I sat at my table, alone, staring at the bottom of my empty pint glass, wondering where it all went. All that was left was the dregs, not that I haven’t seen that before. Nonetheless I sipped from it lustily, but certainly not without guilt, wondering just how I got here.

***
I was minding my own business when a noise brought me out of my boredom-induced stupor. It was that sweet sound of liquid cascading into a pint glass: a soft glug, a Doppler-like increase in pitch like a whispering sigh of a lady with a lot of money and problems on her mind. I’m just the kind of guy to handle that.

With my usual swagger (really just a defense mechanism, but never tell them that), I sat back with my arms crossed to feign disinterest. But when I glanced at her in that pint glass, it took all my strength to keep from falling out of my chair.

She was hazy, surrounded in a cloudy fog reminiscent of a fine wheat ale. I couldn’t take my eyes of her ruby-red hue, or maybe it was a plummy-brown. Hard to tell in the light. Hard to tell without staring.

“Who might you be,” I asked, trying to mask the awe in my voice.

“Bastone Saison Noir,” she replied with a voice as hazy and silky as she looked. As she shifted her head, I could see bright orange highlights at her roots. Hmm, I thought, a normal Saison after all perhaps? A challenge for sure.

“French?”

“Distantly. But I’m all-American now.”

She stood and moved closer to me, sitting seductively close. Just breathing, my nose almost literally drank her in. She smelled like sweetarts. Plums. Dark, seductive fruits. There was an earthiness present; maybe it was her mood or mine that yielded just a hint of sour on top of all that sweetness, like there is something under the surface. Bready, like she just came from a bakery. And somewhere, in the distance, a coffee roast. Maybe it was the cuppa Joe on my table, maybe it was just that her…Frenchness…told my cloudy mind a story of a street-side cafe; either way, be it real or a memory, it was there.

I shifted in my seat, returning her gaze.

“You seem dangerous.”

“I am,” she hinted, her breath smelling of citrusy wheat.

“A guy like me gets mixed up with you, I could end up with a helluva hangover.”

“I’m worth it. I pay dividends.”

And before I knew it, the glass was to my lips.

My head spun with oranges and spicy wheat. Island spices gave way to dark, rich, dried fruits like apricots and prunes and dried apples. All these deep fruits complimented a playful Sweetart-in-a-hayfield that told me she might not take herself too seriously. Coulda fooled me.

And suddenly it really took me. I got lost. What I thought was just any old Saison showed its true colors when in came a slight acidic harshness on my tongue that said this one’s no simple, sweet French maid. No, this one has a bit of workman’s porter in her roots. Hints of roasted coffee and dark grains reveal a dangerous past that I was afraid of. And couldn’t get enough of. And wanted more of. Drink after drink, I floated in both the things I love about saisons and the things that made this one so wonderfully different.

And just as suddenly, there was no more. In front on me was one word: ‘Bastone.’

“If you want more, you know where to find me.”

“More…what?”

A wink. A blown kiss. The rattling of empty glass as the door closed on this one.

All that remained now were the echoes of footsteps down an empty hall. Her bubbly effervescence, still bright in my mind despite the crushing blow of her being gone. Echo. Slender; not a sensuous Rubanesque vixen nor an undernourished waif, but wonderfully, seductively slender. Echo. And dry. My palate was left dry, and wanting more to wet it, only leaving it drier. Echo.

***
I sat at my table, alone, staring at the bottom of my empty pint glass, knowing damn well where it all went. All that was left was the dregs, not that I haven’t seen that before. Nonetheless I sipped from it lustily, but certainly not without guilt, relishing in how I got here.