ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5)

by Glenna Sinclair

  I checked the time on my phone and searched the location of the next meeting. It was in a section of the city I’d never even heard of, but the map feature on my phone assured me that I could make it if I followed its directions that included…getting on the bus that just pulled up to the stop I’d been sitting at.

  I dashed across the street, nearly killing myself, and boarded the bus, panting. The signs were just too obvious for me to ignore this. I rode the bus across town, watching as the brownstones and storefronts gave way to bodegas and projects. Levi probably wouldn’t have wanted me to attend a meeting all the way out here if he’d known just where it was, but that didn’t concern me.

  I got off the bus when the phone told me to, walked a couple of blocks, made another turn, and found myself in front of a dilapidated old church. I shook my head. I really didn’t want to do this or be here. I would’ve been able to deal with it if it had just been in some old classroom or something, but a church was just too much. I dawdled out front until the time of the meeting passed, and my phone squawked at me in protest.

  “You have reached your destination,” the voice prompted me as I paced back and forth. I shut it off and stashed it in my pocket, finally forcing myself up the path and into the church.

  It was quiet and dark inside the entryway, and I procrastinated further, telling myself I was only pausing so my eyes could adjust. A few red wax candles burned in a bank of unlit ones—prayers bright in rows of silence. Should I light a candle for myself? For my brother? For my mother? For Levi? I didn’t know if those would work for me. I’d spent my entire life ignoring the possibility of the presence of God.

  If I acknowledged it now, it would be too painful. If I tried to accept religion, I’d have too many hard questions. I’d probably be turned away at the door, too broken to try to be fixed again.

  I heard faint voices as my eyes got used to the dimness in the vestibule that extended to the main chamber, arched ceilings capturing and projecting sound that was coming from somewhere else in the building. My shoulders sagged with relief that I wasn’t going to have to sit inside the room for worship in that church, that I wouldn’t have to approach the vaguely foreboding altar at the front of the room.

  I followed my ears, which led me down a hallway and into a smaller chapel. Whatever religious items that had been displayed in here were locked away, hidden from our collective secular woes.

  I slipped into one of the pews that wasn’t populated yet, looking around, taking stock of just what I’d gotten myself into.

  I was one of the few women dotting the pews of the hall that was sparsely attended, mostly by men. For the most part, people stared straight ahead, straight through the moderator at the front of the room, droning on and on about accountability. I stole a couple of sidelong glances at my peers, trying to judge what kind of crowd I was in and how I fit in. There were lots of nervous guys, joggling their knees, hands shoved in jacket pockets. My gaze bored holes into the back of the woman’s head seated in front of me, trying to glean her story from her messy ponytail. Could I identify with her? Did I really belong here, as Levi had suggested? Would I have something to gain by listening in on what was discussed in this room?

  “There are several new faces here,” the moderator was saying just as I inadvertently locked eyes with a dark-haired guy sitting directly across the row from me. I lowered my gaze quickly. “Would any of these individuals care to share today?”

  There was no way I was going to open up right now. Not until I figured out what the game was here.

  A long silence stretched until the woman in front of me raised her hand halfway up.

  “I was fired from my job,” she said, her voice hushed in the quiet hall. “I recognized that I needed to go to my job, but I just couldn’t make myself do it. I would just have sex with my neighbor whenever I wanted, even though I needed to go to work. Even though I needed to earn money to pay my rent. I got three months behind on my rent, after I got fired. It’s still being sorted out. And I couldn’t even make myself care about money for food. I just wanted to have sex.”

  Another person raised his hand. The moderator nodded.

  “I was in a similar situation,” he said. “I sought out prostitutes, even though I know it’s against the law. I sneaked around to do it, withdrew thousands and thousands of dollars out of my bank account, refused to explain to my wife what was happening. She divorced me, and took everything. She was right to. She didn’t deserve to be treated the way I treated her. My secret ruined my marriage. I spoke with a doctor, who recommended this group, and now I just wonder what would be different if my depression had been diagnosed sooner, if I had realized that I was trying to cope through sex. Maybe I wouldn’t have lost my marriage…the idea tortures me.”

  Still another person raised his hand, eager to cast his cares onto the growing pile among us.

  “I had anxiety about my performance, anxiety about pleasing my wife,” he said, beginning even before the moderator looked his way. “I started watching porn just to get some tips, but I couldn’t look away. I wanted to watch it all the time. It was so much more fulfilling than the relationship I had with my wife in the real world. I started ignoring her. I started ignoring everything. And then one day, my credit card bounced, my checks bounced, and I realized I’d thrown everything away on porn, spending everything I’d earned, the money my wife and I were saving, on a couple of people having sex in front of a camera and putting it online. I was sobering. I felt awful. I still feel awful. I promised my wife I was going to get through this, and I’m doing it for her.”

  “I want to caution anyone against feeling like they’re participating in this program for someone else,” the moderator said. “This is only effective if you come at it from the perspective that you’re doing it for yourself. You have to want to get better because you want to take care of yourself. Not for your wife. Not for your husband. Not for your court order, even. You have to want to get better for yourself. That’s the only person you should be focusing on right now. It’s the only person you can focus on.”

