The Thrill of It

by Lauren Blakely

  I can only imagine what sort of fucked-up shit he was dealing with to want that every Friday afternoon.

  Then I would find my pimp and tell him everything. He’d grin, pat my shoulder, and we’d toast. Like we’d conquered the fucking world.

  Chapter Five

  Harley

  A needle clicks. Joanne is cradling her latest creation, an earthy looking brown and yellow mass of yarn that appears to be transforming into a sweater. She knits at meetings because it became her hobby in recovery. I suspect she transferred addictions – sex to knitting. But I’m pretty sure knitting is healthier.

  She begins the meeting with an affirmation. I despise affirmations, so I look down and fidget instead as the others join in. It’s Chloe, Ainsley, and me – only the girls today. The guys are in a guys-only meeting a few doors down.

  “I release the fear of rejection, the fear of pain and all the past beliefs that have led me astray. I am comfortable with who I am. I think before acting. I seek honesty, truth and trust in all my relationships.”

  I feel all squishy inside as I mumble a word or two with the others. Sometimes, it’s too much therapy, too much insight, too much introspection here. Sometimes I want to rage against the calm, healthy, boundaried, love-is-not-a-battlefield-it’s-a-quilt attitude.

  Why can’t love be a battlefield?

  Life is a fucking battlefield. Who said love was supposed to be any different? Maybe there’s no truth or honesty in love. There doesn’t seem to be much in life. Not what I’ve seen. Not from Miranda. Not from Phil. Not from the assholes my mom busts with her investigative pieces. Maybe everyone, everywhere is an addict of some kind.

  At least some of us admit it.

  Chloe says all the words, loud and proud, not missing a single syllable. Chloe is one of those super involved people, sharing every detail of her recovery from having slept with twenty-two guys by the time she was the same age. Sometimes I think about all the stuff I know about Chloe from these meetings, but how we’ve never once hung out, and, frankly, I don’t think either one of us has the desire to. We just don’t have that much in common, to be honest. She admitted a few weeks ago that she’s had three STDs, and one pregnancy scare.

  Yuck.

  I didn’t sleep with any of my clients. I drew lines, a lot of lines, and I didn’t cross them. Before Trey, I never came close to going all the way. I never even almost did it. I stuck to north of the border. To places I could control. Mouths, tongues, lips, words, names. When I was with a man, I was in control, complete and total control, because I didn’t let go. I didn’t want someone’s hands going there, drifting down, traveling to places on my body where I might start making sounds too.

  Nobody has ever heard me for real. Nobody but Trey.

  I don’t hang with Ainsley much either, but she’s new and started a few weeks ago. Teachers are her vice. She lost her virginity to her high school music teacher, then proceeded to work her way through the rest of the arts departments before she started college.

  I don’t say much to them at the meetings. They’re doing better than me, they’re further along. I’m too ashamed to tell them I miss the man who sold me, I’m dying for a boy in the group next door, and my own mother wants to set me up on dates. But I don’t have to talk today since we have a guest speaker.

  Joanne puts her knitting down and introduces a woman named Danielle, keeping it first names only, as always. “She’s twenty-five. She’s a total rock star because she’s been on the wagon for —” Joanne turns to Danielle as the two women sit down, “—how long?”

  “Four years,” Danielle says. She’s thin, with pointy elbows and sharp cheekbones. I wonder if she has an eating disorder, if she’s anorexic and just channeled one addiction into another.

  Maybe Danielle will tell a tale that will remind me of me, that will help me move on, that will let me heal. But I don’t even know what I’m healing from, except myself. My own bad choices. My own horrid decisions that brought me here. But yet, how can they be so awful if I miss them? If I desperately long for those moments. When I walked into a job, I savored the power, the control, the dominance. When my heels clicked, and my hair swished, and my lips shone, I thrilled to be in charge.

  As Danielle talks, my mind starts to drift, to return to that heady rush of a call from Cam, a booking from Cam, reporting back to Cam. The money was irrelevant. It was never about the money. It was about the way all my senses tripped into supersonic speed when his name appeared on my phone, when he delivered the details, the things to say, do, and not say or do.

