I found myself eating the way I imagined normal people ate: three squares, some snacks, whatever I wanted, really, with a feeling of impunity, and without bingeing to the point of illness. There were pancakes for breakfast at the diner, pizza for lunch on my break, burritos for dinner. My kitchen counter was full of junk—Reese’s peanut butter cups, Doritos, frosted Donettes—all the food I’d fantasized about over years of deprivation. Only now I wasn’t eating everything all at once. It felt like a miracle to be able to eat what I desired, not more or less than that. It was shocking, as though my body somehow knew what to do and what not to do—if only I let it.
It was as though I had a knowing person inside me, not the healthy, loving adult that Dr. Mahjoub had said I should try to cultivate in order to “reparent” young Rachel, but some kind of careless skater teen, the lovable scamp I’d never been, who ate what she wanted, when she wanted, and stopped when she was full.
Miriam had begun buying me presents: a black, tailored, menswear-inspired blazer from Nordstrom at The Grove that fit me perfectly, a pair of motorcycle boots. On the fifth night, she brought a boxy denim jacket with a pair of sparrows on the back, a fragrance redolent of whiskey and ambergris, and a sports bra.
“Why a sports bra?”
“I just thought it was cute.”
“Cute?”
“Yeah. Cute.”
“Oh. Well, I already have a ton of these, because I used to go to the gym a lot.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you had them. I like the look of them.”
“What is it about the look of them?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just think they are attractive.”
“Well, I could wear it, I guess,” I said, wanting to please her.
That night, with my breasts bound, I fucked her with my hand. As I was licking her clit, my tongue flattened the way I knew she liked, I introduced the tip of my middle finger inside her. I didn’t go deep inside, just below the clit, where I knew there was sensitive tissue. She gasped and moved against my finger, trying to push me deeper inside of her. But I stood my ground and stayed at the entrance, just hinting at the fact that I could put a finger deeper in there if and when I wanted. I did it for a while like that until she was sopping, my hand covered in her juices, my tongue slick with her. Then I inched in a little farther and began to thrust.
“I’m so hard for you,” I said. “Do you feel how fucking hard you make me?”
“Uh-huh.” She sighed.
“I’m—I’m bulging for you.”
She reached down and grabbed my hand, pushing it deeper inside her pussy. I began to thrust my finger in and out, fucking her there, slow but strong, with the same rhythm as I was moving my tongue.
She was drowning my finger. I made come-hither motions each time I penetrated her so that I could rub her G-spot, never taking my tongue off her clit. I put two more fingers inside her and felt that she was about to come.
“Do you feel how fucking hard you make me?” I asked again.
“I feel it,” she said. “I feel it I feel it I feel it.”