Passion Relapse

by Jack Fisher

  Since Peter had come back into her life, she’d given a lot less thought to her upcoming milestone. He had definitely been a helpful distraction in some ways and a not-so-helpful distraction in others. Now, in light of this recent development with Susan, Peter’s influence on her gained greater urgency.

  These wounds that drive me to addiction… Do I really want to open them again? she asked herself.

  It sounded so unappealing and risky, digging into the dark corners of her life that she had been avoiding for nearly a year now. She’d moved back to Hartman County to escape those painful memories. Mary didn’t see how any good could possibly come from confronting them. However, Sister Angela had made it sound like the only way for her to get what she wanted out of the program.

  Mary didn’t see eye-to-eye with Sister Angela on a lot of things about treating addiction, but she saw the merit of some extra introspection. A few weeks ago, she had been in a state where she could’ve relapsed like Susan, albeit in a far less kinky sort of way. Then, Peter had showed up and changed everything. She had been torn between running from her addiction and confronting the emptiness within her. At some point, she had to stop running.

  Then, as Sister Angela prayed, a strange thought came to Mary. Sister Angela talked about confronting the driving force behind her addiction, but to some extent, Mary had already made that effort.

  By re-connecting with Peter, she’d become more comfortable in her own skin than she had been at any time in her adult life. Perhaps that was a sign. Maybe she had the key to understanding her addiction and didn’t even know it. If that were the case, then why not see where it led?

  “Sister Angela…I think I’ll take you up on that challenge,” Mary said with renewed confidence.

  “Glad to hear it, Mary. Just know that you have my faith and support,” said Sister Angela.

  “You might want to give me half for now,” Mary said as she got up and walked toward the exit. “What I intend to do involves taking chances that most recovering sex addicts shouldn’t take.”

  “You’re being very coy with your tone. Is there something else I should know?”

  “I’m sorry, but for the reward to be worth the risk, I need to keep this personal. Don’t worry, though. This isn’t something the program explicitly forbids.”

  “I’m still worried,” said Sister Angela.

  “That makes two of us, but for once…I actually have faith that something good might come of it,” replied Mary as she took her leave. “If it works, rest assured I’ll have plenty to share at our next meeting.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  Mary stopped at the door and turned back for a brief moment. Sister Angela was still concerned. She couldn’t blame her. She had no idea what Mary had been doing with Peter. In order for Mary to do this, she needed to take a chance with him while taking an even bigger chance on herself. That meant testing her faith in a way that even a nun couldn’t understand.

  “Let’s just say there are different kinds of relapses,” answered Mary, being purposefully vague. “One kind means I’ll need to be in this program for way more than a year. The other? Well, that depends on what I find when I confront an old part of my life I thought I’d ruined.”

  Chapter Eleven

  #xa0;

  Hartman County was no stranger to droughts. Having grown up here, Mary remembered more than a few. The locals had a saying. It went something like, ‘ The rains only come after the people get used to dry winds.’ In many respects, it was a fitting metaphor for her personal life since leaving Miami.

  Before her addiction had ruined her life, Mary had had an abundance of friends, lovers and flings. She’d lived in a city where she could gorge on every kind of social excess. Then she’d left that life and had entered an arid, isolated world where her problems lay completely exposed. By keeping them exposed, Mary reminded herself of the darker parts of that former life. It might have been a fertile valley of self-indulgence, but it had come dangerously close to destroying her.

  For a time, her life had seemed destined for two paths. Either she would drown in her addiction or she would wither in her efforts to run from it. Neither path was all that appealing, but until recently, she hadn’t seen any alternatives.

  Now, she was convinced that there had to be a third path. Finding it meant more than just taking a chance. Mary also had to get someone else to take a chance with her, because this was one of those challenges that nobody could confront on their own.

  “Well, this get-together is a wash, so to speak,” Peter said restlessly.

  “In the middle of a record drought, that’s in terrible taste, Peter,” Mary said.

  “It sounded good on paper. Hang out near the waterpark during Summer Family Fun Day. All the little kids and beleaguered parents running around… It’s the exact opposite of South Beach.”

  “You might have been right. I guess we’ll never know. Somehow the county ordered every public pool to shut down to conserve water and you—a guy who works for the county, no less—didn’t know about it.”

  “In my defense, I don’t keep up with city politics,” Peter said.

  “Too late. I hold you personally responsible for this,” Mary said.

  Peter rolled his eyes and laughed. He seemed relieved but concerned. This setting undermined the rules they’d laid out when they’d started doing this. They were supposed to only meet in open, public areas where they wouldn’t be tempted to get too intimate. Sitting at a picnic table just outside a waterpark during a family event definitely fit that criteria, but circumstances beyond their control had gotten in the way.

  With the waterpark closed due to the drought, Mary and Peter sat alone at a picnic table with nothing but the late afternoon sun watching over them. They saw a couple of workers inside the closed park, but nothing that could effectively kill the mood if things got heated. It made Peter uncomfortable, but Mary saw it as a blessing in disguise. For what she had in mind, being alone with him might work better.

  “If you want, we can try going somewhere else. I’m guessing the mall is packed on a day like this,” Peter said.

