Blind Dates Read online

  Blind Dates

  Grace Otherwise ● Volume 1

  Harambee K. Grey-Sun

  HyperVerse Books, LLC

  The stories in this collection are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Harambee K. Grey-Sun

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without the express written consent or permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

  Cover design by Kelvin Reese

  Cover art copyright © Chainat | Dreamstime.com

  * * *

  Published by HyperVerse Books, LLC

  PO Box 23642, Alexandria, VA 22304

  www.hyperversebooks.com

  Crossing genres without apologies.

  * * *

  Print ISBN-13: 978-1-64044-023-4

  Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-64044-024-1

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Beholder

  Love Among the Ultramoderns

  The Lure

  Bearded Men

  Love Hax

  Violets Are Cruel

  The Silver Green

  The Dumps

  Euphoria, or Love on the Rocks

  Thank You

  Newsletter Sign-up

  About the Author

  Also by Harambee K. Grey-Sun

  By Harambee Grey-Sun

  Acknowledgments

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors and publishers of The Arcanist, where “Violets Are Cruel” first appeared.

  Beholder

  “Let’s weigh my sins against yours.”

  Intriguing, Wayne thought. And certainly not the words he expected a woman to say after ordering drinks on a first date—but Nayantara was nothing if not bold. Wayne respected that. Heck, he respected any woman who had the audacity to challenge him to a blind date.

  It could never be anything less than a challenge. He knew what he had going for him: an easy-on-the-eyes, white-collar marketing professional living in Washington, DC—a popular city teeming with transient women, most of whom were either bright-eyed grads venturing out on their first careers or bleary-eyed, estranged singles making sincere but clumsy attempts to start their lives over.

  Hell, he’d have had his pick of the fruit even if he hadn’t been kid-free, disease-free, and wife-free—the Big Three desirables of would-be sweeties looking to get themselves attached.

  A popular assumption was that fit and reasonably attractive folks in their early twenties had it made. Most women probably did. But men who could maintain their looks and physique up through their late thirties without accumulating any baggage-with-handles were the real golden targets. Some professional women liked their men older; some liked them younger. Wayne was at just the right age to have his pick from the patch of those in their twenties and early thirties and the orchard of those in their forties and early fifties. Every now and then, he’d pluck something intriguingly mysterious that would turn out to have no more potential than black licorice—the generic, dollar-store kind. But he could already see there was nothing generic about Nayantara. She’d do for tonight. All he had to do was get her onto his field.

  She’d extended the hand. He’d extend his in turn and pull.

  “My only sin,” he said with a smirk, “is that I’m too generous. I too freely give of myself.”

  “So you want me to pick up the tab?” She gave him a sly smile. “I wouldn’t want you to find yourself outspent before dessert.”

  He contorted his smirk into a slyer smile and leaned forward. “Depends on what you plan on ordering.”

  “Meat. And more meat.”

  “A hefty ambition to devour for such a petite woman.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t plan to keep it inside me all that long.”

  He straightened in his chair. Where the hell’s the waiter? Wayne needed his drink—badly. He’d pulled the girl onto his field without realizing he hadn’t yet been ready to play—not with one of this caliber, at least. This wasn’t some naïve college girl. One false move, one slip of the tongue that showed her he wasn’t up to her level, and the date was over.

  His male friends—the blunt ones—called it jerk-twerking, but Wayne refused to accept any label for his verbal style of pitching woo and taking his dues. He wasn’t so audacious to consider himself a poet—not one on the level of a Willie Shakespeare anyway. But he knew how to lay those glistening earworms. He could guide the flow of his words and body language while studying the disposition of the recipient and adjusting tones and movements as necessary. A master of interpretation, he could utter the same sweet nothings to three different women and know—while speaking—whether one took it as a sly sexual come-on, an aw-shucks deprecation, or a devastating insult.

  Nayantara had him at a disadvantage. She seemed to be doing much better at interpreting him than the other way around. Part of the problem was that he wasn’t yet certain of his endgame, and that was usually decided shortly after first sight. Did he want to bed her, outright dump her, or keep her at arm’s length as an occasional nightclub and dinner partner?

  “All quiet on the western side of the table?” Nayantara asked. “I hope I didn’t offend you—BigW.”

  He managed a grin. “You know, ‘BigW’ was just a username. You really can call me Wayne.”

  “Oh?” she said. “And what if I still plan on using you?”

  She kept her smile, and he struggled to keep his as he examined her face, studying her expression, lingering on those enticing eyes. What was she thinking? The sportive nudging had passed into friendly tussle territory far too early. They hadn’t even settled on appetizers.

  He had to step back off the field and reassess . . .

  Hell, maybe he had to step away momentarily from the idea of fields.

  He wasn’t a player. Not really. He just seemed like one in the eyes of lazy observers. In reality—a reality only he really saw clearly and understood—he was more like a grand gardener, one who was ineluctably drawn to cultivate and experience the entire variety of women—all possible and available women—and dig deep enough within them to find that special seed—the one that made them them—before cracking it open, letting it rapidly flower for him as they peeled away from themselves and into him, captivated, gushing, and spilling that sweet nectar.

