Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [46]
It was my own fault. I take full responsibility. I'd asked her a question I had always wanted to ask a lesbian about lesbianism.
“Tell me,” I said, “is it a man-hating thing?”
Once Clare had stopped laughing pityingly at my ignorance, that's when she grabbed me and kissed me. It was like drowning in quicksand.
I emerged disheveled and gasping. “Wow!” I cried, wiping bits of her breakfast off my lips, “you kiss like a demon.”
“No,” she corrected quickly with a throaty laugh, “I kiss like a man!”
Manchester girls are the best fun!
At the restaurant, I find that Joanna's brought people too. Mostly family members eager to be on TV, including her diminutive, rather confused-looking mother, a small, bespectacled woman with unfeasibly brown hair. Following quick introductions for the benefit of the camera, Joanna goes about pouring ouzo for everyone.
Ouzo's the big thing around here, and has been since Historical Times, after a previous fad, absinthe, was found to have dangerous side effects, including tremors, hallucinations, dry mouth, cramps, and possibly internal bleeding. By contrast, ouzo's only real side effect is that it gets you crazy-blind-messed-up drunk, which is the one you're looking for anyway, so it was quickly dubbed a worthy substitute. Lesbos’ home-produced version is considered one of the best in the world. A clear, smooth liqueur flavored with anise, it turns from transparent to white the moment you add water, and is generally served with appetizers called mezedes, which tonight are carried to our table by an eccentric Disney caricature of a Greek man with a dark ponytail and a thick, straggly beard. This is the restaurant owner. For some reason, he's turned up wearing nothing but two white tablecloths, one safety-pinned at his hip and the other knotted around his shoulders to make a crude toga. He has no underwear on, something he verifies by cocking a leg and flashing his nuts, to loud oohs and aahs from the crowd. Except for Mary, I notice, who looks away in horror.
“Heeeeeeeey, my frieeeeeeends, weeeeeeellllcome!” he roars, laying down tray after tray of mezedes before us.
Very soon the table is heaving with traditional island food: sweetbreads (cooked using oil), stuffed tomatoes (leaking oil), something lurid swimming in oil that looks like stuffed tomatoes again, only regurgitated; fish (sauteed in oil, I believe); vegetables, brushed with oil; honeyballs that have been deep-fried; and a delicacy called sardeles pastes: basically, fresh sardines doused in salt. And oil!
Distressed, I round on Eric. “I'm sorry, I know this stuff is probably delicious, but I can't eat any of it.”
“Well, try,” he says abruptly. “Do it for the show.” He grew tired of my food issues several episodes ago. Despite the fact that I drew up a comprehensive inventory of all the things I can't eat, he doesn't seem to be taking my complaint seriously any more.
“But there's oil on everything.”
My continued protest inevitably draws a Crew Look. Remember the Crew Look? The one that means, “Uh-oh, the host is being difficult again”?
Tasha rushes in to smooth things over. “Hey, babe,” she whispers in my ear, “do what you can, okay? You don't have to eat the whole lot, just try some.”
For her sake I give in, and cautiously pick and nibble. Some of the sardines are not that oily, I guess. But just in case, I knock back a couple of extra glasses of ouzo to anesthetize my system. So does Joanna. So do the three token lesbians, who are lapping up the free hospitality. “Cheers to queers!” Clare shouts, raising her glass, and soon we're all pretty wasted.
“We'll drink one more bottle of ouzo,” Joanna tells me after a while, slurring her words, “and we'll dance the zeibekiko.” If that's how you spell it. In Greek, it's probably something like
“What's a zebiki…?”
“The zeibekiko …” She rests her head on my shoulder, ramekin eyes ogling me, “… talks about love and sadness, about death, about life … everything.