  Wear the red satin dress from Bloomingdale’s when you have dinner at Le Cirque with David. Ask him about business and be fascinated with everything he tells you about computer chips.

  Handcuff Saul and run your nails down his back.

  Scold Carter sharply when you “catch” him masturbating in the hotel bathroom.

  Walk up to Robert and ask him to dance with you when Prince starts playing at the nightclub in Soho.

  John wants you to bathe him in a bubble bath. Quietly. Say nothing.

  Everything was clear. Everything was decided in advance.

  I flash back to the jobs, hearing bits and pieces of Danielle’s requisite story — how she desperately wanted men to think her pretty. She was told she was never attractive as a child because she was fat. “Good thing you have brains, girl,” her mom told her.

  That snaps me out of my daydreaming.

  My jaw tightens because who would say that? My mom would never do that. My mom would never tell me I was ugly. She would never put me down in that way.

  “But I was a smartypants and I figured out pretty quickly that I could be skinny if I threw up,” Danielle says. Yup, she’s a cross-addict, went from food to men. “And it became a game to me in a way. It was all about control. And then I thought maybe there are other things I can control too. You all know where this is going of course. But I’ll tell you anyway. I thought I could control men and sex. Getting the boys to notice me, the fat girl who was now skinny, became my new project. And if a boy didn’t notice me, I’d amp it up. Wear shorter skirts, tighter shirts, flirt more. And boys became like the ideal weight on the scale — this thing I wanted and had to have. I didn’t sleep with any of them. I was a virgin when I graduated from high school.”

  I look away, feeling a strange twisting in my belly. I don’t want to hear her story anymore.

  “And I justified my behavior. Because I didn’t do much with any of these guys. Made out, kissed, a little more. But by the time I was graduating, I’d made out with a couple dozen guys in my school alone. Even though I never did more than kiss.”

  Never did more than kiss. Those words echo, then circle me, threaten to ensnare me.

  I push my chair back and mutter “Excuse me.”

  I leave the room and walk down the hall to the bathroom, clutching my stomach on the way. I feel like I’m going to throw up. My stomach churns and twists. I push open the door to the church bathroom and it’s freezing in here. It’s May so how can it be so cold? But it’s like they’re pumping ice into this bathroom. I jam my hand against the door of a stall, pushing so hard the metal smacks the inside wall. I shut the door and kneel down on the floor, pulling my hair back into a makeshift ponytail to protect it.

  But nothing happens. Nothing ever happens. I never barf. I never wretch. I don’t even dry heave. I just feel sick to my stomach, so I come here, and I kneel, and I wait, as my gut tightens, like two hands are grabbing my insides, gripping them. I stay like this for a few minutes. Then I flush, flushing nothing. I stand up, leave the stall, go to the sink and wash my hands.

  It’s quiet in here, so quiet. No one is talking, no one is telling stories, and I find the silence a relief. I think of Cam, of how being his made me forget the noise that had surrounded me. With every gig, I was erasing all those sounds I grew up overhearing, erasing the part I played at all those dinner parties, all those dates she set me up on.

  So one note to
Cam won’t hurt. It won’t set me back. I take out my phone and send off a note to Cam before I can even think about what I’m doing, before I can even contemplate.

  Hi. Missing…

  I stop typing the message. What am I missing? Him?

  I return to the keys. I know what I’m missing. I know what I want. I want Trey.

  Badly.

  But I can’t have him.

  Last night when he wrapped his arms around me by the subway entrance, when I ran my nose along his neck and inhaled him, when his hand brushed my back and I sighed like I wanted him again – that only reminds me now of how vulnerable I felt the one time with him so many months ago. We’re not together, and we can’t be, so how can I live with being vulnerable, with wanting, with feeling?

  I don’t know how.

  I don’t have a clue.

  Love isn’t a quilt. Love isn’t patient, love isn’t kind. Love is a game, a chase, a thrill. Love is wild and war-like, and every man and woman must fight for themselves.

  I can play the game.

