The Temptation of Adam

by Dave Connis

“You could just be, you know, doing normal dating things.” I lower my voice, knowing that even though Addy probably isn’t paying attention, she’s still on the porch. “Dez, we just watched Trey and Addy make out. I bet Trey isn’t freaking out or worrying if he’s consuming her.”

  “Well, maybe he should be. We’re addicts; we move to keep things whole.”

  “No,” I say, “Dez, that’s not true. It’s only true because you think it is. You’re not even trying to think anything else. They’re just letting it happen, why can’t we?”

  “How can I think anything else? This is me. Don’t you see the cycle?”

  “I do see it, but we’re—”

  “Variables.” She kisses me and then leans her forehead against mine. “I wish I had your strength.”

  “Says the girl who created a separate identity to get information from a multi-million-dollar studio exec.”

  “It’s not the same. That was just a manipulation technique I learned from my family. In the Coulter Mansion of American Waste, no one can survive without learning how to manipulate and twist. Another cycle. How will we ever be greater than our addictions?”

  I’m getting sick of arguing about this. The more I argue about it, the more I wonder if Dez is right. I’ve never let myself believe we can’t change, but I think somewhere in the dark corners of my mind, I’m afraid I’ll realize it’s true. I don’t want to find out that I’m like a ghost trying to touch another ghost.

  Adam = live human.

  Adam ≠ ghost.

  “Because we just are,” I say, hoping she’ll let it go.

  “No, Adam, I’m serious. How can you be holy and broken at the same time? I need to know before I believe it.”

  I let out a gigantic groan. I feel it rumble up from my chest and into my throat. “Right now, I feel a burn that comes from being here with you, touching you, kissing you. But, at the same time, I know I’ll eventually have to get up and leave you, and that’s a beautiful pain. You don’t believe we can be anything but consumers of each other. You believe you’re an addict before you’re Dez and that kills me. That’s the hurtful kind of pain. Somehow, there are two pains, good and bad, and I feel them both at the same time. I know it’s annoying to think about, but what if there are some things in the world that are just indefinable? Like, the existence of two contradictory things. We can’t know how they fit, but they do, and maybe it’s not up to us to know how.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  “For what?”

  “For hurting you.”

  I kiss her and close my eyes. “You’re forgiven. I’m sorry for all the times I’ve hurt you, too.”

  “Just don’t stop burning.”

  I hear Mr. Cratcher saying, I’m not sure if that will be my decision. I almost say it to her, but I decide taking a nap next to my blaze-of-light girlfriend, Dez Coulter, is a better idea.

  —

  We’re in the middle of a game of poker. We’re casting our bets with organic peanuts. Dez has bet me a make out session if I win, but if I lose, I have to sleep in the tent in my boxers without a sleeping bag.

  The pressure to win’s tremendous.

  This proposal has turned Trey and Elliot into monsters—and Addy into their instigator. I don’t think any of us have ever been this competitive in our lives, but right now, we feel like we’re in the Olympics. I put my cards down: three eights, one five of diamonds, and one queen of hearts.

  Trey lets out a charismatic “Yes!” and puts down a full house.

  I curse.

  Addy laughs and claps.

  “I’ll give you best two out of three,” Dez says with a smirk.

  “Dez! We just got Adam in his boxers fair and square!” Trey yells. “You aren’t making it easy for us to beat this kid.”

  She purses her lips and shrugs.

  It’s. So. Sexy.

  “Maybe I want him to win.”

  Dez deals another hand, and as soon as Elliot picks up his cards, he says, “I’m all in.”

  Dez looks at me, one eyebrow raised. She’s egging me on. I know it.

  Addy taps my cards. “Let’s see your poker muscles. Don’t let him push you around like a rag doll, honey child.”

  I stare at my pile of peanuts then at my cards. I have an ace and a five.