  These sweet-smelling mushy fruits, messy on the inside with bruised skin on the outside . . . He had the magic touch to turn them into delectable candies—sweeties forever stuck on him—at his beck and call whenever he needed them. At least until they lost their flavor and he was forced to extrude.

  He delighted in testing his abilities on a wide variety of women on the spectrum. Younger, older, upper class, disadvantaged, Asian, Brazilian, Nigerian, Icelandic—name it and he’d probably dated it, working hard on at least five different fruit fleshes a week. And after taking his annual one-month hiatus, he started all over again.

  This evening, it was a thirty-year-old who lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, but who had originally hailed from India. The daughter of a former diplomat, she’d come to the country and worked hard enough to earn a PhD and attain the position of ethics department head at one of the local hospitals. That’s all Wayne remembered from ten paragraphs of information. After she’d initiated contact online, he’d only skimmed the text in her online dating profile while paying the bulk of his attention to her pictures. They’d been crisp, clear, full-color body shots. Her
face had been blurred out in every single one, but her body had been beyond delightful.

  Nayantara was impossibly but truly both petite and voluptuous. She obviously worked hard to maintain her curves, and she wore clothing that, while tasteful, also made sure onlookers could discern she was soft in all the right places and firm in all the others. Her face had undoubtedly been blurred for safety reasons—a smart tactic to ward off stalkers, nothing more. Wayne had figured there was no way a woman with such a sublime body could have had a face too far below average; the odds had been too much against it. So why had she reached out to him of all people?

  He’d described himself accurately but briefly in his profile and had included no pictures. His perpetual status was that of watcher and cultivator. He wouldn’t bury himself in dirt and expose his face like some unprotected plum in the sun. But after Nayantara had reached out and the two of them had engaged in a one-day exchange of emails brief enough to qualify as haiku, he’d agreed to meet her. And when they met, he’d seen that she was stunning beyond belief from bottom to top and side to side. Her eyes in particular. Something about those amber irises seemed to grab his attention and hold it for longer than any other part of her body.

  At first sight, they’d exchanged the usual first-date pleasantries. Now, he was speechless, still lingering on those ravishing eyes.

  The waiter delivered a much-needed intervention with their glasses of wine. Shiraz for him. Malbec for her.

  “Uh, come back in five,” Wayne said when the waiter raised his eyebrows. “We should be ready to order by then.”

  “Dessert and all,” Nayantara added with a wink.

  Wayne raised his glass as the waiter left. “Cheers.”

  They clinked, then sipped.

  His wine tasted like cough syrup, and his expression showed it.

  “Would you like to switch?” Nayantara asked.

  “I don’t think you’d like this,” he said. “I’ll just order another. I’m sure it’ll be gratis.”

  “Here.”

  She took his glass and set hers in its place.

  “It’s not so bad,” she said after tasting the Shiraz. “The higher-end wines from certain regions of Australia tend to be a bit thick; they weigh heavy with black fruits. Definitely fruit forward, but they sometimes give you too much to think about too soon.”

  Wayne tried the Malbec and found it to his liking. “Well versed in wines?”

  “One of my heftier sins,” Nayantara said with a nod and another wink. “I spend a bit too much on it. When I take a vacation, it’s always to some country’s wine region. Not a weekend goes by without me attending at least one high-end tasting in the area. I can never get enough of the variety. Take two winemakers and give them one grape—say, Shiraz—and let them play with it. The resulting wines will inevitably be different—probably very different—due to the variances of terroir, climate, the techniques or lack thereof of the farmers tending the vines, everything that goes into the vinification process, steel barrels, oak barrels, French oak, American oak, Hungarian, Belcharian . . .”

  Wayne laughed and took another sip of the Malbec. “This is your sin? Oenophilia? You had me on the run, lady. I was thinking you’d chase me into dirtier territory.”

  She smiled. “Plenty of time for that later. For now, I’ll simply venture onto soupier ground.”

  Wayne cocked his head and began to ask for clarification, but the waiter returned. True to her odd words, Nayantara ordered the soup of the day. Wayne ordered the sautéed mushrooms. The waiter took the hint—Nayantara’s cocked eyebrow—and left without asking their choices for the main course.

  “We really should decide,” Wayne said after meeting eyes with the waiter glancing at him over his shoulder.

  “Some say sins are in the eyes of the beholder,” Nayantara said.

  She was at it again, boldly nudging him with her wit. He was obliged to engage and push back.

  “Like beauty?” he said. “It’s all relative?”

  She smiled again. “That’s a theory. But I think there’s danger in it.”

  Wayne said, “Hell, I think there’s danger in beauty. I’ve felt like I’ve been in danger from the moment I actually saw your face.”

  Nayantara cast her eyes downward as she lifted her glass for a sip. If she blushed, Wayne couldn’t tell. Her body was speaking a language—something foreign—which he observed, recorded, and attempted unsuccessfully to decipher.

