dinner as sexual metaphor

The two friends had taken to meeting in the city, San Francisco, whenever Willa had an appointment at UCSF. She would schedule the appointment at the end of the day so Don could be done with any work for the day.  He would ride his bike to the Haight.  Usually, he chose where they met and he always chose coffeeshops.

Bored with coffeeshops and eager to experience more of San Francisco than coffee, Willa had gone online to find inexpensive places to meet for dinner. She had found an inexpensive, organic, Syrian restaurant. It had great yelp reviews, was rated as inexpensive and they offered half an organic chicken with two sides for eight bucks.  Willa wanted to try that meal and Don had agreed to meet there.

Willa arrived first, very early. It was freezing outside and freezing in the restaurant. The Syrian men who ran the place were attentive. The business was mostly delivery. Willa was the only customer seated at a table.  When the men running the place saw she was cold, they brought over a space heater and placed it so warm air blew directly on Willa. Then the men insisted on giving her a complimentary cup of hot tea.

By the time Don arrived, Willa felt great. The warmth emanating from the space heater, the hot tea and the warmly attentive restaurant staff had warmed her up.  It had felt good to warm up, to receive the solicitous attention of the men running the restaurant.  Being very cold, so cold that her toes were icy, had become a rare experience for Willa since moving to Northern California.  She had enjoyed feeling very cold and then enjoyed slowly warming up while basqueing in the solicitous attention of the restaurant staff. When you get cold, with the ability to warm up, you feel alive. You inhabit your physicality. Same with getting caught in the rain.

Don sometimes fretted about being out and then caught in the rain. He had once remarked "What if it starts raining?"  Willa said "Then you'll get wet. You'll feel more alive." He scowled. To be fair, Don usually traveled by motorcycle or bicycle. Still, you get home, you take a hot shower and you can see the experience as a happy one. You got cold, you got wet, you enjoyed you hot shower and then you enjoy putting on dry clothes. Life at its basic best, at least for Willa.

Willa also enjoyed the fact that she was wearing old clothes that had been too small for her but, with a significant weight loss, fit her once more. She had worn her navy blue dress coat, her lawyer's sincerity suit, as her ex-husband used to say. He had the idea lawyers pulled out the navy pinstripe suit with navy dress coat for the most important court appearances. Truth told, Willa had never seen a lawyer in a courthouse making an appearance before a judge who did not wear their sincerity suits.

It was hella fun to have on that sincerity dress coat, those navy pants whose waist she had not been been able to button in years and a sheer, subtly sexy blouse.

She felt good. It had been lovely to have a few Syrian men fuss over her with the heater and free hot tea added to the pleasure.

It was a cheap kind of place, with a divey feel.  Shabby but clean. Old furniture, old cash register, very old glass display cases with nothing in them but dust. The business almost entirely delivered food. The men in the shop appeared delighted to have a diner seated at a table, expecting a date, delighted for no reason other than life. The evening was off to a good start even before Don arrived.

Don arrived very hungry. As he plopped down on the other side of the booth, he said "let's order an appetizer plate, my treat, I'm starving."  He impatiently waived over a waiter and, somewhat peremptorily, asked to hear about appetizers. It was such an inexpensive place. A cheap spot, yet Don acted like Mr. Gottrocks dining at a fancy, exclusive restaurant, as he took charge with the waiter. Once the waiter had describe only some of the appetizers, Don interrupted himsaying  "That one, we'll take that one." When it arrived, he ate most of it. He appeared ravenous, as if he had saved his appetite all today for this dinner date.  Stuffed grape leaves, hummus, pita. Willa was not famished, plus she had chosen the restaurant for its inexpensive organic chicken dinner. She was saving space for the chicken. This was the only time she had seen Don ravenous. He inhaled those appetizers. She was curious why he had not eaten sooner, had a snack to tide him over.

Seeing Don hungry, seeing him hungrily eat those appetizers fast surprised Willa. The behavior was uncharisteristic in him.  Don was usually very measured in his behavior, even guarded. To see him ravenously eat that plate of appetizers gave her a glimpse of him she had not seen before, a glimpse she liked. "So he does have some appetites", she noted to herself.

They held off ordering dinner, mostly because Don was so busy inhaling the appetizers. This gave them time for lots of conversation.  Both Don and Willa were focused on eating healthfully, but with slightly different dietary focus.  Willa passed on most of the appetizers because they were high in carbs. Carbs spike her blood sugar. She had chosen the chicken dinner because it was vegetable salad and chicken, virtually no carbs. She was happy to wait, happy to pass the time talking to Don while he hungrily ate the appetizer plate.

Each year, Don makes biscotti and gives them as gifts to family and friends at Christmas.  As they had eaten the appetizers, Don  had made a confession. One evening just before Christmas, he had eaten a couple dozen small chocolate biscotti, unable to stop until they were all gone. Willa confessed that her Christmas food indulgence had been a tiny orange walnut cake from the organic baker at her farmers market. The small cake provided four small servings. She had bought it as her Christmas treat and then ate the whole thing in one setting. That had not been her intention. Both of them laughed, looking closely at one another, looking one another directly in the eye.  Sharing secret Christmas binges seemed to draw them closer, edging towards emotional intimacy.

