Ten Seductions - 2. The Thirsty Woman (Flavia Antonescu)
Oh well. I said I was writing this fast, and it seems I am. Here is a second seduction, rather different in tone than the first one. It is difficult to write about Charlie without creating characters around him. Thanks again to
queenb23more for her beta reading. All remaining mistakes are mine. Afinata and horinca are liquors served in Romania.
Title: The Thirsty Woman
Rating: R, for sensual themes
Characters: Charlie, OCs
Word count: 3,062
Summary: The third week, six young men dressed in white tees streaked with black, thick grey trousers, and heavy boots came in and sat themselves in the corner, and her uncle grabbed on her apron to pull her in the kitchen.
‘Do you hear me, Flavia?’ roared her uncle, his moustache trembling. ‘No flirting!’
2. The Thirsty Woman (Flavia Antonescu)
: : :
Flavia Antonescu would have preferred to tend to her father’s cows instead of helping out in his uncle’s crama, a little wine bar where he served food and musicians entertained the crowd. She would have been surrounded by peaceful green fields. She would have had nothing to do but to flop to the ground with a book while keeping an eye on the herd.
But her uncle Darius insisted, and her father insisted, and she was at loss for arguments, so there she was instead, manoeuvring platters of beer jugs, food, hard liquor, and wine cups between worn wood tables filled to capacity with mixed tables and loud customers. She barely had time to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand before boisterous men waved at her, and she was trotting her way to take their orders.
It was not that bad. She despised, however, that her uncle refused to allow that she use magic while tending to customers, just to get her walking to the tables and chatting with them. She resented his reasoning about how a fresh-faced, slender girl with a long plait of rich brown hair made men drink more.
The first week, she learned the names of the regulars and made it clear to old Cristu that being his uncle’s oldest customer did not give him the right to pat her bum when she passed by. The crowd kept silent when the old man raised his hands to feel his ears she’d just turned into purple and leafy cabbages. When he finally dismissed her uncle’s furious hissing with a wave, he kissed her hand reverently and declared that he loved his ladies with a strong character. Flavia decided she liked this crowd after all, especially after they rose in block to toast her and tips were accumulating faster that she could count them.
Uncle Darius was a business opportunist. The next day, she was the talk of the village, and Thursdays at the crama from then on were known as ‘Flavia’s Stuffed Cabbage Night’.
: : :
The third week, six young men dressed in white tees streaked with black, thick grey trousers, and heavy boots came in and sat themselves in the corner, and her uncle grabbed on her apron to pull her in the kitchen.
She raised her eyebrows as he pointed his finger alternatively between the men and her. ‘You don’t flirt with the ones who work with dragons. You understand me? Those damn dragon boys…they bed my good waitresses, and then the girls leave because they can’t look them in the eye when they don’t want anything more to do with them.’
She gazed at them through the slit of the door as she nodded to her uncle. They were young, around her age. They were energetic and carefree, with the healthy complexion of those who spend their days outdoors. They spoke in a hubbub of languages, and she smiled when they laughed aloud as they seemed to be mocking one of them who had angry hair, furiously red.
‘Do you hear me, Flavia?’ roared her uncle, his moustache trembling. ‘No flirting!’
‘Da!’ she answered briskly, grabbing for a platter. She patted his arm. ‘If I can change old Cristu’s ears into cabbages, I can change other things into cucumbers.’
Her uncle scoffed as she impatiently clicked her tongue with an eye roll. He pulled her to him, smacking a kiss on her cheek. ‘Sweet Flavia. You do just that if they come closer or I will.’
She busted out from the kitchen, walking straight to the table with a close-lipped smile, wondering how Uncle Darius would interpret the slight spring in her step and the swaying of her hips.
‘Buna ziua,’ she welcomed them in a chirp.
One of them, a heavily muscled black-haired young man with long lashes, studied her face with attention. ‘Flavia?’
She nodded, surprised. He handed her a thick hand, and hers got lost in it. He told her he was an old friend of his cousin Alexandru, and she exclaimed herself as she remembered him indeed, the youngest son from the Vasilescu family in the village of Alba Iulia, the gifted one who had made a horse dance without magic.