  I stand. “Author Waller R. Newell once said, ‘We don’t need to reinvent manliness,’ but gentleman, Dez, Addy, I think Waller R. Newell is a bucket’a’bull. If manliness stays static, it gets buried in the dust of progressive humanity.” I pause to let the words sink in, but I know the only one who cares about what I’m saying is Dez, which is the point.

  Dez lets out a deep breath and then starts fanning herself. “Is anyone else hot in here? Outside of Adam, I mean?”

  “Therefore, in reinvented manliness, I take my hoard of peanuts and declare, I am all in.” I push my peanuts to the middle of the table. “Oh,” I look at Elliot. “I also declare, suck it.”

  I throw my cards down.

  —

  Addy’s up in her room, and Trey and Elliot are out cold on their mattresses, but I peek through the Hamana fabric anyway just to make sure we’re alone. Dez’s hand slides under my shirt. A snap of wind alters the roar of the propane heater. There’s no way I’m sleeping in the tent in my boxers.

  “I’m so glad you lost,” she whispers, pulling her head back to look at me.

  “I’m not. That manliness speech deserved better.”

  “That manliness speech is why I’m making out with you right now. Your quote usage was awesome. I should give you some of the first and last lines I’ve always wanted to use but can’t find a context for.”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Like, ‘I am dead, but it’s not so bad. I’ve learned to live with it.’ That’s the first line from Warm Bodies by Issac Marion. I’ve had an even harder time with the first line of Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, ‘When I was small, I never wanted to step in puddles.’”

  “Those are pretty context-less unless you know zombies who are afraid of water.”

  She nods. “Oh, thanks for flushing my pill stash.”

  Zombies to pill stash. That’s a conversational jump I’d never thought I’d make. I thought she was just going to ignore the fact that the night we got back from our date, I took all the pills out of her tent and gave them to the bowels of Nashville.

  “You finally noticed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t have any more, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “You promise? We have to be honest with each other if we don’t want to kill each other with our volcano-ness.”

  She looks right into my eyes. Unmoving. Unblinking. “I promise, Adam.”

  “You doing all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m not in withdrawal. I’d just gotten back into them. Like, the two you found in my pocket were the first ones in about a year.”

  “Why did you bring them when we’re supposed to be breaking our vice habits?”

  “Why did you bring your computer when we’re supposed to be breaking our vice habits?”

  “Good question.”

  “I’m back to flasking now.”

  I rub my temples. Fighting porn is exhausting enough.

  Dating someone who needs as much encouragement and help as me = exhausting2.

  “Can we not think about that right now? You still owe me five more minutes.”

  She stares into the fabric hanging above us. “You’re actually keeping count?”

  “I’m not trying to avoid you. I’m just staying true to your allotted time, being a gentleman and all that junk.”

  “How strange of you.”

  “Shouldn’t I get points for the small things, like counting?”

  “There aren’t many small things with you,” she says.

  I smile. “I find it ironic you’re telling me that, but I guess we both have complexes against small things.”

  “Are you about to do what I think you
’re going to do? Because if you do, I won’t ever let you leave this hammock.”

  “I mean, I was always obsessed with big things.”

  She flips on top of me. “I’m warning you.”

  “That’s why, ‘When I was small, I never wanted to step in puddles.’ I went straight for the ocean.”

  “Adam Hawthorne.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Either marry me or kiss me.”

  I don’t have a ring.

  So I kiss her.

  —

  We make out until she falls asleep. By all accounts, I’m tired. People don’t talk about the calories you must burn in that intense of a make out session. I feel like I should boost my electrolytes with a Gatorade or carb up with a plate of pasta. I might if it weren’t four in the morning.

  I tried falling asleep with Dez in the hammock, but it squeezed my shoulders so tight it made me feel like I was in a garbage compactor. So now I lay awake in my porch mattress, staring at Elliot drooling on himself, thinking about Dez Coulter. I want her. I want all of her in a way I can and can’t describe and it’s making me twitch and turn. My heart races at the thought of her naked under me. I turn in my mattress for the one hundred and eighth time. I look at the Hamana. Should I? Should I not? I see the silhouette of her body, her beautiful curves, and—and I love her.

