Eat Me (20 page)

‘What is this young men and older woman thing? A plague? Did you catch it from him?' Shaking her head, she took a bite of her cake. ‘Yum.' She chewed thoughtfully. ‘Have you ever thought about it though? What are we younger women supposed to do while you lot are off pursuing your mother-substitutes? And what do you have against pert breasts and taut thighs anyway?'

‘Will you stop being so ageist? Two is not a plague. Besides, thirty-two is hardly a mother substitute for a twenty-two-year-old. Anyway, you know, you're going to be thirty-two someday too. And, I might remind you, your girlfriend is thirty-two. I didn't think you had anything against
her
body.'

‘What girlfriend?' Carolyn snapped. ‘That's over. I caught her sucking face, with a
guy,
in a public park no less.' Carolyn's lower lip quivered. She looked away from Marc. ‘At least I think it was a guy. I didn't really get a good look.' Something had been bothering her ever since Jake had taken his leave, but she couldn't put her finger on it. ‘Some stupid gangly creature with lots of hair. It was dark. But I'd recognise her anywhere.' Lots of hair. Jake? No, couldn't have been. Or could it? He was a very sexy boy. How could she!

Seeing distress darken her features, Marc put down his latte and threw a non-sexually-harassing arm around her shoulder. ‘Oh, Carr, I'm sorry. When did that happen? Why didn't you tell me?'

She shrugged off his arm. ‘Well, didn't have a chance, did I? Did I hear you say, and what's new with you, Carolyn?' she asked snippily. He looked so hurt that she was filled with regret. It wasn't his fault. She was seeing Philippa later. She'd ask her outright: was it Jake? And then she'd watch her reaction. Carolyn reached over and patted Marc on the hand. ‘Oh, don't mind me,' she sighed. ‘I'm just a big crabby apple at the moment. I don't really want to talk about it anyway. I want to hear all about you and Madam Professor.'

He gave her a searching look.

‘Really, I do. Every detail.'

‘It was all a bit traumatic, really. I'm sure I told you I asked her to go out for coffee with me last week, didn't I?'

‘Yeah, but you never told me how it went.'

‘Well, it was funny. She actually seemed sort of shy at first. And I was really nervous, though I tried to hide it. Then we got talking, and I was asking her all about how she'd come to teach at uni, and she asked me how I'd come to take courses in women's studies. So that was all going really well. Like, I was beginning to feel like she was seeing me, you know, not just as a student, but, like...' He laughed, embarrassed.

‘A
man?'
Carolyn teased.

‘No, yeah, oh, you know what I mean.'

‘I do. A man.'

‘Anyway, I worked up enough courage to ask her out, like, really out. You know, for a Saturday night or something. I was terrified she'd say no, and I'd be so humiliated that I'd have to drop out of her course.'

‘You mean, your male pride couldn't handle the rejection?' smirked Carolyn.

‘No, I don't have that kind of male pride. Be fair. Anyway, tell me women don't angst out when they want to ask someone out?'

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go on. Get to the good part.'

‘God, Carr, sometimes I wonder about you. Do you really think I suffer from a male pride problem? I mean, be honest. If you think I do, I'll...'

‘You'll what?' she challenged. She tried to look stern.

‘I'll, you know, try to reform. I'll enrol in another sensitivity workshop or something.'

‘Marc.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Spare me your workshops and get on with the story.'

‘Anyway, I thought I'd ask her to go and see Jake's band. Tell me honestly, do you really think I'm hung up on male pride?'

‘Oh, will you stop? I regret saying anything.'

‘All right, all right. We were out, right? Things were going really well. We went to the Sando a bit early to have a drink, and it was amazing how we just clicked. There wasn't any of that awkwardness of the first, uh, date? God, what a funny word.' Marc's voice trailed off. He looked around the cafe to make sure no one he knew was there, and lowered his voice. ‘You know,' he ventured after a long pause, ‘that I was a virgin, don't you, Carr?'