They all laughed but the red-haired young man, who grinned while staring at his companions. He seemed more subdued than the others, perhaps because he discreetly bit his lips as he tried to follow the conversation. Dimitri pointed to every one at the table. ‘Now that I know you work here, we’ll be coming often! Here’s Martin, Francesco, Lucas, Markov - a nut, if you ask me - and that’s Charlie…he’s arrived two weeks ago. He’s a Brit, doesn’t speak much Romanian, but he’s learning.’
She took their order, her thin quill scratching on a diminutive notebook. Dimitri spoke to the young red-haired keeper in English. The young man had a broad face, freckled, with kind brown eyes. He smacked his lips with nervousness as he stared at her. ‘Sunteti scumpa?’ the young man asked tentatively.
The others roared, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other as the fire of blush crept to her neck and cheeks. The young man’s smile fizzled as Markov spoke in rapid English between two gales of laughter, probably explaining that he just asked her if she was sweet instead of asking what were the sweets on the menu.
‘Dulce,’ Markov said with a wink in her direction.
‘Er - dulce meniu,’ Charlie added hastily, blotches of red on his neck and cheeks as he brandished the faded menu, and his colleagues raucously laughed again.
‘Pajitura cu marmelada,’ she suggested, incapable of resisting a giggle as she looked to the table to avoid facing his palpable embarrassment. ‘Pajitura cu visini.’
‘Ah, marmalade!’ He sat back on his chair, and she laughed frankly as he looked happy as a child to have caught a known word. She joined with the others as they applauded him when he twisted his tongue around the unfamiliar syllables with endearing effort. ‘Marmelada. Pajitura cu marmelada.’
She came into the kitchen chuckling, but she sobered up when Uncle Darius eyed her with a frown.
: : :
Dimitri held to his word. The dragon keepers - she was surprised to realize that muscular female colleagues joined them often, loud and rough women with burns on their arms and hands and dirt under their fingernails - sat every Friday evening in the corner, eating outstanding amounts of food and chatting for hours while they drank Uncle Darius’ excellent brown beer, sometimes leading the crama to shake as they bounced around when the musicians played an upbeat tune.
If at first Uncle Darius was wary of them waving for her as soon as they got a seat, he became much more hospitable when he realized that these young people were tipping her more than generously, as well as they seemed to attract more young wizards who drank and ate well until the wee hours.
The busy summer led into busier autumn and winter for Flavia, and she longed every week for Fridays, when the dragon people would be around and youth would take control of the crama. She did not feel like missing out on anything when she was allowed to laugh, to sing along, to joke with the customers, and to feel her age by trading quips with the ones who teased her.
Uncle Darius had not said anything even if she flirted occasionally with some of the dragon keepers. He had resigned himself in thinking that it was good for business to have such a lovely girl as his niece, but he made sure she had busy hours, making any romantic arrangements impossible.
She would be serving wine and occasional free shots of horinca to all of them. Sometimes, this funny fellow Charlie insisted upon taking the platter from her hands so he could serve her tables and another dragon boy led her to the dance floor for a few steps, before she cut it short, flushed and laughing as she recuperated her platter from the hands of the teasing young man.
‘My pleasure,’ Charlie would say in Romanian when she thanked him with a shy smile. He was becoming like his colleagues: stronger, assured, more solid as the weeks went by. Flavia enjoyed his friendly manners and his way of laughing. He was one of her favourite customers, and he wanted so much to communicate in Romanian while he ordered even if she’d caught up on a couple of English words.
She’d giggled, flustered, when she had a whiff of his smell whenever he moved past her, never failing to touch her slightly - her elbow, her lower back, the curve of her waist.
Charlie smelled like fire and beer.
‘His accent is getting better,’ she affirmed to her uncle who gauged the dragon boy with suspicious eyes.
: : :
No dragon keeper asked her out, even after five years of coming to the crama every Friday, and she resented it in silence, holding her disappointment in and not allowing it to show as she served them liquor.
Dimitri lazily slid a tip on the table as his other hand was busy under some girl’s shirt. Uncle Darius did not allow it when he was there, but on nights he left the crama to her care, she did not feel entitled to interrupt. She’d watched Charlie with fascination from the bar one or two times; how his slow, unnerving mouth operated its seduction until he grabbed his cloak and led the girl out in the night. She found it hard to move back to the tables and to do her job.
