Sexaholics (18 page)

“Dwayne, we both know what we’ve got going on as far as what
we’re trying to work through. It’s the same stuff for both of us. It
might be smart to not go there. Let’s just take it for what it
is.”

“So, those other evenings. What were they to you?”

“It was a reaction to temptation. I have those all the time.”

“You do?”

“Dwayne, please. First of all, don’t act like you don’t
know about me. And second of all, don’t act like temptation isn’t
one of your major issues as well. I mean, I have fun and all, but I think
it’s best to leave our conversations in the bedroom—where
we’ve had them twice already.” Her face stayed bland.

“Okay. That’s cool. I mean I guess it’s gotta be cool,
right? I was just asking if you had a man or not, that’s all.” His
television could be heard in the background.

She uncrossed her legs, looked up at the clock again, and said, actually
managing a grin, “So basically, Dwayne. Here’s my question for you.
Do you wanna fuck again or what?”

“I do.”

“I do, too. Are you going to the next meeting?”

“I am.”

“I am, too,” she said, scooting to the edge of the sofa.

“Cool.”

“So I’ll see you then. Bye, Dwayne.” She hung up and
focused on her phone again when the manager’s assistant entered her
office.

“Excuse me, Ms. Summers. I’m sorry to bother you, but
Valencia’s waiting outside for you. I just saw her when I came back from
lunch.” The woman looked barely twenty.

“Okay, thanks. I was just about to text her when I saw I had a missed
call from her.”

“And Ms. Summer, I picked up your desk phone in the lobby. You’ve
got a call on hold. They said it’s urgent.”

“At my desk? Who is it?”

“They wouldn’t tell me.”

“Wouldn’t tell you? Okay. Wow. Thanks a lot.” Miki stood,
grabbed her handcrafted purse from atop her desk, and rushed to exit her office,
walking behind the assistant. They both headed in different directions. Miki
stood over her concierge lobby desk and picked up the phone.
“Hello.”

“Bitch.” The voice was flat and angry.

“Hello?” Miki said with a question mark.

“Since you like to fuck, I’m going to fuck you up.
Bitch.”

Her eyebrows dipped. “What? Who is this?”

Click.

Miki looked at the receiver and then checked the display on the phone but it
no longer read the caller information. She pushed the receiver to its cradle,
stood still for two seconds, looked around, and then headed straight out of the
front lobby doors.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Summers,” the doorman said to her, as she
put on her gray Gucci shades and moved fast in her high-heel pumps.

Her head spun in a daze while the tacky and dirty threatening words swirled
in her mind, but she put on a temporary happy face as the sun’s rays
grabbed her. “Hi. Good to see you.” She saw Valencia’s truck,
stepped to it like a model in her heels, and opened the door. “People are
losing their damn minds.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Valencia asked.

Miki hopped in and closed the door, jerking herself back upon the leather
seat while the air-conditioning cooled her frustrated-looking face. She pulled
on the hem of her tight shirt and crossed her legs.

“Just got some dumb-ass bitch who called my office. Some female talking
about fucking me up.” Even though frowning, Miki leaned over and gave
Valencia a hug.

“Fucking you up? For what?” Valencia looked puzzled as she hugged
back.

“Hell if I know.”

“And you don’t know who it was?”

“If you ask me, it sounded like Anthony’s dumb-ass
wife.”

Valencia put the car in drive and pulled off. “Well, then, you need to
call and tell him to check her young butt.”

“Done that before.” Miki cut her eyes outside of the window as
the fancy city went by. “With her paranoid ass.”

“Paranoid? You two are fucking around now, come on.”

“You reminded me of that before already. And we’re not
fucking,” Miki corrected her.

“Please. He’s eating your pussy like it’s a ripe-ass grape,
girl. The word
oral
before the word
sex
does not excuse it
qualifying as fucking.”

“Well, it’s not called oral fucking. Besides, she’s still
paranoid.”

Valencia put her right hand up. “Anyway, I say you need to have that
call traced and report it.”

Miki looked at her and crinkled her mouth. “Not at my job. I
can’t even begin to make a big deal about this. Besides, that’s all
they need so they can start fucking with me again. Knowing corporate,
they’ll turn it into a reason to yank my ass right on outta there and into
the unemployment line. No thank you.”

Valencia used her turn indicator and made a left. “Whether it’s
them fucking with you or some bitch saying she’s gonna fuck you up, just
make sure you watch your back. That’s not the kind of fucking we need or
want.”

“Just shit talking.”

“Are we going to the SA meeting tomorrow night?” Valencia
asked.

“We are.” Miki looked as though her mind was ten minutes behind
their conversation.

Valencia looked at her. “Come on now. Don’t be a Debbie Downer.
Cheer up. Let’s go eat. Purple? Lemon pepper chicken?” She made it
sound like a threesome with Denzel. “You know you love that kick-ass lemon
pepper chicken.”

Miki acquiesced, uncrossing her legs and adjusting her pumps along the
floorboard. “Purple it is.” Her face was only slightly enthused.

Sexaholics

I
t was the next evening, on a Tuesday.
The gentle breeze, casually delivered by the Pacific Ocean, was Santa
Monica’s usual summer blessing. Teela strolled into the outpatient
treatment facility looking glad to see her new friend, Brandi. She energetically
pointed her finger Brandi’s way. “Hey, what’s up with you,
girl? And what is your problem?”

Brandi’s face jumped. She opened her eyes wide and her mouth wider and
gave a girlie giggle. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“How come you never answer your damn phone, woman?”

They walked together, step for step, while Teela kept her stare on, waiting
for a reply.

