We All Have a Hunger

On our first date, you ask me if I have a go-to dish I cook for girls the morning after sex.

I am not expecting such directness, and I laugh. Sorry! Sorry. I like cooking, don’t get me wrong, but… I don’t really. Do that.

Do what? You raise an eyebrow. Have sex?

You know I have sex, I say, probably too quickly.

I am definitely not having nearly enough sex to have a go-to post-sex emotional entrapment dish, but I want to maintain this fantasy for you. I guess what I mean is… to me, cooking for somebody is so intimate. I’m not doing that for hookups, I’m sorry. I’ll go buy empanadas. I’ll make coffee for sure. But cooking a whole meal first thing in the morning is like… we’re probably already married.

Well. I can hear the smile in your voice as you take a sip of your vodka soda, suck on your lime slice. I have never felt jealous of a lime slice before. Mine is Eggs Benedict. Maybe I’ll make it for you sometime.

My body burns. I stare at your mouth. I want to take you home and taste you. So I do.

*

Your kitchen is the largest room in your apartment. I could do yoga in the expanse between the wooden dining table and the bar station pushed against the opposite wall. New York could never, and I tell you so. Your roommate laughs as he shakes egg whites for whiskey sours. He asks me how my train was, but I cannot take my eyes off your neck. I sink my teeth into my maraschino cherry instead. While your roommate settles on the couch, we take the drinks to your bedroom. You have been very clear: I will never be your girlfriend. But you never said I couldn’t leave my mark.

The next morning, you have to wear a turtleneck to class.

*

You never do make me Eggs Benedict, but you make me shakshuka, and you don’t let me lift a finger. Your apartment comprises the entire top floor of this house. During the day, light pours through the five windows and turns the kitchen golden. A sunbeam breaks across your hands as I watch you chop, sauté, taste. You crack the eggs so delicately. I cross my legs tight. When you feed me the first bite straight from the skillet, my eyes roll back in my head. When you take your first bite using the same fork, I have to stop myself from taking you right there on the table.

Oh, how you fed me. Gochujang fried chicken and rice vinegar slaw at two in the afternoon after a whole day of sunlit sex. Japanese curry simmering on the stove while I sit on your lap wearing nothing but the blanket you ripped off the couch. A bottle of red wine and a chocolate bar split evenly between us and your roommate as we console him over his dating woes, though it probably doesn’t help that he’s had to hear us loudly fucking for three nights in a row. Pinning you against the doorframe of your pantry until the pasta timer rings. Your fingers taste like garlic when you shove them in my mouth.

*

I cook for you only once. Because I insist. Because I want to satisfy you, for once. Because in recent weeks you’ve made it clear I am letting you down. I leave you craving something else. Someone else.

So I crush ten cloves of garlic and try not to think about us drunkenly sob-shouting at each other in the kitchen of the house party we went to last night. I slather oyster sauce and soy sauce and fish sauce and sugar over well-marbled chunks of rib-eye and try not to think about you telling me, You care too much about what things mean. You say I let my emotions consume me, but who’s eating who here? Who’s lived the past three months on eggshells? Whose nervous system fries a little further with every passive-aggressive text, every agonizing silent treatment? On the scale of us, who can stack more apologies for breaking rules she never knew about? I squeeze two lemons into a bowl, crack pepper, sprinkle salt, and try not to remember anything. Only your mouth, licking my brine, calling me baby. Only my mouth, calling you to the table. I remind you to dunk the meat in the lemon sauce. Game-changer, you murmur around your first bite, your eyes fluttering shut, and the tiny smile on your lips is enough to fill me. For now.

*

I know I should end things the second you slam into the kitchen, bringing the storm clouds inside with you, and my pulse spikes until all I can hear is my own blood, rushing. I am working on my laptop, killing time until my bus home. You make avocado toast in angry silence. I am too afraid to speak. Your plate clatters to the wood in front of me, so I look at you over my screen. You avoid my gaze. My boss is messaging me on Slack. I look away, for just a second, to type out a response.

So you’re not even going to say anything to me?

I’m sorry, I say, my heart in my throat. I’m working, I say, how was your day? I say, shutting my computer.

You look at me with such disgust my blood runs cold.

Nevermind, you say, your eyes welling with tears, and storm out of the kitchen. I follow you to your room, but you shut the door in my face.

Two weeks later, you come back to New York and finally put us both out of our misery.

I might spend the summer here, you say. If I do… maybe we can try again.

I run my tongue across my lips and taste the salt from my eyes.

*

Four months later, you text me. You’re back in New York, just like you said. You’d love to get drinks. Catch up. If I’d like. I am insane. I must be. Because I say Okay and we sit in the Art Bar parklet and you tell me you’re sorry for insulting my favorite song. Even one apology gives me enough courage to remind you: I thought maybe we’d… I don’t know. Hook up, again.

You laugh. You actually laugh. And I don’t know why I even allow myself to feel it, but it actually, really hurts. Why would you think that?

You… the last time I saw you… you said we could try again. In the summer. If you moved here. You said that.

You are still laughing, and I am shrinking, down, down, down into the concrete. I don’t think that’s what I meant, you say dryly, and I have no possible idea what else you could have meant, but I fake a laugh of my own. Silly. So silly to imagine that you wouldn’t have lost your appetite for me after all this time.

hey, you text the next morning, if it’s okay to ask, do you think you could send me that recipe for the beef you made that one time? i haven’t been able to stop thinking about it 👉👈🥺

I stare at my phone. Your laughter from last night still rings in my ears. I imagine telling you to go fuck yourself, but instead I look up my recipe for Shaking Beef and send you the link, right before I block your number. Even now, even after how you starved me, I just can’t bear to leave you hungry.