One night when she’d decided to show the exit to some over effusive couples, a platter flew from her hands and crashed against the panelled wall between the kitchen and the washrooms, and she swore loudly as she wiped her hands on her skirt, staring at the shards of glass with excessive sadness.
There was a cut on her thumb, deep and dark red. She was crying before she knew it.
‘Flavia!’ Charlie had come out from the washroom, and he eyed the mess with his mouth gaping. ‘Are you all right?’
He grabbed her wrist to check on her thumb. The tip of his wand touched her skin and the blood stopped flowing.
He was slightly inebriated; she had been serving him a few beers that night, and she barely blinked when he tilted her head backward and wiped her tears with his thumbs.
She let him kiss her with a hand cupping her chin. The wood panel was hard and rigid against her bum, her plait was painfully stuck between her back and the wall. His body pushed against her, but his mouth was the softest thing she had ever had against her lips.
She hesitated at first, but she finally answered back. His hand moved up from her waist. He was merely taller than her, and he pressed against her harder, prompting her to whimper and to grab onto him reflexively.
He whispered something in English, and she faced him with incomprehension.
‘Ai par frumos,’ he whispered, ‘you have beautiful hair.’
He twisted the end of her plait between his fingers, and she smiled.
: : :
It was hard to hide from Uncle Darius, but she went to great lengths to keep the men’s washroom impeccable. She would escape from the boisterous room where musicians played number after number, and Charlie would be crouching there, his back against the wall, his arms crossed and his face already flushed from arousal.
The wood panelling was cold against her back, but she did not mind; everything else was warm and flowing.
She writhed and whimpered against him when he breathed quickly in her ear; she yelped from joy when they found a pace that went to her head like afinata, and he climaxed in a cry while the restaurant shook to its foundation from dancers jumping to the music.
: : :
It did not work. It could not work. She was stuck in the crama day and night, and one Friday she whispered to him as she placed a dish in front of him that they could not do this anymore, not here, not going at it against the wall or the sink every night he was there.
She had repeated his possible answers so many times in her mind. He would whisper that she could come to his place. He would plead with her to continue seeing her. He would say she was mad. He would leave the restaurant without another look back.
But Charlie stared at her with his kind brown eyes, and he nodded thoughtfully.
She turned away, holding up her head up high.
: : :
He did not visit the crama as often, never alone, only with other dragon keepers.
She saw him months later, one night she was walking back home from a tiring night. He was draped around a woman she’d seen him with, a colleague. He was walking like a man on the road to love.
She was surprised to feel this free.
: : :
Charlie came back on Stuffed Cabbage night two months after the news had been roaming all over Europe that Harry Potter had triumphed again, and she almost dropped her platter as she threw herself in front of him. ‘Charlie!’
He hugged her, and she closed her eyes. Perhaps his bearded cheeks made him feel chunkier. He looked out of shape and soft. There was also something lingering in his eyes, something hard and brittle as glass.
Uncle Darius poured him ale. Rumours had been circulating, whispering that some dragon keepers had been rather close to the action. ‘Harry Potter? Did he-’
‘He did,’ Charlie said with a tired voice. ‘He defeated Voldemort. I was there.’
The few customers that were sitting near Flavia hung to his words as he recounted what he had seen in quick, hoarse Romanian. She wiped her eyes when he described the bodies resting on tables. She swallowed a sob when he admitted he lost a brother, friends, and a colleague to the battle, and Uncle Darius kissed him three times on the cheeks to hide his own tears.
She prepared sarmale for him as he quietly chatted about politics with the other customers.
When Uncle Darius decided to leave her close the crama, Flavia uncorked a bottle of afinata, and its distinctive berry smell filled the space between them. He sighed when he stopped her hand, and he brought her fingers to his lips, kissing them softly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered.
She opened her mouth to protest. There was nothing to be sorry about. The affair was long done, and she had a pretty ring on her finger that made it a mere memory. She had found a smart man with kind eyes and a fierce will to take care of her.
Charlie grazed her ring with the flesh of his thumb, and he inhaled like the world has just started to turn again.
He got to his feet. ‘I’m very sorry, Flavia. Buna seara.’
She stared at the door until her husband arrived, and she pulled him into the washroom after locking the front door. She asked him to be strong, to be hard, and she made herself loud as she felt like as they banged against the wall, covered in sweat.