  She met his eyes. “You said you were charitable. Too giving of yourself—right? If you’re feeling at all threatened, maybe you’ve given yourself over to an ugliness. A bad seed. One you’ve mistaken for beautiful.”

  His picture of her was getting murkier, as ink dark as the Shiraz she sipped. Was this her feigned attempt at self-deprecation? It was a trait some men found attractive in women, but Nayantara couldn’t pull it off. She was too beautiful and too accomplished for it to come off as sincere.

  He had to step up his game, exploit this, and take her down.

  “Oh, it’s not just my eyes,” he said, leaning forward. “I have a sixth, maybe even a seventh sense for these sorts of things. Things that are truly beautiful have a certain aura, one that can sometimes be seen but is more often inhaled, like the fragrance from the most exotic bouquet. The scent can be so delicate and yet so heavy that it finds its way through the nostrils and onto the tongue. Dear, I can see, smell, and taste true beauty.”

  “And not vomit?”

  Wayne grimaced.

  “Seems like the reasonable reaction,” Nayantara said with a shrug. “Such an assault would surely make you dizzy at the least. And all those odors and tastes plodding on your buds . . .”

  She’d knocked him on his rear. Mercifully, the waiter returned to deliver their appetizers, giving him a chance to recover.

  “We’ll need about ten to decide on the main,” Nayantara said.

  The waiter nodded and slid away. Wayne’s and Nayantara’s eyes met before she lowered hers toward her soup. “Think this’ll pair well with Shiraz, or should I order another glass?”

  Wayne shook his head slowly. “I wouldn’t know.”

  He was letting her overtake him. It couldn’t be helped. By now, he should’ve been charming her, keeping her amused with anecdotes before launching into stories that would keep her enthralled as they feasted on the main course, all of it serving to weaken her while readying her for the truly sweet stuff to be delivered afterward. Instead, he was tongue-tied.

  He closed his eyes and swallowed. He had to focus . . . focus on something she’d said, tie it up with a bit of his own high thinking, and gift it back to her.

  “But . . . but I’m sure it will pair just fine,” he said, “if the soup suits you as well as the wine does. It’s said the best pairing is the wine you like with the food you like, regardless of rules about reds and whites, sauces and spices. The imbiber is the catalyst—the harmonizer. So long as she is beautiful, she can’t go wrong with anything she ingests.”

  “Hmm.” Nayantara tilted her head, nodded at him, then took her first spoonful of soup. The corners of her mouth twisted upward as she swallowed. The soup was good. She took a sip of Shiraz. Her eyes closed as her lips parted. “Oh . . .”

  Yes, it certainly was a good pairing.

  “Your palate thanks you,” Wayne said.

  “And you,” she responded. “Perception is powerful, and it’s not limited to the eyes. Sound, taste . . . Your words made this taste better than it should have.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know if I’m that talented.”

  “I’d bet against that. Your talents are probably even doing you in. In fact, I’d bet if you tasted the Shiraz now, you’d like it. Here.” She pushed the glass toward him. “Have a few mushrooms first if you want.”

  He had a few fungi but stared warily at the glass. He didn’t want that perfumed tar on his tongue again. And yet, there was a woman he still had to cultivate.

  He sipped from the glass.


  It was pure delight.

  Nayantara nodded and smiled at him. “See? Nothing wrong with the wine, just the palate, which can be conditioned. It just takes a blind artist who knows how to work with unseeable materials.”

  “Ready to order?” Impatience evident in his voice, the waiter had returned. Wayne didn’t want to keep the man on a string.

  “Nayantara?”

  She nodded. “I’ll have the grape and walnut salad and a glass of the Pinot Blanc to help it down.”

  “And I’ll have the salmon and a . . . umm . . .”

  “Pinot Noir goes quite well with salmon.” Nayantara passed him another sly smile. “Even without a psychological prompt.”

  “Then I’ll have that,” Wayne said.

  The waiter nodded and left the table.

  “You, uh . . .” Wayne chuckled. “You’re all about the grapes tonight, huh?”

  “Why not?” Nayantara said. “I’m out on a blind date. I don’t know the man—yet—but I do know grapes; I liken their seeds to fragments of human souls. And souls need gathering, saving, savoring . . .”

  Aw, great. Wayne winced as his scalp crawled. The game they’d been kind of playing . . . the rules had changed at some point. He wasn’t exactly sure when the woman had swerved him, but he knew where this was going.

  “Wine can save the world,” Nayantara continued. “Every enlightened woman and man, a viticulturist . . . What we do—what we produce—is based on the environment in which we live and work. We can work to produce something that will simply stain or that will elevate and inspire or, worst-case scenario, intoxicate and bring to ruin. The retributive Earth Goddess—”

  Wayne stopped listening as he always did when it turned out his date was a nut. And Nayantara was the worst kind—a weirdo spiritualist nut. He should have known. Her beauty and background had been too good to be true.