I’d always loved them. Something about them was sexy and carnal and made me throb with a ravenous something that I couldn’t quite describe. Like hunger and lust all together, pulsing through every inch of me. Something about being able to visually see the bones beneath skin made me feel electric. Logging on to porn sites and watching the women kiss and lick and caress never did it for me but the minute I could see the outline of plunging fingers between the skeletal hips of some barely legal teen? it made me feel like a craving had been satiated.
There were often times that I looked probably rather cartoonish- like the big bad wolf licking his jowls before a little pig feast. At women, no less. Hot bad girl cheerleader grows up to discover she’s a buried in the closet bisexual with more sapphic tendencies than not? It was a bit too on the nose. Too scripted, but life is funny that way. The women and their bones had always been there. from the ballet studios of my kindergarten years all the way up through the auditions i attend now. I walk into a room and see these women and their bones and a switch in me just flips.
I had never looked at food like that, as a matter of fact, food and I were always at odds with one another. I could never mount the challenge of defeating my eating disorder. I always longed for more of less- less food, less fat, less weight. “more bones• That’s how the mantra started really. That’s when I stopped eating. 1000 calories to 700 to 140 to a single cup of black coffee nursed over the course of 12 hours. I never hungered. Those women and their bones were food to me. Any time I felt my stomach rumble I hunted them down. At barre class, on porn sites, in Whole Foods. I would watch them and linger and breathe in the sight of their bones and the need to eat went away.
At least for a moment. At first, I could go days without really eating much, feeding off my jealousy. When I would eat it was always something lean and boney, like chicken wings, or at the very least meat that was rare. It scratched my itch to the point of numb annoyance but it still wasn’t gone. I was getting smaller and the bones of the women weren’t as satisfying now that I could see my bones too. My bones were better, more pronounced. My once voluptuous chest had revealed the structure of my ribs, my collar bones pierced like shards of glass. In fact, some of those girls looked too beefy compared to me now.
Then I saw her. her name was Megan or Jennifer or Nina or anything feminine and hot, but it didn’t matter. I saw her at a bar and all I saw were bones. Long and slender, like a personified stalk of celery. I slammed back cups of confidence and shot my shot with all the finesse of an awkward pre-teen. She didn’t say much but I knew she was into me, I could see her eyes. Green and intense. As hungry for me as I was for her.
I called the Uber and we went back to my place, giddy and giggling until I fell asleep with my head resting on the knobs of her knees. I fumbled with my keys to unlock the door but finally got the door open. I turned on lights and stared at her. I felt my stomach rumble. I felt a pubescent urge that had long been committed to a distant memory. “God you’re perfect…” I whispered to her. She nodded and mouthed “you too”. I made a beeline for the bedroom, not even pausing to turn the lights on. I coached her through the piles of shoes and clothes around the room with only the light a solitary lit wallflower illuminating anything. crashing into bed, I clawed at her bones. I tried to kiss her but drunkenly missed. I felt her fingers inside me and saw the outline of each thrust in my stomach as it caught the light. I don’t know what came over me but as I was about to climax I grilled her wrist tightly and turned toward her forearm. My brain screamed at me. BITE HER. She was stunned. She couldn’t even scream. It was carnage. I clamped down and tasted the metallic wonder of her blood. I tore through her frail muscles. I ate her to the bone. I moved from forearm to wrist to calf to anything I could get my teeth on. I just needed to fill that hunger. I needed to see bones. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever experienced somehow. When I had chewed and clawed at everything I could get my jaws around, I pulled on a sweater and I fell asleep. The hunger and lust satisfied finally.
I woke up absolutely freezing. I blinked myself awake to pull on some blankets but couldn’t find the strength to move. As my consciousness floated to the surface, I willed myself to move but was met with nothing… the stubbornness of my body gave way to pain. Pain everywhere. Pain everywhere I could feel. I forced my neck to rise. I saw the blood. I didn’t see her. I saw the blood. I saw the skin. I didn’t see her. I saw bone.
bone.
my leg. Holy fuck my leg. And my arm. Jesus fucking Christ. My hips.
I passed out again.
when I woke up in the hospital the doctors said they’d never seen anything like it, eating disorders were one thing but my mania had reached a new height. I was in care for over two years. I came out heavier and scarred but alive. A testament to modern medicine and psychology on all fronts. Everything is normal now. My heart still longs for bone but I’m recovering. I’ve started a new job in a new city and I even have a date with someone! Her name is Jennifer, she’s a ballerina.
There’s nothing a one night stand one fix.