: : :
Charlie stopped altogether coming to the crama.
Flavia was angry at first. She had served Charlie food and drinks for years…years of surprising intimacy where she felt that it had become more than just a relationship based on service and tips, more even than the hidden rapports they'd had. She felt he owed her every day he ate or drank elsewhere.
She wiped the counters and polished the glasses every afternoon, her gaze mechanically attracted to the door, somewhat hoping for him to appear on the threshold. She wondered if he had left Romania, but Dimitri Vasilescu, newly married and eating out with his wife, informed her that Charlie was still working on the reserve - more than ever - since he had actively pursued a promotion and his bosses had been more than happy to oblige by giving it to him.
On a sunny Thursday morning, Flavia took a leisurely walk to the market. Her heart skipped a beat when she heard Charlie laughing.
She saw him through the dirty window of old Irina’s shop, his voice carefree and warm as it was when he started to visit the crama. Flavia entered the shop, and she watched old Irina encourage him to taste acacia honey on a wooden stick she was handing him.
She tapped his shoulder. ‘So…shopping for your woman, are you?’ she joked, her heart in her throat.
He jolted before turning to her. The beard was long gone. He was thinner than the last time he had dropped by the crama. His face showed no surprise when he shook his head, handing out money to old Irina. ‘Hello, Flavia. I figured that if I made my life in Romania, I’d better learned to cook,’ he said lightly, tucking the glass jar in his bag.
He had carefully avoided answering the question, and she pondered on what it meant. ‘You’re always welcome,’ she said, eyeing the fresh vegetables bursting from his bag. ‘You may cook but you haven’t stopped drinking afinata, have you?’
He scoffed good-humouredly and looked at her boots. ‘No, of course not.’
She stared at him with insistence, for so long that he had to look her in the eye. Her throat tightened as he smiled briefly and opened his face to her. Little lines scarred the corners of his lips and around his eyes. His mouth curled up in the charming smile she remembered.
That first night he’d kissed her in the corridor, she had understood how devious his mouth was, and she wondered if he knew how he gave himself away to women, if he knew who he was truly fooling.
‘I will come by, Flavia. I will,’ he said. He touched her hand before he left the shop, and his hair blazed alight in the sun.
But he never did.
: : :
queenb23more for her beta reading. All remaining mistakes are mine. Afinata and horinca are liquors served in Romania.
Title: The Thirsty Woman
Rating: R, for sensual themes
Characters: Charlie, OCs
Word count: 3,062
Summary: The third week, six young men dressed in white tees streaked with black, thick grey trousers, and heavy boots came in and sat themselves in the corner, and her uncle grabbed on her apron to pull her in the kitchen.
‘Do you hear me, Flavia?’ roared her uncle, his moustache trembling. ‘No flirting!’
2. The Thirsty Woman (Flavia Antonescu)
: : :
Flavia Antonescu would have preferred to tend to her father’s cows instead of helping out in his uncle’s crama, a little wine bar where he served food and musicians entertained the crowd. She would have been surrounded by peaceful green fields. She would have had nothing to do but to flop to the ground with a book while keeping an eye on the herd.
But her uncle Darius insisted, and her father insisted, and she was at loss for arguments, so there she was instead, manoeuvring platters of beer jugs, food, hard liquor, and wine cups between worn wood tables filled to capacity with mixed tables and loud customers. She barely had time to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand before boisterous men waved at her, and she was trotting her way to take their orders.
It was not that bad. She despised, however, that her uncle refused to allow that she use magic while tending to customers, just to get her walking to the tables and chatting with them. She resented his reasoning about how a fresh-faced, slender girl with a long plait of rich brown hair made men drink more.
The first week, she learned the names of the regulars and made it clear to old Cristu that being his uncle’s oldest customer did not give him the right to pat her bum when she passed by. The crowd kept silent when the old man raised his hands to feel his ears she’d just turned into purple and leafy cabbages. When he finally dismissed her uncle’s furious hissing with a wave, he kissed her hand reverently and declared that he loved his ladies with a strong character. Flavia decided she liked this crowd after all, especially after they rose in block to toast her and tips were accumulating faster that she could count them.
Uncle Darius was a business opportunist. The next day, she was the talk of the village, and Thursdays at the crama from then on were known as ‘Flavia’s Stuffed Cabbage Night’.