  I can control love.

  I need to feel in control. I need to hold the world in the palm of my hands, my world, my life, and be the one who sets it in motion. The only one. I’m not controlled. I control.

  I finish the message to Cam.

  Hi. Missing things...

  I hit send and return to the room. Joanne gives me a faint sympathetic smile. I don’t look at Danielle the rest of the meeting. I spend the time contemplating my fingernails and considering how to finish the next chapter for Miranda.

  When the meeting ends, Joanne asks me to hang for a minute. I pour a cup of coffee from the coffee pot on the table as I wait. It tastes bitter and sludgy, but I drink it quickly while Joanne makes small talk with Danielle and Ainsley.

  Then they’re gone and she turns to me.

  “Hey, Layla. Everything okay?”

  I nod several times. “Just peachy.”

  Just peachy? Who says that? What is wrong with me? But I have to act like I mean it. Like I’m peppy and healthy. Otherwise she’ll know what I was up to. Sneaking off. Texting my drug.

  She raises her eyebrow, noticing my weird word choice. “Danielle really bugged you, huh?”

  “No. Not at all. Not one bit,” I say. If I lied to mother, to my flesh and blood, to the woman who raised me, I can lie to this lady.

  “Layla, I just want to make sure you’re okay. I want you to get the help you need,” she says gently.

  Can you rub out Miranda then? That’s what I really need.

  “I am okay.”

  “I’m here anytime you need me,” she says softly. Sweetly. Kindly. “If you don’t want to talk in front of the group, you can talk to me. I want you to know that.”

  No one has ever offered to help me before. Talk to me. I don’t know what to say. “I have to go,” I say, then I take off.

  Before I reach the top of the steps, I feel a buzzing in my back pocket. The possibility that it could be from Cam winds me up, like I’m a slot machine and someone is about to hit the jackpot and all my bells and buzzers are whirring. I grab my phone and my fingers feel slippery as I unlock the screen. Please let it be from him.

  Please, please, please give me my fix.

  It’s not Cam, though. It’s Trey. The other guy I want. The guy I can’t have.

  I’m at the coffee shop around the corner. Guys meeting ended early. Come find me.

  Part of me doesn’t want to go. Another part knows I’ll do what he asked – come find him. Because at least someone replied. At least someone wants me.

  Cam. Trey. Trey. Cam. I feel like I’m seesawing back and forth, being pushed in one direction, then pulled in another by unseen hands. When I reach the shop, I spot Trey through the window. He gives me a curt wave – a guy wave – but his eyes light up.

  I push on the door and quickly join him at the wooden counter.

  “How was the girls’ only meeting? Tell me all the tawdry tales,” he says with narrowed eyes.

  “Ha. It sucked. How’s that?”

  He nods several times. “Know what you mean.”

  He gestures to his friend Jordan behind the counter. “Can we get this woman a triple espresso?”

  “Ten-four, man,” Jordan says, and turns the handle on the espresso machine. It hisses and whirs.

  “How’d you know I’d want an espresso instead of a latte?”

  “Because when you get stressed you need more caffeine,” Trey says as if the answer is obvious. But it melts me the tiniest bit that he remembers these details. That he keys in on my stress without worrying, or making it seem like a big deal. He just knows. He knows me. He’s the only person I’ve let know me. I wonder if we’d have become friends if we met under other circumstances. If we met first in group therapy would I have pushed him away? Or did meeting him at his shop, having him ink my shoulder, and then kissing and making out all night long – is that why I kept no secrets from him?

  “That’s cute,” I say softly. “That you remember that about me.”

  He raises an eyebrow. Tilts his head. “Did you think I turned stupid in the last hour? We’re friends, right? I should know these things.”

  Okay, so that’s all. He remembers because we’re friends, not because we might be more.

  I heave a sigh. I’m so out of sorts right now from Danielle’s story ripping up my heart, feeling all too familiar and all too foreign at once. I want to punch her mom and I want to run away from Danielle at the same time. I want to spill all my guts and secrets and lies to Joanne now that she’s invited me to lay them at her feet. I want to word-vomit everything I’ve kept inside me, every story I’m being forced to dig up for Miranda’s twisted mind-fuckery. But I want to shove all my secrets down and never let them out again too.

