Dinner

At the end of the night, just as the bar was due to close and the last waitress was clearing her tables, the door opened and a man walked in. Tall, dark, in a black overcoat and pointed boots, a hat, glasses, sideburns, glinting eyes.

'A table. A glass of red wine. A steak, rare with mustard in a seperate dish. Spinach. And a chocolate souffle.'

Two minutes and a lifetime of dirty looks later, the man sits at a table, eyeing the wine and listening to the sounds of the bar, of the chef (still in his outdoor shoes by the sounds of it) swearing as he warms the pans and the waitress tapping her foot.

There had just been one tonight. It wasn't as good as usual, and his notebook would be a frustrating read the next morning. 

The wine is decent; they know his preference for French and keep it, uncharacteristic for steak, thick and syrupy, overly fruity yet still with a faint smell of cork.

The smell of memories, and of a night well spent. 

The steak is good, the knife cutting through it easily and unlike the charatans that hack at their meat without care his cultery carasses it slowly, like a lover, like a a conoisseur, adoring the animal before gently removing one morsel and relishing the hot blood spilling over his tongue and the powerplay between the animal muscle and his grinning teeth.

She had been an accountant and she wore peculiar purple shoes. 

The spinach keeps him vital, keeps the new blood pumping and the mustard wakes him up, puts the spark back in his eyes. The hair on his chest, as parents might say to children fighting against vegetables. He knows the value of good nutrition. He is clinical in his habits and tastes and pursuits and he has studied, long and hard, at his crafts. He sips the wine, remembers the taste of the fruit and the scents of the night in his nose.

Someone had tried to stop him as he walked away, but he brushed them off as one might a fly. They were uncouthly drunk on beer, and would not remember a man in a black coat. 

The plate still bears the remnants of the animal's struggle with his unyielding hunger as the waitress clears his plate and, knowing, replaces it instantly with the souffle. Dark, decadent, pert, with the smallest dollop of very fresh creme fraiche. A spoon to one side. The scent of the bitterness of the chocolate rises. He inhales, his eyes roll back as the scent seduces him.

Her eyes had been big bottomless pools, and he had allowed himself one last look at them before he walked away. 

He contemplates the surface of the pudding for a long time, not wanting to disturb its fragile beauty but at the same time desperate to destroy it, like a child with a sandcastle might. To make his messy mark, to wreck it. But that is not his way. Gently, with only the slightest bit of force, his spoon sinks delicately through the surface, releasing the heat. He puts the spoon to his lips, inhales, takes a taste.

She hadn't worn perfume - this is good; the ones who wear scent or cologne are similarly uncouth, unhonest. She smelled of printer ink and coffee granules and overheating wires and hope and roses. Always they smell of a flower. She smelled of roses. 

The bitterness floods his mouth, the pain of a taste that you do not expect brings a tear to his eye, and he swills the wine in the glass and takes a long drink, and a mouthful of souffle and soon it is gone before he knows what to do, he is spooning it down like a man who hasn't eaten in weeks.

The struggles, the resistance, the screams, the pain, the upset and the dislodging of clothes, the muddying of shoes, the knocking off of glasses. The disarray. The glorious, glorious disarray. The chaos. He is greedy, caring not for the waitress and her stares and the wine spilled. Drinking and eating in the memory of the evening. Making the scent of bitter chocolate, rich syrupy wine and roses cling to him.

The lights go off in the kitchen as the chef leaves, angrily abandoning the dishes for the potboy the next day. The waitress waits by the till, eyes the door.

The man regards the empty plate, the empty glass of wine with the splashes on the table, the mess he has made. Then slowly he returns every item to its place, lines up the plate with the spoon, the glass with the plate. He wipes his mouth, dabs at his face and catches his reflection momentarily in the spoon. He looks, takes off his glasses, polishes them.

His head snaps up. 'The bill, please.'