The Kiss / I'm Sorry

Lisa slooshed the wine around in her glass, absentmindedly watching a thin film of Riesling slide down the gentle curves, chasing after the liquid's full center. The alcohol had not gone to her head yet and her belly was marvelously full.

"That was so delicious. How long did it take you to make?"

"I made the fish and the pasta tonight," Brandon said. "The sun-dried pesto, I mean the sun-dried tomato pesto, I must confess, I made last night." He took three measured sips from his wine glass, even as his right hand shook with nervous palsy.

"Ugh," Lisa said with mock disgust, pushing her plate away. "Thou darest serve me leftovers? No tip for the chef."

Brandon played along. "I do apologize. But I couldn't let the tomatoes get too dry, or they were going to become powder." He smiled out of one side of his mouth. "Besides, the arugula is fresh."

"How do I know that for sure?"

"I grew it right here in my apartment. I ordered the seeds special, from Sicily, and gave it only the finest fertilizer culled from the most robust guano of the most well-bred creatures in all the Animal Kingdom, and tended to the plants myself with gentle loving care." Brandon leaned into her for a nanosecond, then collected their plates and shuffled over to the kitchen sink.

"Okay, A, I can't believe that you just used the words 'robust guano' in reference to my meal."

Brandon hung his head sheepishly.

"And B, there's only one plant in your entire apartment, and it looks like it's been sun-dried." Lisa stood up, arms akimbo, her shoulders raising the most subtle of smiles. "Gentle loving care, my foot."

"Aw, no." Brandon filled a coffee mug with lukewarm water and rushed it over to his flower pot. "I told you, his name is Fernando. And I give him plenty of gentle loving care. It's just that he ... he just heard about Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston and he's taking it kind of hard."

Fernando soaked up his agua quickly, too quickly it seems, as the water rushed through the bone-dry soil and flooded his saucer.

"Well done," Lisa said with a smirk. "You must love that plant to death." She leaned over for her wineglass and felt one of those twinges in her neck. Ow, she mouthed silently.

Brandon fruitlessly dabbed at the tiny pools on his window ledge, using the apron now draped over his shoulder. (When worn, the apron spelled out "Hot Meat" with various cuts of beef. Lisa pretended to be unamused. "It was a gift," Brandon lied.) He now turned and saw the echo of a wince on her face.

"What's that?" he asked.

"What's what?"

"That grimace."

"I didn't grimace." Wine glass in hand, she folded her arms.

"I thought I saw a grimace." Brandon shrugged and walked back into the kitchen.

"Are you comparing me to that bloated purple hamburger mascot?" She spoke with exaggerated Jerry Springer-style attitude now, nearly bringing on another twinge. "Are you suggesting that I somehow resemble that large discolored turd?"

"Certainly not," Brandon replied quickly. "You are the opposite of Grimace. You are the anti-Grimace. You are a bright shiny smilely face. And your countenance is really more rosy than violet."

Lisa stuck her tongue out at him.

He sneered back, briefly. "And incidentally, is Grimace not the most repulsive food-related mascot in all of marketing history? Did someone actually think that it would be a good idea to sell fast food by showcasing a corpulent, corpse-colored shapeless blob? And then call him Grimace, for Pete's sake? Named after the face you make when you bite down on something gross?"

"Actually, I find the Hamburgler much more morally objectionable," Lisa said. "He virtually encourages children to lie, cheat and steal, and for what? Empty calories. And don't even get me started on Mayor McCheese. Goddamn Republicans."

Brandon laughed. He began self-consciously rinsing dishes, more of a controlled fidget than a commitment to cleanliness.

Suddenly, "Actually, Mayor McCheese is a bleeding-heart liberal," he said. "The happy meal is really a thinly veiled ripoff of FDR's New Deal."

"A happy meal. As if one could find true happiness in a meal."

Brandon stopped and looked at the pots, pans and dishes engulfing his kitchen.

"Yours was pretty good, though," She smiled. She stood and sipped the last drop of her wine as Brandon ran the faucet again.

He spoke loud over the rushing water. He was too embarassed to wear the apron, but he was trying hard not to let anything splash on his favorite sweater. "How was training today?"

"Fine." Lisa shifted her weight from foot to foot, and back again. "These guys came in from Langley to lead this session on weapons. Very, very cool shit."

"Langley? Like real spy guys?"

"Well, they help the real spy guys. I'm going to be a real spy guy. Even realer than them."

"So they're giving you weapons? You?"

She leaned back, against the table. "I could fuck your shit up, even without weapons. I could castrate you with a spatula."

"Why do you think I'm not letting you do the dishes?"

She stood up, arched her back and stretched her arms, raising them from four and eight o'clock to two and ten o' clock. "And then we got to practice with the weapons on the range. I guess my neck is still bothering me."

"Still? From last week?"

"Still."

Brandon turned off the water, halfway finished with the bowl in his hands. His own neck tightened up and sent a chill ache down to the small of his back.

He turned around. "Will it hurt if I kiss you?"

Lisa froze. "What?"

He turned around. "Your neck. If I kiss you, will it mess anything up. Will it cause you any –"

"Huh?"

"– discomfort?"

Half-coy, half-scared, Lisa wrapped her arms across her stomach and turned her right shoulder toward Brandon, who was inching closer. "What kind of kiss?"

Brandon, without breaking stride, cursorily brushed his hands with a damp dish towel. "The kind where I walk up to you, fast enough to appear confident but softly enough that you don't run away."

Lisa's stance opened slowly.

"And then I look into your eyes --"

Her pupils dilated, black pools drowning the chocolatey brown.

"-- and put my left hand on your hip --"

His hands, still moist and cold, tingled on the patch of skin between Lisa's sweater and her jeans. Her body tensed, from her heels to her shoulders.

"-- and bring my right hand to your cheek --"

Brandon cradled her jaw with his hand, brushing a stray hair with his thumb and gently dancing over the nape of her neck with his fingertips. Lisa pursed her lips for a moment, then exhaled.

"-- and kiss you. Would that ... mess things up?"

Lisa shook her head, by fractions of a degree.

Brandon moved forward, moments away from her lips.

"Let me know if it hurts."

Their lips connected, soft, wish-like kisses at first, growing into a swirl of wine and spice. Brandon pulled Lisa's hips to his with his left hand, graced the back of her neck with his right, and felt her muscles melt like linguine. Their ears filled with the sounds of each other's reckless breathing, the scratchy rustle of clothing, the friction of kiss upon kiss.

It was over in a moment.

"You okay?" Brandon tucked Lisa's tousled hair behind her left ear.

Lisa nodded. "You okay?"

Brandon nodded. "I'm awesome."

Lisa wriggled free. "You're okay." She turned and walked to the foyer, slid into her clogs and grabbed her overcoat from the closet.

"You're leaving?" Brandon scampered over to the refrigerator and pulled out a plate of cake. "But I have dessert." She continued packing up, wrapping an extra-long scarf around her neck. He felt the floor of his stomach fall away.

Lisa waddled over to him. "It's already late, and I have an early session in the morning." Brandon's posture sunk an inch. "And I want that kiss to be the last thing I remember from tonight."

He moved in for another pass, but she pulled away. "The first one is free. You have to earn the rest. Call me tomorrow."

"And what if I don't?"

"You'd better hide your spatula."

Lisa shuffled out the door and pulled it tight behind her, with Brandon spying her in the peephole all the way down the hall.

He returned to the sink, turned on the hot water and let it run over his hands, as the shoosh of the water whispered him into a nighttime daydream of tomorrow.