Thursday, September 18, 2014

You Can Score With Me...






Do you remember that night



The one where I spent hours discovering you



My eyes never leaving you



The tips of my fingers softly brushing against every inch of you



Each raised bit of worn flesh



Each bent hair looking to be shepherded or smoothed, reminded where it fit



Hours, weeks, months and years worth of time spread across your frame






The delight in finding deeply satisfying perfection on the ridges of your perceived imperfections



The sides of my tight jaw loosening with the lubricant that is your particular aromatic…



That blast of a memory that starts at the back of my throat and trickles slowly down the length of me



And back……



Do you remember?



I do….



I remember You






Will everyone get you?



Understand or appreciate your you-ness



Nope



They won’t



They won’t all see those sexy crinkled bits of truth and time as a spread open novel



They might give you a quick glance and deem your matchless shape, look, smell or feel difficult



Lacking in the possibility of giving pleasure…






If only they knew



I remember….



Simple doesn’t take or require as much…



Doesn’t give as much either



I welcome the less polished



The less finished….



The story to be read through my skin



My mouth



Our story



Felt and not calculated



You can’t score with me but I promise you, your tender and soft fingers on my heart, spreading my lips apart and holding my jaw still and quiet as you pour your, everything into me…






I will remember  

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

It's Not The Lie, It's The Letting Go Of Believing

Trust is earned
And can quickly be destroyed.

“But, but he promised” Jeremy when he was about eight years old, in tears and completely heartbroken. A close friend of his had promised him something or other and reneged or backed out leaving my sweet son in utter disbelief and dismay. I remember scooping him up on my lap, resting his head upon my chest so he could feel as well as hear the words that I knew I needed to share with him, “Trust and promises, they don’t mean as much to some people as they do to you and I baby” a life lesson I knew he would someday discover but had hoped would be further out and maybe just a little less crushing. I had no idea what I was doing when I was raising my son in the beginning, but there were a couple of things I wanted to instill very early on, trust and knowing that if I promised him something he could have complete faith that it was true, that was on the very top of my list. And so it went for us, his fears soothed at times when I could promise him that everything was going to be okay, and as he grew older him returning that trust by being honest with me about what he was up to….with a few teenage hiccups of course but all in all, we’ve earned each other’s trust and protected that fiercely, even when, at times, those truths were hard to hear. On that foundation we’ve built the strongest love I’ve ever known. My heart is forever his and suspect his is mine as well. An extremely powerful thing that trust....and something of an intoxicating and haunting elixir. One I believe in so much that it is at the core of who I am, as a woman, a mother, a person, a lover, a partner and a retailer. 



Never given it freely myself that trust thing, been on the other side of true evil one too many times for me to just give that up right away. I protect myself, my sanity and heart, maybe too much at times, but I just can’t hand my trust over to anyone with a sweet smile, charm or slick tongue. I’ve got a big dumb heart and it is yours once earned but fuck me over, lie to me and make me feel foolish for believing in you, well that dumb heart will brokenly wise up, sometimes quickly and at others so painfully slow that there could never be a full recovery. I can suffer fools, clowns, moody and emotional people, have loved many of all of those in fact but I will not suffer people that lie or don’t trust me enough with the truth. Just can’t do it. Life is way too short to spend it trying to sift through half-truths, flat out bullshit and that double-speak that tries to spin things and make you feel like the asshole for questioning. If I love and trust you, give me everything, even the things you fear I won’t like, chances are, if I do really care for you, that I’m going to be on your side. Will feel safe enough with you to know that there was a reason or story behind, whatever, and accept and love you anyway. Doesn’t seem that hard to me, in fact it seems way, way the fuck easier than all that other nonsense, double-speak, covering of half truths and flat-out bullshit. So it turns out, this staunch belief in just being honest, works out really well in my chosen profession.
“You’ve never steered me wrong” I am lucky enough to hear that at least once a week, most weeks more than that and there is something so powerful and affirming about that. Just as there was when a very regular and loyal customer let me know that something I sold her was not at all to her liking, “I hated that” she told me and I nearly hugged her for it. Sure we all love the accolades but the, “Yuck that was awful” is just as important to hear. For a wine merchant to properly pick out wines for you, for you and your palate, we need to hear the truth and the whole truth. If we whiff on a recommendation, let us know, we won’t get our feelings hurt or think you’re wrong, how can you be wrong about your own palate?! We need to know in fact, to ensure that we don’t make those mistakes when picking wines for you again. A good wine shop has only your interest at heart, we have to otherwise why would you come back?! This is always on my mind when tasting wines and dealing with suppliers as well….
“Oh come on, it’s not that bad and most people won’t even know. Look, you can make some quick money and once it’s gone it’s gone” a supplier in my ear trying to talk me into bringing in a wine that was butt-suckingly dreadful but on deal and super cheap. Look, we are all looking for ways to bring in a blast of quick cash, especially right now but for me, can’t taste a wine like that, even knowing that I can sell it for fifteen dollars and double my money, without asking myself, “At what expense?” Sure I could buy this well-known wine that’s being sold at a quarter of its regular price, because it is tasting tired, stack it and make a pile of quick cash….but what happens when someone asks me about it? I’m going to tell them that it tastes like ass and they shouldn’t buy it, which in turn will have that customer asking themselves why it’s there in the first place, thus beginning the dissolution but, well I have to be honest if I want to have my customers trust me right? 
That pile of untouched “Money making” wine would still be there, dusty and getting more tired by the week, by the month, because I simply cannot fuck with the trust our customers have bestowed upon us…..I’ll leave that to Total Wine and their direct import, private label plonk and BevMo's Whatever No Cents Sale. Unlike those mega corporations we don’t have buckets of cash  to lose building our business. We only have word of mouth and our reputation….not about to screw with that for a few bucks. 
 Not ever.
   

