Tiny Bites

The smell of her mouth lingers on me like wet cherries turned sour. I come back to this when I feel discarded and wonder if her family can pick up this same primal scent when they are around her, walking the theme park in hurried strides, vying for the promised fun amidst the heat and swelling crowds. She only comes to me when she's unraveling, when the forced smiles and sunburnt laughter have scraped her too thin. I wait for her in the fitness center, our only sanctuary, where her family's needs can't reach her.

We only get to see each other on this vacation in the confines of the gym. She will return when they have all gone to sleep, of this I am sure. I fantasize about being taken back to her room, feeling her lips on me with less urgency. We have known each other for so long, but she's kept me like a dirty secret for most of her life. Often, gyms are our shared places, but this fitness center feels like a straw that might break our sacred pact. I want her to be mine once and for all, not lying here in wait, lingering in the stew of our longing, between these musty gym towels. She will return to me, and I will fortify her to brace for the next round of family time. I am her strength. They weaken her, with their heat and their memories, and their demands, preying on her. I am her truth, the grease that keeps her wheels spinning. She says she does not want to want me. But she always comes back, just like when she was four and her mother taught her to starve so sweetly.

She craves control, but I am her surrender.

You were four years old when your mother gave you the pacifier back. It was a birthday party for your best friend. There was going to be cake and ice cream, and your mother was nervous about how it would strain your party dress, which was due to be worn at Easter in three precious months.

“Take this,” she said to you, in all seriousness. It had been so long since it had been unceremoniously ripped from your toddler fingers that the sentimental attachment had simmered to a low boil. Still, you know enough to at least act repulsed because you listen to the words she says when her eyes speak to you behind her words.

“When you want to eat a piece of cake, baby girl, suck on this.” She forces it into your grasp. “Whenever you feel hungry or thirsty, suck on this.”

You take the pacifier, tuck it gently between your palms, and roll the idea of pleasing yourself against the pull to please her between your questioning thoughts. And when you want to eat, you suck. Sure enough, your teeth take tinier bites, if they do anything at all. You hold the pacifier. It is both a weapon and a curse. Your mouth aches from restraint, but your chest swells with the pride of pleasing her. Even at four, you already know how to trade hunger for approval.

Now, you take your own family on precisely one vacation a year. It is premeditated and carefully orchestrated on social media to create shock and awe in a measured manner. You have two children, and on any given day, you only like one of them. You have a spouse. You have 33,000 followers on a social media platform befitting a person of your age. Once, a brand sent you leggings, and you were extremely pleased that they were in the smallest size range in the industry. You make videos of what you eat in a day, but you do not film yourself eating. No one can see you sweating, chewing, sucking, or gnawing; just smiling. On vacation, with your children, whom you know you love.

When you book the resort, the most sought-after one on the theme park's grounds, you confirm the fitness center has 24-hour access. There will be others, some come to summer, some come to eat, and almost all of them come here to stave off the pressure. You cannot let them find him. To learn your dirty secret. It might be because you are ashamed. It may be because it's such a good idea that you don't want to share, you want the credit. Your mom wants the credit. You don't want to want anything. So you buy the tickets. The hotel. The souvenirs.

In the fitness center, I wait for you. Other women come near me, but they are not you. I do not need to see you; I know you so intimately now. You placed me between two towels, hidden underneath your favorite treadmill. You will come to run, and I will come to unburden you. I wait for your hands to free me, for you to wrap your lips around me. You will come to me late, so that we will be alone. Your steps echo, you are frantic until we are joined in union. You run and suck and slip and slide through the stress and bliss of our union. We are so distracted, so free, we do not hear the sound of a cleaner coming in. They see me first, startled, and you drop me to the floor, an anxious mess of discovery.

You might deny me. Leave me there on the floor, exposed and alone. The cleaning lady's voice breaks through, awash in feigned professionalism, "Excuse me, miss, is that your pacifier?"

Your shame, now shared, has weight.

From my place on the floor, I wait.

You'll come back.

You always do.