Bethel's Meadow (7 page)

“God, Sam.” I held up my hands in surrender. “My headache was completely gone and my stomach was just fine, until you delivered that lovely little treatise on sexuality. Now I know where Sidebottom gets his material.”

“She doesn’t put out often enough for you, does she?” Sam asked.

“Hell no!” I said. “I need it all the damn time, as often as I can get it. And you want to know why, Dr. Fleming?”

“Tell me.”

“Because I’m the horniest bastard God ever put on the planet,” I said. “And I’m tired of being made to feel ashamed about it. Sex is better than just about anything I know. It’s better than opening night on Broadway, it’s better than a tasty steak, it’s better than a chocolate-fucking-cupcake. It’s better than a roller coaster ride, better than getting a parking space in the front row for being employee-of-the-fucking-month, better than beating a field sobriety test when you’ve been caught driving drunk. It’s better than hearing the preacher pronounce you man and wife, better than getting straight A’s, better than being named MVP, better than winning the mother-fucking lottery. And believe me, that’s saying something, because who ever wins the fucking lottery?”

Sam started clapping and whistling. She seemed genuinely enthused by what I had just said.

“What are you going to do about it, Mr. Smith?” she asked. “Are you going to grow a pair and break up with the ice queen? What are you going to do?”

I fell back on the cushions and sighed. “I don’t know.”

“I admire you for your loyalty, for not cheating on your girlfriend,” she said. “I’m sorry I put you in this position.” I knew the doctor was full of shit.

“Rules are rules,” I said. “Every man has to have a code to live by. He has to be true to himself.”

“I’m going to go fetch your meds now,” Sam said as she stood. “You’re welcome to sleep over. I have an extra bedroom you can stay in. Your girlfriend never has to know.”

“Forget about the meds,” I said as I stood to leave. “I’m going home to deal with this shit with Caitlin, one way or the other. And I’m going to grow a pair by not tapering right away from the meds. I’ll sleep whenever I sleep.”

“I’ll give you a few pills anyway,” she said, “in case you get desperate and change your mind. It could happen.”

“Sam,” I said, looking directly into her beautiful eyes. “Could I be so bold as to ask for a rain check to continue that make-out session we just had?”

She smiled and winked. “I’ll give you my number. I like you, Mr. Smith. I want to get to know you. You call me if things change.” She then grabbed her own tits and said, “But don’t wait forever. These babies are fabulous, and they won’t stay pent up for long.”

7

I
T WAS THREE A.M. I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to fall asleep. I had the pills Sam had given me, which would have quickly put me to sleep and placed me on the road to recovery. But if I was going to break the cycle of dependence on the meds, I reasoned that the shortest distance between two points was a line. Just quit cold turkey, I thought, and bear the consequences. It wasn’t like I was trying to come off of morphine or cocaine. How bad could it get? How long could the pain and discomfort persist?

Not for long, I hoped. I wanted nothing more to do with psychiatrists and their cynical drug treatment plans:
Just dope ‘em up and send them on their way
. More important, however, was rediscovering my one and true self. As I saw it, the only way to accomplish that was to withdraw completely from the meds. If it turned out I was just too crazy for society to tolerate, I’d sell everything I own and go live in some hippy commune in the California Mountains. If there weren’t any communes anymore, I’d go to Tibet and practice Buddhism.

As for Caitlin, I’d been calling her once every half-hour since I had arrived home at a little past midnight. She wasn’t answering. I tried to console myself and allay my fears. If she was a cold fish with me, I thought, then she probably would be with anyone else. Well, except for that asshole from Atlantic City who had given her the time of her life. Maybe it was just me. Maybe I
was
sexually deficient, at least in her view. Maybe she was getting what she needed right now from a seven-foot tall first-round draft pick.

