Free The Winemaker's Dinner: Dessert (The Winemaker's Feast) by Dr. Ivan Rusilko

wondering what could come from this act of desperation. What he’d found on the other side of her door was his medicine. His drug. A soothing numbness, and yet also the only way to find any energy or color or beauty in the world. This gorgeous Latina had tempted his body and also gifted him his first fix.
    Through all the faceless and nameless sex he’d had since she’d initiated him, he’d never been able to bring anyone back to his own bed or even kiss her on the lips. These two intimate gestures he kept in reserve for someone more deserving, but the freak hardly seemed to notice. It made him feel he’d preserved a part of himself, although lately his grip on that seemed tenuous as well. He knew if he fell much further, the facelessness and namelessness of his fixes would be his undoing.
    His legs burned and his lungs felt like they were going to explode when he finally eased up on his pace and began to downshift. A few minutes later, with his hands on his hips, he tried hard to catch his breath and walked in a wide circle as he shook out his limbs.
    “Fuck it,” he whispered to himself. His mind, his body, and his soul: all three were suddenly ready to hear what Jaden had to say. As inexplicably as he’d started down the road to his addiction, he now prepared to turn around and start back. He turned the phone over in his hand and paused the music. He stared for a moment at the red message-waiting icon that had tortured him all day. When he touched it, a voice he hadn’t heard in an eternity began to ring in his ear.
    “Hey, Ivan. It’s Jaden. I’m in Miami Beach for the next two months, and I’d love to see you. Any chance you could make some time for me?” A pause left him trembling on shaky, tired legs, but then she continued. “Please call me back and let me know.”
    Her voice swam through him, igniting emotions he’d believed long dead. He tried to discern one feeling from the next, but couldn’t. Rage was trumped by happiness, which gave way to disappointment and then a flicker of hope, but in the end, anger trumped all. He was lost. Should he be happy? Should he be angry? Should he call her back? His mind did gymnastics as he tried to decide what to do. Could he stomach speaking to her, let alone seeing her? She’d left him a broken man, alone to pick up the pieces of his shattered life.
    He longed to call her back. Maybe forgiveness would make things right in his world and he’d be able to move on. But something in the back of his mind, some unfathomable force, told him no . Lightning crackled across the darkening sky. You need to move forward. Never break your promise to yourself . You have a plan.
    He’d been through this painful routine once before with Irena, and he’d somehow managed to get through it. It had taken time to heal the wounds, time for him to forgive, but now he harbored no ill feelings toward her and was at peace with everything that had happened. Time was the key word there. Perhaps he needed to give this more time. Jaden had stung him much deeper than Irena ever had, and he knew if he gave in to what he wanted, his ability to get what he needed might suffer. He loved what they’d once shared, and he didn’t want to taint it by playing the blame game…But who was he kidding? She was the one at fault, the one who’d been unfaithful to him. Jaden had made a conscious decision to be with another man while they were together, and then she’d lied about it.
    Ivan stopped his circling and yanked the T-shirt out of the waistband of his shorts. He used it to wipe the sweat from his face and his neck, and then with an aching heart, he started a text message to AVOID:
    Jaden, Your star no longer shines in my sky.
Love for you still flows through my veins,
but it no longer reaches my heart. I wish you the world. ~ Ivan
    He read and reread the message a dozen times, contemplating whether he was being stupid, childish, smart, or all of the above. All three made perfectly confusing