  And I love her.

  I go through the steps in my mind. We find an empty room. I take off her shirt, and then her pants. It will be my first time, so I’m guessing it will be awkward. I try figuring out what happens after I get her pants off, but the No Pants stage is as foreign to me as feudal Japan and Ethiopian food. Sure, I’ve seen the act a million times, but that means nothing. Doctors aren’t doctors just because they’ve watched hours and hours of surgery videos on YouTube.

  I take a deep breath and throw off my covers. I swing one leg out, but a question begins to echo over and over in my gut: how will having sex with Dez be any different than porn?

  I stare at the ground for a moment, trying to find an answer.

  I can’t.

  Could we have sex without feeding addiction? Without consuming each other?

  I’d like to think so, but that doesn’t mean I actually could. I cross my arms. My lack of action = cold wind making parts that need to be big, small.

  I love her.

  But right now my love equals consumption.

  Just like she said it would.

  I curse under my breath. Dez is right. We consume. It’s what we are. She doesn’t need someone to consume her body. Too many guys are willing to do that. She needs someone to love her.

  Does love = walking away?

  Can love ever = consumption?

  Can sex ever = love for a porn addict?

  Can sex ever = love for any addict?

  Is there such a thing as broken and holy consumption?

  Question after question.

  Gust of cold wind after gust of cold wind.

  I can never love her greater than. I’ll always want to consume her. A voice comes back into my head that’s been absent for the last two months.

  Sees the problem now, does he, Masters? People only hurtses people. Gollum!

  A tear falls down my cheek. I wipe it away, because I’m sure it will fall on the porch with the crash of history’s loudest heartbreak. I can’t see how this is true, but I feel it. I know what Dez is talking about now.

  Adam and Dez = expiration date, and all we can do is enjoy the burn while it lasts.

  I stand, walk into the house, and grab a phone off the counter not caring who’s it is. I start making a video playlist. If I’m always going to be an addict, why does it matter if I fight it?

  IF WE’RE ASLEEP, WE WON’T FEEL THE TRAIN AS MUCH

  The log rolls out from under me. I fall into the water of the Puget Sound. I don’t move. One second, I watch the sun as it lowers to hide behind the Deception Pass Bridge into the water, the next there is no sun and I’m sinking upwards. Up is just as dark as down. Dark is below and beside. Every inch dark as the next.

  It’s cold, but I don’t care.

  The darkness is here, but I don’t care.

  I am alone, but I don’t care.

  —

  It’s two days later, and we’re no closer than we were when we started. Trey set up an interview with retired Nashville police chief Mason Crowell, but the soonest he could meet was tomorrow at lunch. You’d think a retired guy would have all the time in the world, but I guess that’s a stupid assumption.

  I’ve been making a lot of those lately.

  I’ve been spending every moment I can next to Dez. Now that I know it’s only a matter of time before we erupt, I don’t want to waste a second with her. She’s noticed something is off. This morning she asked if something was wrong. I just told her I looked at porn a few nights ago—wasn’t a lie. Her response was to kiss me and tell me to keep fighting, which I found incredibly ironic.

  This is all a bucket’a’bull. Even Nicholas Sparks couldn’t make this up. Actually, he probably has, and that makes me feel worse.

  Addy pulls me aside after lunch while the other KOV members chill on the porch.

  “What’s going on, Papi?” she says, her face tight with seriousness.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “Buuuull. Remember, you promised to be honest with me.”

  Again, ironic, considering the amount of secrets she’s kept from me that I’ve found out by accident: quitting her job, liking Trey.

  “Dez and I are …” I sigh. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like it can last.”

  “Sure it can,” she says.

  I turn toward the porch. “It isn’t that simple, Addy.”

  She grabs my wrist and pulls me back. “Hey, look at me.”