Brandi popped herself on the forehead with the palm of her hand. “Oh I
know, Teela, girl. I’m sorry. I’m just so silly. I always forget
that I have the ringer on my phone on silent once I get off work. We can’t
have our cell phones on in the actual classroom. And what do you think I always
end up doing, like a ninny? I forget to turn the ringer back on and then this
happens. I mean, my own mother can’t reach me sometimes. But it’s
not like I do anything when I get home anyway. I’m such a
homebody.”

“Yeah, well, homebody or not, you need to answer your damn phone, shit.
And anyway, this Friday night, it’s you and me. Period.”

“Okay, that sounds so great. I mean really, it does.”

Teela looked at her sideways. “Well that sounds oddly fake for some
reason. What’s up with you? But either way, here’s what we’ll
do. You meet me at the bar of the W Hotel in Westwood after work on Friday and
we’ll have a few drinks. I’ll be in the Whiskey Blue bar. I’m
not gonna take the chance that you don’t pick up that damn phone, so
let’s agree on this now. I’m not about to hunt you down,
woman.” Teela wrinkled her forehead. “And you’d better be
there. Last time we talked about getting together for a drink, I tried. You,
Miss Lady, didn’t.” Teela aimed her finger at Brandi’s nose.
“So be there.”

Brandi smiled as they stood at the door of the meeting room and leaned toward
Teela, extending her arms to give her a hug. “Wow, of course I’ll be
there. Again, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Good girl. Now let’s sit our asses down and learn some
shit.” Teela hugged her back, then entered the small meeting room first
and approached the circle of seats.

“I’m right behind you.”

Brandi took a seat next to Teela on one end, and Valencia sat next to Miki on
the other end. All four were dressed in their work clothes: Teela in her tan
sweatsuit, Brandi in dress slacks with a silk blouse, Valencia in jeans and a
monogrammed tank top with the Cravings Restaurant logo, and Miki wearing a bright red Escada pantsuit.

Dwayne sat two seats away from Miki wearing his own designer suit. He and
Miki played eye games with each other. He smiled; she grinned. He winked, and
she blushed, both simultaneously realizing that Rachel Cummings had already
begun speaking.

The other members of the group said in unison, “God, grant me the
serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things
I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Miki scooted back in her seat and sat up straight, loosening her shoulders,
and giving a look as though she didn’t miss a thing. She smiled at Rachel
Cummings, who was looking right at her.

“Hello,” she said directly to Miki.

“Hi,” Miki said, nodding.

Rachel continued, “Okay, family, listen up, all of my dear, sweet
anonymous friends. We say ‘anonymous’ at SA because, as I’m
sure you’ve noticed, we don’t ask for your last name. We don’t
need to know your full name. It doesn’t matter. As you are all aware, we
charge nothing. There’s no contract, no dues, no membership process. Each
of you has already acknowledged that you’re a self-admitted sexaholic, so
this is the place to be. We just ask that you show up. And let me thank you one
and all for coming back. So here’s the deal. Tonight we’ll focus on
a few of the recovery steps.

“Basically, as I told you before, SA is a spiritual program of recovery
based on twelve steps. We’ll go over the first three in a minute, even
though we touched on the first one last time. I hope you’ve all been
sexually sober for the past two weeks. No need to raise your hands. You know
your own sobriety date, and we’ll share our length of sobriety at an
unannounced point in time. Maybe tonight, maybe not. When we do that, I
don’t want anyone to have any outward reactions whatsoever. The individual
already knows what it means once they start over. And the most important thing
is that the individual who is stating his or her own length of sobriety is
completely honest. Not honest with us, but with himself or herself. Honesty and
admittance got you in here seeking help. Honesty and admittance will get you
through this. You’ll be constantly surprised at how ‘not
alone’ in your wagon falls-offs you are. That’s the beauty of the
group dynamic. People who come together in fellowship are important. One
sexaholic sharing with another, telling what worked or hasn’t worked, is
healing for everyone. There’s strength in numbers and safety in knowing
you’re not unique. I believe that your innermost feelings can be
understood this way. We’re a group of people suffering from a similar
issue who strive to find our way out, all the while respecting each
person’s privacy. That’s the SA dynamic.

“The thing we have is common is the fact that the sex part of our lives
is a problem. But it’s only a side effect of the true problem.
There’s something within me, and within you, that if we don’t
address and continue to address, then staying sober won’t work. Sexaholism
is an illness.

“This is a program which is spiritual, as in ‘we believe in a
Power greater than ourselves that can and will restore us.’ No matter what
your God is defined as, you must believe.

“First off, the first step it seems you all have already taken, and
that’s admittance. You’ve admitted that you are powerless over lust.
That your lives have become unmanageable.

“Second is believing that you can and will be restored to, as
we’ll call it, sanity. Illness can be cured. But like I said, you must
believe.

“And third, you have to make a decision to turn your will and love over
to God as we understand Him. If this is a problem for anyone, or if anyone has a
concern regarding Power or faith in general, please let’s discuss this
now. In our opening prayer we asked God to grant us serenity, courage, and
wisdom. Did anyone have a problem with that prayer?”

“No,” everyone said, except Miki, who seemed distracted by her
own head.

Rachel Cummings noticed the look of thought on Miki’s face and asked, “Did you, Miki?”

Miki shook her head strongly. “Oh no. Not me.”

“Good. So, how have the last two weeks been for you?”

“Fine. Things are fine.” Miki scooted from left to right.

“Are you still feeling that the
nympho
label owns
you?”

“Owns me? No, not owns. I wouldn’t say own. I’d say rent.
It rents me.” Miki grinned and looked around at people’s faces as
they grinned back.

“Oh, rents you. Okay. So it stays for a while and leaves, or do you say
rents because you intend for it to only reside temporarily?”

“I hope it’s temporary.”

“Good. So how did the last two weeks go?”

“Well. Life as usual.”