Night terrors

This is something I wrote one night before I fell asleep. It’s not my life. It’s an amalgam of some of the women I know and have known and things they’ve (we’ve) felt. It was spawned, undoubtedly, by Portia De Rossi and her coming out of the anorexic kitchen (so to speak). 


*

It was pitch black and all was quiet outside as she sat cross legged on the floor, in front of the open fridge. The little yellow interior light caste a long shadow that shuddered each time she jammed a fistful of cake into her wide open mouth. From the back, her arm moved from cake to mouth in quiet, methodical motion. From the front, the view was markedly different as she grabbed at the cake, with her hands, tearing it apart, digging into the rich, triple layer chocolate sponge. She had dark mud coloured sponge under her nails and the chocolate fudge icing stuck to her fingers. She didn’t care, she just wanted to shove as much cake into her mouth as possible, cramming it in, ramming it down her throat. All too soon, however, the family size cake was finished and she started desperately licking her hand, in a rapid feline motion, preening her hands free of dried fudge. She gnawed at her nails, plucking out the remnant chocolate with her teeth. Not satiated, she grabbed the plastic cake tray and lifted it to her mouth, where her teeth began tearing at the surface to remove all evidence of there ever being a cake.

Suddenly, she stopped and looked back into the empty fridge. Her eyes darted left to right as she calculated the calories she’d devoured and the weight she was about to gain. Her breath quickened with the short sharp bursts of air that started to wrack her small body. Moving to double breathes in half the time, her mouth suddenly swung open agape and distorted. Brown coloured crumbs hung, in limbo in the stalactite of saliva that hung from her lips as she began to sob.  “No, no, no” she cried out, hands clasping tight around clumps of hair, tugging at the roots. She had devoured the whole cake in 10 minutes and eaten a week’s worth of calories.

Her name was Carmel. Like caramel, like the caramel colour of her skin and of her hair. She was beautiful, but couldn’t see it. She was funny, but couldn’t see it. She was already so thin but completely missed it.

“Okay, okay, calm blue ocean,” she huffed to herself. “So if I go to the gym for four hours tomorrow and eat only apples, this will be fine, right?” All while trying to work out how to fit in four hours of gym. “Oh god.”

She picked herself off the floor, slammed the fridge door shut and ran towards to the bathroom. Too much of a princess to even think of hanging her head in the toilet, she ran to the bathroom sink and stuck her fore and middle fingers down her throat, tickling her tonsils, until her stomach spasmodically started to heave. Her body convulsed with “bmmmmmlear” “bmmmlear” over and over, but nothing would come up. As her stomach started to ache with the almost unstoppable motion of being turned inside out from years of practice, tears streamed down her face and Carmel started to shake.

“Why, why, why can’t I even do this?” She slumped against the bathroom sink cabinets. And again started to cry. “Why you fat, ugly, fuck, can’t you stop eating?” The verbal flagellation she beat herself with was becoming too familiar and the words were starting to lose effect. He head in her hands, lump of disappointment and fear in her throat, she rubbed at her eyes with her palms, and kept rubbing until they were red and raw.

Empty of any more tears with a sore body from sitting on the cold tiles of her bathroom, she leant over to all fours and crawled her way past the scene of her crime, the kitchen, and back to her bed. She drew her sheets to her chest and closed her tired, red eyes. Exhausted from self hatred Carmel fell into a deep sleep and dreamt of being skinny.