Consuming Desire
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I'm not making this up. At Cafe Latté's wine bar one of the lovely coeds at the next table touched John on the arm as if I wasn't there and said, Excuse me, sir, but what is that naughty little dessert? And I knew from the way he glanced at the frothy neckline of her blouse, then immediately cast his eyes on his plate before giving a fatherly answer, he would have given up dessert three months for the chance to feed this one to her. I was stunned; John was hopeful; but the girl was hitting on his cake. Though she told her friend until they left she did not want any. I wish she wanted something—my husband, his cake, both at once. I wish she left insisting on the beauty of his hands, his curls, the sublimeness of strawberries and angel food. But she was precocious, and I fear adulthood is the discipline of being above desire, cultivated after years of learning what you want and where and how, after insisting that you will one day have it. I don't ever want to stop noticing a man like the one at the bar in his loosened tie, reading the Star Tribune. I don't want to eat my cake with a baby spoon to force small bites, as women's magazines suggest. And you don't want to either, do you? You want a big piece of this world. You would love to have the whole thing.