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SYDNEY
SUN HERALD
MAY 17th 1998
by
Paul McDermott
A kiss may be just a kiss, but open-mouthed, lip-smacking canoodling in public now that’s another story, says Paul McDermott.
There are some days when you wake up to find yourself out of step with the rest of the world. When an incident or circumstance places you in opposition to all around you. When you are forced to ask: "Is it me or is the world mad?"
Last Sunday I entered a small, crowded café and although it was four in the afternoon, for me, it felt like seven in the morning (something to do with a late night and several missing hours). I needed a pot of tea and some food to rejoin the land of the living. What I craved was something to nourish my flesh; what I got was something that sapped my soul.
A couple were sitting at a table just in front of me and, as I sat down, they started to kiss. They kissed long and they kissed hard and there were tongues involved. This was not an affectionate, dry kiss, this was a loud, wet public display of sexuality. I tried to look away but I felt self-conscious staring at the ceiling. I buried my head in the paper, but my eyes kept getting dragged back to the spectacle before me. The waitress took my order. This was my world too, why should I be embarrassed by their behavior? Why should I look somewhere else? I couldn’t avoid it, I surrendered and decided to stare. By the time my food arrived they had still not come up for air.
They broke their mouth grip and I breathed a sigh of relief. But unexpectedly, something more nauseatingly saccharine than the kiss occurred - the meaningful stare. An inch apart, they stared into each other’s eyes with a fevered intensity. In this way they avoided the pock-marked skin, sagging jowls and greasy hair of their partner and fell headlong into the iris. Their eyes remained locked together, their hands roamed freely, and then they kissed again.
It was like watching a car crash in slow motion: their faces colliding and absorbing the impact of each other, their tongues lolling obscenely out of their heads, their noses twisting and collapsing into their cheeks. This visual aspect was hideous enough but it was the aural dimension that managed to put me off my breakfast. They pulled apart with a slobbering smack, leaving their mouths glistening with saliva. It was an ugly, vulgar sound.
I wasn’t the only voyeur; everyone was watching the show. This was their moment, a moment that had lasted over an hour. Another couple moved to a closer table to get a better view.
The nose-breathing lovers had put me off my breakfast, but it must have caused a mighty appetite in them because they jumped right into their tucker. This time the entire café was relieved, but it didn’t last long. Unperturbed by the egg and Kransky sausage half-masticated in his mouth, she tore in for another kiss. She slammed her face into his, open-mouthed and panting. I’m not sure what she was eating, but after that, he would’ve had a fair idea. Kissing, chewing, chewing, kissing and, now, drinking and kissing.
I was confident my fellow diners would be equally disgusted but the opposite was true. The exhibitionists had a sickening, lovey-dovey domino effect on the other patrons. Every other couple (I was the only lone diner) in the place began to coo to each other. It was as if they were given permission to be amorous by the excessive display they’d seen. People were laughing, giggling, stroking each other’s thighs. The whole place was canoodling, even the rational waiters and cooks were engaged in a bit of frottage. It was disgusting and I realised I didn’t belong there. Maybe there was something in the coffee? Had some pagan deity sprinkled fairy dust in the food? Was I the only Jesuit at a Bacchanalian festival?
I left my untouched breakfast and returned to the safety of my home. This was a day when opinion had turned against me. I had been made all too aware of my solitude, not just within the coffee shop but within the world at large. These two people, who were desperately trying to be one, had left me feeling incredibly divided. I went back to bed. I have no idea if they did.
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