I then recalled what Sidebottom had done a few years ago when he had suspected his then-girlfriend of cheating on him. We had a truly crazy friend named Valentine, who was something of a GPS (Global Positioning System) specialist. At Sidebottom’s request, Valentine surreptitiously rigged the girl’s car with a GPS tracking chip. He then told Sidebottom to call him at any time he wanted to know where his girlfriend was.

I’ll never forget Sidebottom calling me a few days later. He was drunk and I could tell he’d been crying. On a late Thursday evening, Sidebottom’s girl wasn’t answering her cell phone. So he called Valentine to get a fix on her location. It took all of thirty seconds to find her car. Instead of being at work late (like she had told Sidebottom), she was ten miles away from her office. Where was she? That’s the best part. She was two miles away from Sidebottom’s house, at the home of her boss.

Sidebottom didn’t confront her with it until Valentine had tracked her to the same man’s home for the third time in three weeks. As Sidebottom would later discover, his girlfriend had a standing date every Thursday night with this man, the same night this man’s wife attended a weekly church choir group. So while the boss’s wife was singing her heart out in praise of the Lord, her husband was putting it to Sidebottom’s girlfriend. And that left Sidebottom crying in his beer every day for six months.

If I were in that position, I’d just call it quits on the relationship before I would even think about planting a GPS chip. Once the trust evaporates and suspicion takes over, that’s pretty much it.

Whenever Caitlin would mess with my head just for the fun of it, she’d always say afterward: “Oh, get over it. I was just yanking your chain.” Maybe that was what she was doing now, yanking my chain by not answering the phone and acting like she was getting along famously with the Timberwolves’ starting lineup. I knew she felt I was being too possessive and distrusting, so maybe this was my payback for the crime of giving a shit. Whatever the case, I was getting tired of her act. The lack of sex alone was putting me on edge with her. I have always wanted to have a relationship that works as well in bed as well as it does out of bed. And with Caitlin, I wasn’t doing well
in
or
out
. Her mean streak and constant verbal abuse were putting the relationship to the test. But as mad as I was, I knew I’d be lonely if I showed her ass to the proverbial door.

In my days as a player in the bar and nightclub scene (which was basically my entire twenties and on into my early thirties), the trick of getting over the girl you were with (and about to lose) was to quickly find another girl and bed down with her immediately. It was the best method of softening the blow. And the antidote to my current problem with Caitlin was Dr. Samantha Fleming.

During my evening with Sam, I hadn’t thought once of Caitlin until the lovely doctor had kissed me. It was then that my guilty conscience took control of my cheating heart, just as it had taken control of it while I was in the powerful presence of the redheaded librarian. My conscience is the mechanism that keeps my moral compass in check. But now was the time to recalibrate that compass. I wasn’t willing to attribute Caitlin’s mean-spirited behavior to her childhood anymore. After all, like her I was also an orphan, but I’ve never used my bitter childhood as a license to mistreat and disrespect others. At least, I really hope I haven’t.

I turned off my cell phone and disconnected my land line. If I wasn’t going to sleep, then I sure as hell wasn’t going to stay up all night waiting for Caitlin to call, though that seemed very unlikely.

I went to the living room. Propped against the piano I didn’t play anymore was my new guitar. I powered up the laptop computer that was sitting on top of the piano and then logged on to the guitar instruction website. Sitting on the piano bench, I started strumming away, practicing and playing whatever the online instructors told me to. These guys made playing fun, teaching actual songs that other people would want to hear. I immersed myself in my guitar playing, and for the next four hours I didn’t think about a damned thing.

And it felt good.

…

Hours later, while lying on the couch reading
Atlas Shrugged
, I glanced up at the grandfather clock next to the piano: it was eleven a.m. I still hadn’t slept, but I was pleased I had read 450 pages of Ayn Rand’s literary masterpiece. I was using speed reading techniques I had learned as a boy. That, combined with the benefits of the self-induced mania I was now finally enjoying, had allowed me to breeze through that book as quickly as I had. My mind was sharp. I didn’t feel like my feet were stuck in the mud anymore, which is how I had always felt while on the meds.