: : :
The third week, six young men dressed in white tees streaked with black, thick grey trousers, and heavy boots came in and sat themselves in the corner, and her uncle grabbed on her apron to pull her in the kitchen.
She raised her eyebrows as he pointed his finger alternatively between the men and her. ‘You don’t flirt with the ones who work with dragons. You understand me? Those damn dragon boys…they bed my good waitresses, and then the girls leave because they can’t look them in the eye when they don’t want anything more to do with them.’
She gazed at them through the slit of the door as she nodded to her uncle. They were young, around her age. They were energetic and carefree, with the healthy complexion of those who spend their days outdoors. They spoke in a hubbub of languages, and she smiled when they laughed aloud as they seemed to be mocking one of them who had angry hair, furiously red.
‘Do you hear me, Flavia?’ roared her uncle, his moustache trembling. ‘No flirting!’
‘Da!’ she answered briskly, grabbing for a platter. She patted his arm. ‘If I can change old Cristu’s ears into cabbages, I can change other things into cucumbers.’
Her uncle scoffed as she impatiently clicked her tongue with an eye roll. He pulled her to him, smacking a kiss on her cheek. ‘Sweet Flavia. You do just that if they come closer or I will.’
She busted out from the kitchen, walking straight to the table with a close-lipped smile, wondering how Uncle Darius would interpret the slight spring in her step and the swaying of her hips.
‘Buna ziua,’ she welcomed them in a chirp.
One of them, a heavily muscled black-haired young man with long lashes, studied her face with attention. ‘Flavia?’
She nodded, surprised. He handed her a thick hand, and hers got lost in it. He told her he was an old friend of his cousin Alexandru, and she exclaimed herself as she remembered him indeed, the youngest son from the Vasilescu family in the village of Alba Iulia, the gifted one who had made a horse dance without magic.
They all laughed but the red-haired young man, who grinned while staring at his companions. He seemed more subdued than the others, perhaps because he discreetly bit his lips as he tried to follow the conversation. Dimitri pointed to every one at the table. ‘Now that I know you work here, we’ll be coming often! Here’s Martin, Francesco, Lucas, Markov - a nut, if you ask me - and that’s Charlie…he’s arrived two weeks ago. He’s a Brit, doesn’t speak much Romanian, but he’s learning.’
She took their order, her thin quill scratching on a diminutive notebook. Dimitri spoke to the young red-haired keeper in English. The young man had a broad face, freckled, with kind brown eyes. He smacked his lips with nervousness as he stared at her. ‘Sunteti scumpa?’ the young man asked tentatively.
The others roared, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other as the fire of blush crept to her neck and cheeks. The young man’s smile fizzled as Markov spoke in rapid English between two gales of laughter, probably explaining that he just asked her if she was sweet instead of asking what were the sweets on the menu.
‘Dulce,’ Markov said with a wink in her direction.
‘Er - dulce meniu,’ Charlie added hastily, blotches of red on his neck and cheeks as he brandished the faded menu, and his colleagues raucously laughed again.
‘Pajitura cu marmelada,’ she suggested, incapable of resisting a giggle as she looked to the table to avoid facing his palpable embarrassment. ‘Pajitura cu visini.’
‘Ah, marmalade!’ He sat back on his chair, and she laughed frankly as he looked happy as a child to have caught a known word. She joined with the others as they applauded him when he twisted his tongue around the unfamiliar syllables with endearing effort. ‘Marmelada. Pajitura cu marmelada.’
She came into the kitchen chuckling, but she sobered up when Uncle Darius eyed her with a frown.
: : :
Dimitri held to his word. The dragon keepers - she was surprised to realize that muscular female colleagues joined them often, loud and rough women with burns on their arms and hands and dirt under their fingernails - sat every Friday evening in the corner, eating outstanding amounts of food and chatting for hours while they drank Uncle Darius’ excellent brown beer, sometimes leading the crama to shake as they bounced around when the musicians played an upbeat tune.
If at first Uncle Darius was wary of them waving for her as soon as they got a seat, he became much more hospitable when he realized that these young people were tipping her more than generously, as well as they seemed to attract more young wizards who drank and ate well until the wee hours.
