dead cow drowning

The knife on the plate skidded with a wretched sound, blood oozing down the blade. Lia watched Jamie hunker over the steak. Red lined his lips, from the wine or the meat—she couldn’t tell. He chewed thoroughly, the sound strangely lush despite the live brass quartet in the background.

Lia liked watching him eat, the whole experience of it. He moved so easily through the motions, like there was nothing to it but instinct. His arms rigid as he sawed the patchwork of beefy flesh and muscle, his thick hands gripping the delicate stem of the fork as he pierced it. His jaw working, teeth like knives, grinding the spongy meat until the final swallow with a bob of his Adam’s apple. Like a buoy going under.

It conjured the strange image of a dead cow drowning.

Cut, pierce, chew, swallow. It was her favorite part every time they went out to eat, especially anywhere fancy. The restaurant was dimly lit. Candlelight glowed at each mahogany tablet, casting the velvety seats and paneled walls in a romantic wash. Across from her, Jamie was a vision of contrast, handsome and dapper in his black pressed suit jacket, eating with an indulgence so animalistic it was turning her on.

He looked up, and Lia masked her staring with a smile she hoped came across as loving.

“You want a bite?” he offered.

She shook her head. “I’m already pretty full.”

Jamie laughed. “From half a salad? I love that about you.”

“Well, I’m not the one paying,” Lia said, half-joking.

He waved in dismissal. “You know I can cover it, babe. Especially with the promotion coming soon.”

She hummed around her mouthful of lettuce and tried not to think about the missed calls from her landlord. It wasn’t like she was dead broke, but between the two of them, it wasn’t Jamie who stacked unpaid bills on his coffee table like a depressive episode of Jenga. He probably made more money in a single piss break at his hotshot finance firm than she did in an entire week at her minimum wage barista job. Lia worked hard not to be resentful about it – Jamie was her boyfriend after all. But it was different when she’d fallen for him in college all those years ago. They were both living off instant noodles, scraping by with their dozen roommates, and they’d talked about classes and dreams and it all felt distant enough to be a hazy thing. They were equal then, just children really, at the edge of innocence, overlooking the rippling expanse of the future.

Jamie wiped at his mouth with a napkin. “How’s the job hunt going anyway?”

Lia winced. “Oh, you know. LinkedIn can be, ah, frustrating.”

“Don’t worry too much about it. I’m sure it’ll work out.” He cut at his steak again.

“Yeah.”

“I told you. You should send me your resume so I can fix it up. Finally take you out of that coffee shop, huh? Get you a real job.” He winked.

Lia coughed and willed away the twitch in her eye. “I can handle it.”

He shrugged, reaching for his wine glass. “I can make it easier is all I’m saying. That’s how I got my job after all.”

“I can handle it, Jamie,” she repeated.

He put his hands up at her tone and raised an eyebrow at her. “Hey, I just don’t want you making coffee forever. I’m sure your parents agree with me.”

She swallowed with difficulty. “They know it’s temporary.”

“And I’m sure it will be.” Jamie shot her a placating smile over the rim of his glass, all teeth. “How are they, by the way? Your parents?”

Lia took a deep breath. Smiled. “They’re good. I’ll let them know you asked. They love you.”

When Jamie called for the check with that still-hungry look in his eyes, Lia knew the bedroom destination for the night like procedural memory. That was how they resolved everything these days. She didn’t hate it, but she used to love it, used to crave it. The way his touch made her feel beautiful for once in her life, and maybe that chasm of difference hurt more.

They were back at his apartment soon enough, the lobby sparkling in warm light, her hand tucked firmly in his. She thought it might’ve felt like belonging before. In the elevator, Jamie kissed her, hands rough and everywhere, and Lia became pliable the way she knew he liked. She wondered if it was the sex that kept them together—how she was malleable for him—because it certainly wasn’t her company anymore. Maybe they loved each other at some point. They’d said it before on her twenty-first birthday. His sweet girl, he’d called her. She’d felt beautiful then, but with a bitterness, older with the passing year. The beginning of the end. People said it all the time, how there was nothing after twenty-one, and emptiness swelled inside Lia like a drop off the cliff, the anxiety of becoming nothing creeping in like sugar burnt around the edges. It never really left, just sat in the corner of her mind.

They’d made it to Jamie’s bedroom, the place still dark and unlit, the curtains undrawn. He pulled at her dress, grunting over the zipper.

“I got it,” she whispered. She pushed him off gently before he could rip it. She liked this dress. It made her feel small in ways she ached to be. She tried not to shake when she undressed, tried not to think about if her dinner was showing, if he would finally see her and be disgusted. The fabric slipped with a whoosh to pile at her feet, and for a second, Lia stood cold in the night air.

