by Jack Fisher
“So…is this your way of saying you’re convinced,” Peter said, still smiling.
“Actually, I like to think I’m adding to your theory. All this talk of intimacy and faith… It reminds me of something I blurted out while drunk on great sex. I don’t know if you heard it, but…I said at one point I was falling in love with you.”
Saying it out loud in a coherent state of mind made her heart skip a beat. A year ago, just hinting at it was enough to make her pull away from someone. That couldn’t happen this time. Neither she nor Peter dared avoid this. The way he looked at her and the way he kept embracing her evoked even more emotions. She would’ve liked a moment or two to catch up with her thoughts and feelings, but Mary was beyond caring at this point.
“I did hear it,” Peter said.
“I think that’s something else we didn’t know we wanted. Between faith and intimacy, it’s just one of those byproducts I don’t think we can avoid,” Mary said.
“I don’t want to avoid it.”
“Me, neither…because it reveals something else that I don’t think I can avoid,” she said. “The day you showed up at the program, I was a hollow shell of a woman. I berated myself for feeling so empty and miserable.”
“Why would you do that to yourself?” Peter asked.
“Because I didn’t understand the emptiness I felt. Hell, I didn’t even try to understand it. Then, you came along. I connected with you. I trusted. No, I placed my faith in you. In that moment, I felt the emptiness begin to fade. Those feelings I had been missing? The ones I kept searching for, but never found? I began to feel them.”
At this point, Mary was ready to break down and cry. Peter supported her, keeping her strong with his embrace and his affection. She fought off more tears but never stopped smiling. She ended up leaning her forehead against Peter’s, reaching for his hands and letting their fingers become entwined. Another round of lightning outside revealed the passion in his eyes.
“So…do you really want to share this with me? This faith and intimacy that we’ve finally found?” Mary asked, her voice still strained.
“Without a doubt…I do,” answered Peter, not hesitating in the slightest.
“That’s all well and good. We’ll fill that void. We’ll end the brutal cycle that fueled our addiction. The only major side-effect is…I’ll be madly in love with you. You think you can handle that?”
“Seeing as how I started falling in love with you the moment I confirmed my theory? Hell, yeah, I can handle it.”
Through all the emotions and tears, Mary laughed with him as the final shred of emptiness faded. The powerful experience was truly complete, but its effects were just beginning. In a moment that sealed a new fate for her and Peter, she leaned in and kissed him again.
She was falling in love with him. He was falling in love with her. She, Mary Ann Scott—a recovering sex addict—was falling in love with Peter Rogers, another recovering sex addict. No theory could make it less crazy, but Mary didn’t care. She was beyond caring. This was good. This was right.
Even if she were falling in love with Peter, though, it didn’t change the truth. She had relapsed. She and Peter were entering unknown territory. Could a couple of recovering sex addicts be in love? Could that love even work? Mary didn’t have the strength to process all these feelings and—if his grip on her was any indication—neither did Peter. At the very least, she had faith that they would figure it out together.
Epilogue
#xa0;
Not long ago, Hartman County had been in the midst of a record drought and Mary Ann Scott had been plagued by a crippling emptiness. Then, a powerful storm had come and ended that drought. Fittingly enough, an equally powerful force had come along in Peter Robert Rogers. What could’ve been a relapse had turned into something so much more.
He had finally shattered the cycle that had fueled her addiction. In him, she hadn’t just found someone who could end the cycle. She’d found someone who could warm her heart, her bed and everything in between.
She was in love with him. Moreover, she was expressing that love in a way that felt both right and blissful. In one fateful moment, sex had turned from an addiction into a catalyst—a familiar feeling that had inspired new passions. Those passions had filled the hole in her soul that had been plaguing her for nearly a year. It was almost fitting that it had taken a full-blown relapse to realize them.
“You want more eggs, Mary?” Peter asked, carrying himself as though he’d just put out a hundred forest fires.
“That depends. Are you going to smother them in tabasco sauce?” quipped Mary coyly.
“I put tabasco sauce on your ice cream once when we were kids. I think I know now how to smother you properly.”
“You’ve seen me naked, so I guess you’ve earned a little trust,” she teased.
“Just a little?”
“You’d rather I stop challenging you?”
“Hell, no!” Peter answered without hesitation.
Mary shared a good laugh with her lover as he served her a second helping of scrambled eggs. She’d needed a hardy meal this morning. The previous night had proven to be a real workout—and not just physically. It marked the latest in a string of exhausting nights with him, but Mary wasn’t complaining.
Sitting at Peter’s kitchen table, wearing only her panties and one of his T-shirts, she couldn’t be more satisfied…in more ways than one. Since that fateful day they’d come together, two broken souls struggling with addiction, they had gone through an adjustment period of sorts. It had been a hell of one in that they’d made it a point to do things differently, even after they’d had sex. What she and Peter shared went beyond sex. That meant approaching everything from a new perspective.