  “That’s okay. I’m fairly comfortable here,” Mary said.

  “Here in the blazing summer heat with a guy who happens to be a recovering sex addict…alone?” he asked. “Are you really that confident in our ability to keep our clothes on?”

  “As confident as I can be…and some of those circumstances are less tempting than you think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mary shifted uncomfortably, having dreaded this moment. She really didn’t care about where she and Peter had agreed to meet this time. They could’ve met in an alley behind a fast food restaurant for all she cared. She just needed him in a place where he could listen.

  “Peter, we’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now. And make no mistake, it has made a huge difference,” Mary said. “I haven’t felt this comfortable in my own skin since I left Miami. Just re-connecting with someone—being close to them in a way I haven’t allowed myself to be… It means a lot to me. And, let’s face it, there’s only so much connection you can have with co-workers, customers and family members who think sex addiction is a joke.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m expecting some fine print,” Peter said.

  “Don’t make this into a hostage negotiation. I’m saying this because it needs to be said. What we’ve been doing isn’t innocuous. It may seem that way—hanging out at public places and talking about work, politics or the weather—but it’s not. It means something and I don’t think we should shrug it off.”

  Mary put more emotion into those words than she’d intended. She’d promised herself she would keep her feelings in check. She’d expected to break that promise to some degree, but not this early. It sent a clear message to Peter, who quickly took notice.

  “I don’t disagree with anything you just said, but you’re giving me the impression there’s something wrong with that picture,” Peter sa
id.

  “There is in the sense that what we have is…incomplete,” Mary said. “That day at the softball game when this all began, you opened some old wounds that you didn’t want to expose. But you did and, unless you’re keeping secrets from me, it really helped.”

  “It did,” Peter said. “As for me keeping secrets? Well, you remember how much I sucked at keeping secrets as a kid. Don’t expect me to be any better as an adult.”

  “It also forced you to be brutally honest. I can see now why women loved you.”

  “Mary, I thought you were being serious.”

  “I am, Peter. This is probably the most serious I’ve been in the past year,” Mary said. “You made yourself vulnerable to me, just like you did with so many women in the past. And, well…I haven’t returned the favor. I haven’t opened my wounds for you and that’s just not fair—to either of us.”

  She let Peter make the connections from there. It didn’t take long and, just as Mary expected, he got very uncomfortable for a new set of reasons.

  Peter had told her about the fateful moment where his addiction became too much, but Mary hadn’t shared her pivotal moment. He hadn’t asked either, nor did she expect him to. Peter had confronted one too many painful emotions by telling her his story. He probably didn’t have the stomach for more, but she needed him to work up the appetite.

  As her intentions became clear, Peter rubbed his neck awkwardly and looked out toward the closed waterpark. Unlike before, they had no distractions to help them. That magnified the risks but created new opportunities, and he didn’t seem eager to embrace those.

  “I thought we agreed we weren’t ready for this,” Peter said.

  “We never agreed on anything. We never even discussed it,” Mary pointed out.

  “It was sort of implied…avoiding unpleasant topics,” he said, “primarily the thing that turned you from a free-spirit to a full-blown sex addict.”

  “Others just called me a slut, but thanks for tweaking your words.”

  “Does it matter what I call it? I’ve never pressured you to tell me what happened. I gather that it was bad—so bad, in fact, that you abandoned a promising modeling career in Miami and moved back to Hartman County.”

  “Trust me, it’s worse than bad,” Mary said. “I’ve only dropped passing hints. You might not have picked up on a few.”

  “I assume there’s a good reason for that and I don’t want you to share those reasons just because I spilled my guts. That wouldn’t be fair,” Peter said.

  “You tell me your secrets, but I don’t tell you mine? How is that fair?”

  “You know what I mean, Mary. You know why we’ve been so careful. Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me you’re ready for something like this?”

  If he had asked her that question a day ago, she would’ve said no without an ounce of hesitation. After her conversation with Sister Angela, however, Mary had given it more thought. The situation had changed and so had her answer.

  With far less hesitation than Peter probably expected, Mary grasped his chin and turned his head so that she could look him in the eye, just as he’d asked her to do.

  “Yes, I’m ready,” Mary said definitively. “Are you?”

  “Of…of course I am,” replied Peter anxiously. “You know I’m here for you, Mary, but—”

  She silenced him by raising her hand, avoiding any chance for him to talk her out of this.

  “It’s a touchy subject, I know,” she said. “It’s going to open old wounds, stir up old feelings and make things very awkward. I understand all of that. But I’ve been thinking lately and I really, really want to share this with you. In fact, I need to share it with you.”

  Mary made sure she emphasized that need, still caressing his face so Peter could see the certainty in her eyes. He got the message loud and clear.

  “Okay, then. If you want to tell me this, I’ll listen. I can’t guarantee I’m going to say all the right things…or that it won’t get awkward,” Peter said.

  “I’ll endure. I don’t need you to understand. I just want you to listen and trust me,” Mary said.

  “You know, you’re not the first beautiful woman to ask me that. And I should warn you there are times when I’ve been burned by those exact words.”

