by Claire Adams
The idea that I would actually spend fifty-nine more nights in the clutches of that facility was too much for me to even imagine. It felt like torture to be there, and I wasn’t the kind of guy who got off on being tortured. One week, that was all I could reasonably commit to. Spencer would just have to be all right with that, and so would the new movie studio.
I was actually looking forward to the idea of being part of a movie studio. I knew they just needed Spencer and me for the financing aspect that we could bring to it, but I really loved movies and couldn’t wait to be part of something in a field that I didn’t know much about.
Learning had always been something I enjoyed, whether it was in a classroom or while I was building my company. I suspected I’d have a lot of learning to do with such a huge change in occupations, but that was just fine with me.
My love of movies was deep and long. I could still remember the first movie I saw in the theaters. Star Wars. It had been a weekend date with my first girlfriend. I had saved up for weeks working at the mortuary for my father so I could have enough money to take her out. She let me hold her hand and I even got to kiss her goodnight when I walked her home.
Those were the days. Back then, people actually went on first dates. We actually didn’t expect anything more than a kiss when the date was over. And we didn’t worry if there wasn’t a text message or phone call from the person the very next day.
Things had changed a lot over the last ten years. It wasn’t just men who weren’t into the dating scene anymore, either. Most of the women I met wanted to keep things “casual,” they would tell me. That was their way of saying they weren’t interested in anything more than a fun night.
Of course, I was fine with that. I didn’t want to be tied down to a woman any more than they wanted to be tied down to me. But it was a lonely existence. Woman after woman each night of the week. None of them caring about me and me not caring about them. But it was what it was and there was no changing that.
I finally felt myself getting tired and drifting off to sleep. Thank God I’d be able to get a few more hours before I would have to drag myself out of bed and interact with all the drug addicts and alcoholics on the unit; I wasn’t looking forward to it at all.
“Breakfast time,” I heard a soft voice say from my doorway.
“No thanks.”
“Are you sure? We have strawberry crepes today, and I’m in charge of the whipped cream.”
I opened my eyes and saw the stunning Cassidy standing in my doorway. Her brilliant, red hair and blue eyes were something that fantasies were made of. She didn’t carry herself like a girl who knew how beautiful she was, though; instead, she looked down at the ground the second I made eye contact with her.
Her black scrubs hugged her curves perfectly and she had a delicious body underneath them, I could tell. Her smile was mesmerizing and I got lost in it for a moment as she stood there looking down at me. My body even got a little hard at the quick flash of imagination that filled me when I thought of her climbing on top of my hardness.
“Bring that whipped cream in here later, and we can talk about breakfast while you lick it off of me.”
I laughed at my own comment. It was a little overboard, even for me. But it had already left my lips so there was no taking it back now. Women loved it when I flirted with them. They couldn’t get enough, and I was happy to give them anything they wanted.
She looked sternly at me, though, and didn’t seem to find the humor in my offer. I felt like crap when she looked at me and regretted making the comment almost instantly. Instead of laughing like girls did at my parties, she looked at me like I was a child who had just acted out and needed to be slapped.
“So, you refused to go to group and you’re refusing breakfast. Sounds like you’re ready to get clean and sober for sure.”
Her sarcasm took a moment to hit me, and she had left my doorway before I could come up with a witty comeback. I wasn’t used to sarcastic women. Most of the ladies I hung around with were always trying to make me happy, either in the bedroom or in the office. They didn’t dare make comments toward me that were sarcastic.
I did want to find out where her piercing was; maybe I would have to get up and go eat some breakfast so I could talk to her some more. I couldn’t help but wonder what the rules were around this place about sleeping with the staff members because I sure as hell planned on getting that woman naked sooner or later.
“Mr. Levy isn’t eating today,” I heard Cassidy say as she walked away. “Subtract two points from his chart.”
Points? Shit, was I on some sort of childish point system? This wasn’t going to turn out well for me at all. When I was a child, my mother had a chore chart that we earned points for doing the chores we had assigned. We could also earn additional points if we did extra chores around the house. My brother, Heath, always did his chores and typically did mine, as well. He was such a people pleaser that I knew I didn’t need to do my chores and they would get done by him.
The problem with the chore chart my mother had was that there was no consequence for not doing my chores. If I didn’t earn any points from chores, I simply didn’t get to pick out a treat from the store. I learned to live without those treats and without doing a single chore for much of my childhood years. I suspected I was going to have to participate in their little points system if I was ever going to get a room with a door.
Even if I was only going to stay there for a week, I wanted a damn room with a door. It was a normal, adult requirement to live in some sort of privacy. How did they expect anyone to get better if they couldn’t even retreat to their room to contemplate their own sobriety?
“Come put some of the whipped cream on my breakfast,” I demanded as I came out of my room and sat down at one of the tables.
Cassidy smiled. She seemed pretty proud of herself for getting me to come out of my room. But I hadn’t done it for her. I simply wanted a damn door on my room and I didn’t want points taken away from me – whatever the hell their points were for.
When she brought me my breakfast, there was a crepe with strawberries on it and whipped cream already on top. There was also an omelet with bacon and cheese. I desperately wanted to eat the omelet.
