Sexy Beau


Rachel Hendry
Apoorva Sripathi


You could tell that the last of the dessert course – daintily pleated, blueberry-filled perogies floating in a lavender infused broth – had reached its destination because this is when he appeared at the doorway, like clockwork. An apron slung around his hips, a tea towel draped over his shoulder, a hand reaching for the cigarettes and lighter in his back pocket. His head slowly stooped towards the hold of his hands, then sharply tilted back, mouth pursing to direct the smoke into the clear night sky, eyes closing at the pleasure of it all. 

I continued to watch as he was offered a glass of wine. ‘Spicy Gamay, no?’ he asked after a taste. It was the same wine I was drinking, an inky black Beaujolais that teemed with stewed cherries and decisive cracks of black pepper. Spicy Gamay.

I had been watching him all week, this man whose job it was to serve me meals and pour me wine whilst I attempted to rejuvenate and restore myself in the middle of the countryside. It was the pride he took in his role that I found intoxicating; at home when I waitressed the embarrassment would so often riddle my posture and vibrate through my conversations, but there was none of that with him. He was so good at his job and I was so attracted to him for it, I felt ashamed. Not for my desire for him, but the lack of desire for my occupation. If I worked differently, if I didn’t carry such resentment for the subservience and lowliness required of me, if I straightened my back and held my head higher, perhaps I could’ve had a more magnetic effect on my guests. 

I could feel the wine beginning to stain my mouth. I slid the pad of my thumb slowly across my lower lip and I could see the transfer of ink as I drew it back. Spicy Gamay. So often people dismiss Beaujolais as being silly and sweet, not deemed as serious as a Bordeaux or a Burgundy. Here a hierarchy makes itself known. 

Tasting Beaujolais is where I learnt the term confected, a harsh word rhyming with infected and inferring the pick-and-mix stalls of the cinema complex and theatre foyer. Parma violets and foam bananas and sweet jellied cherries all manifesting in a glass that people infantilise and dismiss. Yet here, in my glass, a dismissal of an assumption takes place. A Gamay peppery and perfumed and proud. Spicy. Intoxicating. The presence of this spice allows the Gamay to take on a new meaning. A hierarchy rejected. 

Spice and service manifest differently depending on where they are found, who embodies it, whether they are crops of exploitation or identities of the exploited. Even a hierarchy set in stone can be dismantled in the right setting. Spice can be derogatory, an insult to a dish, a dismissal of a culture. Intricacies of cultures can be infantilised and inferiorised via the spices associated with them, the spices taken from them. And it is this taking, this theft that sees spice as both pleasure and priority, something luxurious and fragranced to be aspired to, to coat yourself in, to distil and consume. 

Service has much in common. It is worth so much, so many rely on it, and yet it is deemed worthless; it must be readily and cheaply available, and rarely is it interrogated below a surface level. To serve is to reduce and remove your personality – it is the shame I feel when I am reduced to a pair of hands clearing a table or a voice to enquire whether ‘there is anything else I can do to help, just let me know’. The presence of both spice and service, has relied on the exploitation of so many. Whose identities have been taken from them, have been belittled and ridiculed, so as to contribute to the decadence and indulgence of others? To benefit from service is to hold power, to depend on serving is to struggle with power’s hold. Spice understands this power only too well. 

I become jealous of people who can perform comfort in their service work, of those who genuinely seem like they enjoy their role. I keep staring at this man: am I attracted to him or do I want to be him? I feel pleased that we detect the same level of spice in our wine, although what does that mean? Which spice are we referring to? Which spice are we eradicating in the process? I can serve yet remain ignorant in the ways my life benefits from the service of others. 

He has finished his cigarette and he is gone now, back to clearing plates and charming customers. My plate is already cleared, my custom already charmed. My hands begin to fidget, dancing in their desire for a cigarette and I clench them around the stem of my glass instead, taking one final sip. Peppery Gamay, taut and textured, both of us subservient to our seduction.



Rachel Hendry is a drinks writer and hospitality worker based in Sheffield. Her work has featured in Vittles, The Financial Times and Pellicle magazine as well as her sporadically wine-focussed newsletter J'adore le Plonk. Find her on Instagram at @ratchellle.