"Thin" isn't a word anyone has ever used to describe me. "Beautiful" isn't either. But "sexy"? Well, that's another story.
It's funny how long it takes us to come to a realization of who we really are. For me, it took just over 40 years. My whole life I'd struggled with the weight of my own expectations—always wanting to be fifteen or twenty pounds lighter, to have better cheekbones, to have my hair be a better color or my complexion a little better.
Measured against my friends, I was just plain. "Really nice" was the most common way I heard people describe me in high school. I didn't want to be "nice," I wanted to be desirable the way my friends Claudia or Michelle were. Boys dripped off them. Me they hardly noticed.
College wasn't much better. I did manage to find a couple of boyfriends my first few years in school, but neither of them really excited me. Sure, we had fun and the sex wasn't bad, but to me it always seemed that my girlfriends had their pick of the good looking and interesting guys while I settled for what I could get.
During my senior year I started dating a grad student named Paul and thought I'd found true love at last. Paul said he loved me for who I was and for years I think he meant it. We were very happy together and got married shortly after he finished his MBA. We bought a nice house in the suburbs and within seven years we had three children, Jillian, Mark, and Alison.
I'd planned on a career when I went to college, but instead my life submerged into the joy of my children. I was a mother and a damned good one, volunteering in their schools, shuttling back and forth to sports, dance classes, movies, birthday parties and everything else on a modern child's social calendar.
Unfortunately, each pregnancy also added another five pounds that just wouldn't go away. Paul didn't seem to mind and if sex became more infrequent, it was still satisfying. He knew my body so well, teasing me when I wanted teasing, touching me in just the right ways. And I tried to repay him in kind, doing the things he told me he loved. I was especially proud of the way my blowjobs could turn him into a quivering mass of jelly.
The first hint of trouble began on my 38th birthday. Among the presents Paul bought me was a vibrator, the first we'd ever owned. It was big, bigger than his cock, and purple. He gave it to me in our bedroom that night after the kids were in bed, pulling it out from under his pillow with a look of triumph in his eyes.
"I got a little something else for you baby," he said.
Opening the package, which I crazily thought might have been something really romantic like tickets to the islands or a necklace, I know my face showed a mixture of surprise and confusion.
"I...well, I thought it would be fun. That you'd like it," he stammered, seeing that I hadn't gone all giddy on him upon seeing a big purple penis in the box.
"Oh, uh, sure," I said, recovering. Then I hugged him and said, "Thanks sweetie."
He smiled then, thinking the moment had passed. "Let's try it out then."
So we did. I had to admit, I did have a very strong orgasm that night, one that was concentrated almost entirely on my clit rather than spreading out through my entire body the way my orgasms usually did. But it felt hollow. For the first time in our married life, it was as though sex that night was something Paul did to me instead of something we shared together. I tried to put those thoughts out of my mind, but found that I couldn't. For weeks I kept asking myself if this was one of those turning points you read about.
A few months later, he came home with another present for me. This time it was some very sexy lingerie from Victoria's Secret—a bustier, garter belt and thong, all very red. To his credit, he'd actually picked the right sizes, God only knows how. I wore them for him that night and was pleased to see how turned on he got, but I felt silly wearing it all. Those sorts of undies were really designed for women a lot thinner than me. And as I listened to his breathing shift over to snoring next to me I couldn't help but wonder if he was dissatisfied with our sex life. We hadn't needed vibrators or bustiers six months ago.
The next morning I surveyed my body in the bathroom mirror and for about the one hundred and thirty-seventh time vowed to lose weight, to get sexier for my husband. And then for reasons I couldn't put my finger on at the time, I started to cry. I had to rest my hands on the sink to keep from falling and for a good five minutes an anguish I couldn't identify overwhelmed me. Now, of course, I know it was a premonition of what was to come, that I was blocking the reality of my situation, but at the time it just confused me.
My weight loss plan worked—sort of. I managed to drop eight pounds over two months, which for me was a big success. But did Paul notice? Of course not. In fact, he started staying at work later than he had for years. When I asked about it, he put me off by pointing out that his company had been restructuring lately and it was really important to put in the extra hours to avoid being included in the layoffs and buyouts. I believed him, but not entirely. Paul's job had always seemed very secure before. Why the worries now?
And then it happened, the way those anvils used to drop on cartoon character's heads. It was never entirely out of the blue, because they knew the anvil was up there, but still a surprise because who would expect the anvil to actually land on your head?
A couple of girlfriends of mine and I had pooled our resources and hired two babysitters to watch those of our kids who still needed a sitter and had gone to the movies. It was a chick flick and we knew our husbands wouldn't want to go, so we were having a girl's night out. We'd had to go all the way across town to find a theater that was still showing our movie and afterward we stopped in a bar near where we'd parked for a margarita. The place was dark but festive, the sort of bar adults go to when they want to have fun, but not too much fun.
No sooner had our drinks arrived than I saw him. Paul was sitting in a booth at the back of the bar with a woman, the two of them on the same side of the booth, bodies pressed together, half empty beers in front of them. For just a second I thought crazily that there must be other people in the booth who I couldn't see, that they were part of a group. But of course they weren't. As I stared stupidly at them, Paul's hand reached up to cradle the woman's head, pulling her face toward his and they kissed. Not the tentative kiss of a first date, but the easy familiarity of lovers.
I felt my margarita surging up from my stomach. I clapped one hand over my mouth, grabbed my purse with the other and without answering the worried questions of my friends, I bolted from our table to the parking lot, where I wretched between two cars, thankful that the streetlights hadn't come on yet. Cindy, my best friend found me there, wiping the vomit from the corners of my mouth with a used Kleenex I'd located in my purse.
"Megan," she said. "Are you okay?"
"Not really," I said.
"Do you think it's food poisoning?" she asked.
"No."
"Well, what then?" she pressed.
I turned then to face her and she stepped back from me. I realized that my face must be betraying the rage I felt. "Look," I said, trying to calm down. "I've got to go. But I need you to do me a favor first." I grabbed some money from my wallet and pushed it into her hands. "Go inside, give Marny this for the bill and then bring me a pack of matches from the bar."
"Matches?" she asked. "But why?"
