512: Their soup . . .
Reservations Recommended, Chapter 5 continues
THEIR SOUP is served.
“Mmm, this is delicious,” says Leila, sampling hers. Matthew hears the relief in her voice and realizes that she must have been worried that everything she would be required to eat in order to play sophisticate would be yucky.
So young, so young, he thinks. In the context of her life, this is an adventure. She’s vulnerable here. She’s put herself in my hands. I’m her guide through unknown territory. She trusts me.
However, says BW, to put the plainest face on it, Matthew, she has the most exciting body you have ever been this close to, and if you let scruples keep you from fucking her, you’ll regret it forever.
On the other hand, I might feel guilty forever.
Grow up, Matthew.
“I’ve never had this before,” she says. Immediately she frowns, raises her eyebrows, and rolls her eyes. “What am I saying? Of course I’ve never had this before. I’ve never tried anything weird.” That’s a broader statement than Matthew would have liked to hear, since it raises the question of just how much of the evening she catalogues under the rubric “weird.” Just the food? Or the whole idea of being taken out to dinner by an old guy like Matthew?
“Am I acting like a jerk?” she asks.
“What? Not at all.” You’re wonderful. You make me feel wonderful. Does he dare to say what he thinks? If he dares, can he say it without, on the one hand, making it sound like a move in a seduction gambit or, on the other, having it sound as if he thinks of her as a specimen? “You’re wonderful,” he says. He doesn’t get it quite right, erring, out of timidity and indecision, in the direction of specimen.
“Oh, yeah,” she says with that frown again. “I’m a great kid.”
“Oh, shit,” says Matthew, to his surprise. “I didn’t mean it to sound that way. That isn’t what I meant.”
“I’m acting like a kid. A jerk.”
“No. You’re being honest, and — ”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know how to put it.” Yes, you do. Try “naïve,” or “touchingly naïve,” or perhaps “unaffected,” or “refreshingly unaffected.”
“I think jerky is the word you’re looking for.”
“Leila,” he says, dropping his voice and speaking with the flat tone we use to show, or pretend, that we have dropped all pretense, “if you were ten years older, I’d be falling in love with you.”
Leila gets it. She doesn’t say anything. She goes back to her soup.
“Maybe I am anyway,” Matthew says, speaking so softly that she just hears him, and then bending to his soup.
A fine job, Matthew, says BW. A very fine job indeed. I think you’ve really turned a corner here, and I couldn’t have done a better job myself.
I just told her the truth.
Yes, yes, you did. You used what is sometimes the best ploy of all: the honesty ploy.
It wasn’t a ploy. It was the truth.
It was a ploy, Matthew. You’re using the truth to win her. You’ve found your technique. You’ve got your line. It happens to be the truth, but it’s still a line. The pitiful part, from where I’m standing, is that it really is the truth. You’d rather fall in love with her than go to bed with her. I correct myself: you’d rather have her fall in love with you. I think it’s your greatest weakness, Matthew, this need to be loved.
[to be continued]
In Topical Guide 512, Mark Dorset considers Persuasion: Truth as a Technique of from this episode.
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