19. The Hunger
I t starts with silence. Days pass after the dinner pick-up at Baan Sookjai, and Kevin doesn’t call.
The number I left at the hostess stand was Naomi’s, so he now has two ways to reach me.
Still, it’s been five full days, and there has been no call—no casual run-ins, planned lunches, or swim sessions—just air.
The silence isn’t passive—it’s deliberate and taut.
I try not to fixate, but the absence of his call blooms in every empty moment.
By Tuesday, my apartment was spotless. The grout in my bathroom had never been whiter. Late nights pass with movies playing that barely register. During the day, I flirt harder than I mean to with strangers I don’t like. Nothing sticks. Everything circles back to the same question: Was that it?
Then, Thursday morning, the phone rings. I’m still at the shop, putting some supplies in the pickup before starting my route. Everything is connected and leads back to him: cleaning supplies, pools, swimming, four years ago at night, last week at Emory—Kevin.
“Daniel! Phone call,” Janice shouts through the open office door leading to the warehouse.
It could be a client canceling or one with a special request. It could be what I’ve been waiting for.
Hands wiped on my shorts, I head inside where Janice points to the second phone on the workbench. “Line two.”
The room suddenly feels warmer. My chest tightens, and I pick up the receiver like it might burn .
“This is Daniel.”
“Hey.” It’s his voice. Low, familiar, hesitant.
“Hey, you,” I say back, trying not to sound like I’ve just come back to life.
“Sorry, it took me a few days. Things have been busy.”
“It’s okay,” I say, “I wasn’t keeping count.” I absolutely was.
I glance toward the office door—Janice is still on the other line, laughing about something. The fluorescent light buzzes overhead as if it’s listening.
“Did you enjoy the dinner?” I ask before the quiet has time to settle into silence. “Baan Sookjai, last Friday?”
“Yeah,” he says, a soft laugh in his voice. “Josh loved it. Said it reminded him of a place he used to go to back in Bayview.”
My fingers grip the edge of the workbench. “So, Josh is your boyfriend?”
“Yeah. He is.”
“How long?”
“A little over two years. We’ve known each other for over three, though.”
A silent nod, even though he can’t see it. My fingers twist the phone cord. “So you were friends first?”
“Yeah.”
“He seems nice,” I offer.
“He is.”
There’s a pause. I don’t want the call to end, so I reach for anything I can. “I hope I didn’t say anything weird. I wasn’t expecting to—well, I didn’t expect any of it. ”
“You said finally,” Kevin says, his voice dipping.
I wince. Kevin’s meaning is clear, even if I pretend not to know. “Finally?”
“Yeah. You said you were glad to ‘finally’ meet him.”
I exhale, more air than sound. “Right. That.”
He lets it pass. “Anyway, I called because there’s this thing tonight, a film society double feature. Josh and I had tickets, but he has mandatory PT training. It wasn’t on his schedule until this week.”
I don’t respond. I want more context. I glance again at Janice, who’s still talking to a client.
“I told him I might bring someone,” Kevin adds as if that justifies everything.
“What kind of films?” I ask.
“Queer cinema. One’s French and older, black and white. The other is newer, about vampires. Intimate stuff.”
“So basically, sad gays making eye contact under fog.”
He huffs a laugh. It’s real, and it’s everything. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
“And you thought of me?”
“Seemed fitting.”
A pause, my hand still gripping the edge of the bench.
“So, are you asking me to come with you?”
“If you’re free. And if you want to.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m free.”
“Great. Hey, sorry, but I’ve got to run. The old Plaza Theatre on Ponce; meet you there at seven. ”
“It’s a date,” I tell him.
And the rest of the day, I act like it is.
~
The Plaza glows like a dream someone else is having.
I park two blocks away, and the rest I walk—better than being early and awkward.
The sky’s a bruised blue overhead, still holding the last streaks of summer sunlight.
Still, the marquee lights have already won the color war—red neon buzzing above yellow and blue stripes like the whole building’s dressed up for a premiere it hosts every night.
Letters snap into place on the signboard above the entrance: QUEER CINEMA DOUBLE FEATURE.
THE HUNGER + UN CHANT D’AMOUR. One’s erotic horror—David Bowie, vampires, lesbians, and gothic sensuality.
The other is an old French prison flick filled with gay sex, voyeurism, and sadism.
It took me nearly the whole day to get a sense of what to expect.
Both promise to hurt me in entirely different ways.
There’s a small crowd gathered under the building’s overhang: grad students, vintage denim jackets, one guy with a chipped tooth and a copy of Interview tucked under his arm.
A girl in oversized sunglasses wears a button that says, ‘Love Shouldn’t Have to Die in The Third Act.
’ Somewhere nearby, someone’s smoking cloves. The scent drifts beneath the neon.
I pause just before entering the theater, beneath the hum of the signage and the low rumble of bodies. I scan the crowd, and there’s no sign of Kevin.
Palms wiped on jeans, I shift forward, past the posters in glass display cases and the ticket window scribbled with showtimes in red felt-tip pen.
A glimpse through the glass reveals the lobby: a worn, red carpet, gold-rimmed poster frames, and a plastic letterboard listing tonight’s films as if they’re part of the same heartbreak.
And then, there he is.
Kevin is already inside, near the concessions, backlit by flickering bulbs and a lobby poster for The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
He looks sharp in a light blue button-down tucked neatly in slate-gray slacks, probably straight from work.