  “Then I’ll have to make this the exception. I’ll have to because there’s something else I want to tell you afterward—something that might complicate things even more.”

  “So why don’t we stick to one complication at a time, then? Let’s not make it any harder than it has to be,” Peter said, already sounding overwhelmed.

  Despite her intent, Mary nodded and released her grip on him. She also gave him some extra space to mitigate any awkwardness she had already caused.

  They still had an unspoken rule that they wouldn’t get too touchy with one another, out of concern that it might rile up their hormones in all the wrong ways. They had already broken a few of those rules. They couldn’t break too many of them too quickly. That would just make things harder. But if breaking that many rules was necessary, then Mary expected to bear most of that burden.

  Bracing herself for that, she settled in for a very personal, very painful story. That gave Peter a chance to get comfortable as well. Now giving her his full attention, he had no idea that he already understood her story better than most.

  “I’ll start with the easy parts,” began Mary. “You left for Los Angeles while my life continued here in Hartman County. I doubt you’ll be surprised by how that life unfolded. A potent combination of exercise, youthful energy and puberty gave me a growth spurt in all the right places. By the time I was fifteen, I filled out bras better than most of the girls in my class. By sixteen, I was filling out thongs as well.”

  “You’re right. I’m not surprised,” Peter said. “You were never shy about your looks.”

  “I was even less shy about taking advantage of them. As soon as hormonal boys started noticing me, I noticed them back. I didn’t take it slowly, either. I gave my first blow job when I was fifteen. I had full-on, all nude, virginity-killing sex when I was sixteen—the day after my birthday, no less. I got my first taste of anal a year later.”

  “Giving or receiving?” Peter said, half-jokingly.

  “Both,” Mary said flatly.

  That effectively killed Peter’s efforts to keep this conversation from getting too serious, but it helped make Mary’s point. Peter, having shared his own sexual history with her, offered no harsh judgment. He just kept listening.

  “I won’t deny it. I was a slut, plain and simple,” Mary said flatly. “I wasn’t ashamed of it, though. I’m still not ashamed. I love sex. Being the classic high school hottie, I had plenty of opportunities to enjoy it. In a town like this—which might as well be the antithesis of LA—I didn’t have a lot of competition. I essentially had all the leverage. I could have any guy I wanted and do with him whatever the hell I wanted.”

  “Did it ever get serious?” Peter asked.

  “In terms of relationships? No, I never let it. I guess this is where you and I were on the same wavelength. You didn’t want to be tied down. I made it clear to every guy before my panties came off that I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. I just wanted a good fuck.”

  “Can’t imagine they complained,” Peter said. “I can’t imagine they were completely okay with it, either. Did it ever get dangerous?”

  “Nope. I didn’t let that happen,” Mary said. “I guess I forged my own path there. I didn’t want to be one of those traditional sluts who just used her ass to make life more comfortable. I still wanted to work for something. I still wanted a future that I could say I earned.”

  “You’re right. That’s hardly traditional for an admitted slut. I bet your family was so proud.”

  “Funny you should mention that, because this is where they played a major role…for better and for worse.”

  She still hadn’t told Peter anything she hadn’t already told Sister Angela. Mary didn’t sug
arcoat this part of her past. In fact, it in her life was the most innocent, so to speak. That concept clashed with her admission to being an unapologetic slut, but sex itself didn’t make her an addict. There were other factors involved in that exceedingly painful process.

  “Don’t get the wrong idea. I didn’t become a slut because of daddy issues or any of that shit you hear on daytime talk shows,” Mary said.

  “I knew your dad, Mary. You don’t need to convince me of that,” Peter said.

  “That alone sets you apart, because a lot of people love to make that assumption. The truth is rarely that predictable, but it probably wouldn’t shock anyone, either,” she continued. “If anyone influenced my love of dick, it was my brothers…and not in the way you think.”

  “I wasn’t thinking it. I promise,” Peter said, putting his hands up in defense.

  “Thanks, because a lot of people assume the worst. The reality is that having two older brothers who happened to be big, strong, womanizing brutes put me in a testosterone-heavy environment from birth. Before I started filling out bras, I saw them hooking up with pretty girls and discussing female anatomy in ways that would make my old health teacher blush. My dad—having fooled around plenty in his youth—didn’t hide it from me. So as soon as I was curious enough to ask about it, he told me what sex was, how to do it and how to do it right.”

  “I want to say that’s weird, but I know your dad was never all that uptight,” Peter said.

  “He wasn’t, and for anything he glossed over, my brothers helped fill in any gaps. So, when the time came for to put myself out there, I was way more equipped than most,” Mary said. “I knew how to use condoms and birth control. I knew how to tell if a guy was lying. So, while other girls were getting knocked up or getting their hearts broken, I was enjoying every kind of safe, healthy, carefree sex.”

  It was strange, but not as much as it should’ve been. Mary remembered those times fondly. Sex had been so much easier back then. She had just attracted the guys she wanted, made her intentions clear and let raging hormones do the rest. Like so many other parts of her youth, though, it hadn’t stayed simple. In addition, there had been warning signs that she had put herself on a dangerous path.