A number of years ago, I had a major crush on a guy whose profession was identifying bodies that had been mutilated or decomposed so badly that they were beyond visual recognition (yes, it’s another sappy Valentine’s Day story).
As a reporter, I had met this guy on the job, so consummation, even flirtation, was out of the question until my article had been published. Infatuation, so long as I kept it to myself and my 10 closest girlfriends, however, was permissible.
We all have our types. Mine is short, stocky and exotic, and exudes a whiff of danger. When I met this guy, who was French, at the New York City morgue, and he showed me a headless, legless, half-armed man (I mean the deceased had half of one, not a partly assembled Uzi), that was that. And there is no place for whiffing like the refrigerated section of a large metropolitan meat locker.
True, this pathologist, Jacques Clouseau (not his real name), had not chopped off the hands of the deceased, but he was handling a guy whose hands had been chopped off and had been steeping, pungently, in the Hudson River all winter. That proximity to danger was enough for me. He also walked me through the unlighted refrigerated section of the morgue, shining his flashlight on the bodies and making the sorts of dark, jaded comments you hear these days on “C.S.I.” That was exciting in a terrifying sort of way. I was young and a little confused by the attraction myself.
“Maybe it’s his closeness to death,” I theorized to my best friend, a humor writer named Herb. “Like he’s death’s handmaiden. What would the masculine for that be?”
“Death’s gofer?” Herb said, helpfully.
Did I mention that Mr. Clouseau, who was 15 years older than I and who has since gone on to that big medical examiner’s office in the sky, was built like a soccer champ? And that, just like a police detective with whom he worked, he had great stories? A preacher who chopped up the bodies of his teenage victims. The scenes at airline crashes, where he once found a dismembered man’s hand and a dismembered woman’s hand gripped together. (Not a great story for my fear of flying, but one I recall every time we hit turbulence. Each of those dismembered hands, by the way, had a wedding ring. I told you this was going to be a romantic story.)
Mr. Clouseau could also cook. When I went to his house and he showed me his collection of photos of murder victims, which included a woman axed to death by her son, he made me an excellent omelet.
“Only a Frenchman knows how to make an omelet,” he said.
I found that cool, too. As I said, I was very young.
I was just fascinated by this beefy little dude, but the article took forever to report. And then, just when it was about to be published, there was a newspaper strike. But finally, after four or five months, I was free to go on a date with him.
You know how when you get together with someone you have been fantasizing about, how every minute is electric? It wasn’t like that. With the forensics out of the way, we had nothing to talk about.
Still, when you have a sexual lech that’s been on the back burner for months, you don’t just walk away. As soon as dinner was over, we went back to my place and started stripping down.
And then, for the first time, I understood what true terror was: Mr. He Who Sneers at Death was wearing skintight leopard print underwear, cut like Speedos. I’d like to say he was wearing them with irony, but there was nothing to indicate that. Maybe the briefs were a European thing and French girls just pulled back the sheets and said, “Come and get it.”
But for me, it was one of those shattering moments from which one can never recover, although I like to think I hid it.
“I can go all night long,” Mr. Clouseau said.
Alas, he did. We never saw each other again.
But this experience taught me much about passion, which, to help you along on Valentine’s Day, I will share with you now.
¶ If you have a physical type, don’t fight it. It’s a pure, visceral attraction that may get you over the disappointing moments. That didn’t happen for me, but it’s possible.
¶ One of the best preludes to romance is a perfectly prepared meal. Think of a dish you love and find someone who is able to cook it. Naturally, my tastes are more sophisticated now than they were when I was in my 20s, but I still try to keep it simple: Can you prepare Hubert Keller’s papillote of foie gras, langoustines, chanterelles and fresh almonds in Sauternes jus? No? Next!
¶ Nothing spices up romance like the exotic, a hint of danger and a bit of delayed gratification. So this Valentine’s Day morning, present your beloved with a pound of bacon-chocolate truffles, pour two steaming mugs of coffee and place yours near the side of the table where you might accidentally knock it off at any moment. Then say, “I see you naked on the beach in Tahiti, and in 10 years, I hope you find someone who can afford to take you there.”
¶ And finally, no matter how exotic they seem, stay away from guys in leopard print underpants.
No comments:
Post a Comment