  The dark-haired man was looking at me. I could see him in the corner of my eye, turning his head and looking at me. I didn’t like it, realizing that, for the first time, I didn’t want anyone to look at me at all. It was a completely different version of me than the Meagan who’d worked at the bar in my hometown. That Meagan had wanted everyone to look at her, had bent down and pirouetted and stretched to ensure every eye in the establishment was locked on her. I’d wanted them all to see me, to see what I was offering, so that I could take from them something they thought they would be taking from me, if I let them.

  I’d wanted that sex compulsively, just like the people who continued to retell snippets of their stories, but I hated the idea of being lumped in with them. I was already a victim of so many other areas of my life. Did my sex life have to suffer, too?

  I imagined going home to Levi after tearfully pouring out my heart to strangers in a strange place, as one near the front of the hall was currently doing. I imagined telling him that I was, indeed, a sex addict. What then? We’d never have sex again. He would pity me and coddle me and maybe even let me continue to stay in his house, rent free. He’d stop having sex with me, of course, because it wasn’t healthy. It was an addiction. He wouldn’t want to enable me.

  But he’d miss the sex. I knew he would. I’d miss the sex.

  He’d go looking for it, and I would stay there at the townhouse, cloistered, unable to do a damn thing to relieve my tensions or distract myself from my anxieties and regrets, a virgin created anew.

  Soon, he’d have a new interest in his life, a new woman who took him between her legs and was never messy or weird or troubling about it, making him come without concessions. Levi would love her and want to bring her home, and maybe I’d be his crazy woman locked away in the attic. He was trying to help me, sure, and he had to protect me from myself and from the world, so I’d become his prisoner.

  I’d be
come his untouched, unloved prisoner, and I’d have to watch the man I…had developed strong feelings for get on with his life while I was cocooned in fear and uncertainty about my own, afraid of the desire that had guided me thus far.

  The dark-haired guy was looking again. I gave him a pointed glare, and he glanced away quickly. What was his problem?

  I hated it here, and this wasn’t going to be the place where I spilled my guts and somehow managed to get magically better on the spot. There wasn't a “better” from what ailed me. It was just a part of who I was now. And the only reason I was here was because of Levi, followed, of course, by the litany of signs that had led me to the advertisement for this meeting. I didn’t want to get better. I didn’t even know what “better” would entail. I was only here because someone else thought I had a problem. Whether I did or not wasn’t something I was ready to look at. I needed to go. I needed to get out of here.

  The dark-haired guy who’d made eyes at me throughout the entire meeting watched me as I stood up and left, not trying to hide my disdain or be discreet. I wanted everyone to know that I thought this was a wad of bullshit. It wasn’t the place for me. It just wasn’t.

  I exhaled into a long, vaporous cloud when I got outside, the cold air feeling good on my face. Everyone was different, I told myself. Everyone was different, and everyone had their own stories. It was okay that I didn’t fit in there, even if Levi had recommended that I give it a try. I had my own story, and I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

  I’d done what Levi had asked me to do. Maybe now he’d believe that I was normal. Maybe he’d see that I had put forth the effort to do something he’d suggested and forget about it. We’d go back to our old ways, and that would become the new normal.

  “I saw you in there.”

  I turned to see the dark-haired guy had followed me out into the street.

  “Yeah, I guess I was in there,” I said to him sarcastically.

  “But you didn’t like it.”

  “I have somewhere I need to be,” I lied. I didn’t know if I could go back to the townhouse, didn’t know if I could face Levi. I didn’t know what could be said or what needed to be said.

  “Yeah, me too.” The guy’s tone was as insincere as mine was, and that old maw inside of me opened. I could get what I needed out of this guy. He could give me what I wanted.

  Levi was having misgivings. I understood that. He couldn’t understand why I craved sex, what it displaced inside of me. If he knew what was inside of me, he’d never stop having sex with me. If he wanted to help me so badly, then he’d understand that his participation was required to drive my demons out of me. Instead, he’d recommended this place to me. He didn’t know what drove me to act the way that I did, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to tell him. It wasn’t something I was interested in telling anyone.

  What Levi didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

  He’d never so much as guess that I’d gone to a meeting for sex addicts and picked someone up just outside the hall. The sex would be quick, impersonal, scratching the itch. It wouldn’t hurt anyone. I could get it out of the way—maybe even set something up on the regular, just so Levi wouldn’t be so damn suspicious of my sexual motivation anymore. He’d even be proud of me—going to the meetings every day. It would just be my secret that I was meeting up with this dark-haired guy, or any guy, for sex. My appetite for Levi wouldn’t be quite as strong. He’d think the meetings were curing me, and I could embrace that normality for as long as it lasted—as long as nothing bad happened to me in the city as I sought out anonymous sex, and as long as Levi didn’t find out any of my secrets or this secret, second life I was about to embark on.

  As long as…nothing. As long as nothing. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t pretend like I was going to do this.

  I was angry that Levi had suggested this kind of meeting, had called me out on my problem, and had gotten so close to understanding me that I’d pulled away.

