Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,24

came the night of a cast party for Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. I was excited. I had fantasized about women and wondered if I was bisexual, or even a lesbian. I’d always preferred masturbation to having sex with men.

Zoe wore a newsboy hat over her blond bob. I remember taking the hat off her head and putting it on mine, feeling like I had swagger. I liked the way her neck smelled when I kissed it, musky and aromatic. But when we went to her house, I quickly grew bored with the experience. Her skin felt strangely gummy. She was skinnier than I was, and her hip bone kept stabbing me. Her pussy didn’t taste like I’d hoped it would. I had imagined her to be mossy, cheesy, maybe oceanic. But she was tangy, almost bitter, like a kumquat. I tried to avoid putting my tongue deep inside her and just stayed on the clit. I did well. I gave her two orgasms, which I knew were real, because I could feel her pussy muscles clenching as she came.

By the time she got to me, I was ready to go home and eat the nine pretzels I counted out for myself each night. She honestly tried to get me off and I honestly kept thinking about those pretzels. Finally, I faked it—pretended to come in her face the way she had in mine, clenching my vaginal muscles intentionally so that she would think it was really happening. I wanted my snack.

In my third year at school I pursued a woman named Cait for half a semester in a state of complete infatuation. Cait was a vocal activist on campus, and I followed her to climate change protests and conscious capitalism symposiums. I took on a timekeeper role at the LGBTQ alliance meetings, promoted an electro Arabic Dabke concert sponsored by Students for a Free Palestine, and helped facilitate a video installation project in the cafeteria called “Spring Forward: the eMPower Sessions” aimed at “exploring the relationship between emotional trauma, synesthesia, and the tyranny of the iPhone.”

I pursued the idea of Cait so doggedly that the real Cait could never compare. When I took off her bra for the first time, I discovered we had the same exact tits. It was crazy! Our tits were literally replicas of one another: about the size of large tangerines, with small red areolae and big gumdrop nipples. When I pinched and sucked on her titties, I felt like I was pinching and sucking my own. I didn’t like myself enough to suck my own tits.

Cait sensed my reticence and became clingy. The less I texted her, the more heart emojis and u ok?? messages she sent. It was like being asphyxiated by a part of my own self—the need for approval and validation I so despised. More of me? That was the last thing I wanted!

I began dating men again, usually fantasizing about women while I was with them. It was easier. If the actual experience of being with a woman wasn’t as good as it was in my fantasies, why bother coming out as bisexual or pansexual or whatever the hell I was? Nathan would eat my pussy for a full half hour in the back of his Kia Sorento and I could fantasize about Cait, only with different tits and ignoring me, until I came. It seemed that as long as I wasn’t actually having sex with a person, I could get off to them. But once they embraced me it was over.

CHAPTER 22

The Peppermint Plotz was a Candy Land fantasy, using chocolate yogurt as a base with a swirl of peppermint around the border. Miriam piled on the hot fudge again, jacked it up with Junior Mints, sprinkled chocolate chips on top of that, then finished with marshmallow sauce on top. It was what a magic winter fairy would make if she had the pleasure of serving herself at Yo!Good.

I felt giddy as I ate, like a kid. I felt more like a kid than I did when I was a kid. All of my childhood interactions with other children were about going to their houses and trying to get a taste of their junk food. Often there was shame in it, because the other little girls were skinnier than me or cared less about food. Amy Dickstein would bribe me with different foods so that we could play “prom” together. Amy said that every prom had “refreshments.” She promised we