin.

She sniffed, crinkled her nose, and grinned at me. “I can tell what you’ve been doin’.”

“Oh yeah? What would that be, exactly?”

She kissed me, open-mouthed, tongue exploring. She pulled back and smiled. “Tastes like you’ve been going down on some lady. Want to tell me about it?”

We hardly got out of bed that weekend, and we cut classes on Monday. Monday night we went back to the restaurant, even though I knew I really couldn’t afford it. This time I ordered a dozen oysters, with a bottle of the same Muscadet. I picked up the rough shell that cradled the silver-gray blob, and held it out toward Laura. She started to shake her head, then shrugged and said, “What the hell.”

She leaned forward and I held the shell to her lips. She sucked the oyster in with a soft, wet noise, sat back and swallowed. Her eyes widened. She took a sip of wine and smiled. “That’s amazing. It tastes like...like....” She paused and looked at me quizzically.

“It tastes like you, love,” I said.

* * *

Laura, who had not taken a semester off, graduated that June. I helped her drive the U- Haul to Seattle, where she was to start a job. We had a last night on the floor of her new apartment, surrounded by boxes, and a tearful goodbye at the bus station the next morning. We had very carefully not talked about the future. We wrote weekly at first, but by September it was monthly, and in November I got the letter telling me about Mark. I wrote back to say I was happy for her, which was true, as far as it went. Then I drank a bottle of Bordeaux--a stern, masculine wine.

I graduated in December and moved east to take a job as a researcher and fact checker for a small publishing house that specialized in magazines for amateur historians and other obsessive intellectual hobbyists. I spent a lot of time in the public library, browsing the stacks for obscure journals and long out of print books. The assistant behind the reference desk was a tall, slender woman, about my age, with short auburn hair. When I got bored with my work, I would stand beside her desk and chat, in between the phone calls she got from people with questions about everything you can imagine, and more: What’s the capital of Paraguay? What is the date of the Battle of Balaclava? What is the first sentence of “A Tale of Two Cities”? (It’s not what you think–look it up.)

I had known her for over two months before I thought to ask her name. She raised her eyebrows. “About time,” she said. “Sarah Caswell.”

I blushed. “Steve Reilly.”

She nodded. “I know–I asked Jenny in circulation right after you checked something out a few weeks ago.”

“Uh...” I’ve been at a loss for words before, but never quite like that moment. Then I recovered, trying to sound like I’d been planning it all along. “Would you go out with me Friday?”

She looked me over cooly. “What did you have in mind?”

“Oh, uh”– improvising madly– “dinner at l’Aubergine?”

Her eyebrows went up again. “You can’t afford it,” she said, which was absolutely true, “and neither can I. How about if I make you dinner? Then maybe we can go out.”

“It’s an offer no gentleman could refuse,” I said with all the twenty-three-year-old savoire- faire I could manage. “I’ll bring wine.”

She rolled her eyes. “You history majors....”

I knocked on her door at 7:30 Friday. I had a brown bag with three bottles under my arm–a Cotes du Rhone (red) and a Vernaccia di San Gimignano (white) that I had picked up at the wine shop, as well as a half-bottle of a German wine I had taken from a case in my closet. My uncle, who had lived in Germany and was the only relative who shared my enthusiasm for wine, gave me a mixed case as a graduation present. There were slender green and brown bottles bearing ornate labels with long unpronounceable names. I knew little about German wine, and I had been cautious about drinking it because I knew it was expensive. But tonight I had pulled out a half-bottle, a little brown thing with gothic letters spelling out “Rheingau” and “Trockenbeerenauslese.” I had read enough to know it was considered the apex of dessert wines. It was a 1964, fourteen years old, which made me nervous even though I had read that these wines aged well.

Sarah answered the door wearing a white silk blouse and a short green skirt. I handed her the wine. She looked at the three bottles. “How drunk are you planning to get me?” she asked, with a Groucho leer.

“Just drunk enough.” I blushed again–which was not like me. “ Um, I didn’t know what you were cooking and I wanted to be prepared.”

“Hmmm. I don’t usually invite Boy Scouts to dinner.” She turned away and I followed her into the kitchen, where she put the whites in the refrigerator and opened the Cotes du Rhone. We sipped the soft, fruity red and talked as she sauteed chicken breasts, boiled rice, and steamed asparagus. I don’t remember a word we said, but I remember every detail of how she moved smoothly about the tiny kitchen, her long-waisted, almost boyish body gliding elegantly from refrigerator to sink to countertop to stove.

By the time she put on a record (it was Bach, I remember that) and carried the food out to the table in the little dining area, the Rhone was gone. We started on the Vernaccia, Michelangelo’s favorite wine, which in his words “kisses, bites, stings.” We finished most of the bottle over dinner, then sat back and looked at each other.

“I didn’t make dessert,” she said.

“I brought it,” I answered.

“Did you? We’ll see.”

I got up and went into the kitchen. I eased the cork out of the little bottle and poured the golden liquid into two fresh glasses, and carried them back out into the dining area.

Sarah had moved into the living room and reclined on the couch. A pair of red panties hung conspicuously over the back of the chair she had just left. I took a deep breath and walked across the worn carpet. I knelt beside her and held out one glass. Instead of taking it in her hand, she leaned forward and put her lips to the rim. I tilted the glass and she sipped, eyes closed.

“Mmmm,” she purred, then opened her eyes to look into mine.

I lifted the same glass to my mouth and drank, setting the second glass on the floor. The aroma of honey, peaches, and musk , touched with lime peel, rose petals, almond, wet grass, loam, and mushrooms filled my nose and then my mouth. Sweet, but with a firmness that kept it from being syrupy or cloying. Heavy, but with a velvet softness that floated over my tongue like mist. More depth and complexity than you could grasp if you held it in your mouth for years. I swallowed, then leaned forward to kiss Sarah. She came to meet me, mouth open. After the kiss we pulled back and looked at each other again. The taste of the wine still lingered on my tongue.

She took the glass from my hand and sipped. Then her other hand reached down under the green skirt, and emerged with two fingers shiny and dripping. She ran her fingers around the rim of the glass, leaving a glistening trail, and offered the glass to me. I drank, then she lifted the glass and drained it, set it on the end table, and put her arms around my neck, pulling me to her. Our lips and tongues met again, and I reached down to stroke her thigh.