In the kitchen, Lora, wiped her fingers of the quiche on her apron as the scent of fondue gurgled from a small cauldron-pot on the stove—slow simmering now like archeology—its bubbles rising and popping—then sighing—with a pathology of tonight’s soirée. Behind her, in the doorway, stood a man, intoxicated in love, spoke, “you got game.” The fondue bubbled, releasing another thick breath of Gruyère.
She didn’t turn around, just flexed her fingers once against the apron, feeling the dampness of dough and egg where she’d wiped them. The fondue sighed again—a wet, thick sound—and she whispered, “it’s only cheese.” Pouring herself a beaker, of Blue Nun Riesling —as Lora raised the beaker, sipped—letting the sweetness pool under her tongue before swallowing.
Outside, the humidity at 65% as the mosquito bugaboos danced a kamikaze tango and the late-evening fell as the Citronella Torches lit up the wooden deck, protruding 12 feet above the swamp—the clockwork on the wall, giggled 6pm in Waycross, Ga, on the Okefenokee, shackled by the torrents of evolution in the glades.
Soon the guest would arrive, close friends and associates “to the nth degree”— being invited to a clothing is optional cocktail soirée, RSVP. In the swamp, according to carp, as if reminding her of the artifice simmering beneath the surface of the evening. A Tenured Professorship of Psychology, at the university. She knew the intricacies of human behavior and the kudzu-like complexity of desire as intimately as the Okefenokee knew stillness before a storm. But tonight, she wasn’t Dr. Lora Whitaker; tonight, she was the curator of something far more intoxicating than academia.