Then he was all over her again, pressing her into the mattress, heaving great breaths as he reached for the night stand.

Lia turned her head to the window, the glass uncovered, and saw the lights flicker below. Then, just before she turned back around, she caught sight of a man, shadowed and backlit by the streetlamp. He was looking at them, his hand down his pants. She was so sure. The nauseating horror struck like a fist down her throat. She turned back to Jamie. He hovered over her, his brows furrowed as he fumbled with the condom. Lia grabbed his arm and shook it.

“Babe, you didn’t close the curtains,” she said.

“Huh?” He looked up and shook the hair out of his face. “Oh. Yeah, I’ll get 'em after.”

“I-I can get them now.” She moved to reach for the window, but he grabbed her shoulder, familiar fingers denting her skin.

“Shhh, the lights aren’t even on. No one can see us,” he murmured, easing her back down.

“Can you just get them? Please?”

He paused and looked at her closely. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He crawled off her and drew the curtains in a smooth action before returning with a kiss. “You’re so beautiful when you’re like that.” He moved his lips to her neck. She opened her eyes to the ceiling, the praise bathing her like moonlight, even though the curtain had just been drawn.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Wide-eyed, saying ‘please’.”

He reached down between them. A familiar sensation poked her before he began moving rhythmically. Underwhelming as ever.

Lia kept her eyes on the ceiling until he was groaning, and then she felt it was appropriate to close her eyes, open her mouth, and breathe wetly. She arched her back, carefully positioning herself so her stomach was flat, her waist smooth, sucking in occasionally when she couldn’t tense her abs. It was like an especially sweaty core workout. When he didn’t finish within his usual minutes, she wondered if she should just try to get off too.

Might as well. I’m already here. She wished he kept talking. He used to talk so much about how lovely she was, how delicate and small.

Small. The haunting word. It would’ve made it easier for her to enjoy it.

Before Lia could fight it, a fantasy sunk miserable, familiar claws into her. It triggered an overwhelming guilt, but the compulsion of it, of rifling through her imagination until she found the one, drove her anyway. Jamie from the restaurant, with his head bent low over his steak, lips shining with grease, chewing and swallowing in succession. Lia watched him, fixated, in her mind, categorizing every ticking in the jaw and bobbing in the throat. It was mesmerizing like a car crash she couldn’t look away from, the way his molars mashed and gnawed, the freedom he capitalized when he ate. How fully, entirely out of control he had let himself become. How arresting it was to see him have what she craved. Here, his every action was for her satisfaction. The meaty juice trickling from the corner of his mouth before he caught it with his tongue. The tension of his shoulders as he cut across his plate. The pure carnality of it all. Everything was for her eyes.

Pleasure and self-loathing mounted like fiery bile, burning inside and threatening to be vomited out. Even as she caught a pleased noise rising from her own throat, far detached from the physical ministrations of present Jamie, the jealousy crawled under her skin, burrowing into the fatty meat of her stomach, and throbbed grossly in her flesh.

Lia writhed under present Jamie. His motions grew erratic, and she shook her head to relieve the pressure building in her skull, struggling to refocus on the gratification that the memory had brought. The fat between his teeth. The wine in his smile. The swallow. The swallow. That’s it, there you go.

Jamie finished with stuttering gasps and Lia found herself relieved to be done, even slightly tingly, which was a rare side effect.

“Love you,” he panted, rolling onto his back beside her.

“Hm? Oh. Love you too.” Her tongue ran over her lips, mind’s eye still stuck on Jamie’s dinnertime show. Lia pushed out of bed to the bathroom, catching sight of Jamie’s prone body on the bed, eyes closed blissfully. Is this what she was worth to him?

In front of the mirror with the door shut behind her, Lia picked at the width of her hips and the movement of her thighs. It was a routine, after sex, to think about what Jamie might’ve thought of her. At least he’d called her beautiful tonight. She pulled on a sweater regardless.

Lia relieved herself and returned to Jamie, who was dead asleep. Crawling in next to him, she thought back to the man outside the window, his hand down his pants, and shivered. A rotten voice simpered in her head. Well, he must’ve thought you were beautiful, too. You should take what you can get.

Maybe it was true.

Her thoughts spiraled, grew loud like rushing water—white noise that took up space, the repetitive nature impossible to ignore, scarring like salt-tipped knives in old hurts. The salads. The praise. The routine. And the compulsion. The dirty horrible disgusting compulsion to get off thinking about eating. Who did that? What was wrong with her? Jamie was the catch, her parents agreed, and why couldn’t she be satisfied with him the normal way? What more did she want?

Why was she still so hungry?

No. Not this again. She’d been so good today. The dread was cold enough to make her feel naked again.

But Lia slipped out of bed without extra effort to be quiet. Jamie slept like a brick. Why should she care? Each step like an out of body thing, her entire being a marionette. One foot forward. Then the other. Until she stood in the middle of his kitchen.

