Sexaholics

by Pynk

  Just before one in the afternoon, Miki sat at her chrome-and-glass desk in her office while on the Internet, surrounded by the best of the best décor and furnishings. An imported, violet Victorian droplight shone brightly over her flat screen computer. She’d logged on to a top-rated Blog Talk Radio program to listen to a show called Chicks on Lit. She was trying to keep her laughter at bay as she listened to the three female hosts discuss the topic of sex addiction; one of them advised women that in order to keep from being dick dumb, they should just get themselves a BOB—battery-operated boyfriend. Miki chuckled and said aloud, “I heard that. If only. Sure would cut down on all this crazy-ass shit.”

  Miki lowered the volume on her computer and picked up her office phone as it rang, keeping an eye on her computer screen.

  “Are you free for lunch?” her sugar daddy, Robert, asked.

  “No. Not today.” She grinned, thinking, Speaking of Bob.

  He gave a long, low sigh. “How about in the next day or two?”

  “I’ll check with you then.” Her words were fast as she read an e-mail.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You seem distant, Miki.”

  “No. Just busy.” She clicked her wireless mouse to send her reply. “Just trying to stay on top of things around here.”

  “I got it. Well, I’ve got the rest of your money.”

  “You do?” she asked, turning from the computer for a moment. She glanced out of the oversized window behind her, crossing her legs.

  “Yes. And I really would like to see you. I mean in private.”

  The outside view of towering palm trees and powder-blue skies met her sight. The morning had crept away and it was already early afternoon. She turned back around to check the time on her screen and logged off. “How about if I call you tomorrow and we can talk about getting together?”

  “Okay. I can even come by there and get a room like we used to do.”

  “Maybe. But I’ll call you.” She swung her chair to the side and stood up in her tailored, burnt-orange skirt and blazer.

  “Okay. Don’t work too hard. Bye.”

  “Later.”

  She hung up her desk phone and grabbed her iPhone, stepped her pointy bronze fuck-me pumps upon the polished concrete flooring, and sat back against the butter-yellow leather sofa that was angled next to her desk. She leaned against a large brown-and-orange-striped pillow and prepared to send a text, when her phone rang.

  She answered it quickly. “Hey Dwayne.” Her face was nonexpressive.

  “Hey there. I was thinking about you and wondered how you were.”

  “I’m good. How are you?”

  “Cool. All is well. Just getting things going with our promotion for a celebrity event at the club coming up. You know I own Club Sunset. You should try to make it out one night.”

  “I’ll do that.” Miki crossed her legs.

  “Good. Listen, I mean, I’ve been wanting to ask. What’s up with you? I mean you got a man or what?”

  She spoke matter-of-factly: “I won’t ask you that and I won’t tell.”

  “Oh, so it’s like that?”

  “Dwayne, we both know what we’ve got going on as far as what we’re trying to work through. It’s the same stuff for both of us. It might be smart to not go there. Let’s just take it for what it is.”

  “So, those other evenings. What were they to you?”

  “It was a reaction to temptation. I have those all the time.”

  “You do?”

  “Dwayne, please. First of all, don’t act like you don’t know about me. And second of all, don’t act like temptation isn’t one of your major issues as well. I mean, I have fun and all, but I think it’s best to leave our conversations in the bedroom—where we’ve had them twice already.” Her face stayed bland.

  “Okay. That’s cool. I mean I guess it’s gotta be cool, right? I was just asking if you had a man or not, that’s all.” His television could be heard in the background.

  She uncrossed her legs, looked up at the clock again, and said, actually managing a grin, “So basically, Dwayne. Here’s my question for you. Do you wanna fuck again or what?”

  “I do.”

  “I do, too. Are you going to the next meeting?”

  “I am.”

  “I am, too,” she said, scooting to the edge of the sofa.

  “Cool.”