Carolyn's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. ‘What do you mean
was?
'

Marc suddenly felt embarrassed. Maybe he shouldn't be telling anyone this. Helen was his teacher, after all. And that book had come out causing a huge stir about a teacher who'd merely put a hand on the breast of one of his students. Marc had taken a very dim view of the whole affair. Of course, this was different. Or was it? He didn't want Helen to get into any trouble. Helen. Helen. He had a vision of the softness of her full breasts and sexy tummy, of his hands parting her thighs. His tongue worried a tiny piece of mudcake that had taken up lodgings next to a molar.

‘What do you mean
was?'
Did you really do the thing with her, or what?'

‘Jeez, you're crude sometimes, Carr.'

‘Who made the first move?'

‘Uh, I suppose she did.'

‘So who made the first move?'

‘Uh, I suppose he did.'

Chantal leant forward, one elbow on the bar, her beaked nose extended towards Helen as if she were an eagle who'd just spotted a small furry creature with the words ‘mid-afternoon snack' tattooed on its forehead. ‘Well? Do go on, darling. You know how I hate suspense.'

Without taking her eyes off Helen, Chantal ferreted in the bowl of nuts for a cashew, which she sucked up between russet lips, russet being the new colour for autumn. Russet looked particularly good on her now that she was a brunette.

Helen rotated her glass and studied the swirling malty liquid. She noticed how she'd managed to get her own lipstick on nearly every part of the rim. How did Chantal manage to make just one single, perfectly formed smudge? She looked around the lower Oxford Street pub to make sure that no one she knew was there. It was late afternoon. Not many people were in the pub. A couple of less-than-supermodel types who'd tripped over their platform shoes coming into the place sat smoking cigarettes, sucking up red drinks through black straws and giggling in the bartender's direction. An intense young man animatedly recounted some story to a beautiful woman his age. She appeared utterly uninterested, her eyes scanning the room with a rude restlessness. A rough-head in a flannelette shirt sat a few stools down from them, brazenly studying Chantal from her perfectly coiffed head to her shiny patent toes.

Chantal, meanwhile, was studying Helen. She adored her friend. She wasn't, however, altogether sold on her taste in men. Rambo with a garnishing of nuns and Andrew Denton she could understand. But truckies? (Philippa had told her about that one.) And now baby feminists with lime-green pigtails?

Then again, at least Helen had the guts to get out there and jump in the fray. Chantal certainly didn't lack for offers, and often from the very sort of urbane cowboys she most fancied. But she was simply not overly keen to take them up. And she'd made up the slave story, as Julia had suspected. For some reason that she couldn't quite fathom, the longer the period of her sexual abstinence continued, the easier it seemed. The others never quite believed her when she told them, so she'd given up trying to convince them. Besides, it was more fun telling stories.

Helen's voice recalled Chantal to the present. ‘We went to this pub, right? So of course the first awkward thing we have to face is, who pays for the beers? I mean, the obvious thing is, I shout this round, you shout the next. But I had this feeling, like, I'm older and I'm working and financially secure. You're a student and poor. So I should pay. On the other hand, what exactly were the roles we were playing? Teacher and student? Woman and man? Just friends? Besides, automatically assuming I should pay would patronise him in the way women have traditionally been patronised—and subsequently disempowered—by men, right? If he paid for me, then, of course, there's the old problem about men paying for women. Of course, we could've each paid for our own, but that would have been, I don't know, so terribly
unAustralian
or something. Anyway, when the beers came, he pulled out his wallet and said, “I'll get this round, you can get the next,” so that took care of that conundrum.'

‘Do you think,' Chantal suggested gently, ‘that you might have a tendency to over-analyse situations?'

‘I don't know,' Helen frowned. ‘Maybe I do. It's probably something of a professional hazard, analysing the power plays within every situation, particularly those involving gender politics. I suppose now that you mention it...Do you really think it's a problem?'

‘Not particularly,' Chantal hadn't intended to interrupt the flow of the story. ‘What happened next? But first, what pub were you in, what were you wearing, what was he wearing, etcetera? You know, darling, I'm a visual sort of person, I need these details.'

‘The Sando, in Newtown.'

‘Don't think I've ever been,' mused Chantal. ‘What's it like?'

