Fifteen years old, I gave my first blowjob to Lochlan Murray in exchange for a year’s worth of free soft serve. I can no longer picture Lochlan clearly. In my head, he’s a composite of freckles and acne scars, abstract pointillism. The soft serve, though, has stuck. Swirled into styrofoam-tasting cones. Dusty yellow. Thick enough that I’d carve shapes into it with my tongue. 

I liked soft serve because it kept its taste and texture coming back up. Over the toilet, my fingers scrabbling for the later elusive trigger spot, I’d experience the sweet, creamy flavor again. At this point, my binges were strategic and–a word I picked up from a therapist years down the line–harm-reductive. Tortilla chips and pretzels were burrs to my throat, I knew. But I could throw up ten, fifteen ice creams at a time without ever developing the bulimic rasp. 

And this, I remember about Lochlan: he never questioned me. Never charged me, not even when my year was up. Never denied me access to the employees-only restroom. Never asked for another blowjob, though with the dirt he had on me, I would’ve offered anything. We sat in companionable quiet as I licked and licked, then ejected it all.

Lochlan moved away the summer between my junior and senior year. I discovered this on my way to the ice cream parlor, passing his house that seemed to have transformed into a beehive, moving men buzzing in and out. I waited for Lochlan to emerge, but he never did. That evening, dust particles had accumulated in thick layers, smogging out the sun. The light was a pale, powdery yellow. Exactly that vanilla shade. 

Here’s the horrible irony of bulimia: the longer you have it, the worse you get at it. The nerves and muscles involved get dulled like knives. The slick, twitching pad behind the uvula stops responding to stimulus. I’d fall asleep clutching my sandbag stomach, weeping. Remembering how easily Lochlan’s soft serve regurgitated. Remembering how I almost threw up while giving him head, that one and only time, and how he stroked my hair. Repeating, it’s okay, it’s okay.