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Strange Magic






I smelled you yesterday.

Just for a brief second but it was you….



I’d been rushing about the shop, stacks of new value Bordeaux sliced open, the “tick-a-tack-a-tick-a-tack” of my price gun spitting tiny rectangular stickers upon the shiny new bottles. Running up to the front to answer the phone, answer a, “what would you pair with this?” question and scan purchases into the point of sale system before bending over to retrieve paper bags, plunking paper swathed bottles into them and bidding adieu to one customer just as another walks in. Lather, rinse and repeat all day. I was beat but in that good way, the way that pounds against your bones and sanity and remind you that each day is full of tasks as meaningful or less as you make them. Not solving the big problems, but handling enough of those little ones to make me feel as if I were doing something. 






My body tired and slippery with that sheen…you know the one, that one that causes your clothes to hang just a little longer on your skin. That one that coaxes those tiny hairs to lie flat and moist at the base of your neck. Between the recent construction at the shop, the warm weather and my incessant need to keep moving, physically to keep at bay the gnawing of the deep thoughts and, as it seems of late, enervating emotional fuckdom, my body was in need of a quick break and a splash of cold water. I headed back to the kitchen to refill my water bottle, my fingers tugging at and prying open the cap, hips in full stride and head slowly leaning back as my lips parted to take in the very last trickle of cold liquid my well worked bottle had to give. In classic Samantha form I swung a bit too much this way, or that, and found those last cherished drops of cold water gliding down my chin and landing in tiny beads across the front of my sticking to me shirt. 






“Oh goddamn it” I grumbled as I took a swipe at my dripping chin and tugged at the collar of my shirt, gathering it in a wad and pulling it across the puddle on my mug. It was there. There that I could smell you. I stood there like an idiot, shirt pulled so far up the skin above the waistband on my jeans was exposed, fistful of black uniform shirt pulled across my face like The Elephant Man seeking cover, my heart beginning to thump so hard I could feel it behind my earlobes. A tiny shiver shot down my spine as my nostrils expanded to take more of you, of us, in…..holding on to us as long as I could before having to exhale and dive back for more.



My oily and sweaty skin, the particles of shaved wood, fabric softener, the flinty and mineral whispers from inside my water bottle, sweet gamey sweat and the very familiar aroma of my own saliva, the way I’d smelled it over and over again as I ran my lips and tongue about you. In the middle of a construction zone, shirt hiked up, saliva scented water receding down my chin and landing like drops of, of fucking want, along my bare tummy as my heart set the pace for my breathing and my mouth begin to water. The sensual making me forget and remember.





It was you…



Wonder

Want

Obsession

Fascination

Undefinable

Fleeting

Twisting

Staining

Haunting….





It was you



Meet me again…

Please

I promise an open mind, wide heart and spread open palate that is

Yours and yours, in this way, yours only





Come inside

Live in me

Feed me

Feel me

Teach me...


Use me to feed, feel and teach them…

I’m willing, wanting, craving and





Slippery with ready.

Friday night.....can't come soon enough