Rust and Bone (19 page)

Silence on his end. “Are you, like, past the point of no return? Stripped and ready to rip?”

“Cocked, locked, ready to rock,” I tell him.

“Oh, man.” Danny clicks his tongue. “Oh, man-oh-man. Where are you?”

“Corner of Bonita and Empress. Between the peepshow theater and that rub-n-tug joint.”

“Sure, near that bar with the room in the back.” Danny's fingers drum the wall beside his phone. “Listen, you probably ought to just let yourself go on this one, okay? You can fall off the wagon every once in a while, so long as you hop right back on.”

This is exactly what I need to hear. “Everyone cheats a little now and then, isn't that so? I mean, it's not the end of the world, is it?”

“Of course it isn't,” says Danny. “Of course not.”

“And hey, not like I'm committing a mortal sin or anything.”

“Well I'm really not up on all that, Samuel.”

“But you think it's okay? This one time?”

“I'm gonna greenlight you, here.”

“Bless you, Danny. Bless your heart.”

“Stay strong, brother.”

The moment I hang up she's walking down the sidewalk—we're talking
on cue
. Materializing out of thinned mist like an apparition, some vaporous half-glimpsed angel, not entirely real. Wearing tight blue jeans ripped at the knee and some sort of fur-trimmed coat. Too far to make out exact features but that's not critical.

Pull alongside her, roll down the window. “Excuse me? Excuse me, miss?”

She checks up and hunkers down on the sidewalk. At this unforgiving range her face does not hold up: teeth shot to hell and this oddshaped growth, a
carbuncle
I guess you'd say, growing out the side of her nose.

“Lookin' for somethin'?”

“Well, you see, I'm sort of lost.” It's a struggle to keep my body still, I'm masturbating so furiously. “Do you know the way … to the highway?”

She leans forward, resting her wrists on the windowframe. “That what you're really after, cowboy?” Her eyelashes are clotted with pebbles of mascara and the furred collar of her coat smells like a drowned rodent—Christ, she's not making this easy. “Let's not pussyfoot around.”

“Well, maybe we can work something out. If you could just … lean a bit closer …”

She thrusts her head through the window, face inches from mine as though this forced intimacy might somehow seal the deal and I surrender control with a moan, splashing the steering column as a feeling of absolute peace floods through me, ecstatic well-being of a sort experienced only by Buddhist monks and perhaps tiny infants—
enlightening
peace. I'm beset by these heartwarming thoughts towards this woman, dreams of a good life and healthy future, happiness and love but this mini-satori is fleeting and I'm overtaken by a sense of futility known to few on earth, brought about by the inconceivability of these dreams for this woman or myself or anyone really, staring through the windshield at a night sky spread with stars, the conceivable worlds couched in those dark sprawling spaces between the light host to alien lifeforms possessed of such nobility and decency as I will never even fathom, and this sense of incalculable desolation draws about me, I who remain so trivial, insignificant, tenuous, and specklike.

Among addicts, the act of release frequently triggers feelings of ecstatic euphoria followed by periods of profound remorse, paranoia, and depression.

“Well,” the woman assumes in a pragmatic tone, “you're not a cop.” Her eyes narrow to feline slits. “Really should charge you for that.”

“Thanks.” Slip the gearshift into first, work a crumpled twenty out of my pants pocket, toss it on the street and pull away. “Sorry about that.”

“Hey, anytime …”

There are over three trillion nerve receptors in the human body. Fully seventy percent are located in erogenous zones. This is what you're fighting. Every minute of every day. It's an uphill battle.

My name is Sam. I'm a sex addict.

Welcome, Sam.

Lisa, my wife—ex-wife—and a six-year-old daughter. Met Lisa out East; went to the same college. She had this air like she'd swallow you up and blow you out in bubbles if you strayed too near. I mistook the effect she had on me for love. She could've had anyone. She chose me. I don't love her, but I do
care
. If she were penniless, I'd support her. If she were dying I'd give her blood, a kidney, whatever. Her mistake was believing it was within her power to change me. My daughter, Ellie … I love her deeply. Looking at her I realize I'm still capable of that. When I think of her in idle moments, it's always some mundane task—brushing her teeth, tying her shoelaces. Silly, day-to-day stuff. I never allow a week to pass without seeing her, calling her, letting it be known how much I care for her. I used to wish the love I felt for Ellie were somehow able to …
stretch,
encompass more people. But it can't, and that's okay. I once believed my heart was somehow impoverished, but now I recognize it's no larger or smaller than the next man's—my heart is simply different.