  “So I’ll see you then. Bye, Dwayne.” She hung up and focused on her phone again when the manager’s assistant entered her office.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Summers. I’m sorry to bother you, but Valencia’s waiting outside for you. I just saw her when I came back from lunch.” The woman looked barely twenty.

  “Okay, thanks. I was just about to text her when I saw I had a missed call from her.”

  “And Ms. Summer, I picked up your desk phone in the lobby. You’ve got a call on hold. They said it’s urgent.”

  “At my desk? Who is it?”

  “They wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Wouldn’t tell you? Okay. Wow. Thanks a lot.” Miki stood, grabbed her handcrafted purse from atop her desk, and rushed to exit her office, walking behind the assistant. They both headed in different directions. Miki stood over her concierge lobby desk and picked up the phone. “Hello.”

  “Bitch.” The voice was flat and angry.

  “Hello?” Miki said with a question mark.

  “Since you like to fuck, I’m going to fuck you up. Bitch.”

  Her eyebrows dipped. “What? Who is this?”

  Click.

  Miki looked at the receiver and then checked the display on the phone but it no longer read the caller information. She pushed the receiver to its cradle, stood still for two seconds, looked around, and then headed straight out of the front lobby doors.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Summers,” the doorman said to her, as she put on her gray Gucci shades and moved fast in her high-heel pumps.

  Her head spun in a daze while the tacky and dirty threatening words swirled in her mind, but she put on a temporary happy face as the sun’s rays grabbed her. “Hi. Good to see you.” She saw Valencia’s truck, stepped to it like a model in her heels, and opened the door. “People are losing their damn minds.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Valencia asked.

  Miki hopped in and closed the door, jerking herself back upon the leather seat while the air-conditioning cooled her frustrated-looking face. She pulled on the hem of her tight shirt and crossed her legs.

  “Just got some dumb-ass bitch who called my office. Some female talking about fucking me up.” Even though frowning, Miki leaned over and gave Valencia a hug.

  “Fucking you up? For what?” Valencia looked puzzled as she hugged back.

  “Hell if I know.”

  “And you don’t know who it was?”

  “If you ask me, it sounded like Anthony’s dumb-ass wife.”

  Valencia put the car in drive and pulled off. “Well, then, you need to call and tell him to check her young butt.”

  “Done that before.” Miki cut her eyes outside of the window as the fancy city went by. “With her paranoid ass.”

  “Paranoid? You two are fucking around now, come on.”

  “You reminded me of that before already. And we’re not fucking,” Miki corrected her.

  “Please. He’s eating your pussy like it’s a ripe-ass grape, girl. The word oral before the word sex does not excuse it qualifying as fucking.”

  “Well, it’s not called oral fucking. Besides, she’s still paranoid.”

  Valencia put her right hand up. “Anyway, I say you need to have that call traced and report it.”

  Miki looked at her and crinkled her mouth. “Not at my job. I can’t even begin to make a big deal about this. Besides, that’s all they need so they can start fucking with me again. Knowing corporate, they’ll turn it into a reason to yank my ass right on outta there and into the unemployment line. No thank you.”

&
nbsp; Valencia used her turn indicator and made a left. “Whether it’s them fucking with you or some bitch saying she’s gonna fuck you up, just make sure you watch your back. That’s not the kind of fucking we need or want.”

  “Just shit talking.”

  “Are we going to the SA meeting tomorrow night?” Valencia asked.

  “We are.” Miki looked as though her mind was ten minutes behind their conversation.

  Valencia looked at her. “Come on now. Don’t be a Debbie Downer. Cheer up. Let’s go eat. Purple? Lemon pepper chicken?” She made it sound like a threesome with Denzel. “You know you love that kick-ass lemon pepper chicken.”

  Miki acquiesced, uncrossing her legs and adjusting her pumps along the floorboard. “Purple it is.” Her face was only slightly enthused.