The mutual desert confessions warmed the two of them up. In fact, they were each delighted to have glimpses of one another's private weaknesses.

"In my former training business,", Willa explained,  "on the last of the five days, we sent the participants out to dinner before the closing ceremony.  We would ask them to consider the whole experience at dinner as a metaphor for their sexuality, and, thus, to pay attention to everything. Who had they chosen to dine with? What did they order and why? What did they talk about?  How did the experiences match their sexual experiences? How did they eat their food, what did they notice about how they ate? We asked them to just observe their experience, not to talk about it at dinner."

"Why did you give them that exercise?" Don asked. He seemed to lean back into his side of the booth, pulling away. Willa thought he had become anxious because she had alluded to sex.

"We asked people to do all kinds of exercises during the five days. We never dealt with sex directly in the whole group. I think we had decided that small groups at dinner, on the last day, was a relatively safe place to nudge our students into thinking about their sexuality without us having to deal with the often powerful energy of sex in the whole group.  Or maybe we just did it because it was fun." she said, in a sketchy explanation. In her trainings, students never questioned the instructions. She was not used to being asked to justify her dinner as metaphor game.  She had always liked going out to dinner with her workshop 'family', and silently observing the experience from the perspective of her sexuality. It had helped her notice things about herself, her appetites, her desires and how she sought to get them met.  Whenever she had played 'dinner as sex metaphor, everything about the meal seemed erotic. Willa did not share all of this with Don because of the way he had seemed to become uncomfortable when she suggested the game.

Restaurants are a place to practice asking for exactly what you want. And getting it.

Don had listened, saying nothing.

"Why don't we silently observe this meal as a metaphor for our sexuality?" Willa suggested. She was flirting, perhaps indirectly.  It was the furthest she could go to signal her attraction to Don.  She was not sure Don understood she was flirting, especially when he said nothing about her suggestion. Maybe he understood perfectly and was resolutely disinterested. She considered that. Perhaps she should have suggested they play the game but agree not to share their experience playing it.  She had never intended that they talk about the game. It is a game to enhance the individual's awareness of their desires, how they get what they want or don't try to get what they want, how they savor what they get. She had never asked her former students how the exercise went because when they returned, the workshop wrapped up with a graduation party. All participants were asked to bring friends, to help reorient folks to ordinary life because the five days were intense experiences. Folks would be blissed out, a kind of high without drugs. Having loved ones share the last few hours brought them back to a more ordinary state of mind.

When Don did not respond to her suggestion, Willa said "Well, I am going to approach the rest of this meal as a metaphor for my sexuality. I can do it silently and I'm going to."  Don never disclosed whether or not he would play.

The conversation moved on, each of them chatting about various projects in their lives at the moment.

Don finished the appetizers. The waiter finally took the order for dinner. Willa ordered the chicken dinner which had lead her to choose the place. It came with a side of hummus and a side of cucumber salad. Perfect.

Don ordered some kind of chicken wrap.  He was no longer very hungry after all the appetizers so he had ordered a small meal.

As the waiter began to turn away with the order, Don said to Willa "Why don't you get the lentil soup?"

Willa did not bring up her 'dinner as metaphor for my sexuality' suggestion but she thought about it. She wondered if Don saw any sexual metaphor in his suggestion. Order the spicy lentil soup. Hmmm. He may not have been playing her game but she was. She noticed, silently, that his surprise suggestion that she order something she had not chosen for herself made an interesting sexual metaphor.  Don had suggested she get something she would normally never get.  He was trying to give her pleasure, to meet her needs.

"Why don't you get the soup?" she said.

"I don't know. I just thought you'd like it." He laughed, his bright blue eyes twinkling. "Get the soup."

She did not mention her sexual metaphor game again but Willa ordered the lentil soup. She ordered it because if Don's unexpected suggestion that she eat something out of her wheelhouse was a metaphor for her sexuality, she wanted to eat that metaphor. She wanted attractive men to suggest new experiences, to offer delicious experiences.

The soul was delicious. The serving was large, the soup spicy and warming.  Her whole body felt better with each bite.  Her being felt warmed anew, fed and loved. The soup was so filling that Willa did not touch her chicken dinner.

The waiter asked if there was a problem with the chicken when they asked to have it wrapped to go.
"No, no,  the soup filled me up, that's all."

Then Don insisted on paying for dinner, which didn't seem right to Willa because she had an entire dinner to take home and had already eaten a dinner. She offered to pay but quickly agreed to let Don. Another metaphor for her sexuality. She wanted men making such suggestions, men taking care that her needs got met.

After that, Willa tried to recreate the spicy lentil soup several times. She never quite replicated the soup at that restaurant but she made lots of delicious soups.

Spicy lentil soup will always be sexy to her. Hot tea offered by attentive men is also kinda sexy, eh?

She liked the metaphor of having several attractive Syrian men attentively waiting on her. A hot cup of free tea on a cold night is a pretty good metaphor for one's sexuality. Exchanging secrets in emotional intimacy was a good metaphor too. And unexpected offers, like that delicious soup, is a great metaphor too. Men making offers to please her. She liked all of that.