  On top of that, I’m amped up from my own wait-wait-wait for Cam to reply. Maybe I don’t want him to reply anymore. Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t have a clue. Maybe I am still so fucked up. Maybe if Trey was more than a friend, I could get a grip. But it’s as if there’s something ticking inside me, harder, faster, and it hurts more. A sharp, metal object in my chest, struggling to break free.

  Jordan finishes the espresso and places it in front of me. “For the lady,” he says with a sweet smile. Jordan is adorable. He has dark blond hair and blue eyes, and the four of us – Trey, Kristen, Jordan and I – are making plans to see the band Over The Edge on its tour after that text I sent Trey the other night. Jordan and Kristen would make a cute couple. Healthy, normal, not six degrees of fucked up. I reach into my purse for money when Trey gently brushes my hand away.

  “I got it,” he says in a low voice and gives Jordan the money.

  “Thanks,” Jordan says, and tends to another customer.

  “You didn’t have to,” I say as I take a drink of espresso.

  “Hey.”

  “What?”

  “What’s with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t seem like yourself.” He lays his hand on mine, and like that, the tension inside of me starts to dissolve. His hand is safe and warm. When he touches me I feel like I belong to something true.

  I take a breath, meet his eyes, and do the thing I didn’t do in the meeting. Share. “I don’t know. It was just a weird meeting. This gal talked and she said all this shit about how her mom wasn’t nice to her, and it bugged me.”

  Trey furrows his eyebrows at me, but says nothing.

  “What?” I ask pointedly.

  “Did it bug you because your mom wasn’t always nice to you?”

  I tense up again. “Why do you have to say that?”

  “Because it’s the truth,” he says, not backing down.

  “She was nice to me,” I mutter.

  “Harley,” he says, and the tone in his voice is both caring, but also correcting. As if he knows I’ve made an error. “She wasn’t. She made everything she did seem okay.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and I want to shrug him off, swat
him away for saying crap about my mom. But I don’t want to lose his touch right now. I barely know this kind of contact, and I’m not ready to dismiss it. I want to explore it, so I inch – hell, maybe I even millimeter – closer to his fingertips that brush my earlobe, sending warmth sparking through me. I feel that strange, but wondrous thing I only feel with him as he touches me. A flurry of wishes and hopes race through me – him doing this as more than friends. Him doing this as the guy who wants to comfort me, who knows me, who can say the right things.

  “She wasn’t always good to you, and I don’t like it when people aren’t good to you,” he says as he lets go of my hair, the strands falling against my clingy red shirt.

  His words hurt, but they don’t sear. They hurt in the way the truth sometimes can. “Maybe she was too nice. Maybe that’s what you meant,” I manage to say.

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess it hit close to home what that lady said at the meeting,” I admit.

  “I can imagine.”

  I drink more of my espresso, finishing it quickly, then set the small cup on the counter.

  I still feel edgy, antsy. I tap my fingers against the counter, beating out notes of my frustration.

  “Hey. Let’s get out of here. Get away from people, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Trey grabs his backpack, makes some kind of see you later gesture to Jordan, places a palm on my hip, and guides me to the back of the coffee shop, past the bathroom, then a tiny office. He opens the door to the office, shuts it, and unlocks a green screen door that opens into the smallest garden courtyard I’ve ever seen. Lined with red brick and planted flowers, this tiny garden area is wedged next to a vacant apartment building slated to be razed. There’s a stained glass window in the empty structure, and it makes such a beautiful piece of random found art.

  A pink stained glass window in an abandoned building.

  I look at Trey. “What is this little place?”

  “Jordan said they’re going to open it up soon. Make it like a tiny outdoor area for the coffee shop. There’s room for a table or two.”

  “Wow,” I say, and turn in a circle. On the other side, we are fenced in by tall wooden posts. Ivy skates down the wood. “I feel as if I’ve made my great escape.”