THE HOUSE IS AN AWKWARD DUPLEX
with swayback roof, mullioned windows, a single-car drive. We used to live in a big house on the ritzy side of town back in the Days of Yore, epoch of the Steady Job and Frequent Promotions and Healthy Bank Balance, also the Weekly Business Junkets and Late Nights at the Office and Dirty Dark Secret.

Lisa answers my knock in a housecoat, hair wet from a bath. In the darkened family room the TV casts flickering luminescence on the walls.

“Hi there. Hoping maybe I could see Ellie for a bit.”

“What are you doing here?” My ex-wife crosses her arms over her breasts. “You get Ellie every other weekend, you know that.”

“Well, yeah, of course, but I was hoping maybe a few minutes …”

“You stink, Sam.”

“Do I?” It's genuinely upsetting I failed to recognize this. “Oh, jeez. Could I wash up?”

Lisa purses her lips. I consider the single worst act I'd committed during our marriage. Probably the time I returned from a whorefilled weekender, gave her the clap, then halfheartedly argued she'd given it to me. Yeah, that's the one.

“I wouldn't ask but I'd really like to see her. Half an hour and I'm out of your hair.”

She steps aside. “Okay, for a little while. But clean yourself up.”

In the bathroom scrub at a stiff patch on my jeans then dry off with Lisa's Conair. Unzip my fly and push the blowdryer into my pants until the heat becomes unbearable and switch it off. In the medicine cabinet find a bottle of perfume and give myself a liberal spritzing.

My daughter sits on the sofa watching a kids' show. In the room's muted light she appears somehow insubstantial, a flickering hologram of herself.

“Hey, kiddo.”

When she smiles I see she's lost a baby tooth, upper left canine. “What're you doing here, Daddy?”

“Seemed like the thing to do at the time.” Sitting beside her, the cushions compress in such a way that Ellie's body tilts into the soft crook beneath my arm. “What ya watching?”

“The animals talk.” Her body shrugs against mine. “They live on a river. The guinea pig's funny.”

On the TV screen a mob of industrious creatures—hamster and mouse, turtle, a duck—cavort in a drift of popcorn. The guinea pig's voice reminds me of Jimmy Cagney:
Youuu doity raaat! Youuu kilt my bruddah!

“You smell like a girl,” Ellie says and for a moment I'm filled with a dark and predatory dread until I realize she's talking about the perfume.

“Spilled some of your mom's smelly stuff on me. You don't like it?”

Another shrug. “Okay, I guess.”

I settle my arm around her shoulders and squeeze. Feel the movement of her chest and try to match my breathing to hers, our lungs expanding and contracting in perfect synchronism until I fear hyperventilation. We watch in silence; I'm content to simply be near her, drinking in her warmth and calm as a camel does water for a long desert trek.

Lisa comes in with a tray of milk and Fig Newtons. When she hands me a glass our fingers brush and she pulls away as though burned. Ellie finishes one cookie and reaches for another.

“No more,” Lisa says. “Too much sugar before bed gives you nightmares.”

“I like nightmares,” my daughter reasons.

The program reaches a heartwarming conclusion, riverbank denizens throwing a party. The hamster's zipping around in a miniature motorboat, shiny black eyes bugged out in abject terror. Sitting with my daughter's head rested in the crook of my arm watching the rodents frolic all I can think about is female genitalia, a sheer wall of vaginas like some sort of cliff, furred pussies, shaved pussies, blond and black and ginger-haired pussies, and I'm standing at the base of this forbidding structure stark naked wearing a pair of blue-tinted skigoggles and then I'm climbing, grabbing onto labias for purchase, searching for sure handholds in the loosest ones, jamming toes and fingers into moist slits wishing for crampons or a bag of talc. Ellie shifts against me and I'm trying desperately to think of anything else, marigolds–seahorses–merry-go-rounds but nothing works, I'm stuck with the pussy-cliff, scaling its slick alien veneer like an intrepid mountaineer tackling the perilous northface ascent on K2.

