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New Year's Eve 2022 by Melanie E.
🕑 Added 2023-01-01 04:20:23 +0000 UTCEve looked her reflection in the eyes and smiled.
The dress was perfect. Just a little slinky, just a little flashy with its silken shimmer, but not so much as to scream 'look at me,' even if that was precisely what she wanted to shout.
"It will be enough," she reminded herself, just like she did every year. And just like every year, she marveled at the difference another year of preparations made to her appearance.
Mitchell's eyes were going to bug out of his head when he saw her, she already knew that. She could already see it in her mind's eye, that mixture of surprise, amusement, and hunger he wore each time they went out. It was enough to cause a pleasant thrill to wash through her, one that left two very obvious signs in the thin material covering her breasts.
Just a year before, those signs would have been hidden under a layer of padding. Just a year before, her neckline would have been high enough to make sure the falsies she wore wouldn't be visible, her tummy and hips held tightly with even more enhancers intended to give her a figure to die for.
This year was different. A year of a very different kind of enhancers, combined with carefully planned dieting and exercise, had made sure of that. She certainly wasn't as voluptuous as she had been some years in the past, but these curves had the virtue of being all hers for the first time ever.
All hers. That thought caused pleasure shivers of an entirely different kind to rush through her system.
How much longer...
She shook her head and took a deep breath. Any more questions, any stress, had to go. It was New Year's Eve, her birthday in a way, and that was a day for happiness.
As if to emphasize the point, she heard the ring of her doorbell. With one last smile for herself, she stepped into her black pumps and swayed her way to the door, halfway between a confident strut and a dance as Bill Evans' piano filled the small apartment around her, the light jazzy tones of "Blue in Green" providing just the right kind of smokey, lazy ambiance she loved.
She stepped with the music, slowing as it slowed, reminding herself not to seem too excited, too impatient, when she reached the door.
*Click*
As the door swung open, quiet as a teardrop, there he stood.
"Hi."
"Hi," she said back, in breathy tones that helped her stay in better control of her voice. The breathiness was only partly an affectation, as seeing Mitchell standing there, in his charcoal gray suit and midnight blue silk shirt, was enough to truly make her breath catch. No tie, and while his face sported a day or two of scruff, she could tell that his hair was freshly cut, the wildness that tended to overtake it on a day-to-day basis tamed for the evening.
"You clean up nice," she told him, in that same breathy voice, as he stepped into her apartment. She took a step back, not to keep space between them so much as so she could keep the entirety of him in her vision. "You cut your hair."
"Yeah, well. Had to put in some effort," he said, in the breezy, off-handed way he had, his own eyes tracing her from heel to crown. To her delight, she saw just what she wanted in them, his electric blues flashing with something powerful, barely kept in check behind the smiles crinkling in the corners. "You look...."
"Nice?"
"Stunning," he said, taking a long stride to close the distance between them. In one fluid movement, she felt his hands slide to her waist, holding her upright as he pressed himself close to her. Despite the speed of his approach, his hands were gentle, his grazing fingers at times barely perceptible through the material of her dress. She knew the power those hands could wield, she saw it almost every day working side by side with him, which only made the gentleness with which he now teased her that much more tantalizing.
Bill Evans faded away, to be replaced by Rob Van Bavel's rendition of "Always and Forever," piano and double bass ebbing and flowing, playing with one another like lovers. Without a word, she began to sway to the music, and like that, they were dancing, the first of what would hopefully be many dances that evening.
As they danced, she felt Mitchell's fingers continue to gently roam and probe, in search of something that, for the first year ever, she knew he would fail to find.
"It isn't there," she whispered, leaning into him ever so gently before leaning back again, giggling softly when his quirked eyebrow and crooked grin came into view.
"Oh?" He broke eye contact with her again just long enough to once more glance down at her dress, the shimmering black silk draping her curves enticingly. "Not even?"
"Nope," she said, leaning in and pressing her chest against his. In her heels, her cheek settled nicely onto his shoulder as she pulled him as close as she could.
"And?" He asked, for the first time his fingers losing their gentleness as she felt his hands take firm hold of her hips. She didn't need to see his eyes to know what she would see in them then: the intensity, the hunger.
She sighed. "That, unfortunately, hasn't changed," she said, holding her breath for a moment as she feared what that response might bring.
For a moment, she could feel him freeze as well before his hands once again softened, and he began to rock once more, pulling them back into the music.
She let out another audible sigh, and to her surprise, it was Mitchell's turn to chuckle.
"Did you expect me to push you away?"
"I didn't know," she admitted, the remnants of her tension continuing to relax as his fingers found their way to her back, gently probing muscles she never noticed had tightened.
"I would think you'd know me better than that by now," he said, only the barest note of offense in his tone.
