Smoking

By Cherubino

 

 

April has always been beautiful.  It is still a bit chilly so you have to keep your jacket on but warm enough for you to take your favourite spot at the round wrought iron table of the sidewalk café.  This afternoon is all yours and you sit down with a cup of coffee, pack of smokes a pen and your beloved notebook that holds so much of your soul.

 

You are so engrossed with plotting the next adventure of your heroes you are almost entranced.  Two male voices rip you out of your reverie bringing you back to the hear and now at the speed of light.  You see the men entering the café and sitting down at one of the empty tables.  One of them is older, probably mid or late forties, tall and lean, muscular but not overly so.  He is dressed very elegantly in black tailored trousers and a charcoal cashmere turtleneck topped with a hip-length leather jacket.  His chiselled features are partially covered by dark sunglasses.  His short, slightly tousled hair is grey but not in the dull, salt and pepper way, it is almost silver in colour.  He removes the shades to look at the menu and you see his eyes, the most extraordinary brown eyes that resemble dark Baltic amber with its hidden golden sparks.  You catch yourself staring at the most handsome face you have ever seen.  You look away quickly, busying yourself with lighting up another cigarette and moving your coffee mug about.

 

When you dare to look up again you sigh in relief, you haven’t been caught.  The stranger that you subjected to such scrutiny is too busy looking at his companion.  His friend is in his thirties, a bit shorter but slightly wider in shoulder.  He is dressed casually in tight faded jeans and dark blue v-neck sweater that allows a peak of a white t-shirt underneath.  A worn brown leather jacket is slung over his arm.  He unclips the shades from his glasses and you see that his eyes are deep blue, almost as dark as his sweater.  His pouty lips curve into a smile, giving his face an almost boyish appearance.  He pushes his hair away from his eyes and inhales, a scent of smoke from your cigarette wafts over to their table. 

 

You hear him whisper, “I want a cigarette.  Do you mind?”

 

His companion shakes his head ‘no’ and he pulls out a pack of ‘Black Russians’.  The black and gold square box is made to look like a small cigar case, complete with the embossed two-headed eagle; he flips it open and takes one long black cigarette with a golden filter tip.  He bites lightly on it as he lights it up and takes the first drag.  He lets out a stream of smoke and drags on the cigarette again, almost caressing it with his mouth.  You blush at the thoughts it brings to your overactive mind.

 

His little tête à tête with the cigarette is interrupted as his friend pulls it out of his mouth and, after knocking the ashes off into the shell-shaped ashtray, takes a puff himself, letting the smoke out in perfect little rings that float away in the breeze.  His lover and you know now that they are just that, lovers, laughs at his antics. 

 

“I thought you’d quit?”

 

“Ah you know I have no willpower.  Especially when it comes to you,” his partner drawls in a Mid-Western American accent.

 

The cigarette is hanging in his hand as he talks, wedged between the index and middle fingers of his right hand .  He has wonderful hand with long slender fingers, very elegant and animated.  He twirls the cigarette and brings it up to his lips again but it is snatched away by his lover.  They continue the game even after the waiter brings them their coffee.  You try not to look at them but the sight of those two draws you like a magnet.

 

All too soon they are done and leaving.  You feign indifference again and try to scribble something in your notebook when you see the older man is standing next to you.  He bends down and whispers into your ear, “You may want to try these?”  He straightens out, winks at you, puts his shades on and walks away and you see that he has left the box of Black Russians on your table.

 

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