I had just returned from traveling in Asia and I was craving the food, flavors and especially that spicy chili not favored by most Americans. I got excited that I might have found a little Chiang Mai here in New York when I read a blog posting titled, "Can You Take the Heat?" A local Thai restaurant was offering a challenge to finish a super spicy five-course tasting menu. Now that's something I wanted to take on.
N and I had gone on seven or eight dates at this point. We matched wit well and kept a good-natured raillery between us. We'd been playing Scrabulous obsessively on Facebook, each outdoing the other with word and score. So, I sent him an email, "Re: Are you Game?" with the link to the posting.
We met up at the restaurant Saturday night and as the waiter sat us I was able to show off a bit, "Sawadee Ka!" A perfectly inflected Thai hello. We ordered Singha and the fiery palate-numbing tasting menu. Throughout the meal, we were attended by each of the waiters and waitresses on duty. They were all Thai and quick tell us they were impressed and that they couldn't handle that amount of spice. I would concede it delivered in being hotter than most American-Thai offerings, but none of the dishes were like the fried fish with chili sauce I ate on the house boat on the River Kwai; my only recourse that night was sucking palm sugar to finally resume a normal breathing pattern. At the same time, we ate five courses all focused on chili, spice and heat merely accented by a few other ingredients. Our taste buds were definitely going to need a little time to heal from the onslaught of spice.
By finishing the meal, we won our prize, a dinner for two at the chef's newest restaurant opening. Basking in the heat and our championship, we had a celebratory drink at the bar around the corner and then took a cab to my house. I'd been to his house several times at this point, but it was the first time N crossed the East River to mine.
Now I live in a typical New York studio. It's adorable, the location is perfect and the major selling point for me is the deck. But as with all 'cozy' apartments, the space can be bruise-inducing - it's taken me five years to get the furniture layout just right, I will never be able to pee siting straight forward for there is a vanity in the way and the location of my bicycle will always cause agra. Add a 6'3" man into the space and immediately the age old adage, size does matter, comes into play.
My living room and bedroom are one and the same, which always bothers me when I have a few friends over for dinner, but if you've invited over the guy you are seeing after a date, there's no question where you want to end up anyway. And we did.
In the morning we were lying in bed, messing around. At some point I slipped away and headed to the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth. A little later N followed suit and tread the three steps (for him) from my bed to the bathroom. I was still snuggled in bed with a heavy-lidded glow when he appeared back next to me and asked, "Do you have any headphones?" What?
"You want to listen to some music?"
"No, I want you to listen to some music." Strange request.
"Huh?"
"Your bathroom is...last night's dinner...my stomach...I, I don't want you to hear..." Lightbulb. Ohhh. Oh my god, we're still too early in this relationship to deal with bodily functions.
And suddenly I remember this article I read over fifteen years ago in Cosmo about what a girl should do the morning after a guy stays over. Cosmo said guys typically need a little private time in the morning and that the best thing you could do was to give them an opportunity to take care of business. They suggested to run out, get coffee and pick up a paper for the two of you. At the time I read this article, I was in early high school and was not sleeping with anyone, much less having guys stay the night, but for some reason the advice had always stuck with me. Somehow it seemed a little silly and contrived and never in the years post-virginity had I found any use for their Barbie-and-Ken advice for the morning after. But here I was being asked for headphones and Cosmo now seemed to offer a much better solution.
I popped up, "Actually, I think I'm going to run to the store, grab some breakfast for us and a paper. I'll be back in a little bit." I threw some clothes on quickly and headed out the door. I didn't know how long I should be gone, Cosmo didn't tell me that. Or, if they did, I had long forgot that detail. So I roamed. It was a chilly winter Sunday morning and still quite early. The streets were quiet and peaceful. When I returned with more than enough breakfast choices and a paper that was never read, N was tucked under the covers waiting for me, tummy settled.
"I didn't know where you were, so I climbed back in bed."
"I got a paper and some stuff to make a shake."
"I was going to light a candle, but I couldn't find any matches. I found lots of candles." Note to self: put matches in the bathroom, buy this month's Cosmo and the next time I decide to take on the spicy food challenge do it with someone that won't be coming home with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment