Pearls

Melting -

My friend's Valentine's Day party is dotted with chocolate of every kind and shape, including the handcuffs I'm nibbling on. Hearts abound - paper, ceramic, neon, lace, cinnamon, pewter, you name it. I'm taking it all in when a man asks me to find him the cherry in a large box of chocolates sitting on a sideboard.

I do. And he pops it into his mouth. “Mmmmm,” he says, smiling. He has beautiful eyes - silver, flickering with rubies from his reflected glass of wine. We spend the evening talking and kibitzing. He's witty and smart, and he makes me laugh more than I have since my breakup with whatisname.

Cuffs melting in my mouth, my heart melts at the sound of his voice, soft and bright all at once, like velvet and fire.

Ice

The man and I leave the party at the same time. I live five blocks north; he’s going my way. The sidewalks are so icy we have to cling to each other.

Slipping and sliding, then finding safe ground, it takes a little longer to get home than usual, but he walks me all the way. Standing beneath the streetlamp outside my place, he says he has to go away on business tomorrow, but that he’ll call when he returns.

We stand there transfixed by each other’s eyes. As he moves closer, his eyelashes cast shadows on his face. It's the last thing I see before his lips meet mine - notes of cherries and chocolate. Suddenly, the night isn't so cold anymore.

Chill

When he calls, I’m in the middle of a project with a pressing deadline. It is April before we go on our first date.

Hot

He takes me to a romantic restaurant in the heart of the city, a seafood place. I accessorize my aubergine sheath with black fishnet gloves and stockings. Like a fishermen’s net, my gloves soak up ocean (and lemon) as I pick oysters up in their half-shells. Yet, I seek only to capture this man’s heart, as I think I have found a pearl.

Sizzling

I put my nose into a hyacinth the waiter has placed on our table and inhale deeply. Entranced by the captivating fragrance, I lean back. He picks a few blossoms from the flower and places them in my décolleté. We hold each other's gaze again until a plateful of fiddleheads breaks the spell: steamed curly-cues, soaked in butter and spritzed with lime.

And then, it seems we order everything in and under the sea - more oysters, crab salad, grilled sardines. With flutes full of bubbly, we toast each other and our first date. "May there be many more."

Steamy

We head out into the night. Crossing the street to a park, we explore an old-fashioned bandstand. A Victorian lamp sends out a bewitching light that makes his eyes appear as green as fiddleheads - or the sea.

One of my stockings keeps inching its way down until I realize that I've put it on inside out, no rubber top to hold it in place. Much to his amusement, I perform a tipsy Laurel-and-Hardy-esque routine: off with my shoe, off with the stocking, turn it right side in while hopping on one foot, then put everything back on.

"Stan and Laurel never had such sexy schtick," he jokes.

Burnt

We walk along the busy Saturday-night street, crowded with summery fashionistas and jump jive boys. Plucking two slightly crushed hyacinth blossoms from my camisole, I whisper a wish to them: "May there be many more," then toss their purple petals to the breeze.

“Trust," he says, as we walk on, "gets eaten away." Turns out, he too is recovering from a recent disastrous relationship.

"Trust is always there,” I reply, “but experiences create a kind of fog between you and the trustworthy. And it gets foggier with each breach encountered.”

“And then you meet someone,” he says. “Someone like you, and the fog clears, bit by bit. I feel as if we are reinventing love."

"Love is a living thing and is invented moment to moment.”

We laugh at our serious philospophical mood, then decide that we must invent new words for love, a new language for who we are together.

We start with "hyacinthisized."

White Heat

I steer him into an alleyway. There’s a hush now, the hubbub far away, and memories of past dalliances long gone. Iron stairways, light falling in slats, scents of charred steak, chow mein, cappuccino - a whole smorgasbord of aromas from the backs of restaurants and cafes.

A red light glows through an iron grate. Trees push up, defying concrete, their leaves embellishing colourful grafitti. Two people, both shaking off the mirk of affairs gone wrong, stop by a sapling to kiss.

The fog lifts. And a couple of pearls roll down the midnight alley under an enchanted moon.