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“What are you wearing?”
“That hardly seems appropriate. But considering I’m a few minutes away from the equator, I have chosen a charming ensemble of one of Monty’s spare Tommy Bahamas and khakis.”
“Ooh, tantalizing .”
The herpetologist’s assistant couldn’t help but chuckle into the receiver of the phone he had cradled carefully into the crook of his shoulder. He didn’t have much of an inkling of what time it was in the city, but it was still the early afternoon, leaving the mounted phone at the bar free for him to hog for his personal conversations back home.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on the clock right now, Miss Scieszka? It feels awfully unprofessional for you to be making personal calls right now.” Gustav replied, unable to resist a grin from playing on his lips as he leaned against the wall.
“You called me first.”
“I’m on my break. Monty is out in the jungle looking for some kind of rare, three-eyed, large mammal eating alligator. We both agreed I would be better off tending to the camp.”
“You have a phone at your camp?”
“No. But I managed to find a local bar.”
“What time is it there?”
“Ah… it’s almost eleven in the morning.”
He could hear her quiet tuts of her disapproval on the other side of the phone, his expression going a little distant. But he could hear the amusement in Jacquelyn’s voice that made him lighten up. “I only ordered water.”
“Good. Now can you describe just how rugged your beard is after spending weeks in the humid jungle.”
That made him laugh out loud, earning a look from the lone bartender who was busy washing down glasses. Hopefully the travel weary filmmaker wouldn’t be charged by the minute or he was in for quite a bit of debt.
“I didn’t forget my razor this time so not too shabby.”
“Shame.”
Even the silences they shared over the wire, even with oceans in between them, it was still so utterly comfortable as Gustav chewed on his lower lip, chapped from spending so much time in the sun. He could imagine how this would play out if they were in the same room, just taking the time to speak with their eyes instead, trading playful glances over a glass of cheap wine.
“You never asked me what I was wearing, Dr. Sebald.” She spoke up after a few moments, her smile practically shining through her voice and the way she pronounced his title.
“Should I have?”
The silence this time was different. He could almost feel her judging and likely exasperated look on him through the receiver.
“Well, if you had , I would have told you that I’m wearing a light blouse with a gray pencil skirt. And a pair of pantyhose that someone managed to tear last time I saw him.”
It painted a clear enough image for him, even as Gustav closed his eyes. The outfit was one she wore to work quite often, allowing her to blend in perfectly with the dull grays and pale neutrals of Mulctuary Money Management and its staff. Only when they were together did she wear something more suiting her personality with deep reds and champagne pinks, and a more dramatic palette of black and white when they shared the screen together. He also remembered the incident that had left a long tear down the back of her garment, after they had tried to have a secret rendezvous in a supply closet in which it had gotten caught on a particularly pointy door hinge.
“I-Is that all?”
“I was just… curious what you would do if you were here.”
A dark blush crossed his cheeks. “Well… I suppose I would break you out of that horrid bank first. And assuming I had a fully-stocked kitchen, I’d make dinner and break out the fancy wine I was gifted from R.”
“And?”
Turning redder still, he adjusted his leaning position against the wall and lowered his voice. “We’d relax on the couch for some time and then I lean over to kiss your forehead. But I miss because frankly, my aim is bad enough sober, and likely land on your nose or somewhere in between and you take charge. You would take my jaw and move it to the right place and we’d kiss. I’d end up wearing more of your lipstick than you would.”
For once, he found his silence unnerving, leaving him a little sheepish about his description until he heard a mesmerized little chuckle at the end.
“Shall I continue?”
“Yes, thank you, please.”
Rolling his shoulder, Gustav took a deep breath and continued on, closing his eyes as he let himself relax and imagine it. “After some time of this, you get handsier. You grab me by the collar of my shirt-- or perhaps of my sweater, depending on the weather-- and keep me anchored there, but I don’t mind. Your fingers are buried in my hair and I manage to slur out against your skin that… that…”
“What?” He could sense the anticipation in her voice, imagining her to be on the other side of the phone, leaning over her desk.
“...that you look beautiful. Maybe a little bit messy, but I have no room to talk, and for a moment all I can do is wonder how I could be so lucky. And wonder how I could feel such kind of drunkenness just from your presence, yet all I can do is try to return the favor.”
“And how would you do that?”
“I’d start by moving down to those torn pantyhose of yours and--”
Gustav cut off, becoming immediately aware of the bartender looming over him wearing a less than amused expression on his face. It produced almost the same effect as having a large bucket of ice water dumped over his head.
“Phone is for paying customers only.”
“Of c-course.” Looking more than a little bashful, he returned the phone to his ear and mumbled a quick goodbye into it before hanging up.
The bartender gave him one last look of exasperation before returning to his post behind the bar, leaving Gustav to breathe a sigh of relief. The conversation was far too short for his liking, but with luck, he would be able to return in the evening when ordering a dozen cocktails was a little more acceptable and talk with her once more.