Hunger Read Online Free PDF

to relax. It looked like she was going to make it through the diner test.
    But then the plate of fries arrived, dripping with melted cheese. Lisa's bowl of iceberg wedges looked washed out and sickly compared to the golden hues of the cheese fries—the white gold of the cheddar, steaming and decadent; the suntanned strips of potato, sizzling, enticing.
    Oh God.
    Lisa forked lettuce into her mouth and didn't taste the crispness of the leaves as she chewed. She tried not to stare at the platter of french fries as her sensory glands overloaded.
    James drowned the fries in catsup, then picked up a mutilated shoestring, heavy with cheese and dripping red. He shoved it into his mouth indelicately, made sounds of animal pleasure as he worked his jaw, chewing. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.
    "Man," he said with a grin, "I forgot how good these can be. Here, try one."
    Her breath caught in her throat. Keeping her smile frozen on her face, she took her fork and stabbed a fry, then deposited it on her plate, near the edge so it wouldn't touch the lettuce. Picking up her knife, she cut the fry into cubes, and then again into smaller cubes. And then she took a sip of diet soda, and smiled even bigger at James, and she proceeded not to eat the fry she so desperately wanted to put into her mouth.
    James talked to her, and she made all the appropriate sounds and head motions, but for the life of her, Lisa couldn't have told you what he was talking about. It was as if his words were coming to her from under water—thick, distorted, rolling away before the sounds made sense. All she could think about was the french fry, and how she wanted it and hated it and wished it would just go away.
    In her mind, she saw a set of gleaming bronze scales ... and then her vision went black.
    She gasped, and then a coughing fit seized her, shredding the blackness with every choked-off wheeze.
    "Leese?" James's voice sounded concerned. "You okay?"
    No, you idiot, I'm not okay. I'm choking.
But Lisa couldn't speak, so she nodded, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, and she took some hasty sips of Diet Coke. Once she could find her voice, she said, "Just swallowed wrong."
    "Can happen when you eat too fast."
    Great, now he was mocking her. She drank more soda and tried not to hate James, sitting there so smugly, so untouched by the powerful aroma of cheese fries. She sipped, realizing that at least when food was involved, she was able to feel. Maybe the emotion was bitter and hateful, but it was better than the vacuum she otherwise seemed to dwell in.
    Food was real. Everything else paled.
    "Damn, I'm starving."
    James's voice snapped her out of her bleak thoughts, and she saw him shovel in mouthful after mouthful of french fries. It was disgusting and fascinating, a culinary car wreck that she couldn't tear her gaze from. He slobbered; he snuffled. Her boyfriend was a pig. Who was the witch that turned men into hogs? Circe? Medea? One of those Greek villainesses, wasn't it? At that moment, Lisa completely related.
    Not pausing to swallow, he said, "Want another before I finish them all?"
    God, he was torturing her. She was about to say something harmless, such as she wanted to finish her lettuce first, but then she glanced down at her own plate, and her voice failed her.
    The diced-up fry was gone. In its place was a streak of fine black ash, as if someone had scraped the burned part off toast and dumped it on her plate. Most of the lettuce was gone, too; some wilted pieces remained, as far from the scorched bits as possible.
    She didn't realize her hand was shaking until she dropped her fork. Lisa swallowed thickly as she retrieved the utensil from the table, and damned if she didn't have the taste of cheese fries in her mouth.
    Well, cheese fries and lettuce. Two great tastes that went great together.
    "Lisa," James said, "your face just turned green."
    "Did it?" Her voice sounded far away and tinny, as if she were hearing a poor