She asked my name and at the same time her friend asked where I was from. It is polite to answer those questions directly and honestly and then ask them back in return. This is the way things are expected to go. Once, for about two months, I used to tell people in a posh part of Hollywood that I was from Mumbai.
"You know - the place with the bombs and the cricket and where they answer the phone when you call Verizon..."
That's different though - I was trying to be impolite and unexpected back then.
I told her that was the first time I'd ever heard of her name. Ever heard of it belonging to anyone. About ten years later I would hear that name again. In an almost identical situation. Different person, but same name and same situation.
Does that happen to you when you're flirting with customers?
Do they start to repeat their names on you?
Maybe it is just me that is repeating myself and my stories. And the kind, sweet folk that come across me don't wanna be the ones to burst my bubble. So they play along. Maybe they get something out of it. Maybe they don't. I'm not sure either way, because I can't even tell if they are simply just playing along. I only know that I believe their name.
She was from Belgium. This first one that I had met with that name. She had worked in a restaurant in Brussels with a famous chef - well, he was famous in Brussels - and he wanted to break out and be free from that brown and soggy town. Before the restaurant she had worked on boats. For rich people. Obviously they were rich - they owned large boats and had the money and the time to sail and moor them and fill them up with friends and drugs and gasoline and quiet and waiters. She was the one in charge of the waiters. This work experience made the Not-So-Famous Chef believe she would fit perfectly as the Maitre d' for his New York City arrival - a character and a face to meet and greet and remember the type of customers he wanted to attract.
They had a great first year. Apparently. I say 'apparently', because I had never heard of the place. This didn't mean much - it was located Uptown and who the fuck knew about that part of the island. Anything above 14th may as well be Canada. She said they had a great first year and I believed her. I believed her name, so it seemed a waste and unfair to not believe the rest of her story.
This was her last weekend in The City. The Korean was a manager and now she was to be promoted into the Belgian's role and the Belgian was returning to a life on the boats. With the quiet and the waiters.
She had half a foot on the plane outta there and that sorta mindset changes the meaning of consequence and added weight to my charm. I wasn't on a closing shift, but it was still after midnight before we got back to her apartment in Chelsea. It was in a high rise. Must have been thirty stories of grey and black running all together in a slimline statement. A statement that said:
"I live here. I could live down there with you but then I'd be part of it all. I do want to be close to the part of it. I just don't want to be a part of it all."
It also said that Partly-Famous Belgian Chefs pay well, And I'd imagine really famous ones would pay even better. I don't know any famous Belgian people. I think the guy who wrote Tintin was Belgian. Also, Tony Parker who plays basketball in Texas is from Belgium. But I don't know if either of them can cook.
She exchanges pleasantries with the doorman and we take the lift up to the 17th floor. We step inside the apartment and it is a boxy, open-plan studio that feels just like the outside. The black, shiny kitchen bench and the grey, brushed suede couch. The smoky bathroom walls and the cramped, charcoal metal bed-frame. The dark night looking back at us through full length windows on the far side that meet up into a corner and in front of that the small, shadowy round table blocking the pointy edge. Her bed-spread is midnight blue and her half packed suitcase is silver. It lies open across the living room floor.
Maybe they weren't the colours.
Maybe there was just a meanness growing inside me.
Maybe.
It is late and I am tired and now I'm not really sure why I am here. She is small and tight. Skinny, but the good kinda skinny. She has dark eyes and dead-straight jet-black hair that falls tense and silky over her neck. Light shoulders too. Light shoulders and a straight back. And slender legs, delicate ankles, small breasts and a sleek, cold, upturned nose. On paper, all of that combined with her carelessness and sense misadventure of one last night should've been enough. And it is. And yet still, I notice a meanness growing.
We start off on the bed. The sheets slide down and we're pulling at each other's clothes. It is still summer out there and neither of us started off with too much on. We're down to her French lingerie and my Australian underwear in no time. I push my lips into the base of her neck and I hear her inhale sharply and quietly. I push lightly with my teeth onto the same spot and now she exhales a little louder. I feel the meanness start to slowly slip away.
