Hungry for It

by Fiona Zedde

  “That’s the best offer I’ve had all month.”

  A pleasant, glowing warmth blossomed in Rémi’s chest. “Good. I’ll see you at seven tomorrow then.”

  “Seven o’clock.”

  Rémi held the warm phone to her cheek even after Claudia hung up. She said yes. Rémi could barely believe it, but Claudia had said yes.

  For as long as Rémi had known what desire was, she desired Claudia. She remembered clearly the day that desire was born. Not because it was such a momentous one but because she had masturbated to the memory of it more times than she could count. It was because of that day she knew some women—and Claudia in particular—received real and visceral pleasure from putting their lips around chocolate-covered strawberries.

  Rémi found out about Claudia’s passion by accident. One day she came over to see Dez after school and walked in on Claudia over a plate of the strawberries. The woman had made sounds that Rémi never heard a woman make before. At least not outside of her father’s porn videos. Rémi felt herself get wet. And swallowed to get rid of some of that sudden excess moisture going in her mouth.

  “Good afternoon, Rémi.”

  Claudia seemed nonchalant about the effect she was having on the fifteen-year-old. Rémi already had a massive crush on her, thinking that Claudia was the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen off the pages of a fashion magazine. Here in the flesh, her loveliness was much more potent than any movie star or Penthouse pet spread, especially as she sat at the kitchen bar in her long white skirt, pale yellow blouse, and buttercup sandals. The last bite of a dark red berry slid between her lips just before her moist tongue appeared to lick away a bit of chocolate from the corner of her mouth.

  “Hey, Mrs. Nichols,” Rémi managed to croak before dashing upstairs to meet Dez. She never told her best friend about her crush, although over the years she had alluded to it, hoping that those hints would somehow prepare Dez for what Rémi was undoubtedly going to do.

  At three minutes to seven the next evening, Rémi rang Claudia’s doorbell. She answered the door with a surprised smile.

  “You look very nice, Rémi.”

  “Thank you.”

  She had chosen the look with care. Something that spoke of maturity yet was fun enough for her to wear without feeling out of place. The black suit with its mandarin collar, white shirt peeking from the collar and cuffs, and spit-shined boots did the trick. She left the spurs at home tonight.

  But her mature suit didn’t save her from stuttering like a kid in Claudia’s doorway. Her date looked amazing. Three platinum chains of descending length lay against the smooth skin at her throat, rivaling the flash of diamond studs in her ears. Her strapless red dress highlighted her gorgeous glowing skin, making it very apparent to Rémi’s eyes how far she had come after her bout with the cancer. She’d gained some of the weight back and didn’t seem quite as fragile as before. The smooth shoulders rising out of the dress begged for intimate caresses that Rémi was more than happy to provide.

  “Y—you,” she forced her unexpected stammer under control. “You make that dress look stunning.”

  Claudia smiled again, then with her little red bag clutched in one hand, pulled the door shut behind her. “Whenever I’m having a bad day, I’ll definitely be calling you up. You always know the right thing to say to make a woman feel her best.”

  As the older woman brushed past her at Rémi’s request to head for the car, a hint of scent teased her nose. L’Air du Temps. The antique perfume, with its notes of jasmine and sandalwood, reminded her briefly of her French aunt on her father’s side who used to visit the family in Maine. Rémi had always associated the scent with timeless elegance. Watching Claudia walk down the path toward the truck with her narrow backside rocking gently from side to side as her heels clicked rhythmically on the sidewalk, Rémi began to associate the scent with lust. Contained and cultivated. Laying in wait. She swallowed, then walked quickly after Claudia to open the door for her.

  “So where are we heading?” Claudia asked once Rémi started the truck and they were driving out of her quiet neighborhood.

  “One of my favorite places. I hope you’ll like it too.”

  “We’ll see.” Her eyes twinkled in the cozy confines of the Escalade. She leaned back in the sighing black leather seat and shifted her long legs.

