For Javiera Caceres a day off that is actually this is a sort of spell that falls on her head for unforeseeable circumstances she’s better not questioning before they decide to shift gears. She tried to keep herself from relying on the possibility that this Friday it can actually be the case, but when the shift comes to an end without unexpected developments on an otherwise usual Thursday afternoon, she thinks it’s safe to hope for the best. If it was a normal Thursday afternoon she wouldn’t really mind but tonight there is a reservation for her and Flavia to a restaurant and she would really like not to be forced to cancel. The inspector texts her to say that she’s picking her from the house they share at eight o’clock and gets changed for her boxing lesson.

Back in the changing room she checks her mobile only to find a text message from Flavia saying that she’ll be waiting and a text from Gonzalo with the address where he asked her to go for a last-time errand before her twenty four hours off can actually start. She got ahead of it, of course, she spent the last five days arranging her plans for tonight and there’s no way she can let something ruin it. She prepared a bag with her clothes for the evening and took it with her to the jimn so she doesn’t need to head back home to get changed and ready for her first official date with no less than Flavia Betancourt. Her anticipation makes her feel a little silly, actually, she and Flavia have been living together for months now, in her hotel room and then in the house she used to share with Maira, it’s not that they haven’t had their time together. Truth to be told, their relationship has been extremely unconventional since the beginning, so they skipped a lot of “usual phases”. A date, or a dinner if you prefer, surely falls in the list.

It’s a little later than a quarter to eight when Javiera, fully dressed, with both her makeup and hair fixed and the blue neckerchief Flavia gave her tied around her neck like she did, gets back into her car as a free woman, next stop Flavia’s lips.

As soon as the car stops in front of her house the outdoor light turns on, the gate opens and She appears in all her glory. Javiera studies her for a second and nothing more, just the time to see her beige overcoat kept close by a tight knot and a pair of soft red trousers she has never seen before covering half of her leg and leaving her ankles elegantly naked.

The car door opens and the whole cabin is invested by her light perfume.

“Hola” she beams while getting in.

***

The location is a surprise, because Flavia found out that she likes surprises when they come from someone she trusts more than herself and Javiera can't miss the chance to give Flavia something she likes. They park close enough to one of the main streets of Vitacura and walk their way to the destination, a light conversation easily flowing between them. At some point Javiera stops and opens the door of what looks like a quite expensive bistro, inviting Flavia in.

They enter a spacious room with high ceiling and ample windows that make it feel even more airy and make a cooler light blend with the starkly warmer one coming from behind the many small lampshades affixed to the walls. The soft shade of beige they used to paint them is hidden for about a third by a dark wood covering, perhaps ebony, that makes the whole room look warmer, snugger. One quick glance at the furniture is enough to ratify the distinguished elegance of the place, and it is certainly enough to make Flavia’s heart race as her hand tightens the grip on her partner’s one. She remembers the few times when she went out for dinner with Dante, he always chose the most charming places and since the moment she stepped inside she knew the prize he was willing to get when they got home. He didn’t ask, he didn’t need to, he didn’t want to, it was a silent deal: a refined meal in a fancy restaurant in exchange for the best smile she could give and the free access to her body.

Javiera watches the clouds blurring her girlfriend’s eyes and her heart thuds.

“¿Todo bien?” she asks and the clouds thin down, and the sun comes to shine bright on her cheeks again as she nods.

