Harper sunk into the plush seat at Water Grill, flanked by Molly on one side and their housemate Lily pressed against Molly’s side. Next to Harper were a couple of clients, including the insufferable Alfie Lowe who Harper loathed. The group had worked through the raw bar, each one eskewing the mignonette sauce and it’s untraceable sugars, carbs and calories.

Thirty calories, Harper thought as she let another oyster slide down her throat. That was assuming these oysters were considered medium. Or were they large? She examined one of the specimens closely, but couldn’t tell.

A “lunch out with the girls” meant this would be all they indulged in today. Oysters and Tanqueray martinis, very dry with a twist. No temptation to eat the olives, and no worries about useless calories in vermouth. “Basically we want chilled glasses of gin,” Molly had told the waiter.

“Pet, I tell you,” Alfie said in his grating Manchester accent that he swore was actually the Queen’s English watered down from too many years in America. “She was so dark she was purple.”

“Are you talking about the Queen of the Dark?” Molly asked. “The Sudanese model?”

“Darling, I haven’t a clue,” Alfie said. Molly self-consciously grazed the lengths of her own cocoa-colored forearms. “But if she’s Sudanese, that’s a saving grace. Exotic, perhaps. I imagine a pleasing accent, or at least more so than the horrific American excuse for English.” He gave an exaggerated shudder as he swallowed an oyster.

Molly looked like she was about to say more, but clamped her mouth shut. Lilly exaggerated her own Vietnamese accent, which was almost non-existent since she’d moved to L.A. at five years old. “I couldn’t agree more,” she said, confident in her ability to pass Alfie’s xenophobic, racist tirade.

“Regardless of where she’s from, that girl needs some curves in the right places immediately,” he said. “I swear, as soon as a model hits L.A., she picks up an eating disorder like it’s a Birkin. But much easier to acquire.”

Alfie raised his brow at Harper, her hand mid-way to an oyster. Fuck him. She maintained eye contact while she picked up a half-shell, separated the flesh with the tiny fork, and slipped the decadence between her mouth.

“Of course, sometimes a good diet is in a model’s best interest. Especially when age isn’t on their side.”

The moment of confidence Harper had wrangled slipped away. She looked down at her little starter salad, the dressing untouched on the side and the croutons painfully separated to the corner. Harper pushed the leaves and sliced carrots around to make it look like she’d at least tried it.

“Like you,” Alfie said thoughtfully. He moved closer to her. “Purger, I’m guessing? I mean, judging by the marks on your knuckles.”

Harper quickly tucked her hands underneath the table.

“Yeah, you don’t look full anoretic to me,” he said. “Too puffy. Busted blood vessels in the eyes. Let me see the teeth, pet.”

“Alfie!” Molly said. “That’s enough. Stop picking on Harper.”

Harper forced out a laugh, and Alfie easily picked her up and slid her onto his lap. “Stop!” she said, and tried to make it sound playful. Am I too heavy? She struggled, but Alfie held her surprisingly tight.

“You feel lighter than you look,” he commented.

“Put me down,” she said half-heartedly.

“Hey, Alfie, let her go,” said Ben, the client who rarely spoke up.

“Oh, piss off. I’m just having a bit of a laugh,” he said. “Besides, what are models for if not life-sized Barbies?”

“You like playing with Barbies, do you?” Ben asked pointedly.

“Are you okay?” Molly mouthed, but Harper couldn’t get any words out. Her throat was stuffed with a cry that threatened to spill out.

“I, uh, I have to go,” she said. It took all her strength to get those words out.

“Already?” Alfie said. “But, love, we’ve just begun. Besides, I want to see you demolish dessert on your plate and see how you make it disappear without it passing through your mouth. Or do you just need a quick vomit in the bathroom?”

“I have an appointment I forgot about, I’m sorry,” Harper said. “Molly, can you get me and I’ll pay you—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Molly said.

Harper barely made it to the lobby before the tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. She called Sean, only slightly aware it was her first time making a call instead of a text.

“Harper? What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.

“I’m at this place, Water Grill. With these asshole clients. They—”

“The Water Grill? Don’t move, I’ll be right there.”

Harper waited outside, hidden behind her enormous glasses. The valet boys snuck glances at her as she sat stiffly in the wrought-iron bench, but didn’t dare approach her.

She stood up as soon as she saw the white Nova approach. Sean waved the valet away as she slid onto the cool leather seat. “What happened?” he asked as he drove away from the regal building.

She twisted the sleeve of her jacket and considered telling him all of it. “Just this one client, this British guy who’s a total prick.”

“What did he do?”

Called me out on bulimia in front of the whole table. “Nothing,” she sighed. What would Sean think if he knew? Would he stop whatever they were doing? Maybe. Probably.

“Harper. Tell me.”

“He, like, picked me up and forced me onto his lap. He pretended like it was a joke, but I couldn’t move.”

“He what?” Sean’s voice dipped dangerously low.

Fuck. He might go back there. “I mean, he was joking. I think he just had too many drinks. I just got upset over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Sean said. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

Sean pulled up outside his apartment, threw on the emergency brake and drew her close. Harper angled her face up and was rewarded with soft kisses. What was I so upset about anyway?

Still, even with Sean’s arm wrapped around her, Alfie’s words wormed into her brain. Not a full anoretic, huh? We’ll see about that. She felt Sean’s hand as it squeezed her upper arm. The usual feeling of comfort was tainted with the idea that maybe he was testing her—seeing if she was fatter than last time. Harper shifted her arm out, away from her torso, and instantly made her arm feel smaller.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Sean asked.

“Nothing,” she repeated.

She wanted to tell him, but the words were logged in her throat. How do you tell someone you have anorexia? That your bulimia goes back and forth between classic purging and exercise-induced bulimia rallied on by the numbers that climbed higher and higher on the elliptical?

Sean’s hand moved to her bare thigh, and she jumped at the sensation. As his hand inched up her leg and his finger hooked into the lace hem of her panties, Alfie’s words faded away. All she focused on was what Sean did, how his dominance lightened her completely.

She parted her thighs and his thumb found her clit. He started to circle, smooth and steady. As she let out a moan, his index finger slid into her. She pushed against him while his other hand tweaked her nipple below her thin tank top.

“Always so wet for me,” he whispered into her ear before he bit lightly on her lobe.

Harper closed her eyes and focused on his mouth against her neck. She pictured the new hickies as they blossomed against the faded red and purple explosions she’d taken to covering up with light scarves.

He slipped another finger into her and she whispered his name, spread her legs farther until one knee hit the door and the other rested against the stick shift. She didn’t give a damn who walked by and saw. Sean reached down and tore an opening into the panties while she offered herself up with an arched back.

Her eyes flickered open just in time to see a young couple, hands clasped tight, peer open-mouthed into the window as they passed. The man slid his hand down to the girl’s ass as they walked on.

In these moments, she was alive and for once light and hollow as a bird’s bones. However briefly they may last.