He showed us what was on his fork, triumphantly, as if he had made it or given birth to food. I have no idea what this is!, he told us. What is this? He made us taste it from his fork, reloading as needed, and guess what it might be. We didn’t refuse. It was something to do. Sweet and salty was my guess, and crispy and beige. Sugar, said my wife. Sugar and fat and nothing, just fried sweet fat. The other wife said Animal. She spoke with her head tilted back and her eyes closed, the better to concentrate, and formed her words around what was in her mouth. Cheap frozen animal and fryer fat and sugar. She was nearly indistinguishable from my wife, though we wouldn’t have said so when we met on a cruise in our youth. A teenager would have thought they were twins. Try mine, I said, presenting her with a forkful, but the game was over and anyway it didn’t matter what we ate. He doesn’t know what I do and after all these years I couldn’t ask him either, or her. He knows that I buy; I know that he sells. What have you got for me?, I always ask him. Whatever you need, he answers. Then we hug and sit down and order something. I followed his wife to the buffet where labels identified the food, often convincingly. I touched her ass and lingered there feeling her shape while I spooned a red item from a warming tray and some for her. We talked of nothing and filled our plates, then I let her lead the way to the table so I could watch. Which one is our waitress? he asked my wife. Damned if I can tell the difference.
Copyright © May 23, 2008 David Hodges
All You Can Eat by davidbdale is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at davidbdale.wordpress.com.
Very Short Novels 
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May 26, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Litlove
I loved the way that the food on the fork was as troublesome to identify as the woman’s bottom under the narrator’s hand! Hilarious! And the way the other male protagonist sells ‘whatever you need’ seemed to echo rather delightfully for me with the food that is whatever they think it might be and the women who take form only in the male desiring gaze. I can’t work out all the different patterns of symmetry and difference that intertwine themselves around each other, but I appreciated them all. Like life, undoubtedly, and yet something completely original at the same time – pure davidbdale.
Thank you so much, Litlove. You and I appear to be enjoying a whole new level of collaboration on these latest tales, which owe as much to your explications as to my own contributions. I hope others are enjoying the experience as well.
–David
June 2, 2008 at 2:51 am
wizzer
A veritable spider’s web methinks. The possibilities, no probabilities, in this one are immense. It’s so charged – “…lead the way… so I could watch” I hope she was as worth watching as I conjured!
She was precisely as alluring as your imagination. Thanks, Wizzer.
–David