  I do.

  “You will not let the divorce affect this. You and Dez are great together.”

  It’s not the divorce. It’s the porn. It’s always been the damn porn.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Take it from someone who’s already let the divorce kill one relationship. It’s no fun, and it’s useless. You and Dez aren’t our parents.”

  “It isn’t about the divorce.”

  Addy crosses her arms. “Then what is it about?”

  “Addiction.”

  She rolls her eyes, but she wouldn’t if she understood how it felt to be controlled by something. “Papi, don’t let Dez’s knack for turning small things into giant things affect you. You two just need to date. Be young. You two act like you’re thirty the way you talk about all this.”

  “How? How do I ‘just date’ when I’m so messed up?”

  She opens her mouth to answer, but one doesn’t come out.

  “It’s not a switch, Addy.”

  “Yeah, but neither is the rest of life,” she says. “You can’t just let one thing about yourself ruin everything else. That’s the biggest part of healing. Moving on despite the hurt.”

  “I don’t know how,” I snap. “I don’t know how to do that.”

  Addy’s silent. The girl who quit her job for me is crushed under my weight. New guilt pours into my veins. I want porn.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m messed up. There’s no changing that.”

  Addy hugs me. “I’m not trying to demean how intense addiction is or what you’re feeling, but you’re not that special, Adam. We all have our messes. You’re not alone in that.”

  I know she won’t let me walk away in a bad place, so I just let her have the final word.

  —

  Elliot invents a game with Mexican Coke bottle caps that’s kind of like a combination of Mancala and marbles. We play it for most of the day instead of going anywhere. It’s not like we have anything better to do. We’re going to see a movie later tonight, so none of us want to drive out to Nashville yet, and going to the police station would be a waste of time considering we have a meeting with the police chief who was at the crime scene.

  After dinner,
I pull Dez out of the Hamana and we take a walk around the cul-de-sac. I hold onto her hand tightly, knowing, someday, I’ll have to let go. We pass a house that looks similar to ours, the same rustic barn wood steps and thick log patio railings, and see an older woman standing on her porch watching the sun.

  “Beautiful!” she yells. We respond with a simultaneous “yeah!” as she walks back into her house.

  We head back to the mansion, gather the Knights of Vice, and head out to see the new Cohen Brothers movie. Afterward, we wander around Nashville, and then drive out to The Loving Pie Company. This time we sit in the living room instead of the bedroom.

  We get home at two in the morning. Everyone else heads out to the porch to go to bed, but I don’t. Instead, I grab the phone off the counter and go up to bathroom. The weird thing is: I don’t watch anything. I’m not even thinking of watching anything. I just stare at the blank screen. An hour later, I make my way downstairs.

  Tonight, instead of deciding whether or not to sleep with Dez, I feel a different desire. I peel back the fabric, climb in behind her, and pull her as close as possible.

  I just want to be together.

  “It’s about time,” she says.

  I kiss her on the neck. She grabs my hand and pushes her back into my chest. With the holiest of sighs, she falls asleep and, after an hour or so of shoulder reconfiguration, so do I.

  —

  In the middle of the night, I feel her get out of the hammock. I’m in a sleep daze that makes everything seem like a dream. She comes back a few minutes later.

  “You okay?” I ask her.

  “Yeah, I’m in a sweaty dandelion.”

  I’m pretty sure that’s not what she said. I force my eyes open. “What.”

  “Bathroom, Adam. Bathroom.”

  I smile and lay my cheek against her back when she crawls back in.

  “I built a catapult,” I say. Wait. No. That can’t be what I said.

  She pulls my hand over her waist. “I love you, too.”

  —

  As I stare at Mason Crowell, I note two things:

  1. I didn’t expect him to be black.

  2. For being a retired police chief, he doesn’t look very old.

  Mason Crowell’s looks ≠ age.

  Mason Crowell’s looks = sculpted and ripped black guy.