I would have dreamt of you sitting across from me in a wrought-iron balcony of some café in Amsterdam, your fresh cappuccino higher in elevation than any garden in the entire country. Your glance: electric, and lingering; not even the smooth-skinned Indonesian waitress could peel my eyes from yours.

In this dream, we would not yet have made love, but we would have talked of it, neither of us actually getting down to anatomical or clinical specifics, other than that I would have told you how very much I would like to lick the inside of your thighs (suggesting, of course, that I would sample around in the area, like dipping into the rijstaffel garnishes we’d had for lunch).

Your hotel, somehow, is across the city from mine, even though we arrived together, by car, from Belgium. To get to you, I have to cross five canals, and go several blocks along the Prinzengracht, past the shop that sells authentic Eames chairs, and along the plaza across from the museum.

I have crossed the canals, nearly all of them, and am suddenly accosted by an exhibition of miniatures in a bank building lobby, and there I am, looking at all these splendid paintings, many of them no larger than a business card, while outside, the ubiquitous vendors sell tulips from ubiquitous carts.

One canal to go – I have passed the museum, and the chairs, and there are the whores, kneeling and praying to their saints, all facing in the same direction, and I flatter myself, thinking they are facing me, as if I am somehow the keeper of all that is safe and sensual; their lips move, silently, and I’m nearly mesmerized.

The air fills with the sound of church bells, but they’re quiet and tinkly, like a cavalcade of nuthatches on the edge of a forest.

And your hotel is right across the canal – three stories high, like every other building, but with unique architectural details – gentle buttresses flaring out with slight, grandiose curves, contrasted with the stark rows of brick on the building next door.

Hotel Witsen – I look up at your window, and I can't remember which one it is.

From across the table, you remind me:
“Two windows over from the corner, on the second floor – the one with the heron sitting on the window sill next to the geranium-filled planter?” I feel foolish for having forgotten; those are the only geraniums I have seen since I’ve been traveling with you, looking for you. I should have remembered.

I see you looking down at me – yes, there you are! Your hair isn’t brushed, as if tousled from having just been ravished – by me, I hope – and your dress, the one with the pretty pattern of roses (I like it because it reminds me of the wallpaper in a room at my grandmother’s house – when she would have me sit up in bed and punch the feather pillow on both sides at once, “Since it isn’t fluffy enough,” she would say) – the dress falls gently off one shoulder, like a tender caress.

From here, even though I’m still across the canal, I can see your demure smile. But I’m afraid that you’re not smiling because you see me, since I don’t think you can; the branches of the plane tree obscure me, the shadow falling across my face, again and again.

There I am at the door, and inside, now. A blast of warm air welcomed me, and I laugh – not only does it smell of cheese, it smells of Gouda, so I think of the omelet you’d said you’d make for me, after we woke, exhausted, from making love.

You sip your cappuccino, and pick up the long, empty, sugar packet, twisting it, then smoothing it out, drawing it between your fingers the same way you tug on the lock of hair that constantly falls over your eyes.

And I am in the hall outside your room. I hear voices – yours, and someone speaking Dutch (it nearly sounds like someone retching, but that’s just the way they talk – we’ve laughed about it, wondering if they could possibly generate poems of love in a country where it sounds like they’re constantly clearing their throats) – the Dutch voice is deep, and I realize that it’s me talking, telling you how much I like the dress with the rose pattern, and telling you why I like it, but then I have to explain that it’s really the way it fits your waist so perfectly, and flares out around your hips, and does your figure marvelous, and I wish I could tell you how much I would like to slowly pull the zipper down between your shoulder blades, and encircle your waist with one hand, then another, and caress your breasts –

But I don’t say it. I can hear myself telling you about the wallpaper, and I just want to open the door, just rush in there, and kick that fool for wasting the opportunity to say something charming and sentimental and erotic.

I’m convinced that women want to hear it, but the little boy inside, forever chastised by women who he was afraid had too much power over him and always would have, the poor fellow – knows that maybe women want to hear it, but they don’t want to hear it from me.

And the deep, Dutch voice stops, and says in English, “Are you expecting someone?”

“No,” I hear you say.

I knock on the door…

… and step toward it to answer it. My hand is on the knob, and I look back at you, and the corners of your mouth turn down, as if to say, it will never work: I have a husband at home in the states, and you have a wife there, and right now, she’s laying in bed next to you, her cold feet plastered against your calves, and it will never work.

I know you’re right, but I know – I can feel the electricity traveling up my arm from the knob, slowly, as if a goose wending back and forth out there on the canal – I know that if I answer the door, it will be good news, and I won’t care about any of that, and I can go about slipping your dress off your shoulder and pull you against me, and it will be alright.

You set the cup on the saucer, the tiny spoon clatters against the cup.