The Hierarchy of Desire

With both aching arms outstretched and loaded with plates, she walks slowly across the dining room to table 19 and places the plates down in front of the bodies that ordered them.

“Escargot Bourguignon. Pasta puttanesca.” She rolls the syllables around in her mouth like bits of velvet. If you saw her, you’d see eyes glistening wetly as if she were intoning a love poem she’d written herself, but no one looks up from their plates.

At table 8, she introduces herself (I am your hole-filler, your anonymous food-bringer, faceless feeder), takes their order, and scoots back to the kitchen where her boss, Igor, is waiting by the door. His lips are pursed, but he’s not asking for a kiss. “Full hands in, full hands out,” he reminds her, and his eyes inspect her so thoroughly it feels surgical.

When she first started working here, her apron could not conceal her effervescent flesh but now she can wrap the apron strings around twice and still has enough left to tie a bow. Night after night of describing meals she won’t taste and taking orders and filling glasses without spilling a drop and whisking away the bones of evidence has whittled her appetite away, has taught her, her  place in the hierarchy of desire.

Back in the dining room, she moves unnoticed from table to table, pouring water and wine. The metal clank of silverware and wet eating sounds are stifled by white tablecloths and candlelight. At table 11, she pulls the check from her pocket and places it midpoint between the man and woman seated there.

The man clears his throat. “A good waitress knows where to put the check.” His candlelit face is impenetrable. The woman’s eyes are fixed on the last inch of wine in her glass, as if she and the wine are deep in conversation. “If you want me to pay, you’ll have to do better.”

She picks up the check and places it down again, right next to his huge, meaty hand and cuff-linked wrist which doesn’t move.

He clears his throat again. “I have to say, I expected more from this place. Overall, this meal just was not satisfying.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that, sir,” she murmurs, assuming the proper position: eyes wide, head stooped, hand on heart. “Please tell me what we could have done better.”

“Where do I begin?” He licks his lips. “The salad was overwhelmed and the oysters were flaccid.”

“I’m so sorry. Let me adjust your total.” She makes a move to pick it up, but he isn’t done talking. “The veal was insipid, a complete waste of life.” He flicks a crumb off his chest and continues. “And that pinot—that tinny aftertaste—as annoying as a whine.” The bottle—the second of two they ordered—sits to the woman’s right, completely empty. “Your menu called it a floral bouquet, but I’d call it effeminate.” He glances at the woman, whose eyes are frozen on her glass, before adding, “And  let me tell you, cruelty-free foie gras is missing one key ingredient.”

Later that night after work, she goes home and fills the bath with hot water. She kicks off her shoes, steps out of the black clothes, and slides in with her favourite steel toy; this time swearing to play with it for one last time. She rubs every inch of her skin, raking her sharp fingernails down her arms and thighs and the soles of her feet until it hurts, until she feels soft and tender and alone again. Then she thinks about desire and yearns to desire and be desired. She wants to feel de-sired like a stallion mounted by a mare topped by a snake eating its own tail, a skewered snail stuffed at both ends, a pair of earthworms spiralling diagonally through soft earth up to the stars. She caresses the toy, feeling the cold hard steel against her bare skin. She brings it up to her dried lips and makes a smooth cut, feeling the warm blood against her teeth. 

Perfect lines cross her wrists near the crucial veins, enough to leave wet red tracks on her skin. Then she goes into a trance, because it’s truly dazzling- that bright red line, like a highway route on a map that she wanted to follow to know where it would lead her. But she knows that when reality kicks in, she would grab a paper towel or toilet paper (better than a wash cloth as the stains won’t ever come out) and press hard against the cuts. She’d feel her embarrassment, underneath her pulse because she promised herself last time would be the last time and once again, she has let herself down. She’d hide the evidence of her weakness, under layers of black clothes, long enough to cover the cuts, even if it’s summertime and no one is wearing jeans or long sleeves. She’d throw the bloody tissues into the toilet and watch the water go pink before she flushes them into oblivion, and wish it were really that easy.

- Kalyani Kamat

Founder of Bun Intended