I felt a little hung over from the wine I’d had at Sam’s house last night, but I really didn’t feel all that bad. In fact, she’d been right. The alcohol had done me less harm than good. The rich food she’d served had alleviated my nausea and softened my killer headache. It didn’t make sense, but she knew more about combatting withdrawal symptoms than I did. Operating under the same theory, after finally putting down the guitar at six a.m., I made myself a hearty breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and orange juice. After that, a shower and a shave had me feeling mostly human again.

I had thought of lacing up my running shoes and hitting the streets, but I didn’t want to push my luck. Besides, I only ran to keep my weight down, and in the past two days I had lost five or six pounds, even though I’d had two big meals. I made a mental note to ask Sam if significant weight loss could occur that rapidly just from halting the meds.

I got up from the couch and sought another way of killing time. I spent an hour on the Web searching for a job. Since falling among the unemployed the previous summer, I had received only two calls for interviews after having emailed over 300 résumés. Though I wasn’t enthused by the idea of leaving Orlando and its wonderful weather, I’d decided weeks ago to geographically broaden my job search (I’d go anywhere except Oklahoma). But I couldn’t find an employer that was willing to pay relocation expenses.

Afterward, I turned on my cell phone and reconnected my land line. Five minutes later Caitlin chimed in on the cell.

“You tried calling me
six times
after midnight last night, you insecure and distrusting little prick.”

“And a jolly good morning to you too, Tinker Bell!” I wasn’t in the mood right now for her acid jabs. In fact, I figured I wasn’t going to be in the mood to do
anything
with her ever again.

“Smith, you’re just looking for a fight,” she said. “I’ve been trying to call you all morning. What’s with you and all your drama?”

“You’re absolutely right,” I said. “I will concede the point. I have been way too clingy with you. Damn me all to hell for giving a flying shit.”

“Are you yanking my chain, or do you really mean it? You’re confessing to being insecure and clingy?”

“I think you have every right to do as you please,” I told her. “If you want to gallivant around with the starting lineup of the Minnesota Timberwolves, then who am I to stop you?”

“We had a blast with those guys,” she said. “How dare you imply I did anything improper with them. Me and the girls were just letting off some steam with some really cool cats.”

“Cool cats? Did those
cool cats
show you their jump shots?”

“Fuck off, Smith. I don’t have to put up with this bullshit from you.”

“And as of right fucking now, you no longer have to!” I declared. “This is where we part ways. You’re tired of my bullshit, and I’m tired of your sexual frigidity and total unwillingness to express any affection toward me.”

“You’re breaking up with me?” she said, sounding genuinely surprised. “And you’re breaking up with me because of sex? That’s what this is really all about?
Sex?
”

“Yes, that’s
exactly
what this is all about.” I was really pissed off now. Even though she didn’t say it, I could hear it in my head:
Quality over quantity
.

“This is unbelievable. You’re breaking up with me over the phone instead of in person, you chicken shit bastard. I can’t believe we’re breaking up over sex, of all things. Do you know how fucking idiotic that is? God, you’re such a selfish son of a bitch. You’re the biggest pervert I’ve ever known in my—”

I terminated the line.

And two minutes later, after cooling down a little bit, I called Dr. Samantha Fleming.

“I’m in the mood to party tonight,” I said to her. “So when I get there at seven to pick you up, be wearing blue jeans or something comfortable. I’m in the mood to celebrate, because things
have
changed.”

8

M
Y HEART CAME TO a full stop
when she opened the door. Dr. Samantha Fleming was outfitted in tight blue jeans, knee-high brown leather boots, and a sleeveless, eggshell-colored blouse with a plunging neckline that showcased her truly impressive God-given assets. She had a thin silver bracelet around one wrist and a diamond and ruby bracelet around the other. Her full and sensuous lips were glossed with a light shade of red. Her hair was in a ponytail, which added a playful dimension to her otherwise regal countenance.