He’s standing with his arms crossed like he’s waiting for a question he already knows the answer to.
He hasn’t seen me yet, and for a second, walking feels like a forgotten skill. I stare at him through the glass. It’s all so sudden—the invitation, the environment, the possibilities.
Kevin spots me and smiles, raising the hand holding our tickets. A small hand signal in return to show I see him and motion that I’m heading in.
The lobby is warm and quiet, with exposed brick walls hung with black-and-white photographs of local artists. A string quartet recording hums softly from somewhere overhead. People speak in low, reverent tones. Everyone here seems to know exactly where they belong.
“Glad you could make it,” he says, extending a hand after aborting a half-hearted attempt to hug me. I do the same in return. It was awkward.
“Thanks for the invite.”
The first film is beautiful in that cold, dangerous way—like touching something sharp just to feel something.
It’s a vampire story, but really it’s about want.
Hunger that doesn’t stop, even when fed.
There’s a scene where Catherine Deneuve kisses Susan Sarandon under lamplight and silk, and it’s not pornographic—it’s quiet.
Soft, then not. It’s like love dressed up as a wound .
I shift in my seat halfway through and realize I’ve barely breathed. Everyone on screen is starving for something they can’t say out loud. I know that feeling.
When the lights come up for intermission, I don’t move. Sitting there, I try to keep the film inside me a little longer before going back out into the lobby to be a person again.
During the intermission, Kevin pours each of us a plastic cup of red wine from a linen-draped table.
The crowd murmurs behind us—laughter that sounds educated, soft clinks of glasses, the gentle rustle of sports coats and scarves.
Everyone here seems to have already written a dissertation on the topic of longing.
One guy is wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘Truffaut Ruined My Life.’
I nudge Kevin and nod toward it. “Should I know who Truffaut is?”
Kevin looks and grins, discreetly leaning in. “French New Wave director. Big on longing. Everyone’s always falling in love and then falling apart. Lots of handheld camerawork and people staring out windows.”
“Sounds like my kind of party.”
“That’s the problem,” Kevin says, his smile fading. “He made it all look beautiful.”
A slow nod, pretending to understand. “You bring all your almost-affairs here, or am I just special?”
I laugh too quickly—like I can disguise the fact that part of me meant it. The words hang longer than I meant them to. Kevin doesn’t answer right away, and heat creeps up my neck. I suddenly wish I’d said nothing at all, but it’s too late, so I smile as if I meant it as a joke.
Kevin side-eyes me and smirks, but I can tell he’s not amused. “You’re the only one who gets cheap wine and post-war angst,” he replies .
“This feels like your world,” I say.
Kevin tilts his head. “What do you mean?”
“It’s cultured. Intentional. Like this version of you tonight. It’s what I imagined you might become.”
He looks away, smiling faintly. “And what are you tonight?”
“Lucky.”
He doesn’t answer, but his shoulder brushes mine. The contact is casual and practiced. But I feel it through every layer of fabric and restraint.
The second film doesn’t have dialogue—just silence and breathing, smoke curling through prison bars.
It’s short but heavy, like a dream that won’t let go.
One man presses his face to the wall. Another imagines hands that never touch him back.
It’s not porn, but it’s not subtle, either—voyeurism and repressed desire pulse through every shot—lonely, unspoken, trapped.
At one point, a prisoner blows cigarette smoke through a straw into the next cell, and I feel physical longing and the impossibility of touch in my chest.
When the credits roll, the room stays quiet. Neither of us claps. Kevin’s eyes remain on the screen a few seconds longer than mine.
Outside, the patrons dissipate, and the parking lot empties quickly. A slight breeze carries the scent of moisture and summer honeysuckle. The night is warm but unsettled, as if it could storm or remain perfectly still.
We are parked near one another and cross the street together.
We saunter past the Briarcliff Summit Apartments down to St. Charles, Kevin’s dress shoes echoing on the old, cracked sidewalks under the streetlamps.
On a quiet neighborhood corner, Kevin stops beneath a flickering bulb as the light stutters across his face .
“I keep thinking about that night,” he says.
“The restaurant?”
“Bayview,” he corrects. “The swim at my aunt’s house. And afterward.”
A swallow. Thick, heavy. “I think about it too. Not just sometimes. Always.”
He meets my eyes, then lowers them. The silence between us is almost solid.
I don’t reach for him. But I don’t look away.
Kevin kisses me. Soft yet uncertain. His hand brushes my arm, barely there.
Then he pulls back as if it has burned.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“But you did,” I say.
He exhales.
I add, quieter. “Guess we can blame the French again.”
Kevin turns away, one hand gripping the back of his neck. “Josh asked about you. Last Friday night.”
My stomach drops. “In what way?”
“He caught it when you said ‘finally.’ He waited until we got home, then asked how you knew who he was.”
“So you told me this morning.”
Kevin exhales. “I told him maybe you’d heard his name from someone in Bayview. But he didn’t buy it.”
The silence now is dense, packed tight with consequences.
“So he knows? ”
Kevin shakes his head. “He suspects. There’s a difference.”
I nod slowly, my heart thudding. Not with guilt. Not even fear.
“Then I guess we’ll find out what kind of difference it makes,” I say.
Kevin looks at me. His expression is wrecked but wanting, and he remains silent.
I don’t touch him again. I don’t need to. Because now I know. I’m not chasing a memory anymore—and I’m not afraid of what comes next.