"I hoped I did," she said, guiding them to a stand-still as she hugged him tightly, an embrace they held for several moments as the music once again faded away.
Mitchell's fingers pressed her stomach gently, and when Eve stepped back, the familiar amusement was on Mitchell's face again. "We should probably go if we're going to make our reservations," he said, smiling down at her.
"Reservations? When did Renaud's start taking reservations?"
"We're not going to Renaud's this year," Mitchell told her, his eyes crinkling even more in that way they always did when he was putting one over on someone.
"Then where--"
"Trust me."
"...Okay."
-==-
The second thing Eve noticed about the club was the darkness. Aged wooden paneling painted a rich ebony. Black leather seats on the booths and chairs. Black iron stools at the dark stained mahogany bar, themselves topped in matching wood, and lighting provided by what must have been century-old electric chandeliers and sconces on the walls, all glowing with a dim warmth that did less to brighten the room than to give the darkness texture and form.
It was an aesthetic that told you without you being there that the air would carry a heavy perfume of long-forgotten cigars and whiskey, the woods that made up almost every surface permeated with the essence of generations of patrons who had visited the club, at once both warm and welcoming, and mysterious and a little overwhelming.
It was still only the second thing she noticed, however.
The first, after they had been checked by the bouncer and as they had walked down the damp concrete stairs from the sidewalk above, one of her hands holding onto Mitchell while the other gripped the slightly shaky wrought iron rail, was the music. It drifted out the doors in a heady wave, much like she imagined smoke might have at a time in the not-too-distant past. It was jazz, of course, the only music such a club could host, a melody that sounded like a standard but felt like a bourbon on the rocks. The sound carried, but never overwhelmed, even as they passed through the entryway and into the club proper, the beautiful classic Bosendorfer on full display on the dais sitting in the corner of the room.
As dark as the rest of the club was, the dais was anything but, bathed in hot lights that bred droplets of sweat on the brow of the piano player as surely as the music they played did. In the shadows behind the piano stood an almost forgotten double-bass, silent for the moment as its player leaned against the piano and sipped at a glass of something amber that sparkled in the stage lights.
"It's perfect," Eve said, her breathlessness real as Mitchell led her to an out-of-the-way booth, the only kind the club seemed to have.
"Kevin told me about it a couple of months ago, and when he did, I knew this was where we needed to come this year."
"Kevin?" Eve asked, surprised.
Mitchell chuckled. "Don't read too much into it. He said he hadn't been back since his grandfather passed a few years ago. This was his favorite spot."
"That's a shame," Eve said, looking around the club. "I could live here." She smiled broadly across the small booth, and Mitchell smiled back.
"I thought you'd feel that way. The party at Renaud's is great, but I figured this year we could ring in the new year somewhere a bit more low-key. More...."
"More us?"
"Yeah."
The waiter came by and took their orders, the first of many they expected to make that night: a scotch for Mitchell, and a Long Island iced tea for Eve. The waiter asked for no ID, a small blessing that Eve was eternally grateful for, since hers hardly matched her appearance anymore, even when wearing far more drab attire.
Drinks. Dancing. Laughter.
And something more.
"...ree! Two! One! Happy New Year!"
There were no noisemakers in the club to ring in the changing of times. No boisterous, loudly-dressed partiers. No celebrity emcee to make tepid jokes. Instead, the piano player tossed off a jazzy arpeggio as the patrons congratulated one another with clinking glasses and companionable conversation.
In the middle of it all, on a sparsely populated dance floor, Eve looked up into Mitchell's eyes, those electric blues that she saw so often but rarely got to admire, free of the conservative grasp of their job.
Eyes that seemed to swallow her as he bent down, and their lips met.
-==-
NEW YEAR'S EVE'S PLAYLIST:
Bill Evans -- Blue in Green (Take 3) [Portrait In Jazz]
Rob van Bavel -- Always and Forever [Time For Ballads]
Charles Mingus -- Body and Soul [Mingus Plays Piano]
Wendy Marcini -- That Rainy Day [That Rainy Day]
Jim Brickman -- I've Got A Crush On You [Jim Brickman's American Songbook Collection]
Keith Jarrett Trio -- You've Changed [The Out-Of-Towners]
Comments
Guerilla Grue
I'll admit, I didn't exactly agonize over the playlist: it's songs that came up while I was writing the story that really struck me as "hey, that fits the vibe I'm wanting." The last couple years I've found myself spending more and more time listening to jazz rather than other genres. Honestly? It's been nice.
John Chu
Lovely story, Mel. Nice playlist. I would have added Evans’ take on “Love Theme From Spartacus.” But that might lead into a discussion of snails and oysters. Would dampen the mood. “My Foolish Heart” @ the Village Vanguard is more like it. The music of love.