The busy summer led into busier autumn and winter for Flavia, and she longed every week for Fridays, when the dragon people would be around and youth would take control of the crama. She did not feel like missing out on anything when she was allowed to laugh, to sing along, to joke with the customers, and to feel her age by trading quips with the ones who teased her.
Uncle Darius had not said anything even if she flirted occasionally with some of the dragon keepers. He had resigned himself in thinking that it was good for business to have such a lovely girl as his niece, but he made sure she had busy hours, making any romantic arrangements impossible.
She would be serving wine and occasional free shots of horinca to all of them. Sometimes, this funny fellow Charlie insisted upon taking the platter from her hands so he could serve her tables and another dragon boy led her to the dance floor for a few steps, before she cut it short, flushed and laughing as she recuperated her platter from the hands of the teasing young man.
‘My pleasure,’ Charlie would say in Romanian when she thanked him with a shy smile. He was becoming like his colleagues: stronger, assured, more solid as the weeks went by. Flavia enjoyed his friendly manners and his way of laughing. He was one of her favourite customers, and he wanted so much to communicate in Romanian while he ordered even if she’d caught up on a couple of English words.
She’d giggled, flustered, when she had a whiff of his smell whenever he moved past her, never failing to touch her slightly - her elbow, her lower back, the curve of her waist.
Charlie smelled like fire and beer.
‘His accent is getting better,’ she affirmed to her uncle who gauged the dragon boy with suspicious eyes.
: : :
No dragon keeper asked her out, even after five years of coming to the crama every Friday, and she resented it in silence, holding her disappointment in and not allowing it to show as she served them liquor.
Dimitri lazily slid a tip on the table as his other hand was busy under some girl’s shirt. Uncle Darius did not allow it when he was there, but on nights he left the crama to her care, she did not feel entitled to interrupt. She’d watched Charlie with fascination from the bar one or two times; how his slow, unnerving mouth operated its seduction until he grabbed his cloak and led the girl out in the night. She found it hard to move back to the tables and to do her job.
One night when she’d decided to show the exit to some over effusive couples, a platter flew from her hands and crashed against the panelled wall between the kitchen and the washrooms, and she swore loudly as she wiped her hands on her skirt, staring at the shards of glass with excessive sadness.
There was a cut on her thumb, deep and dark red. She was crying before she knew it.
‘Flavia!’ Charlie had come out from the washroom, and he eyed the mess with his mouth gaping. ‘Are you all right?’
He grabbed her wrist to check on her thumb. The tip of his wand touched her skin and the blood stopped flowing.
He was slightly inebriated; she had been serving him a few beers that night, and she barely blinked when he tilted her head backward and wiped her tears with his thumbs.
She let him kiss her with a hand cupping her chin. The wood panel was hard and rigid against her bum, her plait was painfully stuck between her back and the wall. His body pushed against her, but his mouth was the softest thing she had ever had against her lips.
She hesitated at first, but she finally answered back. His hand moved up from her waist. He was merely taller than her, and he pressed against her harder, prompting her to whimper and to grab onto him reflexively.
He whispered something in English, and she faced him with incomprehension.
‘Ai par frumos,’ he whispered, ‘you have beautiful hair.’
He twisted the end of her plait between his fingers, and she smiled.
: : :
It was hard to hide from Uncle Darius, but she went to great lengths to keep the men’s washroom impeccable. She would escape from the boisterous room where musicians played number after number, and Charlie would be crouching there, his back against the wall, his arms crossed and his face already flushed from arousal.
The wood panelling was cold against her back, but she did not mind; everything else was warm and flowing.
She writhed and whimpered against him when he breathed quickly in her ear; she yelped from joy when they found a pace that went to her head like afinata, and he climaxed in a cry while the restaurant shook to its foundation from dancers jumping to the music.
: : :
It did not work. It could not work. She was stuck in the crama day and night, and one Friday she whispered to him as she placed a dish in front of him that they could not do this anymore, not here, not going at it against the wall or the sink every night he was there.
She had repeated his possible answers so many times in her mind. He would whisper that she could come to his place. He would plead with her to continue seeing her. He would say she was mad. He would leave the restaurant without another look back.
But Charlie stared at her with his kind brown eyes, and he nodded thoughtfully.
She turned away, holding up her head up high.
