Salon | Unzipped

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ROBBING THE CRADLE

A friend finds dating younger men
to be on the "up-and-up."

Maureen raised her eyebrows across the table. "A bacon cheeseburger?" she asked incredulously. "Is that really what you're going to have? And do they still make Tab? I had no idea."
"It's a sorry state of affairs when a bacon cheeseburger becomes the ultimate sin left in life," I said. "Never mind her," I told the waitress. "You just bring her little salad with the dressing on the side. And I'll have an Anchor Steam instead of the Tab."
Maureen was an old restaurant crony, from the days when I worked in the high-profile eateries run by celebrity chefs. No matter how long I stayed out of the food service industry, I had to check in with all the gossip. Restaurants, as I saw it, were the last frontier -- a land curiously untouched by the political correctness of the day. Temper tantrums, sexual hi-jinks, drugs, narcissism run amok: You'd find it all behind the Staff Only door. Behind every $22 seared halibut served on a bed of basil mashed potatoes and drizzled with arugula pesto lay more intrigue and ego than a Donald Trump divorce.
"You know, one thing about these trendy open kitchens is that the chefs can't abuse you like they used to," Maureen was saying. "Now they just seethe and mutter instead of throwing things. Anyway ..." She was rearranging the cutlery on the table. "Well, I'm committing an ultimate sin," she confessed.
"Well, you're still not eating meat," I observed. "What's left? Anal sex?"

N E X T+P A G E+| LUSTING AFTER POST-PUBESCENT PUPS