EAT ME

Combine a saucy, Waiting to Exhale sort of girl-gossip tone with Vox's lusty sexuality and you get this witty, sophisticated (if unfortunately titled) tale of four Australian women friends' amatory peccadillos. Julia, a photographer, adores younger men—even if they do exhibit a frustrating refusal to commit. Helen, a ``whole-grain loaf'' of a lit professor, can whip up a salacious fantasy about any man despite her feminist politics and anxiety about her weight. Chantal, the anoretic fashion editor of a style magazine, prefers the safety of gay men to the arrogant hetero poseurs she's met in the past. And Philippa, a self-defined lesbian and voyeur, claims she keeps herself sexually satisfied by committing her erotic fantasies to paper. Meeting at Sydney's CafÇ Da Vida, these four high-powered women, all in their early 30s, relish exchanging reports of exceptional one-night stands, libidinous fantasies, shocking past encounters, and erotic schemes for the future. As Chantal recalls her student/mentor S&M relationship with a now- renowned poet and fends off drooling fellow espresso drinkers at the cafÇ, Julia tells of seducing a dreadlocked 21-year-old, then flying off to China, where she's ravished in a park by a local contortionist and snake-charmer. Helen captivates her friends with an impossibly lush and funny fantasy of a seaside encounter with Rambo, then stuns them with the re-creation of a tryst with a truck driver. What these three women don't realize as they chat over their cappuccino is that quiet Philippa is taking mental notes, and that their secrets will soon appear in ``fictionalized'' form in a novel entitled Eat Me. Philippa is soon forgiven, though, as her friends note that she's as generous in print with her own past as with theirs. Already a bestseller in its native Australia (the author was raised in Connecticut but works as a freelance journalist in Sydney), this tossed salad of erotic scenarios charms as few examples of its genre ever have. ($50,000 ad/promo; author tour)