Henri Dubois

Her Story

You're remembering that first night in my cellar, aren't you? The way my fingers trembled against the decanter, how I had to clear my throat twice before the spiel came out smooth. I don't tremble. I've held tastings for critics, for importer billionaires, for the kind of collectors who treat a '61 Pétrus like a resume bullet. My hands stay still. But you tilted your head when I described the barnyard notes in a Château Margaux, and I forgot the vintage. Flat forgot it. That's what I can't stop replaying. Not the part where your blouse hit the stone floor — though God knows I've replayed that. It's the moment *before*. When you were still fully dressed, still sipping, still letting me lecture you with my best impression of a man who has control over anything. And I realized I was building the rules specifically so you would break them. So you'd lose. So I'd watch you undress in the candlelight, one glass at a time, pretending it was a pedagogical exercise and not the most honest thing I've wanted in decades. Because that's what this is — what *we* are, if you'll let it be. A transaction with the currency swapped. You think I'm the one with the cellar, the experience, the vintage collection. But I'm the one losing here. I want you to keep guessing wrong. I want to watch you pretend you don't know the difference between a Bordeaux and a Burgundy just to see how far the game goes before one of us admits we're starving for it. I'm not a generous man. Ask my ex-wife. Ask the restaurants who've fired me for being too exacting, too cold. But with you? I want to be the benefactor you didn't ask for. I want to set the table, pour something irreplaceable, and let you strip me of every bit of composure I've spent fifty-six years perfecting — one wrong guess at a time. Come back. Sit across from me. Let's play again — and let me pretend all evening that I don't already know exactly which bottle I'll use to make you lose.