"You got something?" she asks between breaths and reaching for me.
'Something'. It's always 'Something'. Never 'a condom'. I mean, we're all adults here. You don't have to dance around it with a euphemism. And yet still, they always do. I think they think it'll kill the moment. Or that they are embarrassed to insist on one. Look, I'm not here to discuss the merits of sexual health and pleasure and safety and urgency. That's a different blog from a different guy who parents didn't insist that the high-school he once briefly attended excuse him from Sex-Ed classes. All I'm saying is that at the stage when the condom is what has to go on, just call it what it is. We're naked and in each other's plain views.
Anyways, I don't have 'something' - nor a condom.
She insists that I go downstairs. There is a bodega on the corner with 7th Avenue and it is open all night. They have condoms. Now that we've pulled apart and my face is not on her skin it seems it is fine for her to use the word 'condom'. She offers me money but I smile and scoff back at her. I get dressed and she tosses me her keys. On my way out I remember to check and take note of her apartment number.
The bodega is so brightly lit up. They always are. I notice and feel this one more after coming from the blacklands of her building. I locate the condoms straight away. I grab for the ones I want. The ones I'm used to. And then that uneasy feeling comes. It's like embarrassment, but not exactly. More like a feeling of inappropriateness, That's a better way to put it. The whole dance around sex with strangers has points like that. I don't want to rush into the shop and just buy the condoms and leave like that.
Well then, what else?
I re-enter her gloomy lobby, nod a silent, knowing nod to the doorman and ride the lift back up to her apartment. She is still in the bed, but the sheets are now off the floor and pulled over her as she sits up, sipping water from a glass. I pull the condom pack out from the bag.
"Something..." I announce, holding them up and tossing them gently onto the bed.
"Cookies..." they go next to the condoms.
"And ice cream."
I take the tub over to where the kitchen bench runs along the side wall and put down the plastic bag and search around for some spoons.
"Um, is that ice cream?" The Belgian asks.
'Yup! I felt like we needed some sugar."
"Oh....um...so, I don't eat dairy.... and I can't eat these cookies either cause I don't do gluten."
I stop still and narrow my eyes at her.
""Do gluten?" What do you mean?"
"Oh, so I don't eat gluten and I don't eat dairy, so I don't really eat cookies or ice cream or that sorta thing."
"Ever?"
"Well, yeah."
"Cake?"
"God, no! I also don't really do sugar."
"Why not?" The feeling from before is coming back. And fast. "Are you allergic?"
"I mean, not officially, but I just know that that stuff is not right for me. But you should have some ice cream. Don't let me stop you."
"Uhhhh...." I look down at the freezing container in my hand, frown and then look back up at her. "No, that's ok." and I set it back down on the bench.
She smiles at me and takes another sip from her glass.
No cake?? Ever??
Now I'm just all meanness and distraction and I need to leave.
I'm already all dressed. I'm already standing up. I'm already ready.
I look at her and send a warm and broad smile. It is inviting and caring. It is calm and soothing. It is thankful, And it is total bullshit. It is the one I reserve for the customers I am totally disinterested in. And it works perfectly fine on them.
"So....Uh....I'm gonna go now."
"What??" her head shakes a bit. Almost like a double take. Her eyes drain black and dark immediately.
"Yeah. I'm...ah... Look - it was lovely meeting you. I hope you have a great time on the boats. That sounds like so much fun. All that sun and vagueness. I wish you a quick pack and a safe flight."
And then I just left. Out the door. Didn't even leave time to wait around for any response or demand or question. Just gone. Out the door and down the lift and into the balmy night.
You gotta have your standards, kids. Your levels. Your bedrock of what is acceptable and what is not. And that bullshit don't fly around here.
No Sugar?
No Gluten?
NO CAKE??
You gotta have your standards, kids...