‘The core crowd is pretty young and crusty, so there's lots of torn clothing, and t-shirts, and dreads, and blue hair, and people getting up to dance on the bar, that kind of thing. I was wearing that long black crinkly skirt that I bought with you and that low-cut maroon top. He had on his baggy black jeans and a Luscious Jackson t-shirt. He had tied his pigtails with small green bows.'

‘I know Luscious Jackson,' Chantal interrupted. ‘We featured them in a round-up on women in rock called “Girl-sounds”.'

‘That's right,' Helen enthused. ‘He'd actually read that piece.'

‘He reads
Pulse?
Chantal asked, surprised.

‘I told you he wasn't your typical boy,' Helen replied smugly. ‘It came up in the conversation. We just got talking about all sorts of things—somehow we went from the position of women in the rock industry, to land rights, to the way the Communist revolution failed the women of Cuba, stuff like that.'

Chantal smiled and blew a smoke ring. ‘Sometimes, Helen darling, you are such a cack.'

‘What do you mean?' Helen looked hurt.

‘Don't take it the wrong way. It's just the things you talk about with your young men.'

‘Man. Singular.'

‘Sorry, I interrupted. Do go on.'

‘Well, I really was getting off on his enthusiasm for everything. And how seriously he took issues that, well, I take seriously. I was just feeling really amazed at how easy it was to talk to him, and how much we had in common. You know, despite the, uh, age difference.'

‘Which is, exactly?'

‘Eleven years.'

‘What's eleven years between friends? Julia doesn't let that sort of thing bother
her.'

‘Yes, but I'm not Julia. She looks twenty-five.'

‘Helen, darling, you're not going to have another crisis about your looks, are you? First of all, I can't afford another shopping expedition this week, and second of all, you've just seduced what sounds to me like a very dishy young man. So just get on with the story.'

‘“Seduced”. Jesus Christ. What have I done?' Helen suddenly whimpered. ‘He's my student. I could lose my job.'

‘No use crying over spilt seed,' shrugged Chantal. ‘Besides, didn't he make the first move?'

‘Yes, I suppose,' Helen paused.

‘How'd it happen? But hold on a tick.' Chantal signalled to the woman behind the bar. ‘Could I've another one of these?' she said, holding up her glass. ‘And another Coopers for my friend.'

The rough-head in flannelette saw his opportunity. ‘'t's on me,' he blurted out with a leer he considered his most winning smile.

‘Thanks, but no.' Chantal smiled minimally in his direction, then addressed the woman at the bar in firm tones. ‘It's on
me
.'

‘No worries,' nodded the woman.

The man suddenly got up and left. As he walked away, he spat out the word ‘bitch' under his breath.

Chantal rolled her eyes at Helen. ‘You're better off with the young and innocent ones, darling,' she commented. ‘They haven't yet been molested by life. Sweeter on the tongue and gentler on the mind. But do go on.'

‘Well, his friend's band finally came on, and by then it was really crowded, and we were sort of pushed up close together. You know, funny thing, I thought I saw Philippa across the room at one point, but it was pretty hazy with smoke, and then the woman I thought was her disappeared and I figured it was just someone who looked like her. Must ask her if she was there. Don't see why she would be. The Sando isn't her sort of haunt, I wouldn't think. Anyway, Marc was standing directly behind me—he said I should stand in front because I was shorter and he could see over me. At one point, the movement of the crowd pushed him dead up against me. We were on our third beer, and when it happened again, I, uh, well, I leaned back on him.'

‘Nothing wrong with that,' Chantal approved, blowing a smoke ring.

‘I wasn't sure if I was imagining it or not, but he seemed to, you know, have an, uh, erection.'

‘I got a stiffy, Carr. Right in the middle of the Sando. The second she leaned against me. I was so embarrassed. I wasn't sure if she was aware of it or not. I was completely convinced, of course, that everyone in the whole room could tell. And I was terrified that I was going to, you know...'

‘Shoot?'

Marc blushed. ‘Carr!'

‘Well, isn't that what you meant?'

‘Yeah, I suppose. But there have to be other ways of putting it. I hate that one. It's so, I dunno, masculist or something. I think we should get rid of gun metaphors for sex.'

‘We should get rid of guns, period. And just keep the metaphors. I rather like them myself,' Carolyn smiled. ‘Not being a dogmatic kind of feminist like you.'