What kind of person harbors such thoughts? I mean, really, what
kind?

Addicts are frequently beset by bitter self-loathing in response to erotic fantasies over which they exercise no control.

“Well,” I say, “about time I hit the dusty trail.”

“Stay,” Ellie says. “
VeggieTales
is on next.”

Giant talking cucumbers. Yes, just what the doctor ordered.

“I'd better not, honey. Got to get to my meeting. See you this weekend, 'kay?”

Give her a big hug. Crumbs on her top lip, breath smelling of milk. Lisa follows me to the door.

“You're good with her, Sam. I'll give you that.”

“What can I say. I love her, I guess.”

She smiles in a way that makes me sad. Perhaps intuiting something, she asks, “What are you thinking about?”

Scaling a cliff of vaginas.

“Oh, nothing.”

“C'mon.”

“Well, okay … I was reading this book the other day. There was a character who … well, he screwed watermelons. At night he'd cross into his neighbor's melon patch, cut a hole in a watermelon with a penknife. The Moonlight Melonhumper. And I guess I got to thinking it wouldn't be so bad, would it—balling melons? Grow some in your backyard or just, y'know, keep a few on hand. Whenever the urge struck you could slip away and take care of business. What I'm saying is, it'd be possible to lead a normal life.” A brittle laugh. “Humping watermelons. Jesus Christ, Lisa, wish that did it for me.”

“Is this something they advocate in your group?” she says. “This kind of … frankness?”

“Sort of. I'm not certain.”

“Well,” she says stiffly, “goodnight. I'll drop Ellie off Saturday morning.”

It's 8:45, giving me fifteen minutes to make group. Crossing the front lawn the cellphone buzzes in my pocket. It's set to vibrate on account of the pleasant shiver it sends up my balls; I've been known to slip it into my underwear and ring myself from payphones.

“It's me,” says Danny Dewson.

“It's you. How goes the battle?”

“Well, Samuel, I'm gonna level with you—”

“Always pays to keep things on the level.”

“Right. So here it is: I'd really like to stick my …
rod
… through this …
hole
.”

“Where are you?”

“That peepjoint off Sanford. Between the second-run porno house and the strip club.”

“Right, a ways up from that place with the secret knock.” Unlock the car, settle into the driver's seat. “I think it's okay this time. As setbacks go, it's minor.”

“That's true, isn't it? Not like I'm some kind of devil for wanting to do this, right?”

“Of course you aren't, Danny. Of course not.”

“And hey, there might not even be a girl on the other side, right?”

“Sure,” I tell him. “Who
knows
what's on the other side.”

“So you think it's okay? This one time?”

“Gonna give you a free pass.”

“Hey, that's super, Samuel. Just super.”

“Stay strong, brother.”

My name is Sam. I'm a sex addict.

Welcome, Sam.

Nothing extraordinary. My dad was a freelance contractor;Mom a teacher. I can only imagine their sex life was normal,maybe a bit dreary. It wasn't like Dad would've beat me had he caught me masturbating; Mom didn't breastfeed me till I was fifteen. Hope I don't come off like an asshole, but I think the Deep Dark Secret rationale is a crock. Don't know why I am the way I am, but it doesn't boil down to one particular event or deep emotional scar. No one's to blame. Some people are built differently, that's all. The problem I see is when we stand against our nature, try to be someone else. The whole martyr mentality makes me sick—the nobility of suffering, to hurt is to love, all that bullshit. Somewhere along the line it's become fashionable to be who we're not, squeeze ourselves into cubbyholes, spend our lives in abject misery to disguise our basic selves. Hey, if your nature is selfless, giving, honorable, open, unabashed, forthright, decent or whatever great—wonderful, bully for you. We're not all built the same way. Doesn't mean we're degenerates.

SEXUAL COMPULSIVES ANONYMOUS
gathers Tuesdays in the Louis Riel Library's conference room. I frequent several groups: Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (Wednesdays in St. Peter's parish hall), Sexaholics Anonymous (Friday afternoons at the Live and Let Live Club), Renewal from Sexual Addiction (Sundays at First United Methodist). Every once in a while I'll spot a familiar face on the street or in a restaurant and realize I am part of a secret cabal, a roaming addictive underclass inhabiting this, and every, city.