  15

  “Rehab”

  Sexaholics

  It was the next evening, on a Tuesday. The gentle breeze, casually delivered by the Pacific Ocean, was Santa Monica’s usual summer blessing. Teela strolled into the outpatient treatment facility looking glad to see her new friend, Brandi. She energetically pointed her finger Brandi’s way. “Hey, what’s up with you, girl? And what is your problem?”

  Brandi’s face jumped. She opened her eyes wide and her mouth wider and gave a girlie giggle. “What do you mean? What happened?”

  “How come you never answer your damn phone, woman?”

  They walked together, step for step, while Teela kept her stare on, waiting for a reply.

  Brandi popped herself on the forehead with the palm of her hand. “Oh I know, Teela, girl. I’m sorry. I’m just so silly. I always forget that I have the ringer on my phone on silent once I get off work. We can’t have our cell phones on in the actual classroom. And what do you think I always end up doing, like a ninny? I forget to turn the ringer back on and then this happens. I mean, my own mother can’t reach me sometimes. But it’s not like I do anything when I get home anyway. I’m such a homebody.”

  “Yeah, well, homebody or not, you need to answer your damn phone, shit. And anyway, this Friday night, it’s you and me. Period.”

  “Okay, that sounds so great. I mean really, it does.”

  Teela looked at her sideways. “Well that sounds oddly fake for some reason. What’s up with you? But either way, here’s what we’ll do. You meet me at the bar of the W Hotel in Westwood after work on Friday and we’ll have a few drinks. I’ll be in the Whiskey Blue bar. I’m not gonna take the chance that you don’t pick up that damn phone, so let’s agree on this now. I’m not about to hunt you down, woman.” Teela wrinkled her forehead. “And you’d better be there. Last time we talked about getting together for a drink, I tried. You, Miss Lady, didn’t.” Teela aimed her finger at Brandi’s nose. “So be there.”

  Brandi smiled as they stood at the door of the meeting room and leaned toward Teela, extending her arms to give her a hug. “Wow, of course I’ll be there. Again, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Good girl. Now let’s sit our asses down and learn some shit.” Teela hugged her back, then entered the small meeting room first and approached the circle of seats.

  “I’m right behind you.”

  Brandi took a seat next to Teela on one end, and Valencia sat next to Miki on the other end. All four were dressed in their work clothes: Teela in her tan sweatsuit, Brandi in dress slacks with a silk blouse, Valencia in jeans and a monogrammed tank top with the Cravings Restaurant logo, and Miki wearing a bright red Escada pantsuit.

  Dwayne sat two seats away from Miki wearing his own designer suit. He and Miki played eye games with each other. He smiled; she grinned. He winked, and she blushed, both simultaneously realizing that Rachel Cummings had already begun speaking.

  The other members of the group said in unison, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

  Miki scooted back in her seat and sat up straight, loosening her shoulders, and giving a look as though she didn’t miss a thing. She smiled at Rachel Cummings, who was looking right at her.

  “Hello,” she said directly to Miki.

  “Hi,” Miki said, nodding.

  Rachel continued, “Okay, family, listen up, all of my dear, sweet anonymous friends. We say ‘anonymous’ at SA because, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, we don’t ask for your last name. We don’t need to know your full name. It doesn’t matter. As you are all aware, we charge nothing. There’s no contract, no dues, no membership process. Each of you has already acknowledged that you’re a self-admitted sexaholic, so this is the place to be. We just ask that you show up. And let me thank you one and all for coming back. So here’s the deal. Tonight we’ll focus on a few of the recovery steps.

