The Fullstop Cafe, Parkhurst

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Service: * * * *
Food: * * * *
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * * *

I've hinted generously and abundantly in my smss to Mariaan that I'm hoping to get her naked tonight.

She arrives for our date looking radiant and ready to get undressed. But I could just be projecting.

"Jeez, Roy," she says. "This is so weird. I mean, I don't really know what to say. It's just weird."

"Me wanting to get you naked?"

"No, the whole Coffee-Shop Schmuck thing. I don't really know what to say."

"Cos it might make it onto the site?"

"Yes!!!"

"Relax, I'm not going to put anything incriminating onto the site. I'm quite sensitive that way."

"No, that's okay," she says. "I trust you."

There's been some sort of odd mistaken identity thing between me and the waiter. When I arrived, I was playing with my Nokia 6600. The waiter said something along the lines of my having my entire life on the thing, and how I used it for everything. I was wondering how he could possibly come to that conclusion when he said, "I mean, I even see your phone coming up on our website statistics."

"Hmmm," I said, "which website would that be?"

He cuffed me gently on the arm, and smiled broadly, a kinda, 'how-on-earth-could-you-FORGET!!!-which-website' kinda smile.

"Come on Sandy," he said. "Our website."

"Uh..." I said, "Bad news... I'm Roy, not Sandy. But now I've got to know about this website."

"Oh no!" he said. "I'm so embarrassed. Oh no!!!!"

And he disappeared.

So I tell Mariaan about it. Our speculation is that this MUST be gay underground. I'm fairly camp, and very much in touch with my feminine side, and many gay guys mistake me for gay.

So when Ian arrives to take her white wine order, he calls me Sandy again, but this time in jest, to show that he's not ALL THAT embarrassed.

He brings the wine, and I say, "Oh no! No quick escape this time. Reveal all!"

So he digs around in his little waiter-sack, and slides a full-colour business card onto the table. No information on it, except for a funky graphic, and a web address. http://www.artlounge.co.za.

"But what IS it?" says Mariaan.

"It's a party we're organizing. At CarFax. Can't give you any details," he says. "But we'll be putting snippets onto the site to tease people. Hope we'll see you there!"

Mariaan orders the haloumi salad. I go for the California chicken. I've been a regular at one or other of the FullStops for a good ten or so years. I don't even recall when the first one opened in Melville, but I was there for its first night of operation. And ate there almost nightly for around four years when I lived in Brixton. And for some odd reason, I simply don't recall the California Chicken. Which I deeply regret. Cos it's seriously lovely food.

Chicken breast, with mozzarella cheese, bacon, and avocado. Hmmmm. Yummmmmmy.

And Mariaan appears to have ordered the starvation version of supper. I'm guessing that she's like many women... obsessed about her weight. And she's probably read some or other John Gray type of book that suggests that it's un-ladylike of a woman to order a decent meal, since it might give the man ideas that she's greedy or out of control or something.

"You can tell a lot," I say, "about how someone is in bed by the way they eat."

She's picking at her food, as if she's a touch scared of it. Maybe she thinks it's going to rise up and bite her?

"Are you serious???" she says.

"Well, think about people you know," I say.

"Wow. Never too old to learn something new," she says. "It explains A LOTTTTTTTT about my ex-husband. A LOT."

"How did he eat?"

"Very very anally," she says.

In that case, she's in for a treat if she ever gets naked with me. I'm a very carnal eater of food. I love the stuff. I enjoy rolling it around my mouth. I'm also the slowest eater I know. And I love tasting every mouthful. I chew a lot, and really get to the flavour.

One thing that puzzles me about myself, and ISN'T reflective of me in bed is my aversion to sticky food. I simply cannot abide getting sticky stuff on my hands or face. I have very mild obsessive compulsive traits, so I think this would be one of them.

In bed, I LOVE juices. All of them. But at the table, even sugar water is too sticky for me to get on my skin.

We talk about her breasts. They really are enormous. "I just wish men would be able to see past the breasts," she says. "They're really just breasts, nothing special. Just part of me. And men don't seem to get that there's actually a person inside here."

A common complaint women have.

"We don't have to get naked, and we don't have to make love," I tell Mariaan. "Why don't we just go home to my place and cuddle a bit? And if you like, I won't even touch your breasts."