A Chinita Named Denise: Cigarette And Wine

Posted on August 18, 2014 Updated on August 18, 2014

I’m not a smoker. I don’t plan to be one. Although I’ve had my more than fair share of huffing and puffing as if I’m the big, bad wolf, I never finished a single stick. Until last night, that is, because of a girl named Denise. I don’t know if I could’ve gotten her number. Maybe I should’ve tried so that I wouldn’t be wondering now, but maybe this open-ended uncertainty is better than her being the flitting woman that she probably is and not text me, ever. Whatever, I don’t know, the only thing that mattered last night anyway was the luscious vision of her and the minty stench of smoke in my mouth.

As I drank with my friends and Sir Mark, I looked at this girl’s curved, white, smooth lower back, sandwiched between her beige hanging blouse and black tube skirt. When she and her friends got transferred to another table, her side profile became the one in view, and my focus was shifted on her long legs and defined behind. She’s fair, chinita, and has a dyed blonde hair. She also wore a black cap and white Chucks, giving her a sense of coolness and yet a toning down that overt feminine sexuality in a good way, making her an edgy chick and desirable on not just the erotic level, but also on the cerebral way. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I perceive a girl who has a good fashion sense as unconventionally intelligent, and therefore would probably be a good girl to be with. Or maybe it just made her a bit more hip-hop and whatever bull self-analyses I’ve had was null and void, for all I wanted was the primal, the end result – us under the sheets. Then again, maybe that’s an oversimplification, because even though the image she gave off was sexy, it was not that of a one-night stander, but of a playful flirt who’s just having fun. And since she seemed like the type, I thought she wouldn’t mind if I played the part of her male counterpart.

Asking a girl for a light – it’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. But the thing about old tricks is that they were able to gracefully age and remain what they are – tricks – because they work. After all, you need not fix what ain’t broke. I asked Brylle for a stick, not to smoke, but to talk to the girl I was eyeing. I went to her, and asked if she could light my cigarette. Expectation: our sticks will kiss. Reality: she lent me her lighter. Fuck it, whatever; beggars can’t be choosers anyway. I don’t smoke, so of course I didn’t know how to light a cigarette with it, but to just give up half-assed would’ve made my attempt, which was already obvious and pathetic to begin with thanks to my ignorance of the skills of the smoking trade, more obvious and pathetic than it already has become, so I told her that I couldn’t work her lighter because of some transparent excuse I could no longer remember. Oh James, you have a knack of making the obvious and pathetic more obvious and pathetic.

Subtlety, may not be my strongest trait, but I have more than enough stupidity to make up for it. And because of that stupidity, I was able to come so close to her face and appreciate her bright brown round chinita eyes and sparkling braces, as she lit the cigarette in my mouth – a kiss between her flame and my stick. I went back when I was done with my ruse, and they looked at our table, which meant I had to keep up my show, so I kept on smoking. As I did, our professor told me about how women like her are like sweet wine, who is only good because of the sugar and not the wine itself. One day you’ll get tired of the taste and look for deeper attributes such as body, texture, and aroma. It was obviously true, as she’s definitely not the prim, insightful, and sophisticated woman, but nevertheless I want a taste of wine, even if it’s just the sweet one, for it is better to get drunk on a wine that a connoisseur considers as awful than to not get drunk at all.

He also added that while it’s nice that I have a particular taste, chinitas are elusive creatures. Oh, I couldn’t agree more with that statement. They could always be beside you everyday and still be so far away (Ampie). You could try to know quite a handful about each other and yet remain strangers (Jamee). They could be too foreign and not be there at all (Hyo-Jin). They could be a total bitch and get away with it (Lin). LIN YOU BITCH. Let’s not get started with Karmela. Anyway, yeah, chinitas are elusive, and rightfully so, thanks to their uncanny beauty and how their eyes could suggest innocence, sweetness, snobbishness, and fierceness at different times, or even the same time during a few instances. They unknowingly leave you charmed, and then they just leave. They put you in high spirits, only for them to spirit away your soul. They can’t help it; it’s in their nature, so you can’t blame them. Heck, I’m sure even they blame themselves, except Lin, because she’s inherently evil. Of course I’m fine with any pretty girlfriend, or maybe at least a 7/10, but a chinita? God, that would be like lying with a faerie, or even a goddess. Or even an angel, although I kind of want to refrain from using that term despite the goodness of their actual definition and significance. Yes, this is the whole “pretty girls can get away with anything” argument, it was just given a massive amoral overhaul.