After living out in San Francisco for the last few years, being a vegan was totally in style; but I wasn’t really a vegan. I didn’t have that deep down desire to protect animals and not eat their food products. I just wanted to be healthy and being a vegan seemed like an easy way to go about it, at least while in California.
But as I sat there staring at my animal product breakfast, I tried to decide how I could justify eating the omelet. Maybe they would forget that I said I was a vegan. If I just started eating meat again, who would really care?
There was something about getting sober that made me want to eat junk food, meat, and anything else I could get my hands on. I suspected I was going to fatten up a bit if I managed to stay at this torturous facility for the whole sixty days.
“Oh, yes, you’re a vegan, I’m sorry,” Cassidy said as she took away my whole tray and brought me a different one with a bunch of vegetables, a plain crepe, some strawberries, and that was it.
“No whipped cream?” I asked as I gently touched her hand.
The touch of my fingers on her hand sent and instantaneous shock to my system. She was warmer than I had expected and the look in her eyes even seemed warm as she looked down at me.
“Vegans don’t eat whipped cream, do they?” she asked with a smile.
“It’s your tongue!” I exclaimed as I saw a shiny ball in her mouth. “You’ve got your tongue pierced.”
“Shhh,” she said.
“Oh, I bet you give insane blow jobs.”
“Mr. Levy, that’s not really appropriate conversation. Would you like me to bring you the whipped cream?”
“Nah, I’m good. But you should think about licking my cock with that tongue of yours. I don’t exactly have a room with privacy, but I’m sure you can fi
nd us a place to take care of business.”
Her blue eyes looked at me and she smiled as she leaned down to whisper something in my ear. I prepared myself to remember where she wanted to meet up. I hadn’t gotten laid in at least a week and needed a little excitement to hold me over while I went through the Godforsaken treatment facility.
Cassidy looked like a bit of a wild child and I couldn’t help but think she would be a hell of a lot of fun in the bedroom. Although it wasn’t likely I’d get the opportunity to have her in a bedroom. But I’d settle for a back room or storage room somewhere around the facility.
“You know what,” she whispered seductively in my ear. “I’m going to say no. Not just no, but hell no,” she continued.
“Come on, now. You don’t even know what I’m working with here,” I said as I pointed to my pants.
I had gotten hard the second I touched her and she needed to know that. The girls I was used to hanging around seemed to really enjoy it when I let them know how excited I was for them.
I wasn’t a shy guy when it came to women. It hadn’t always been that way, but lately, the ladies were throwing themselves at me and I had really gotten used to it. There wasn’t much a guy had to do if he was rich. Women just wanted to sleep with me. They wanted to be in my bed and surprise me. They tried to shock me with all the sexual things they wanted to do with me; and I was perfectly fine with it all.
“I should slap you. If you grab me again, or put any of your body parts near me, I’ll have you transferred to the secured unit. And trust me, you won’t like it there.”
Her voice was firm, yet sexy as hell. I wanted to protest her refusal but decided it wasn’t worth risking it. I certainly couldn’t deal with a unit that was even more restrictive than the one I was already on.
Even though all of her words told me she didn’t want to have her hand on my throbbing member, there was a smile beneath it all. And I swore I felt her rub up and down briefly before she pulled her hand away.
This girl was hot. Not just because she had the obvious physical attractiveness, but she was even hotter because of her attitude. I hadn’t been around a woman who would refuse me since I was in my first years of college. Cassidy intrigued me.
“I’ll have you wet for me before you know it,” I whispered back to her.
“I doubt it. I don’t go for the arrogant jerks. I prefer good guys who actually want to make their life better.”
“How do you know I’m not a good guy?”
“I don’t. But so far, you’re not really giving off the good guy vibe.”
After she removed her hand from my cock and stood up, we both looked up and noticed a large, black man walking toward me. He was huge, well over six feet tall and at least 300 pounds. His eyes focused on me and all I could think about was that he was pissed that I was flirting with Cassidy.
“Mr. Levy, can you come with me?” the man asked.
“No, thank you, I’m eating.”
“I’d suggest you go with him,” Cassidy said with a quirky smile across her face.
“Mr. Levy, I’m Jarrod, your therapist. We will be meeting every day at 8:30 a.m. If you refuse to meet with me, there is a one-point deduction charged to you.”
“Oh, for God’s sake with these damn points. Fine. Let’s go talk,” I reluctantly agreed. “I’ll talk to you when I get back,” I said as I stood up and looked Cassidy in the eyes.
“Enjoy your counseling session. Group sessions will start at ten.”
“You’re committed to torturing me while I’m here, aren’t you?” I asked as a joke.
“Yep,” she replied with a mischievous smile.
I couldn’t wait to talk to her again. She was a hard ass and certainly nothing like any other girl I had met in recent years. I liked the challenge she represented for me. Maybe this treatment program was going to be a little more fun that I had expected.
If I could get through all the damn meetings and rules, I was interested to get more information on this girl.
“You shouldn’t bother flirting with her. She doesn’t date guys from treatment,” a man next to me in group said.
