Hungry for the World by Kim Barnes

Author:Kim Barnes [Barnes, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77390-6
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-01-11T16:00:00+00:00

WHEN NOT IN THE MOUNTAINS, David and I went to movies, dined on steak and lobster, had drinks at the bars, where my friends saw me and waved. At first I was embarrassed by David’s gangly, disheveled appearance and by his age, but then I began to feel protective of him. They didn’t know how lovely it was to carry on a conversation about something other than spectacular drunks and fraternity shenanigans. I found myself laughing more, happy to be free of the foolishness of boys.

Still, I felt I barely knew this man with whom I was beginning to spend every available hour. His desire to be with me was clear. Why, then, hadn’t we moved beyond a simple kiss? The dance of desire I’d braced myself for never happened—not even the first step. David had kept himself from me, intentionally so, not without interest but with absolute control. I wondered if he was afraid, doing this out of old-fashioned respect or some kind of weird hang-up. I had wondered initially if he might be gay, but his attention, even from a distance, was recognizably voracious—something I could almost smell rather than see. Whatever it was, I’d gotten used to it, even comfortable, able for the first time to be alone with a man without worrying that he’d jump me the minute the pleasantries were over. I felt relief from the burden of decision, from the guilt of having given in or having said no, from disappointment and rejection. It was an incredible freedom, one I hadn’t felt since my girlhood, since before that first boy, the preacher’s son, had touched my knee in the parsonage’s dark stairway, whispered in my ear, cleaved me in two with his words of want.

As David’s celibacy continued, my initial relief grew into an intense curiosity, a hunger I had never felt for John or any other lover. It was not simply sexual; it was intellectual as well. It was a yearning I didn’t recognize but David did—a hunter trained to patience, knowing everything with his eyes.

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