I had this friend I was living with when I was getting my associates degree in my early twenties. Wait, hang on. So the first thing I need to convey about that time in my life is that I was as full of anxiety as it was possible to be.
I was working, taking classes, and living on my own for the first time. I was drowning. I was a bubbling kettle of stress and responsibilities all waiting to boil over at any moment. Bodies are fickle things. They all react to stress very differently. My body decided that the best possible way to deal with stress was to puke about it.
This was extremely unwelcome not just because throwing up is a violently uncomfortable experience but also because I struggled most of my life to maintain a healthy weight. I’d eat enormous portions but even when my food stayed down I burned through calories like a hummingbird. I tended to hover right around a hundred pounds, desperately trying to gain weight.
My friends were all aware of my struggles. They’d keep granola bars on them for when I suddenly got so hungry I was sick and made me calorie dense meals. They knew the face I made when I realized I was going to be sick and usually had water and back rubs for me afterward.
So that’s where I was. Throwing up generally at least once a week, working and school full time. I was living with three friends. Let’s call them K, D, and E. K and I had been friends since middle school and she and I shared a bedroom with our own bathroom. The boys D and E shared a room, and had the public bathroom.
The last thing you need to know is that D was a sex addict. He was always horny, masturbated several times a day, and made no secret of his proclivities. It was a running joke within the friend group. (As an aside he once had his car broken into while transporting his duffel bag of sex toys to and from a liaison, and the thief ignored everything else in the car to take the toys. It was probably over a thousand dollars of used sex toys but the thief still wanted it more than his iPod)
One night I was doing homework and dinner was sitting poorly. I hadn’t fully developed my brain yet to make a connection between my paper was stressing me out to the fact that I suddenly felt really sick. But to my dismay K was in our bathroom.
So I jumped up, frantically ill, and ran across the living room to the boys toilet to barf.
Within a few minutes D came in with a cold wash cloth. He put it on my neck and rubbed my back. He’d brought a glass of water for me, too, which was all very lovely.
When I was done we sat in the miserable aftermath of this latest episode in stomach violence. He finally broke the silence to comment, “I’ve never lost an erection as fast as I did hearing you start puking.”
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