: : :
He did not visit the crama as often, never alone, only with other dragon keepers.
She saw him months later, one night she was walking back home from a tiring night. He was draped around a woman she’d seen him with, a colleague. He was walking like a man on the road to love.
She was surprised to feel this free.
: : :
Charlie came back on Stuffed Cabbage night two months after the news had been roaming all over Europe that Harry Potter had triumphed again, and she almost dropped her platter as she threw herself in front of him. ‘Charlie!’
He hugged her, and she closed her eyes. Perhaps his bearded cheeks made him feel chunkier. He looked out of shape and soft. There was also something lingering in his eyes, something hard and brittle as glass.
Uncle Darius poured him ale. Rumours had been circulating, whispering that some dragon keepers had been rather close to the action. ‘Harry Potter? Did he-’
‘He did,’ Charlie said with a tired voice. ‘He defeated Voldemort. I was there.’
The few customers that were sitting near Flavia hung to his words as he recounted what he had seen in quick, hoarse Romanian. She wiped her eyes when he described the bodies resting on tables. She swallowed a sob when he admitted he lost a brother, friends, and a colleague to the battle, and Uncle Darius kissed him three times on the cheeks to hide his own tears.
She prepared sarmale for him as he quietly chatted about politics with the other customers.
When Uncle Darius decided to leave her close the crama, Flavia uncorked a bottle of afinata, and its distinctive berry smell filled the space between them. He sighed when he stopped her hand, and he brought her fingers to his lips, kissing them softly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered.
She opened her mouth to protest. There was nothing to be sorry about. The affair was long done, and she had a pretty ring on her finger that made it a mere memory. She had found a smart man with kind eyes and a fierce will to take care of her.
Charlie grazed her ring with the flesh of his thumb, and he inhaled like the world has just started to turn again.
He got to his feet. ‘I’m very sorry, Flavia. Buna seara.’
She stared at the door until her husband arrived, and she pulled him into the washroom after locking the front door. She asked him to be strong, to be hard, and she made herself loud as she felt like as they banged against the wall, covered in sweat.
: : :
Charlie stopped altogether coming to the crama.
Flavia was angry at first. She had served Charlie food and drinks for years…years of surprising intimacy where she felt that it had become more than just a relationship based on service and tips, more even than the hidden rapports they'd had. She felt he owed her every day he ate or drank elsewhere.
She wiped the counters and polished the glasses every afternoon, her gaze mechanically attracted to the door, somewhat hoping for him to appear on the threshold. She wondered if he had left Romania, but Dimitri Vasilescu, newly married and eating out with his wife, informed her that Charlie was still working on the reserve - more than ever - since he had actively pursued a promotion and his bosses had been more than happy to oblige by giving it to him.
On a sunny Thursday morning, Flavia took a leisurely walk to the market. Her heart skipped a beat when she heard Charlie laughing.
She saw him through the dirty window of old Irina’s shop, his voice carefree and warm as it was when he started to visit the crama. Flavia entered the shop, and she watched old Irina encourage him to taste acacia honey on a wooden stick she was handing him.
She tapped his shoulder. ‘So…shopping for your woman, are you?’ she joked, her heart in her throat.
He jolted before turning to her. The beard was long gone. He was thinner than the last time he had dropped by the crama. His face showed no surprise when he shook his head, handing out money to old Irina. ‘Hello, Flavia. I figured that if I made my life in Romania, I’d better learned to cook,’ he said lightly, tucking the glass jar in his bag.
He had carefully avoided answering the question, and she pondered on what it meant. ‘You’re always welcome,’ she said, eyeing the fresh vegetables bursting from his bag. ‘You may cook but you haven’t stopped drinking afinata, have you?’
He scoffed good-humouredly and looked at her boots. ‘No, of course not.’
She stared at him with insistence, for so long that he had to look her in the eye. Her throat tightened as he smiled briefly and opened his face to her. Little lines scarred the corners of his lips and around his eyes. His mouth curled up in the charming smile she remembered.
That first night he’d kissed her in the corridor, she had understood how devious his mouth was, and she wondered if he knew how he gave himself away to women, if he knew who he was truly fooling.
‘I will come by, Flavia. I will,’ he said. He touched her hand before he left the shop, and his hair blazed alight in the sun.
But he never did.
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