  “You can put on some music if you want,” Rémi invited, gesturing to the CD player below the navigation display.

  “No, it’s fine. I like hearing you talk. Thank you.”

  Claudia smiled at her. She was having trouble with her senses. Every shift the woman made in the seat, every whisper of the leather, Rémi smelled her. She smelled the floral perfume anointing her flesh. And she smelled her. That undeniable woman scent that made Rémi want to burrow under her clothes to find the source.

  “Do you like Indian food?”

  Of course she did. It wasn’t a real question since Rémi had made it her business to know almost every intimate thing possible about Claudia. Indian was one of her favorites. Second only to Jamaican food and anything with well-made rice.

  “Yes, I do,” Claudia said. “As long as it’s not that place near Riverside Park. They need to shut it down, the food is so awful.”

  Rémi chuckled. “No, it’s not that one.” Thank God. “It’s actually south Indian and very, very far away from that part of town.”

  When they pulled into the parking lot almost twenty minutes later, Claudia looked out the car window with surprise. The old-fashioned building with its very old-world Indian charm immediately captivated her. “Great! I haven’t been here before.”

  “Good. It’s vegetarian. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No. Not at all. It’s very appropriate for a first date.” Her eyes danced. “Even if I eat like a pig, I’ll still seem virtuous for all those greens.”

  “And don’t forget the potatoes.” Her mind skated over the words “first date,” afraid to look at them too closely. “Essential to fattening up the ladies.”

  After they parked, Claudia took Rémi’s arm like it was the most natural thing in the world. She looked carefully around the specially cultivated garden that framed the path from the parking lot to the restaurant itself. Statues of round-breasted and multiarmed goddesses sat in serene contemplation of the beauty around them. Dark fish moved beneath the water of the pond while gently scented flowers waved their bright heads in welcome.

  “I love this place already.” Claudia gently squeezed Rémi’s arm. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

  If Rémi had her way, the older woman would be thanking her all night, but.... “Thank you for coming,” she murmured.

  The inside of the restaurant was as elegant as the exterior, though with the early evening crowd also much less formal. There were as many tables with giggly college girls as there were romantic-eyed couples, or solitary diners. When the hostess came to seat them, Rémi asked for a table with a view of the garden. They shared the long padded bench with pillows that gleamed and slid beneath their hands like sari cloth.

  When the menu came, Claudia happily pounced on it. From those visits to her house when she and Dez were children, Rémi remembered Claudia voraciously eating at dinner, elbows bracketing entire plates of crab legs, or chicken wings, and even salad. She’d always lived with her senses. The cancer had made her less so, but now that she was well, Rémi wanted to see her eat extravagantly again. Her passion for life had been one of things that drew Rémi to her, and that often translated to a passion for food.

  “Everything looks wonderful,” Claudia said, glancing quickly at Rémi before looking again at the burgundy leather-bound menu.

  “Then order everything. Whatever you want.”

  “Ha!” Claudia looked at her again. “If you’d said that to me before the cancer, you’d have regretted it. Back then I could have eaten my way through an entire Norwegian buffet and still kept going.”

  “In that case, it’s good for that hot little dress of yours
that you can’t chow down like you used to, but”—Rémi nodded at the approaching waiter—“you can try. If you can’t finish it all, there are always doggie bags.”

  “Hm, I like this little arrangement already.”

  The waiter set down their water and a bottle of wine with one glass, then leaned over attentively to take their order. Claudia took Rémi up on her invitation. When the waiter came back with the food, the plates took up the entire table and then some.

  Rémi laughed at Claudia’s delighted expression. “Take these away, please,” she said to the waiter, handing him the elegant little silver platter holding various condiments as well as the candle that Claudia had exclaimed over as they sat down. After that they had room for everything.

  “I don’t think we’ll be hungry after this.”