“What?”
“Cassidy, you were flirting with her. She’s tough. Don’t waste your time.”
“It’s not a waste. I’ll bet you that I can land her in my room before I leave.”
“I’m Brad, and I’ll take that bet,” the man said as we shook hands.
Chapter Five
Cassidy
I tried to avoid Erik for the next few days that I worked. I even asked to work on the secure unit if there was enough staff to supervise me. He made me uneasy, nervous, and distracted, and I wasn’t really sure I liked any of those feelings. I had to just stay away from the guy, or at least try to stay away.
Men in general made me uncomfortable now that I was sober. I didn’t know how to interact with them and certainly wasn’t sure if I had the energy to be anything more than friends. Most men wanted sex or some sort of relationship, and I could barely manage myself at the moment; I wasn’t going to get into any sexual relationships with a guy.
My girlfriends and friends at AA were enough for me. Being sober was exhausting as I constantly felt the urge to drink. That instant relief of my anxiety was something that was difficult for anyone to understand; well, anyone who wasn’t an alcoholic.
But inevitably, Mr. March had me assigned to work on Erik’s unit, and I couldn’t convince anyone to trade with me. It wasn’t surprising that when I wanted to trade, everyone else was miraculously busy; yet when they wanted me to work for them, everyone expected me to be fine with it. That was pretty much the story of my life at Paradise Peak, but I dealt with it and didn’t complain. It was nice to be sober, have a good-paying job, and get to hang out with people and talk as my job for most of the day.
I reluctantly sauntered into work at eight in the morning and made my way to the nurses’ desk without looking around at all. I couldn’t risk making eye contact with him. I couldn’t risk an accidental meeting. No, I would interact with him on my terms. With enough time to prepare and focus myself so I wasn’t so damn distracted by him and his charms.
Luckily, as I went about handing out morning breakfast trays, Erik was nowhere to be seen. If I could make it through breakfast, I was in the clear for at least a few hours because I had volunteered to go with the recreation therapist and a few patients on a hike that morning before lunch. I didn’t necessarily enjoy hiking, but I was excited to get away from Erik. He wasn’t going to be in a good mood as he continued to come down, and I was a little afraid of how much harder to handle he was going to be.
Melanie was our recreation therapist, and she was also a personal trainer. Sometimes our clients wanted to use their time in treatment to get back into shape and we provided her services free of charge to them. It seemed to me like patients who put their own health ahead of relaxation were better able to stick with their sobriety, but I didn’t really have scientific evidence of that. I just had more people coming back for a second and third round of treatment who had been relaxing during their first stint at our facility.
“Can you go get Mr. Levy up? He needs to come eat; he’s been sleeping through breakfast the last few days,” the nurse for the day said.
“Let him sleep and be hungry; maybe he’ll learn his lesson,” I snapped in a totally uncharacteristic way for me.
Susan, the nurse on the unit that day, looked at me in total shock. She was one of the kindest people I knew. Susan was a grandmother and babied the clients even more than I did. She knew it wasn’t in my nature to act so crude toward a patient and the look on her face flashed total disappointment in how I had behaved.
“I’m sorry, it’s been a rough morning,” I said in quick reply to her disappointed eyes. “I’ll go right in.”
Reluctantly, I made my way to Erik’s room to get his ass up and out of bed. On his first morning, he had come out and made an effort to eat, so it was disappointing that he had reverted to the ide
a that sleeping his stay away was a good idea. No one ever made it through treatment without actually getting up and participating.
Mentally, I focused myself. I was going to be stern, firm, and give real guidelines for him. I was going to treat him just like any other patient, and I wasn’t going to get distracted by his smile, or his winking at me, or anything else. Focus was all I was going to do.
“Mr. Levy, it’s time for breakfast,” I said as I stood in his doorway. “Oh, shit, really?”
Erik was standing in front of his mirror in the bathroom totally naked. My eyes instantly focused on his astonishing muscular build and I couldn’t help but let them linger on his divine ass. It had been over two years since I had seen a naked man and none of them had been nearly as beautiful as this one.
His skin was tanned and every curve of muscle was visible. He certainly looked like he was in good shape for a guy who was an addict. Typically, addicts weren’t hanging out at the gym and working on their body; they were too busy drinking and drugging.
“Sorry,” he said as he turned around exposing his very ample-sized member to me.
“Seriously?” I said as he stood there naked.
“I can cover up, sorry.” He reached for the incredibly small towel and held it up over his beefy whistle as he walked toward me. “I don’t have a door, you know. Sorry for the exposure.”
“Um. It’s…well, it’s breakfast time.”
I was flustered. As much as I tried not to be, I was. I couldn’t help it. In front of me was a tanned, toned, perfect specimen of a man. Sure, he was a bit of an arrogant asshole, but I would bet my life that he was damn good with the ladies. Erik had probably never had a woman tell him no in his life.
My experience with men certainly didn’t include a guy like him. While I had been drinking, I dated other, similarly drunk losers, and before that, I had dated dorky guys from high school. The idea of a guy like Erik hadn’t even crossed my mind before his naked body crossed my eyes.