HUNGER
Emilie Paris

You want it but you can’t have it.

This concept is my favorite form of sexual torture. It’s why I like being tied down, why I fantasize about people who are out of my reach. I am fascinated by the eroticism of denial, of hunger as an aphrodisiac. Yes, I ultimately succumb to my cravings, but I wallow in the euphoria of holding out as long as possible. Denying myself makes the first bite, lick or taste that much sweeter. Who doesn’t crave the forbidden—be it food or fantasy?

What food is forbidden? Not apples, of course. Not since Eve. Not anymore. But sweets. The seductive dark, sticky treats. Sugar-glazed and rich in butter, dripping with icing and freshly whipped cream. And what X-rated acts are forbidden? The same sort, of course. The type you crave late at night, when you’ve exhausted all of the many possibilities on cable. Images bubble up in your mind, unplanned, unwanted, unexpected. If you give in to them, you might never be able to get back. That’s the fear that binds me to the good-girl track.

Denial, I remind myself. Hunger, as an aphrodisiac.

It’s my mantra. It keeps me in place. At least, it does so until the urges become too strong to ignore, and I’m forced to dress, hurriedly, to make my way to the car, to drive out on the empty streets until I reach his house. (Who can explain why desires are always so much stronger at night?) I knock on the door, just loudly enough to make him hear me. Then I stand there, head down, and wait for what I know he has to say.

“No, baby. No.”

At his words, that unquenchable yearning overwhelms me and makes me fall to my knees on his porch, desperate. He is the man who has drenched me in chocolate. Who has squeezed the juice of the ripest berries over my naked skin. He is the man who has taught me to eat at his feet, mouth open, waiting. The one who has made me so fucking hungry.

I’ve been good for so long, I think. I’ve denied myself for so long. I need to devour a feast—not of food, but of him. I don’t mean simply sex—but the dirtiest, stickiest sort of sex, dripping with icing, sugar-glazed. Rich, too rich to handle.

“Please,” I say, knowing how it sounds and how it looks. Here I am, again, in the middle of the night, on his porch, and he and I both know that I’ll do anything to make him take pity on me.

“Baby,” he says softly. “No.”

I think of the weeks that have gone by since I last had him inside me. I think of the intense cravings that keep me up late at night, cravings that I try to control with thoughts of why the two of us can’t be together. And all the reasons that sound so good and honest and smart in the daytime, fade to nothing when I am hungry for him. One of us has to be strong. Is that right? One of us has to be the one who remains unmoved.

But not tonight.

I shake my head, muttering under my breath. I’m not crazy. I’m hungry. That’s what I say, looking up at him and realizing somehow that he was waiting for me. It’s 3:00 a.m., but he’s not in his sweats. I didn’t wake him up. He’s in jeans and a T-shirt, and I can tell by the way he’s staring at me that he was wideawake before I came rapping at his door. He was awake and thinking of me, and that’s what gives me the edge.

I smile, because it’s almost as if I can smell the sex now, smell the scent of our sex and how good it will feel and how fulfilled I will be. I smile and shake my head, because I know he’s taunting me by keeping me out here in the chill predawn air, but that he’s going to give in. He’s as out of his head with yearning as I am. His cock is as hard in his jeans as my pussy is wet. I lick my bottom lip when I look at the bulge in his slacks.

“Let me in—”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

So he’s right. So fucking what? “Shouldn’t” doesn’t mean anything to me right now. “Shouldn’t” is like a made-up word that has no translation in my language. I reach forward, and he steps away.

Denial, I think. Hunger as an aphrodisiac.

The words have lost their magical power. I can’t hold myself back. My desire is too strong. I sigh as I remember everything he and I have done together. Oh, we’ve been dirty. We’ve played with olive oil, with butter, with icing. We’ve played with ripe fruits and slippery vegetables. With whipped cream. With wine. With everything. We’ve been the messiest of lovers and now we’re tangled in a mess that’s far worse than any kitchen disaster we could have created ourselves. And truly I don’t give a fuck. Because without him, I can’t eat and I can’t sleep and I can’t even think straight. And I know somehow that it’s the same for him.

“I’m so hungry,” I say, and he furrows his brow, but I know I’m going to dine tonight. I know that my appetite will be momentarily satiated when he reaches for my hand and leads me into the apartment.