Only in the middle of our conversation did I realize that was able to finish my cigarette. In many young adult novels, smoking is an overused symbol of coming of age and maturity. To me, it probably signifies my failed flirtations that was cumulated on that one night, as well as my desperation for my preferred gender, which is the opposite gender. To resort to a piece of cancer you don’t know how to even light just to talk to an attractive female? I don’t mean to be self-absorbed, but if I were someone else and I saw me, I’d say that guy is cool – desperate, but cool – because he was able to pull off an idiotic move like that and see it through until the end. And the smoking? It was what hopeless, helpless romantics consider as something that we have in common and therefore connects us together no matter how laughably petty and weak. The same heavy, toxic air filled our lungs, and I felt strangely light and free, as if someone switched off the gravity, and there was this lingering coolness inside my mouth. I assumed that she was feeling exactly identical, and that her cigarette was also Marlboro Black. I looked at her and thought of us, floating in either her or my lungs, although I went wth the former, for I am sick and tired of my boring lungs that are full of phlegm. I don’t know if her lobes are probably pinkish-gray because of her regular smoking or if they are healthy pink because of her chinita genes, but I do know that they’re less ideal than mine, as she’s definitely the regular smoker among us two. Still, I want to be inside them, for I want to be with her inside of her, even if it’s in one of the least sensual organs, although the thought of being in her lungs is giving me a boner…or maybe I’m thinking of her “lungs” instead. Anyway, as I was saying, the lungs are not sensual, and not romantic either. However, I believe it should be on par with the heart. I mean, “you are in my lungs” definitely sounds like aspiration pneumonia, but how about “you are the air/smoke in my lungs”? Inspiring, is it not? And Denise, from last night until this post has finally been submitted, while definitely not in my heart, is in my lungs, and has served as an inspiration, and to be with a girl as pretty as her is my aspiration. Come to think of it, maybe I could use “she’s in my lungs” as a term for infatuation.

When one of the longest drinking sessions of my entire life came to a close, I talked to her again to formally thank her for the light, which is overly polite it’s unnecessary, making my intent obvious. However, it was no longer pathetic, as I was no longer posing to be a smoker. We shook hands and I asked for her name. “Denise” she said. I know where it could’ve led. I know the next most logical question. It was the perfect time for the kill. What did I do? Ended it at that point. I wasn’t nervous or stupefied, I just let her slip. Maybe I want sweet wine, but not the type that has truckloads of sugar. Maybe I like the cigarette in my mouth, but she’s not Marlboro Black. Why the change of heart? Because I thought it was pointless.

She’s just another mysterious fleeing chinita, so I’ll leave her in her natural habitat. Besides, even if she did give her number, it’s not as if things will get anywhere further than that anyway. And even if it did, she’ll probably become a stranger who I will know so well and will always be with me but is actually not. Sounds like a bittersweet life, a life I probably don’t want, but nevertheless one that is worth imagining. Oh Denise, I have no plans of starting smoking anytime soon, although the weight of the smoke in my lungs – your weight – is pleasurable, and so is the difficulty of breaths before I slept. Do you still have them even though you’re a regular smoker?

On our way home, in Adrian’s car, Kei told me that Sir Mark’s ex-wife is Korean. No wonder he knows what I’m talking about. And come to think of it, it was her that got him into smoking. The song while we talked, Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry, didn’t help either. Damn chinitas…