A young waiter reaches for the two women and politely greets them. He checks the reservation and asks them to follow him to a table right next to the window, before everybody's eyes, Flavia considers, even if the difference of lighting makes it hard to actually look outside. Only a couple of months ago she would have minded, and this would be an euphemism, she would have felt uncomfortable, more properly, dressed up to the nines in a restaurant with other guests and even passersby watching, perhaps judging, noticing her age and comparing it with her partner’s one, wondering if she’s sharing a table with a good friend or if she's awkwardly pining for her, due to her desperate middle-age-crisis infatuation, in a place that seems cut out for the most romantic dates only. A couple of months ago she would have made it such that no one actually noticed that this is a date and that they are an actual couple but time passes and things change. Now she feels Javiera’s body softly pressed against hers, a pleasurable warmth irradiating from the hand scarcely touching her back through her clothes and feels like she found her Wonderland, a place where sorrow has never existed, nor shame. Tonight the only thing she cares about is Javiera and how proud she is of being the one she chose when she could have had anyone else. Tonight she put on her red suite, fixed her hair and carefully applied her red lipstick. Tonight she chose her favourite gold earrings and perfume because she wanted to be the person she has always been afraid of being, the person that Javiera saw, somehow, the person she fell for.

The waiter offers to take Flavia’s overcoat to the coatroom and Javiera’s eyes go wide. She noticed that Flavia has been particularly careful with her looks tonight but there’s no way she could expect this. Javiera fell for her distinguished elegance a long time ago and there must be a more literary way to describe it, but the fact is that the thin straps holding the ample v-shaped neckline now leaving Flavia's shoulders, as well as the most part of her chest, magnificently naked almost make the inspector forget how to breathe. The vibrant red of the satin soft fabric doesn’t make it any better but makes the pale, silky skin it’s barely covering look even more precious than usual. The sudden change of temperature comes as a coup de grace, making it very evident that Flavia chose not to wear a bra.

For her part, Flavia doesn’t miss a stop of the other woman’s face journey, she has been waiting for this for months, after all. She flashes a half shy and half satisfied smile when their eyes meet but soon looks away and thanks the waiter, so he leaves. Javiera tries to put herself together, clears her voice and pulls back her date’s chair to make her sit. She reaches for her seat in silence and the waiter comes again to light a candle and fix it in a round glass at the centre of the table, right between them, murmuring his apologies and something about the menus.

Javiera Caceres has never been the one for formalities and sitting opposite Flavia with a full table between them to keep them distant, with the way she looks tonight, skirts the cruelty. She doesn’t think twice before moving her chair next to Flavia’s.

“Que estas haciendo?” giggles the older woman as her cheeks try to compete with the tint of her dress.

“Perdon, me tomé la libertad de moverme, espero que no sea un problema” Javiera says to the waiter as soon as he comes to give them the menus and Flavia can’t decide if she’s more embarrassed or enthralled. She decides for the second option when the young man genuinely smiles and Javiera bites her lip and looks at her like a child that knows they did a mischief.

Between covert glaces, casual fisical contacts and an amount of pudic smiles that would make a Victorian lady pale in comparison, they manage to choose what to order. Miguel, this is the name of their waiter for tonight, suggests them the perfect wine to go with their food and retires with the menus.

Javiera lets a deep breath in through her nose and the picture of the woman at her side through her eyes before speaking:

"Te ves hermosa, mi amor” she says “Quería decirte algo más pero no…” and words fail her “de hecho te ves increíble."

Said Victorian lady forgive me, but no one blushes better than Flavia Betancourt, and a smile like the one she is giving now is hard to achieve.

"Gracias” she says “quería algo especial para nuestra primera cita" she lets out almost like a joke, then both her tone and her words fade in the way Javiera is looking at her. The inspector blinks a couple of times and gulps, she needs to calm down if she wants to get through this night:

"¿Y este vestido?” she asks “Nunca lo había visto antes. ¿Es nuevo?"

"Ja, no...bueno es como si lo fuera" Flavia lingers, looking at her own hands in front of her on the glossy surface of the table.

"Lo he tenido por mucho tiempo pero nunca salí con esto"

Javiera watches the clouds obscure Flavia’s precious eyes again and instinctively reaches for her hand.

"¿Porque no?" she asks, hoping she’s not pushing it too far.