  But I couldn’t be angry at him. He’d only wanted the best for me. He truly did want to help me. And if I hooked up right now, with this dark-haired guy, I’d feel good for a moment, but terrible for the rest of my stupid life.

  I turned on my heel and walked briskly away from the guy, ignoring his shouts at my back, walking in the direction of the townhouse.

  In the direction of home.

  Chapter 11

  Maybe I’d been able to resist it, but that awful maw was still open inside of me. I walked down the sidewalk and wrapped my arms around me in the growing chill. Typical—I hadn’t dressed warmly enough. The sweater I’d pulled on in my haste to flee from Levi was doing what it could against the winter night, but it would’ve been better served with a coat. And a scarf. And probably a pair of gloves and hat, too.

  When would I learn how to take care of myself?

  The only thing I could think of right now was finding something to put in that maw. It gaped open, making me question everything. Could I really be addicted to sex, like those people in that room? I felt helpless in the face of the void inside of me, hopeless about being able to move past it. What had happened to me, the terrible thing to make it yawn open in the first place, wasn’t something that sitting around in a rented hall would solve. It didn’t feel like anything could solve it, except a time machine and a gun.

  Since I had neither at my disposal, I had to cope, and I only had one way I knew how to cope.

  I needed sex. I needed it immediately.

  It was only because of Levi that I’d turned down the dark-haired guy from the meeting. Only because of how disappointed I thought he’d be in me. And how disappointed I’d be in myself for betraying Levi.

  Maybe Levi and I didn’t have such a traditional relationship, but we had enough of something for me to know that I’d be ruining it by fucking someone else. It didn’t matter if the sex would be meaningless for me, just a way to scratch a very deep itch. It would mean something to Levi, and that was why I hadn’t done it.

  Why I had to do it.

  I hugged myself and trudged onward, trying to ignore the shapes of men who passed me, ready to grab one and drag him into a nearby alleyway, unbuttoning my pants, taking his cock in my hand, putting it inside, moving against it until I was more like myself again, able to be in control for a little while….

  No. What was wrong with me? I shook my head free of that potent imagining and moved on, walking so fast that it eventually became more efficient to break out into a jog. My breath puffed out in front of me before sweeping past me as I dodged around people. This city was so full of them, so full of possibilities. I could be with any of them and no one would know—not like it was in my small town, when everyone knew I’d give it away for next to nothing. The stares I’d gotten back then were nothing. I welcomed them, liking the knowledge that everyone knew. It was fantastic advertising. I should’ve demanded a bigger paycheck from Mr. Trenton, who owned the bar, because I’d estimate a good half of the customers were only there to have sex with me, not drink his liquor. The very real rumors of my sexual appetite were their own viral campaign.

  Here, I was anonymous. No one knew me. I could have anyone, take anything, and the only person who would know would be me. I could keep it from Levi. I could keep that secret. He wouldn’t have to know…but I would. He’d been so kind. He was only trying to help me, sending me, however inadvertently, to that meeting.

  And how was I about to pay him back? With sex with some stranger I would take right on these cold streets, then going home to Levi with someone else’s seed inside of me?

  I put my head down and jogged. I wished for everyone to become invisible—as invisible as I was in a crowd. No one knew me here…except for the threat Levi had mentioned.

  Thinking about just what the threat could entail was actually a welcome distraction from my own flailing. That dark-haired guy from the meeting had seemed pretty interested in me, but I couldn’t remember having ever seen him before in my life. There probably wasn’t even a
possibility of him being the threat.

  Whatever it was, Levi was taking it seriously.

  I entered the house, surprised that the butler hadn’t been there to yank the door open for me, always somehow aware that I was approaching the doorstep. There weren’t any good smells emanating from the kitchen, and I couldn't map what room the maids were currently working on by the echo of the sprayed air fresheners, the wisp of the broom against the floor.

  I was afraid the townhouse was empty—maybe it had all been a dream, after all, and I’d been accidentally squatting in some vacant home, consumed with my delusion of escape, when I heard a sound behind me. I whirled around, frightened, to find Levi.

  “Where is everyone?” I blurted out. My cheeks burned with my exertion, and I realized I was more hot than cold now. I shed my sweater right there and then, dropping it on the wood floor, standing in only a thin camisole, sweating.

  “I let everyone go.”

  “Let them go? Go where?” Next to come off were my sneakers and my jeans. My flesh was cold to the touch, but my long jog burned me from the inside out. I shook out my legs, trying to loosen the tight muscles, aware that I was shivering and panting at the same time.

  Aware of the way Levi was looking at me, and liking it.

  “I fired them,” he said. “Effective immediately.”

  That gave me pause. “Why would you do something like that?” I demanded. “What happened?”

  “You said you hadn’t been in contact with anyone outside of the house,” he said. “But the threat I’m investigating mentioned you by name. If you haven’t told anyone you’re living here with me, if there’s no one to tell, then it has to be someone close to you. My staff was here every day. They were the only ones who knew you besides me.”

  “So you fired them.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Because of me.”

  “Because of the threat.”

  I shook my head. “No. Those people were devoted to you. They lost their jobs because of me.”