For several years I owned a small and intimate restaurant in a wealthy college town. It had always been a place to take a hot date, with high prices, good food, impeccable service, and quiet privacy, but the heat rose to new levels when I hired Clarissa as my pastry chef.
Clarissa was young and pretty. When she walked in looking for a job, I assumed she wanted to be a waitress and would have hired her immediately just on the basis of sex appeal, but it turned out she also was a culinary artist. I needed a pastry chef and told Clarissa we would see what she could do, thinking that if that didn't work out, she'd shine as a waitress.
Her creations were ingenious, beautiful to look at, and totally delicious. After a week or two bringing out clever reinventions of dessert staples, she asked me if I would mind if she developed a couple of new ideas to go in a special section at the bottom of the menu. We would call them "Erotic Desserts.". It was a great concept, especially for the kind of place I was developing. I loved the idea, told her so, and eagerly awaited what she would think up.
The first was "Clarissa's Breast.". It took her weeks of experimentation to get the texture right. She insisted it must have a realistic bounce. There had to be a skin tough enough to hold the shape but elastic, and a creamy soft interior. The taste was reminiscent of crème brûlée, creamy and sweet, except that like salt caramel, there was an invisible layer of salt coating the outside and balancing the sweetness. The truffle had a soft chocolate center, of course, that had been rolled in pink peppercorns. Shape, coloration, and texture really were perfect, and it was an immediate hit. A man could fall in love with that dessert.
Well, if you have a section labeled "Erotic Desserts," it has to have more than one item. The next was simple and tongue-in-cheek. We called it "The Long Walk Home," consisting of a cup of strong black coffee with a hefty jolt of brandy. It was served with a large pink heart-shaped cookie, broken into two pieces down the middle. I waited eagerly for what would come next.
She worked on it in secret while also adding more ordinary desserts to the menu. One of those was a cream puff, with a lemony cream filling that had a distinctive yet undefinable flavor note. Like the scent of truffles, but not. Earthy, musky, a bit of funk. You felt that scent diffuse back to the base of your brain where unfathomable secrets live. She experimented with that filling for weeks, watching people's reactions when they tasted it. Often they seemed startled, but the plates always came back cleaned.
When she told me she was ready to release "Clarissa's Pussy" and showed it to me for the first time, I suddenly understood. I knew now exactly what that cream puff filling reminded me of. The pastry shell had a new shape, longer and more narrow, split down the middle and bulging to the sides. The lemony filling had become a lovely salmon pink with rippling longitudinal folds created by artful use of a pastry tube but still mostly concealed by the lips of the pastry shell. A single fresh and perfect raspberry lay mostly buried, but just peeking out between the pink folds, begging for a man's tongue. I got an erection the first time I saw it, and I knew that as long as I could keep Clarissa with me, the future of my restaurant was secure.
All my female staff were pretty. Sexy waitresses and waiters are an important asset in the restaurant trade. To make that work, though, it has to be business before pleasure, and I was scrupulous in never making the slightest sexual advance on my female employees. Part of making my waitresses feel safe in their demanding job, without hiding any of their sex appeal, was my practice of personally being the last person to leave at night. I didn't want any creeps hanging at their table until everyone else was gone, then making a pass, or worse, following a waitress as she left work. Instead, I would let the waitress leave early if anything felt uncomfortable, and after allowing her time to escape, I'd present the bill, intimidate the creep into a decent tip (which went to the waitress), and then encourage him to depart.
It could go quite differently, though, if that late-night straggler was a woman. I never made sexual advances on employees, but patrons were different. We offered an ideal spot for a romantic evening for couples and rarely had requests for a table for one. I learned there were exceptions, though, that recurred in a pattern of various forms. Here is how I learned it.
It started as a table for two, a blind date by the look of things. The girl was cute and lively, with a manner that was inviting. Her dress was simple but showed enough to make a guy look twice. Her date, though, seemed to be a dud. I seated them when they came in, as I do for most of my guests, and checked in on them from time to time through the meal, though I had no doubt their waitress was doing her job perfectly. Possibly the girl noticed my attention and that I liked what I saw on her side of the table. There certainly wasn't much that was attractive sitting across from her. They didn't linger. There were no erotic desserts. I don't suppose the rest of her evening went well.
The next night she was back without a reservation and towards the end of our normal hours. She asked for a table for one. I recognized her and found her a quiet corner in the back. She ordered a well-chosen meal, ate slowly, then sat for some time, not asking for either a check or a dessert menu. From her corner she could not see much of the room, but I'm sure she could tell things were winding down, and I knew our only other remaining table was nearly done. I collected the last remaining Clarissa's Pussy from the kitchen, brought it to her table, and placing it before her in the correct orientation, said, "A complimentary dessert for you. I think you need some cheering up."
