Illustration by Garance DoréToday I continued the tour of Long Island for Séb and showed him one of my favorite views of Manhattan on a private beach. This beach is reserved for the residents of this haute neighborhood where visiting isn't exactly encouraged but throwing caution to the wind, we parked the car on the tight side street and ran out to capture the sun setting over the city.
After our illegal photo shoot, we stopped at Louie's in Port Washington for clams and a glass of champagne at the raw bar to enjoy the last days of 2011 together.
To shock Séb, I started to play the penis game - in French slang. In brief, the penis game is when someone whispers 'penis' and you and whomever your with take turns on saying penis louder and louder where the winner is who screams it the loudest. Simple. We never really made it to the point of screaming because we were laughing so hard that no one blinked an eye at our profanities. Why would they? Being on Long Island, the probability of there being a French speaker around is rare whereas in Manhattan, you have to be careful. Here, we can risk having a little fun. I know, I'm a 12 year old boy sometimes.
The bartender who overheard us, commented that he thought French was such a beautiful language and that he wished he spoke it for his girlfriend - it was sweet. Indeed, French is a beautiful language but certainly not what we were saying. We felt bad that our kind bartender thought that we were exchanging sweet nothings which was inspiring him to learn the language so out of good faith, we stopped.
Just as we were settling into our second flute of bubbly talking about our New Year's Eve plans, an older woman approached us. Oh no...now we were busted. We at looked each other in fear because we were sure that she was a French teacher. Shit! They're are French teachers on Long Island! Why didn't I even consider that?! "I saw you," she said while resting her hand on Séb's shoulder. Our eyes widened with fear that she understood the crass things we were saying and was going to scold us for our foul language.
We deserved it, we were being brats and I was prepared to accept her putting us in our place. "You didn't eat your vegetables!" she continued. Well I wasn't expecting that. The clams came with a side salad that we didn't touch as we were too busy slurping down our clams on a half-shell as well as having "meaningful conversation". "Oh to be young!" she said with a chuckle before wishing us a Happy New Year. Phew!
Relieved that we didn't get caught, Séb still had to put his foot down. "No more bite game!" he said faux-scolding me, as she walked away from the table. Damn...
