“Do you have condoms? I didn’t think—”
“In the nightstand,” I said, pulling him back down to me and cutting him off with another kiss. I’d bought the condoms several months before, after a series of seemingly promising dates with a guy I’d met in my biomechanics class, who eventually revealed that he already had a girlfriend in Seattle.
Daniel opened the drawer, pulled out one square package from the still-sealed box, and then set it on the mattress. Turning his attention back to me, he began to work his mouth over my neck, pushing the length of his body against me. Frantically, we peeled each other’s clothes away, his hands moving over each newly exposed piece of my skin. I ran my hands down his arms to his well-defined waist, dipping my fingers lower, stroking.
He groaned with his lips on my breasts while his fingers brushed over the heat between my legs. He kissed my stomach, then shifted his body downward, his mouth following suit, tasting and touching me. I began to tense, feeling the pressure in my pelvis build and build. My nerves tingled, standing at attention, begging for release. Daniel went still, only for a moment. “Look at me,” he said, his voice ragged with lust, and so I did. I opened my eyes, locked them on his, and then, his fingers took over where his mouth had been.
A moment later I was falling, wild spasms pulsing through my entire body; a meteor shower of brilliant lights flashed behind my eyelids. He rolled on a condom and was inside me then, moving slowly until he, too, was trembling.
When he finally collapsed next to me, his legs still entwined with mine, both our bodies were slick with sweat. Breathing hard, Daniel kept one of his long arms around my waist and kissed the closest part of my flesh he could find—my elbow. “Wow,” he said, and I rolled over onto my side, resting my head on an outstretched arm.
“No kidding,” I said, smiling shyly. I hesitated to speak what came to my mind next, but felt compelled to share it. “That was the first time I’ve ever . . .”
“You’ve never had an orgasm?” Daniel asked, with evident disbelief.
“No, no,” I hurried to say. “I have, of course. But not . . . well . . . no one has ever given me one.” I paused. “Except me.” It wasn’t like I was a virgin, but I was particular about who I invited into my bed, and once they were there, I had a hard time relaxing enough to let go. Being with Daniel felt different. He made me feel safe.
“Ohh,” Daniel said. “Well, that’s tragic.” He raised a single eyebrow and grinned. “Want to do it again?”
Seeing him now, after two weeks apart, I felt the same sensation as I had that first night. I clung to him for a few minutes, until he finally dropped me back to the floor. He kissed me, set his forehead against mine, and then asked, “How’d it go?” We’d texted each other pretty constantly throughout our separation, but it wasn’t the same as talking face-to-face.
“I probably gained ten pounds, but otherwise, good,” I said, stepping back from him and patting my belly. I’d forced myself not to get on the scale when I was home, too afraid of seeing a number that might spin me into a negative place.
“You look exactly the same,” Daniel assured me. He knew about the struggles in my past, and was a huge help in making sure I stayed on the right track. He understood that my choice of career was my way of maintaining balance, both physically and mentally—focusing on being healthy and strong instead of being thin. He didn’t worry about it the way my parents did; they feared that my becoming a fitness and nutrition professional would keep me walking too fine a line between my illness and my recovery.
“You should check out your fridge,” Daniel said.
“What? Why?”
“Just look.”
“What did you do?” I asked, as I took a few steps over to the tiny kitchenette, which was on the other side of the studio. I opened the refrigerator door and saw that the shelves were filled with a week’s worth of my typical meals—baked chicken and brown rice, kale salad, baggies of chopped vegetables, and individual half-cup containers of plain Greek yogurt. “Babe,” I said, looking back at him. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I know. I wanted to. I figured you’d be too tired to cook tonight, so when I made mine, I just made enough for you, too.” Daniel wasn’t quite as rigid with his diet as I was with mine, but he did like to eat clean, so it made it easier for both of us to stick to it. Unlike me, he gave himself one cheat day a week, when he enjoyed a cheeseburger or an entire pepperoni pizza, but he exercised enough that his body didn’t show it. Not that how his body looked was the most important thing to me. He could have weighed three hundred pounds and I was certain I’d love him just as much.
“You’re so sweet to me,” I said. “I swear to god my mom purposely slathered everything I ate in extra butter while I was home.”
“I doubt that,” Daniel said. “And remember, everything in moderation, right?”
I nodded, though a part of me knew that while Daniel understood the mechanics and medical details of my eating disorder, he hadn’t lived through it with me like Tyler had, so there were some things he would never fully comprehend. He never saw me looking like a skeleton, my skin stretched over my bones, my joints red with sores simply from rubbing against my clothes. He didn’t see just how close to dying I’d ended up. And now, no matter how far I’d come in recovery, I knew that anorexia was as much a part of me as my hair color or height; I needed to stay vigilant, or else run the risk of letting it devour me again.
I’d been dating Daniel a little over a month when I shared the basics of how my disorder began. I told him how my issues with food started early, that because I’d been only three and a half pounds when I was born, I was bottle-fed on a special formula that was engineered to help me gain weight. Later, as a toddler, I drank calorie-boosted nutritional shakes instead of regular milk. My mother added butter to my rice, heavy cream and extra cheese to my macaroni, and every night, if I wanted to, I could have ice cream for dessert.
Still, I remained a diminutive creature, delicate and sprite-like in the midst of other children, so when I was five and I should have begun kindergarten, my parents decided to give me another year to grow. When I finally did start school, their decision to hold me back resulted in the odd contradiction of me being the oldest, yet also the smallest, person in my class.