  Rémi had been looking forward to the food almost as much as the pleasure of Claudia’s company. This south Indian restaurant really was her favorite, the place that she only took her friends to or herself when she wanted a quiet moment with good food. She pulled the masala dosai close to her and tore off a piece of the decadent concoction—potatoes, onions, curry and other knee-weakening spices wrapped in one of the universe’s most miraculous inventions: fried bread. The dosai sank and parted under her teeth before releasing its bounty of potatoes and curry over her tongue. Rémi groaned in appreciation. Her fingers were moist from handling the bread. She rubbed her thumb and index finger together, enjoying the oily slide between them.

  “Is it that good?”

  “You don’t have to ask. Just try it for yourself.”

  The other woman seemed caught in an agony of indecision, staring at the bounty before her and not knowing where to start first.

  “Here,” Rémi said, tearing off a bit of her flat rice pancake and its contents and holding it toward Claudia’s mouth.

  Rémi’s brain almost short-circuited when Claudia’s mouth closed around her fingers. She hadn’t really thought about that. She really hadn’t, although it seemed so obvious. The inside of Claudia’s mouth was warm. Hot. And wet. And a low groan, an unstoppable one, slid from her lips as Claudia sucked the food between her lips before drawing back to chew.

  “You’re right. This is... really, really good.”

  Yeah. And I would be good too. I’d be very good to you. Inside you... The feel of Claudia’s mouth still occupied her. Her fingers still hovered in the air near the other woman’s mouth as if she was waiting for another... something. She licked her suddenly dry lips.

  “The batura. You should... you should try that dipped in the tamarind sauce.”

  But Claudia was reaching for something else. The gobi manghuri-ani, pretty bushes of breaded cauliflower marinated in a flavorful brew of garlic, ginger, chili, and soy sauce. At the first bite she almost came undone.

  “You have converted me for life,” she said, chewing very slowly with her eyes closed. “I’ll never go to another Indian restaurant again.” After a few more moments of blissful chewing, she opened her eyes. “Ever.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Rémi murmured coyly, reaching for the batura.

  “Really, I swear. This is the best that I’ve ever had. And I’m not even vegetarian.”

  “Neither am I. And you don’t have to convince me. I’ve been coming here for years.”

  That was the last thing that Rémi said for a while. The batura bread, with its crunchy, fresh-from-the-fryer-of-heaven taste brushed with the tangy, sweet tamarind sauce, was the closest that Rémi came to having an encounter with the angels. Claudia was having her own divine experience as she sampled one dish after another, each, by the look on her face, more delicious than the last.

  “I’m going to have to run about fifty miles in the morning to burn this off,” Rémi said after she lay back in her chair, replete.

  “You go ahead. I’ll be in my bed still basking in the afterglow of this wonderful meal.” Claudia sighed. “Thank you so much, Rémi. This is one of the best meals I’ve had in a while.”

  “My pleasure.”

  She sipped from her glass of chardonnay, watching Claudia curl into the seat beside her. The older woman had slipped off her shoes and now lay with her head back, smiling. Her necklaces sparkled above her modest cleavage, catching the low overhead light. Behind her the restaurant garden lay awash in moonlight. The lightly swaying plants, the patina-covered bronze statue of the goddess Lakshmi on her lotus blossom, the fountain gurgling silently into the fishpond. All this Rémi could see beyond this woman. But Claudia was the most beautiful. She sipped her wine again.

  When the check arrived she silently paid it, although Claudia craned her head trying to see the total.

  “For the next time when I come, I want to see how much all this is going to run me.” She gestured to their small mountain of takeout boxes.

  “Right. I hope you won’t be trying to eat all that by yourself. And I don’t think I’d approve of you bringing anyone else here.”

  “Not even Desiree?”

  Rémi appeared to consider, not bothering to hide her small smile at the mention of her best friend. “Maybe.”

  In the parking lot, Claudia wanted to fight over the takeout. “Please take it home so I won’t be tempted to eat it all.”

  “I thought that was the point, remember; we’re fattening you up.”

  Claudia shook her head. “No, we’re not.” Her look was stubborn.

  “Fine. We’ll leave the food at my place.”

