Misadventures of a Curvy Girl (Misadventures Book 18)

by Sierra Simone

I wanted to see the world once. I wanted to be one of those photographers who tramps all over Patagonia and Punjab, who snaps arresting photos of little Alpine villages and intrepid Antarctic outposts. And maybe if I took enough gorgeous, stirring photos, no one would’ve cared the woman behind the camera wasn’t gorgeous or stirring herself. Stop it, Ireland.

I want to wear the clothes I want to wear, not the ones I’m supposed to. I want to spend my nights doing what I choose, not going to the gym and then listening to Brian’s pointed remarks about my body while I pick at my frozen diet entree and stare miserably at the table. I want to live now, have fun and do fun things now, not wait for some distant, skinnier future that may never come. What if I wake up one day at fifty and realize I spent my youth on diet shakes and broth cleanses for nothing? What if I spent the rest of my years being criticized by Brian and gym trainers and my sister, all while wearing tunics I hated?

And if the price of freedom is being alone, then fine. I’d rather be alone than be with someone who will only love me if I’m skinny.

The cows have already moved away in disinterest. This situation is so dull, it bores livestock.

I can see the restless bird inside her fluttering to be free. I’ve always been good at seeing inside people. Letting them see inside me, however, not so much, but I try not to worry about that right now.

No one has ever talked to me about sex like this before. I’ve had boys ask if it’s okay to move forward, if it’s okay to do more, but forward and more always meant some vague notion of everything, like if you’re agreeing to sex, then of course you’d also do oral and everything else in between. Like the only real boundary is between everything else and intercourse, and after intercourse, even that boundary goes away. It’s the first time I’ve thought about sex the way Ben describes it, as an array of things I can pick or not pick, and the freedom it allows me is almost giddying.

Don’t make this awkward. Don’t be that fat girl. Don’t be the girl so desperate for affection that she abandons all pretense of dignity and begs for it. Don’t be eager, and don’t be clingy. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t ask for more than what people want to give you, because they won’t want to give you much.

I think I fell in love. I think I fell in love in a single night. I think I fell in love with two people instead of one, and all of it is ridiculous, so fucking ridiculous, but that doesn’t stop it from being true. Doesn’t stop it one bit.

I’m furious that these men made me feel any doubt or embarrassment about the night we spent together. I’m furious that the way Ben treated me made me feel like a stereotype. I’m furious that the whole thing made me feel ugly and unlovable. And mostly, I’m furious that I live in a world that has the power to make me feel ugly and unlovable because of my body.

So, no, I’ve never had someone stand in front of me, eyes blazing with possessive lust, and practically vibrate with the need to claim me. Declare I’m theirs. I’ve never been the heroine. Until now…and God help me, I like it. I like having this man on his proverbial knees while he also looks like he wants nothing more than to pin me against my own car and fuck me until the only word I remember is his name.

People aren’t just one thing. People aren’t just confident and then that’s it, there’s nothing that can dent that confidence. People aren’t just brave and then free from fear their entire lives. We exist in tangles of virtue and weakness simultaneously—we are the best and worst of ourselves all at the same time.

It’s why I’ve hidden behind the camera for so long—because to be in front of the lens is to acknowledge that I exist in this body. To be smiling is to not participate in the expectation that I should be ashamed.

I’m exhausted by it, by the relentlessness of having a body that’s such an easy target, by the cultural certainty that anyone who loves me or my body is some kind of deviant freak. That anyone who cares for me deserves to be punished, and I do too, for not staying where we’re supposed to—in the neatly cruel categories the rest of the world decides.

“It’s just a word, princess. A word like tall or short or Nebraskan. It’s an adjective that doesn’t have to mean anything negative. The world thinks that fat is the worst thing a woman can be, but the more we use the word like a neutral description, the more we say fuck you to that idea.”

“Okay, A of all, I don’t like the way you said the word fetish,” Mackenna responds, doing this thing where she aims her pointer and middle fingers at me and waggles them. “It’s very kink-shamey, in general, and I don’t stand for that. B of all, I don’t understand this need to pathologize people who find fat folks attractive. You wouldn’t be asking me if they only dated brunettes or Catholics, so why do we have to label normal desire as something twisted just because that desire isn’t for a thin body? And C of all, no.” She drops her fingers. “They don’t only date girls like us. I went to college with them, and I can tell you they’ve dated all kinds of girls—even dated a boy once.”

I don’t love you in spite of your body. I love you with it, as you are, and I’ll never be anything but fucking proud to be yours.”