  “Basically, as I told you before, SA is a spiritual program of recovery based on twelve steps. We’ll go over the first three in a minute, even though we touched on the first one last time. I hope you’ve all been sexually sober for the past two weeks. No need to raise your hands. You know your own sobriety date, and we’ll share our length of sobriety at an unannounced point in time. Maybe tonight, maybe not. When we do that, I don’t want anyone to have any outward reactions whatsoever. The individual already knows what it means once they start over. And the most important thing is that the individual who is stating his or her own length of sobriety is completely honest. Not honest with us, but with himself or herself. Honesty and admittance got you in here seeking help. Honesty and admittance will get you through this. You’ll be constantly surprised at how ‘not alone’ in your wagon falls-offs you are. That’s the beauty of the group dynamic. People who come together in fellowship are important. One sexaholic sharing with another, telling what worked or hasn’t worked, is healing for everyone. There’s strength in numbers and safety in knowing you’re not unique. I believe that your innermost feelings can be understood this way. We’re a group of people suffering from a similar issue who strive to find our way out, all the while respecting each person’s privacy. That’s the SA dynamic.

  “The thing we have is common is the fact that the sex part of our lives is a problem. But it’s only a side effect of the true problem. There’s something within me, and within you, that if we don’t address and continue to address, then staying sober won’t work. Sexaholism is an illness.

  “This is a program which is spiritual, as in ‘we believe in a Power greater than ourselves that can and will restore us.’ No matter what your God is defined as, you must believe.

  “First off, the first step it seems you all have already taken, and that’s admittance. You’ve admitted that you are powerless over lust. That your lives have become unmanageable.

  “Second is believing that you can and will be restored to, as we’ll call it, sanity. Illness can be cured. But like I said, you must believe.

  “And third, you have to make a decision to turn your will and love over to God as we understand Him. If this is a problem for anyone, or if anyone has a concern regarding Power or faith in general, please let’s discuss this now. In our opening prayer we asked God to grant us serenity, courage, and wisdom. Did anyone have a problem with that prayer?”

  “No,” everyone said, except Miki, who seemed distracted by her own head.

  Rachel Cummings noticed the look of thought on Miki’s face and asked, “Did you, Miki?”

  Miki shook her head strongly. “Oh no. Not me.”

  “Good. So, how have the last two weeks been for you?”

  “Fine. Things are fine.” Miki scooted from left to right.

  “Are you still feeling that the nympho label owns you?”

  “Owns me? No, not owns. I wouldn’t say own. I’d say rent. It rents me.” Miki grinned and looked around at people’s faces as they grinned back.

  “Oh, rents you. Okay. So it stays for a while and leaves, or do you say rents because you intend for it to only reside temporarily?”

  “I hope it’s temporary.”

  “Good. So
how did the last two weeks go?”

  “Well. Life as usual.”

  “Okay. And what about your sobriety? How long have you been sober?”

  “One day.” Miki put up one finger and smiled. “Okay, five hours. Lunchtime today.” She gave Valencia a warning stare.

  Valencia said nothing.

  “Okay. I see. And what’s been your biggest challenge?”

  “Just trying to resist. I mean I can put an opportunity off but I usually make sure it happens. Even when my brain tells me the timing is bad or it’s wrong to do it, I guess you could say my vagina just won’t stop nagging me until I do.”

  “Really? What was your biggest challenge?”

  “Just ignoring the turn-ons. The opportunity for getting laid and foolin around. Honestly, it’s kickin my ass. It’s like I have zero power.”

  “Don’t feel alone, Miki, because you’re not. I chose you tonight because I think your situation applies to step one, which is being powerless over lust, which you just mentioned. And also the fact that you need to believe that there’s a power greater than you that can restore you. There is a certain sanity that we lack as sexaholics, and we need to restore ourselves to that sanity. It means resisting and it means thinking before we act. It means telling ourselves no, and telling the other person or people no. It means having faith that God’s got you.”

  Miki looked conflicted. “I know, but I’ve thought I needed to do more than just pray about it. I’ve always understood that to mean I need to do something about it myself.”

  “But how do any of us do anything without Him? We’re powerless without Him. This brings me to the third step, which is deciding to turn your will over to the care of God. You need to have faith and believe that you will be delivered through this. But you, just like all of us, must take the first step toward believing.”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Good. Very good. Lastly, I must ask: in your opinion, what is a nymphomaniac? I mean, how would you define it?” Rachel Cummings asked Miki.