Honey
Maiko Luckow
The wine weighed heavy and cloying on her
tongue like too much honey. She didn’t know if it
was really the wine, or if maybe it was the cologne
he had slathered on so heavily she could taste it and
practically feel it like an oppressive curtain. But she
thought it was the wine.
Merlot. Red. Bitter with tannins. It tasted
cheaply of late nights out and sloppy, open-mouthed
kisses with drunken strangers in dimly-lit bars.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked.
She thought about it. Yes, she
wanted to say. A way out. A taxi. A
plane ticket to another country. She
would have settled for some good—no,
decent—no, barely useable—walking
shoes instead of the stupid stilet-
tos that he liked so much.
“No,” she said instead, her voice sweet and
dewy with wine. She took another deep drink of her
wine, thick and syrupy, and was surprised to find the
glass empty.
He noticed and poured her more. She
watched it fall out of the bottle and tumble into her
glass with fascination. Her last drink of it still burned
on her tongue. Cheap. Smokey. Rotting grapes in-
extricably coating the inside of her mouth. Maybe it
would make everything else taste better by compar-
ison.
“Are you okay?” he asked her. She wasn’t
sure why he’d bothered to ask; no, of course not, if
she was drinking his shitty bottom-shelf wine that
he bought on sale at the convenience store. The con-
venience store! Like he was completely incapable of
putting on trousers during the day to go to a real
liquor store. Or even to a grocery store. Two-Buck
Chuck would be better than this. Three-Buck Chuck,
now, she remembered.
“I love you,” she told him, like that answered
his question, like that made the wine taste lighter or
sweeter or cleaner. Or perhaps she had been hoping
that the wine would make the words taste cleaner
and sweeter, the taste of sparks and fresh, glittering
snow.
They both just weighed heavy and cloying
on her tongue, like too much honey.
“How was work today?” she asked, finally
kicking off her shoes and letting them collapse on
the ground in an unattractive heap.
He paused, took a swig from the dark beer
in his hand. It smelled sharp, would taste acrid if she
had any. She didn’t know how he drank that swill,
either.
“Good,” he said. He folded himself into the
oversized couch beside her. His cologne washed
over her like a blanket, now accentuated by the
crappy beer on his breath. When he kissed her, all
she tasted was beer. It tasted the way grass clippings
smelled. She was allergic to grass.
When he seemed content with the kiss, she
pulled away and took another drink of the heavy
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