Sarai Walker

We’re told not to go out by ourselves late at night, not to dress a certain way, not to talk to male strangers, not to lead men on. We take self-defense classes, keep our doors locked, carry pepper spray and rape whistles. The fear of men is ingrained in us from girlhood. Isn’t that a form of terrorism?

The medication took away my sadness and replaced it with something else—not happiness, but more like a low dull hum, a weak radio frequency of feeling that couldn’t be turned up or down.

I would start off each day with the right breakfast and snacks, but sometimes I would grow so hungry that my hands would shake and I couldn’t concentrate on anything. Then I’d eat something bad. I couldn’t stand hunger. Hunger is what death must feel like.

“Good, glad that’s done,” she said, even though I hadn’t finished going through my mental list. “Between you and me, I know parts of the magazine are silly, but my readers are real girls with real problems. I truly believe we can help them. I like to think the work that you and I do is an anecdote to all the bad things in the world. Wait, I mean antidote.”

Kitty went on talking about the blood on the white tile, and as she spoke, all I could think was: Dear Kitty, I like to cut my breasts with a razor . . . I like to trace around my nipples and watch the blood seep through my bra . . . I know it’s weird, but I do it because it feels good. It hurts, but it feels good too.

“What we’re doing here at the clinic is radical and life affirming,” she said. “We’re taking care of our bodies. People like that woman find this very threatening. She’s like an alcoholic or drug addict, completely in denial. She’ll probably be dead soon.” Gladys seemed to savor the thought.

etween meals, I dealt with my hunger by dipping lettuce leaves into mustard (a tip from Gladys), which was practically a zero-calorie snack, about as effective as eating air

journal:
1.After eating, I feel: Very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, hungry or staring:starving
2.My mood right now is: Positive, neutral, discouraged, or irritable:positive
3.Today I am thinking about food: Only at mealtimes, occasionally, or constantly:constantly

Then one tipsy night after martinis on the veranda with the Ambersons from across the street, Daddy impregnated Mama with a bomb that took nine months to blow up, leaving her fat and scarred, with stretch marks and a waistline that looked like an inner tube.”
That bomb was Verena. She had ruined her mother’s figure, which led to an obsession with dieting, which led to the horror of Baptist Weight Loss being inflicted on the world.

Julia reached into her belt and withdrew a folded paper. “On May eleventh, writing under an assumed name, I sent this message through the Dear Kitty portal of the Daisy Chain website: Dear Kitty, I consider you to be one of the great intellectual minds of our time, so I would like to ask you a question. Who is more oppressed—a woman covered from head to toe in a burka or one of the bikini-clad models in your magazine?”
I thought for a moment, and then the memory of it swam to the surface. “I remember. That wasn’t the usual type of message.”