To entice those of you who haven’t read INSATIABLE yet to pick up a copy (a great holiday gift!) I’m posting a sexy sample from my memoir. Anorexia drama aside, there’s plenty of appetite-whetting material of both the eating--and the eating out--variety. And if you’re still hungry, a quickie appetizer recipe follows.
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The summer I turn 15, I land a role in a local theater production. I’m immediately smitten with one of my cast mates—coincidentally, the only villain in the play. Jeremy has Iowan farm-boy good looks—honey-hued hair, skin the color of toasted oats, and eyes as blue as the Midwestern sky. The fact that he’s twenty years older than I am only fuels my Lolita-like fantasies.
“You do a great German accent,” I tell Jeremy one afternoon as we await our cue. I lean against the stage and jut out a hip, looking as alluring as a pubescent teenager with bad skin and braces can.
Our introduction leads to casual conversation, during which I discover that Jeremy lives only a mile from my house. When the first of many cast parties is announced later that week, Jeremy offers to be my ride home. For me, the party is just pretext for the main event: the drive home, alone, with Jeremy. He’s a rare breed of adult: one who asks for my opinion—on everything from politics to public radio—and actually listens to my answers. I’m so hot for him that when he looks at me, I feel all fiery and tingly inside.
“Don’t take me home yet,” I beg Jeremy on the drive home.
In response, he cocks a blond eyebrow, steers into a vacant parking lot and relaxes his foot off the accelerator. I roll down my window and the sound of the Mississippi River surges in.
“I really like talking to you,” I say.
“Likewise,” Jeremy says. “You sure don’t act your age.”
Jeremy unbuckles his seatbelt, then mine.
“I don’t think we’ll get into any accidents here,” he says.
I shift in my seat, my thighs stuck together with sweat. I’m hornier than hell and even more turned on by the illicit-—make that illegal—-nature of our affair.
Jeremy brushes my bangs off my forehead and strokes the back of my neck. An electric current shoots down my spine.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
I nod coyly. Jeremy leans in and his insistent mouth presses against mine, our tongues twisting awkwardly around my braces. Jeremy’s kiss is so different from the slobbery, high school kid smooches I’ve had; Jeremy knows exactly what he’s doing.
“I should take you home,” he says after a few minutes of sucking face. “Your parents are going to be worried.”
I tiptoe into my house just before sunrise; when I awake twelve hours later, my mother is hovering over my bed.
“Are you drunk?” she asks, squinting as she searches for alcoholic evidence on my face.
I am drunk; drunk on the power of seduction, drunk on the possibility of sex.
Jeremy and I date all summer on the sly. I simply tell my mother that a friend’s mom will drive me home from acting class; I tell my friend’s mom that I’m being shuttled off to dentist appointments. In truth, Jeremy picks me up on the sly for other kinds of oral activity.
“The artichoke dip sounds amazing,” Jeremy says as he sets down his menu. On this midweek afternoon, he’s whisked me away to a neighborhood Italian restaurant for a snack.
“Um…okay,” I say. I’m as learned in fancy food as I am in sex—which is to say, not at all.
“Have you ever had artichokes?” Jeremy asks.
“Of course,” I say with an exaggerated air of sophistication. “I just don’t like seafood much.”
Jeremy smiles and shakes his head.
“Sometimes I forget how young you are,” he says.
Jeremy waves the waiter over and places the order. When the appetizer arrives, he scoops up lump after lump of spinach-speckled goo with slices of toast.
“Hey—did I tell you I was cast in a new play?” he says.
“Oh yeah?”
“The Odyssey.”
I recognize the title as something I should have read for an English exam last semester but avoided thanks to Cliff’s Notes.
“I’m playing Oedipus,” Jeremy says.
“Who’s that?”
Jeremy explains the incestuous plot of the play.
“Are you familiar with Freud?” he asks.
“Duh.”
“Do you know about the Oedipal Complex?”
I shake my head. I rarely feel intellectually inferior to anyone, but Jeremy seems to be an expert in everything.
“It’s like what’s happening with us; that is, if I were your father.”
“That’s whacked,” I say.
Whacked doesn’t begin to describe what unfolds between Jeremy and me.
Though he’s dating REAL women (I know because he tells me so), we perfect the art of “everything but”. I want Jeremy to deflower me; an attorney by trade, he isn’t willing to risk the legal repercussions.
“Do you know how hard I studied to pass the bar exam?” he gawks when I bring up the possibility of popping my cherry. Our affair fizzles when Jeremy meets a flutist he can legally fuck…but Jeremy reappears when I’m all grown up (and experienced enough to know what artichokes are). Read all about it in INSATIABLE!
OEDIPAL ARTICHOKE DIP
INGREDIENTS
1 cup fat-free plain yogurt
½ cup whipped plain cream cheese
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
1 box frozen spinach, thawed and drained
½ can quartered artichoke hearts, drained
½ teaspoon garlic sea salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
METHOD
• Set strainer over large bowl. Line strainer with paper towel. Pour yogurt on top and let drain.
• Meanwhile, combine remaining ingredients in medium microwave-safe bowl. Stir until blended.
• Add drained yogurt; stir.
• Microwave for 2 to 3 minutes or until bubbly. Serve on toast.
