Kinky Cafe

Paul Dent lived half a block from a coffee shop called The Ooo-la-la that sold decent coffee but was known better for the fact that there were chain bracelets and whips, paddles, ropes, colored bandanas, and books about leather play for sale over the counter in a kind of gated closet. The tables were cute typical cafe tables but the seats were rugged saddle benches or they had wooden cross backs like torture racks and there were chaffed edges where it seemed that ropes had been wrapped and tied against the wood. The photographs on the walls were erotic, mostly women posed starkly in black and white with their bare chests pinched all over with clothespins, blindfolded or hog-tied with thick, silky knotted rope. The decor held nothing back.

Kink didn’t mean anything to Paul. But the staff, Paul guessed, were real practitioners of the stuff.They were pierced and tattooed and pale and androgenous. A woman steaming milk at the silver, phallic frothing tube on the cappuccino machine wore so many rings they were like gauntlets on her hands and leather bracelets so tight over her chunky wrists it seemed indecent somehow. There was a different brand of sensuality in all this, one that wasn’t drawn from beauty. In fact Paul wouldn’t have called anyone working in the cafe beautiful. Their sex sprang from a different font.

Also the coffee was very strong. Business was good in the shop. Paul often found himself waiting in a line and puzzling over a sign that hung on a chain which read: No Outside Food. Wasn’t that an unlikely, conservative rule for such an open-minded place? Of all the things that might have been regulated there it was outside food that would not be tolerated? It seemed like an unlikely hang-up and maybe even a joke.

Then one day Paul happened to have a sandwich in his bag. At the register the young man that was ringing Paul up in tight black pants and combat boots seemed so adventurous, so tolerant and appreciative of rebellion, that Paul didn’t think to hide what he had. He brought the sandwich out and put it next to the little black porcelain cup of joe he had just purchased. “And a plate too please.”

The man froze. The appearance of this sandwich had stunned him. “Oh.” Then he composed himself behind a kind of professional mask. “No. No outside food.”

“Come on.”

“Do you want to buy a sandwich? We sell good sandwiches.”

“I don’t want to buy one.”

“Then you can’t drink that coffee here. You’ll have to leave.”

“Oh, uh” It was Paul’s turn to be stunned. “Really?”

“You want this to go?” The man reached for the cup between them.

“No. Can’t you just…” He struggled for a word. “Permit me?”

The man suddenly put some edge in his voice.The hammer was coming down. “No outside food. You’ll have to leave.”

Paul felt challenged. He found his voice rising. “You can’t let me eat it here? You’re serious.”

“Sir…”

Another man in an apron had appeared from somewhere. He had a bouncer’s proportions. Laws were about to be enforced in this place. Laws!

Paul needed allies. He needed to win them over. I’ll have to be one of them, he thought. I have to show that I’m one of them. He acted on the first notion that came into his head. He said, “Punish me then.” Here was something everyone in the shop would recognize and appreciate. “Punish me.”

The other patrons were looking now but without any sense of outrage at the injustice. They worried about Paul’s rising voice. Could these bold folks be afraid of a spectacle? They scrunched their faces. Paul saw they were wondering, who is this lunatic? They wanted a quiet and reasonable place to drink their coffee. His ruse had failed. Paul couldn’t believe it. They all shunned him. How was it that he had become the edgiest thing here among the morning bondage queens and leather daddies? It was baffling. He was giddy and wanted to laugh or storm around the place. Instead he shouted.

“Punish Me!” Paul pleaded to the whole illusion of the place. But the coffee shop was united against him. The heavy cook crowded him and finally walked him coldly out without even the cup of coffee he had ordered.