"Should I turn out the lights?"
He was already getting out of the bed as he said it.
For the first time in nine months, I was completely naked in front of a man, and the first thing he wanted to do when he took my dress off was turn out the lights.
I've had many conversations with friends who do body-positive advocacy like I do, and they know what it's like to be single and do this work. When I first started out writing and roaring, I was dating a man who was extremely in love with me. I absolutely think that when I was already sleeping with someone who found me irresistable, body confidence came much easier. When we broke up last fall, I realized that he had seen me gain 30 pounds throughout our relationship and my overlapping eating disorder recovery. Now, even much heavier than that, I haven't been with a man since. And I've had a lot of time to think.
I have days when I think, Damn, Trusty, any man would be lucky to explore this body. These days often come after my morning Zumba, or after hours of teaching tap dance. These are the days I am reminded of the muscle and the strength beneath the layers of fat, and I'm confident that my size does not define me.
Then, there are the moments right before going out on a date, when my closet is strewn across my living room and I feel like a sweaty bumbling moron, trying on dress after dress, bra after bra, hating everything about this terrible body that is healing from years of self-inflicted abuse.
I sit at the bar with the dude from Tinder or the mutual friend of so-and-so, and I self-consciously pull my shirt away from my belly so it doesn't get sucked into the rolls. I drink my beer too fast and begin a mental countdown of how many minutes it will be until I can pretend to feel under the weather and take my bra off for the drive home. I feel large. I feel oversized for the bar stool. I feel like I can see him thinking that I'm a much larger woman than he gathered from my pictures. I give up before it begins.
This is the place I've lived most often in these past nine months. This I-know-I'm-sexy-and-I'm-confident-but-only-when-I'm-doing-certain-things-and-sitting-on-barstools-in-underwires-is-not-one-of-them place.
I sat on the bed while he left the bedroom and flicked the lights off.
On this particular night, I had gone a different route. I asked my boss who loves clearing her closet periodically if I could raid it so I would have new datewear. Living in Hawai'i, jeans are not an option unless you want to spend most of the time you're on a date sweating profusely into your cocktail. I normally shoot for a maxi dress, but have lately been so in love with my legs that I wanted to see what my boss would have in terms of shorter dresses.
After a successful closet raid, I showed up to dinner in a strapless sundress that didn't require a bra at all. Thank you, Jesus. It had flash-flooded that day, so I was giving him hair á la drowned rat. I was wearing blingy flats that my boss lent me that were one size too big, and I sort of had to pigeon-toe as I trudged into the restaurant, soaking wet.
He was sitting with a co-worker, and the three of us got to chatting. Holy shit, he was cute. By the time the bill came, we were already discussing where to move next. We strolled down the strip along the ocean and spent another two hours laughing and chatting at the bar.
I learned that he works here several times a year, but doesn't reside here, and would be leaving in 48 hours. Hawai'i is a very transient place, and I normally steer clear of going out with tourists, but this situation seemed different. So when he asked me to come back with him to his hotel, I put up a fake fight that entertained him and then followed him to the parking lot.
It had been nine months. I had no idea what to expect. Even after writing passionately that if a man doesn't want all 200-plus pounds of me, then he can't have any of me, I was still wondering how I would feel taking my clothes off in front of a new man for the first time in over two years.
We were kissing. We were laughing. There were hands under my dress, and there were fingers in his hair and there was electricity that I haven't felt in a very, very long time.
And then he pulled off my dress.
"Should I turn out the lights?"
He was already getting out of bed when he said it. It went dark in the hotel room, and I sat there with my hand on my stomach rolls, feeling like, whatever the opposite of a million bucks is.
The lights of the bathroom came on, and he returned.
"Ohhh, that's much better mood lighting. I still need to see you."
He dove at me and kissed my torso, my belly button, my breasts. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer and ran his hands up and down my waist while shaking his head and smiling.
I was blown away. Not only was it what every woman hopes for, it was happening to me on my first ride back in the saddle.
My friend Zev recently said that to ravish a woman is to feel that the scent of her, the taste of her skin, is the only thing standing between you and death.
I could not say enough thank yous to the heavens above as this man I met in the pouring rain on his business trip took me in his arms and just...ravished me.
I whispered how sexy he was in his ear.
He pulled away and pushed me down on the bed.
"How can you even call me sexy? You're the sexy one."
It's real. You read it and you see it and you watch it and you hope that you can find a man who loves being with a plus-sized woman. But deep down, you don't always believe it will happen for you.
Until a man half your size is running his hands up and down all of the things the magazines have told you are ugly, and moaning in delight.
It's real. I sometimes look at men now in bars that would have picked me up right away before my ED diagnosis, and wonder if they'll give me a second glance in this body, 60 pounds heavier than it's ever been. But before I have a chance to find out, I always shift my gaze and tell myself that it's impossible.
After this experience, I wonder how many of those shifted gazes have kept me from having amazing nights like this one.
It's real. If we're open, if we're present, if we are willing to believe it, it's real.
And I have the mood lighting to prove it.
***
This story by Amanda Trusty first appeared at ravishly.com, an alternative news+culture women's website.