"Porque...no sé, tal vez me faltó la ocasión…” Flavia gulps and Javiera waits “siempre me ha parecido demasiado llamativo para cualquier lugar" She says without daring looking at the other woman, obviously beating around the bush but trying her best to dissimulate. "Pensé que habría tenido los ojos de todos en mi" she snorts bitterly, because some memories are hard to hold back, because her past is something to deal with even now that she's with this incredible woman, in a beautiful restaurant, free to be the person she has always been but has always suppressed in her poisoned core.

"No me parece malo que alguien te vea así, si todo te miran es porque eres hermosa" Javiera says, clear and simple, in that flooring way she has to take life at times. And Flavia feels a lump in her throat when she smiles.

"A ver, ¿Sabes que? Elegiste esto porque te gusta ¿cierto? Y si te gusta a ti y si te sientes bien ¿Qué te importa de lo que piensa la gente?” The younger woman says, trying to erase the pain in her own chest with a warm smile.

It’s almost too much and Flavia feels like crying, she knows her hands are shaking but she lets them be, there’s nothing she would hide from Javiera.

"Nada" she lets out eventually, in a half broken whisper.

She spent half a century doing the exact opposite until this stranger bursted in her life and turned it upside down, until she wasn't a stranger anymore and became the only one who really knew her. Half a year erased half a century with a wet sponge and it's enchanting and terrifying at once, it’s so good that it hurts because Javiera taught her even how to feel pain again, a pain that called her out from use, woke her up from numbness, made her realise that she was still alive, that there was still something worth to be saved, that showed her the difference between living and surviving, a pain that told her she had had enough, a pain that in the end healed her.

"Nada" Javiera echoes, amazed by the woman at her side, by all of the things she overcame in the few months she knows her, by all of her will to live, by all of the schemes and prejudices she left behind, by the way she blossomed.

"Pero…" she starts again, the germ of an impish smile on her lips.

"Espero que te importe un poco lo que yo pienso…”

Flavia frowns a little and she keeps going:

“Pienso que tienes que estar muy orgullosa de ti, Flavia. Yo estoy tan, tan orgullosa de ti, de tenerte a mi lado, de estar aquí contigo, con la mujer que todos tengan que mirar, porque es la más hermosa del planeta.”

Flavia's lips are trembling just like her hands now and there’s nothing she can do to hold her tears back when Javiera whispers:

“Que preciosa estas” and raises a hand to caress her face “Mi princesita valiente”.

A couple of silent tears fall from Flavia’s eyes and she looks down to take a deep breath. She feels Javiera’s fingers brushing her chin as if asking her to look up again and she can’t possibly say no. She lets her own eyes bounce from Javiera’s ones to her lips and to her eyes again. They are the last thing she sees, brighter than the candlelight outlining her face,warmer than that small, trembling flame that’s dancing between her wet lashes.

Flavia meets her own heart on Javiera’s lips, Javiera tastes a life she didn’t know she was missing until she found it. They kiss not to let that life go, to keep it safe, there, between a crowded street of Vitacura and a restaurant full of strangers. They hold each other on the tip of their fingers, their lips rest one against the other and can't help smiling.

Miguel comes with the dishes and the wine, both Flavia and Javiera are too distracted to actually register what they're eating or drinking, especially Flavia that between lingering gazes, jokes, both innocent and not so safe for a public context, loses track of the amount of wine passing through her glass. It's when she leaves for the toilet that she starts to realise that her legs don't usually feel so light, it's when she looks at herself in the mirror that she notices that her face hasn't looked so bright for a while.

They choose some unidentified but doubtlessly delicious dessert and don't bother with dirtying two forks to eat it. Perhaps the wine is to blame, perhaps it's Javiera's eyes' fault again and the way they shine, but Flavia struggles to recall the last time she enjoyed herself this much.

This scenes have been living rent free in my mind for a long time and now that the painting is finally fixed I'm ready to share them. Hope you liked it all so far and hope you'll enjoy what's coming. Thanks for reading.