  Claudia looked smug.

  “If you don’t mind though,” Rémi said, starting the engine to the truck, “let’s swing by my place to put the stuff in my fridge. I don’t want it smelling up the truck.”

  “Sure.” Claudia buckled her seat belt.

  At the condo, she parked in the garage and invited Claudia up while she put the food in the fridge. They rode the elevator in comfortable silence.

  “This is nice. Somehow I expected you to be in a place similar to Dez’s. Big with lots of room for”—Claudia wrinkled her delicate nose—“playing.”

  Rémi smiled, thinking about all the games she and her best friend had played over the years, but never at either of their houses.

  “Do those games disgust you?”

  Claudia seemed to think about it for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  “Just to let you know, whatever Dez did, whatever I did, we were always safe.”

  “That’s good to know.” She looked at Rémi, nodding as the elevator opened.

  Rémi unlocked the heavy olive green door and invited Claudia to walk in with her. She slipped quietly past Rémi, graceful and sure, with her purse held loosely in both hands in front of her. L’Air du Temps teased Rémi’s nose again, and she barely stopped herself from reaching out. She turned on the lights instead.

  “This is unexpected,” Claudia said.

  Rémi swept her eyes around the condo, trying to see the space through Claudia’s eyes. During the day the condo was flooded with natural light. It flowed in through the two floor-to-ceiling windows that slid back completely to give access to the terrace. She (her mother, actually) had the good timing to get one of the corner penthouse condos with a view of the city and easy access to her rooftop patio with its Jacuzzi, barbeque grill, and a table usually set for five.

  “Is where I live more or less than what you thought?” Rémi asked.

  “It’s simpler. And there are no pictures of naked women. I at least expected that.”

  “Please. I can see that anytime I want. I have other pictures.”

  Claudia dropped her tiny purse on the couch. “Can I look?”

  “Please.”

  While she took off on her self-guided tour, Rémi brought the leftovers to the kitchen. Having never learned to cook, she didn’t spend too much of her time there. It was where she kept her liquor, made her coffee, and occasionally had her friends over for small, catered parties. It was a large room with a stainless steel fridge and a gas stove that Dez had exclaimed over once or twic
e. But it was mostly for show.

  Rémi kept a vase of fresh Gerbera daisies on the pristine white dining table. The cupboards were always stocked with cups, plates, and whatever else normal people used in a kitchen. Track lighting and the frosted cupboard doors that allowed the pretty arrangement of the things inside to be seen made the place suitable for a House Beautiful photo shoot. Rémi turned off the lights and went to find Claudia.

  She found her at the foot of her stairs, looking up. “Every moment,” she said as Rémi came up behind her, “you surprise me.”

  Claudia stood framed in the moonlight glowing through the tall windows. Rémi felt her breath catch. The silver illumination bleached color from Claudia’s dress and it was simply her, neck arched up, one hand at her throat, the other caressing the fragile bones of the upraised wrist.

  “Those are beautiful.”

  She stared up at one of the massive paintings on either side of the stairs leading up to the bedrooms, workout room, and office. The one that held her attention was an abstract of an infinitely petaled flower endlessly unfolding to reveal even more layers, more beauty. The unfurled petals trembled in their red and yellow flame, while below a graceful aurora borealis of blues and greens and whites flared up, higher and higher, embracing the flames making the flower glow even hotter. Its companion piece was its opposite in color flow, the same flower, only this time with blue, green, and white petals chased and surrounded by yellow and red flame.

  “I didn’t know you liked flowers, Rémi.”

  “I don’t like them,” Rémi said with the smallest of smiles. “I love them. It’s not very... uh, butch of me, but I like what I like.”

  “I see that. You have really excellent taste.”

  “Thank you.”

  They glanced at each other, and Claudia looked away, smiling.

  “Would you like a drink?” Rémi asked. She felt like clearing her throat, but she thought that would make too much noise and break whatever fragile mood lay in the room with them.

  “Yes. Fruit juice if you have it.”