No. Not this. Not here.

But it wasn’t enough. It never was.

It was always anticlimactic. Usually, when dissolved in the dark silence, the shame was easier to reduce to a moment of weakness.

When her muscle memory took over, Lia became a hole. An opening. Nothing but an abyss. Not unlike during sex, except this time, she was reduced to a mouth, and that was infinitely worse. Lia was gone, and in her place was all the food she could consume, if only she willed it. So she did.

Her thinking became languid, loose and relaxed, and she finally let herself eat. Bite, chew, swallow. Anything in the pantry, the fridge. She ate and ate and ate, and wondered if she resembled her fantasy Jamie at dinner.

Bite, chew, swallow. Bite, chew, swallow. Anything she could find. The sweet silence in her mind punctuated only by her working mouth. Bite, chew, swallow. Time became an interval between what she was eating to what she would eat next and next and next. Opened chip bags and crumpled wrappers lay discarded around her, a shrine of her failure. Crumbs dribbled, her fingers sticky. She couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. She finally had it all in front of her.

What was she craving? What had she wanted so badly all day?

That steak. That goddamn steak. In Jamie’s fridge, a cut of butcher’s meat still in plastic wrap, bright red in the dim light. Before she could think better of it—she was far past thinking—Lia tore off the plastic wrap and sunk her teeth into the raw meat. Yes. She pulled with her jaw. The rip. The relief of pressure. The flesh was chewy, the blood congealed. She ate anyway. The iron taste was stronger than it would’ve been if it had been cooked. But she ate anyway. As long as she could have it now, she would do better tomorrow. She ate to the last bit. Stopped. Stared.

Untrimmed fat stared back. White, gobby fat. The bile burned inside her stomach.

Lia’s eyes were stuck. The defiance in its blubbery exterior forced her to face the consequence of her actions.

Lia dropped the meaty piece to the ground, a spit of red and white on the hardwood floor, and ran to the bathroom. She dropped to bruised knees and lurched forward over the toilet.

This time, she didn’t even need to stick a finger down her throat.

It came roaring back out like a sickening tide, barely digested and mostly whole pieces, passing through her mouth in a revolting wave of sour and bitter. She gagged a while after, wiping her mouth as it passed. Lia struggled to breathe, forcing everything back down. Her eyes watered, from the smell or the guilt she couldn’t tell, and she tried to stay calm as her cheek rested against the cool ceramic. The dirtiness of the toilet couldn’t deter her if she was no better.

Sometimes, it felt like an addiction to Lia. The cyclic nature was inescapable, as if there were only two states of being: eating and not eating. Full and empty. Like a car crash she couldn’t look away from, that one thing she kept coming back to. She must like it to be doing it, Lia reasoned. The starving. The being in control of the one thing that should’ve been hers. Hers against the whole entire world as it went to shit. Maybe that made it hurt more every time she binged, like the compulsion to eat was some karmic punishment to rub it in her face. A punishment that she was never going to be free of.

She could barely remember life before it, much less return, but the bitter question never went away. Why couldn’t she just be empty again, like those good days before twenty-one when she could control her eating, her boyfriend, her life?

Lia knew why, but she hated it. She was in the future now, stepped off the precipice into that whirlpool pulling her under. Every day she was further and further down, drowning in it as the world spun around her, losing her grip. Drowning like the dead cow, bobbing in the ocean. Going under. How fitting, she a cow.

A laugh spilled out of her mouth in a cascade of vomit-tasting spit, and she failed to keep it in. Now what? Jamie would see the mess she’d made, the mess she was and the ugliness that oozed out of her so naturally. No one wanted to be ugly, especially when they were spiraling out of control and very literally down the drain. The thought of the shadowy man outside this apartment made her giggle more manically, because if he saw her now, even he wouldn’t want her.

Is that how it was now? Is this who she was? Twenty-something, not worth counting after twenty-one, not worth loving for all the throw-up and the ugly. Twenty-something, her boyfriend on the career rise, her barista apron wrinkled from overuse, the world spinning in a whirlpool to the bottom of the sea.

Drowning dead cow. Dead cow, in chunks in the toilet.

Her laughter grew louder, the irony not lost on her until the desperation caught up and she was wailing. Like a banshee. Like a newborn. She would give anything to be either, to be anything but this thing that she was.

A thudding noise on the door. It was Jamie and his fists. She must’ve woken him up. Oh well, she thought, too delirious to care. It’ll be over in the morning anyway.

Lia grappled for her phone in the sweater pocket and let her fingers work in muscle memory. She opened the LinkedIn app and scrolled through job offerings. Jamie kept pounding against the door.

It’ll be over in the morning anyway.