Message 9: Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 15:58:08 +1000 Sender: Lojban list From: Nick Nicholas Subject: CAFE: cook (& busboy) sketch X-To: Lojban Mailing List To: Bob LeChevalier Having passed the cafe material along to my friend Zoe Velonis, she penned this. Comments will be passed on to her. ** She had the kind of body that clothes couldn't contain. It wasn't that she was so fat that she burst out of whatever she wore, that her flesh strained against the warp and the weft, but that she had the kind of body that clothes just shouldn't confine. Her bra straps were forever falling down: she'd go about the kitchen tugging at one absentmindedly as she stirred a concoction. Buttons would fly off at a moment's notice, turning up later in a bowl of soup. The zipper of her jeans had to be anchored with a safety pin else it would slowly creep down, leaving her blushing. Her naked body was voluptuous, repslendent, Rubenesque. Never of the personality to subscribe to the feminine beauty myth, she exuded both femininity and beauty, from her thighs to her belly to her gloriously round and pendulous breasts. He would come to her at night, creep into her bed and bury himself in her warm, soft flesh; nestling his face between her thighs and reaching up for huge handfuls of her breasts, marvelling at her bounty as she tossed her head and moaned with pleasure. She surrounded him, took him in, made him feel complete. In the daytime she never gave any sign that she knew of his nightly visits. She was the cook, he a busboy, and there was no hint of affection or shared pleasure, much less gratitude, in her voice as she thrust dishes at him, giving him instructions in a firm, clipped voice that bore no contradictions. He'd worshipped her beauty for weeks, in the beginning, longing for her, his flesh aching for her, his mind consumed by the demands of his loins. He'd sneak outside the cafe' at night, stare up at the window he knew was her room as she turned on the light. He'd watch, hypnotized, as she languorously disrobed, brushed her hair, leaned out of the window to breathe deeply of the night air. Her breasts shone like twin moons as she drank in the night, erasing the scents of garlic and rosemary, butter and tomatoes from her nostrils. Once, as he watched, she laughed, a low, quiet chuckle, and opened her arms in an embrace. "Come up then, why don't you," she said, her voice rich with a melodiousness off nuance that it never had during the day. His breath caught in his ribs, clung there until he remembered and opened his lungs again. "Me?" he asked, desperately grateful that his voice didn't display that annoying habit it had lately, of cracking when he particularly wanted it not to. "No, the other people who are out there watching me every night," she said, the laughter still in her voice. So he went back into the cafe', past the night janitor who whistled as he wiped down tables and mopped the floor, who gave him a knowing wink that made him all the more nervous. He went through the kitchen and paused at the foot of the stairs, put, finally, one foot on the first protesting step. Thirteen stairs, he counted, and crossed himself. He turned down the hall, past the head waiter's room, the manager's to her room. As he stood outside, breathing heavily, his pants distended with his desire, she opened the door. Her nakedness was more than he'd dreamed of. Not perfect: he could see the silvery stretch marks on her breasts and thighs, the moles and freckles, the pits and scars of age. But her imperfection only made her more achingly real, more desirable, and his genitals throbbed against his jeans. Breath came in short gasps. "Have you ever been with a woman before?" she asked. Mute, he shook his head. It was the truth: his absentminded penetration of his sister's best friend when they were all playing doctor behind the abandoned barn didn't count. She took his hand and led him into the room, whose walls were covered with tapestry bedspreads that exuded odors of frankincense and patchouli. She guided him to the bed and undressed him carefully, opened herself to him and then, when he had spent his first desire in her, taught him how to pleasure a woman as well as himself. He realized, at one point, that he didn't know her name, that she didn't know his. Somehow it seemed desperately urgent that she whisper his name at her climax, but when he told her, she only laughed. And now she was just another part of the day to him, the thing that he escaped to when his shift was over each night, threading his way through the tables and up the stairs to her soft, endless flesh. She was always the same, never cried or wept or showed that anything touched her emotion. Her laughter, though rich, was only amusement, never joy or happiness; and he wondered if the walls would echo with her moans of pleasure without him, if she even needed him. So one night he stayed away. She looked the same the next day, but the one after, her face seemed drawn. He watched her carefully, but she never said anything to him or to anyone, and although for a month she grew paler and thinner, stopped tugging at her bra straps, and although her cooking grew bland and tasteless, the decline finally ended. Her color came back and her voluptuousness was even more irresistible. He thought that she had found a new lover and, jealous more than he had thought himself capable of being, he mounted the stairs one night to see. There were no sounds from her room and he had almost turned away when he heard her low rumble of a laugh. He opened the door quietly and peered into the darkness. The window was open, making the tapestried bedspreads billow in the air, sending out whiffs of their scent like tendrilled ivy. And she...her bed faced the window and on the ceiling was a mirror. She lay, legs spread wide to the night, looking up at herself, and laughed a laugh of joy and happiness. As he watched, she moaned and tossed her head in that way he knew so well, and then she cried out, syllables that formed what he knew must be her name, and wept, tears of release and happiness as well as pain and emotion. He crept out, closing the door softly behind him, and tried to blank out the emptiness inside him with alcohol, tried to forget that the night and the mirror and her own hand had done what he never could. It was then that the cafe' began to become very popular, then that its cook began to acquire her reputation for food with the indefinable passion, mer'aki, for being a chef unparalleled by any before. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Nick S. Nicholas, "Rode like foam on the river of pity CogSci & CompSci student, Turned its tide to strength University of Melbourne, Australia. Healed the hole that ripped in living" nsn@{munagin.ee|mundil.cs}.mu.oz.au - Suzanne Vega, Book Of Dreams ______________________________________________________________________________