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So she was the kind of woman who showed up early for third dates and brought a book to a pub. Well, apparently John was the kind of man who appreciated both. Steady on, then. He smiled contentedly, enjoying the familiar feel of worn and dogeared pages under his fingertips.
“Ah, peeking at my book while I freshen up.”
“Guilty as charged. But Mary, you didn’t tell me you were famous.”
“Well, in my own mind, yes, but the rest of the world has yet to catch up. What’re you playing at?”
“This quote is yours, isn’t it?” John said, pointing to the small print in the upper-right hand corner of a page in her book. “M.M. for Mary Morstan, yeah?”
“John, you’re not serious.” John returned her gaze innocently and slowly brought the book to his lap.
“Oh. Not… not you, then?”
“I’m hardly the first person to have the initials ‘M.M.,” Mary said with a disappointed tone. John put on his best “puppy-dog-smacked-with-a-rolled-up-newspaper”-face. The shift in Mary’s feature surely meant she was making an attempt at civility while also deciding this may have to be their last date. “She’s an American poet, Marianne Moore. No reason you would’ve heard of her I suppose,” she said with a resigned sigh as she settled onto the barstool next to him.
Passionate about poetry and women poets then, but didn’t feel they were intimate enough for her to lecture him out of his ignorance. Well, he’d put a stop to that:
“‘Mademoiselle—goddess instead—
In whom the Graces find a school
Although you are more beautiful,
Even if with averted head,
Might you not be entertained
By a tale that is unadorned—’”
“‘Hearing with no more than a quiver
Of a lion whom Love knew how to conquer.
Love is a curious mastery,
In name alone a felicity.
Better know of than know the thing,’” Mary finished for him before slapping him, hard, on his shoulder. Thank god it was the good one. “You utter bastard.”
“Can’t a fellow recite a bit of poetry for his date without threat of violence? Oh, you city girls…” That got him another slap but also a laugh.
“That’s not even one of Moore’s poems! It’s one of her translations.”
“Is it? Oh, yes, of La Fontaine if I recall.”
“Fuck off if you recall. Alright. Well done, you. First round’s on me.”
“Did you see what I did there, with the whole ‘omissions are not accidents’ bit? Clever, that.”
“Mhm. ‘Lion in Love’ isn’t what I’d have expected out of you though.” Mary answered, tipping the rim of her cup towards him. “Lion got a bit of a raw deal in the end.”
“Well, you say raw. He was conquered, yes.” At that, John reached out to slip a hand below hers where she was resting it on the bar. Then, as he met her eyes, he brushed the delicate and sensitive length of her skin up from her wrist with the tip of his middle finger until he could nestle it in the soft and vulnerable cup of her palm. The hand over his tightened in surprise and then relaxed, slightly warmer now. Mary’s eyes blinked once, slowly, and when she opened them again John was in the thrall of a look so keen look it almost undid him. His mouth did that insta-desert-dehydration thing it did when he was nervous (amongst other things) and he licked his lips to make sure he didn’t trip over his next line. Well, it was meant to be a line. But his low and breathy tone made it take on the air of the confession it actually was: “Some lions want to be conquered.”
When Mary leaned over to give him a chaste but lingering (and promising) kiss on the temple, he knew was.•