With sex addicts, it was never just about having great sex. If anything, it was often a secondary concern at most. In Mary’s experience, sex just kept the cycle going. One physically satisfying night set up the next. Such a wonderful night only motivated her to seek another. It was a never-ending, inherently destructive path without emotional fulfillment that had nearly destroyed her soul.
Peter had walked that path too. He didn’t hide his own emotional scars. For him, they were still raw. For her, they had been festering for nearly a year. Great sex only did so much to heal those scars. The greater passions beyond it did so much more.
Those passions drove them to start a new direction, one they could forge together. That meant spending more nights together. After that first time, they’d actually sat down together the next morning—in their underwear, no less—and put together a crude but ambitious plan. For the next two weeks, they’d spend the nights together.
Those nights couldn’t just be spent having sex, though. They had to actually open up to each other, taking turns being vulnerable. That meant talking about uncomfortable moments in their past while being brutally honest about how they felt, what they wanted out of this new relationship and how they were going to go about it.
It reminded Mary of a workout regimen, setting up goals and laying out schedules. It might not have been the most romantic approach, but it put them in a position to confront their vulnerabilities. As with her workout routines, Mary had stuck to it and so had Peter. The results already spoke for themselves.
With a fresh plate of eggs—properly smothered in tabasco sauce—now sitting in front of her, Peter joined her at the table. He also had a helping of eggs and hash-browns, the same protein-rich meal she’d laid out for him when they had been kids. Studying him wearing only a pair of sweatpants, leaving his upper body exposed in the morning sun, Mary decided it was a hell of a way to start the day.
“I gotta say, Peter, I could get used to this,” Mary said after taking a bite. “All this—waking up with you in the morning, having breakfast and wearing your clothes—it’s really starting to grow on me.”
“Good thing. My clothes look better on you, anyway,” he teased.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I…and I’m not just talkin
g about my clothes,” he said in a more somber tone. “This feels so right. Corny, but right.”
“I know. That’s what kind of scares me.”
“Scares you?” Peter asked curiously.
Mary put her fork down and set her eggs aside, which said a lot in and of itself because she was still pretty hungry. This was more important, though. With a serious but loving gaze, she reached over and placed her hand on Peter’s arm.
“It’s not that kind of scared, I promise you,” Mary assured him. “You haven’t been a recovering addict for as long as I have. That means you don’t have to spend an entire year with a gaping hole in your soul, not knowing how you’re ever going to cope.”
“And I’m grateful for that,” he said, returning her affectionate gesture. “You spared me a year of misery. I’m not sure if I could’ve coped for that long.”
“If I have anything to say about it, you won’t have to,” Mary said, “but therein lies the scary part. What we’re doing here—what we’re creating together—it’s unknown territory for the both of us. Being an addict—especially a sex addict—really fucks up your concept of normal. The idea of being in love with someone, actually sharing my life with them and making myself vulnerable to them both emotionally and physically? It’s just so different compared to how I’ve always done things.”
“I see what you mean. Most of the women I hooked up with never told me their last name and I never bothered to ask. I never wanted to know someone that much. Even though we grew up together, the idea of knowing someone this well? Yeah, I guess that is kind of scary.”
“Coming from a firefighter, that’s saying something,” Mary said, “but it helps make my point. We’ve done things one way, and sure, that way got us laid…a lot.”
“Are you going to say that’s a bad thing?” Peter asked.
“I wouldn’t say it’s good or bad. I’ll just say we tried to get more out of it than we could and let it get so out of control that it nearly broke us. Well, now, we’re taking a different approach—a more intimate approach.”
She gave his hand a firm squeeze, conveying to him the love that had blossomed so much over the past few weeks. It made this brave, muscular firefighter tremble in her grasp. He didn’t seem to mind, though. Mary had grown fond of the way he just held her, conveying to her the same evolving love.
“It’ll still get us laid,” Mary continued, “but that’s not the endgame this time.”
“It’s still a nice bonus, though,” teased Peter.
“That it is. It’s also an ongoing process, one we’ll have to figure out along the way. Being recovering sex addicts, it’s bound to be more challenging. I imagine most newbie lovers don’t have baggage like ours.”
“I’m a firefighter, remember? I’m used to carrying heavy loads. If you’re willing to bear the burden, so am I.”
“You say that with no hesitation whatsoever,” commented Mary.
“You’d rather I hesitate?”
“Not at all. It’s just that your steadfast certainty in loving me makes me want to love you even more.”
Mary’s words echoed with more passion than she’d expected. Then again, Peter Rogers had been defying her expectations in all sorts of ways. She was still getting used to that as well, but couldn’t care less if she did.
Following that sentiment, Mary scooted a little closer to Peter so she could immerse herself in his warmth. He eagerly embraced her, slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her closer. He still had morning breath and she still had the kind of disheveled look that made her avoid mirrors. It didn’t matter. Her passion for him overshadowed the reservations and vulnerabilities that had once held her back.
They drifted closer, naturally drawn together by their feelings. Mary was inches away from tasting his lips. Then a loud knock on Peter’s door disrupted the moment.
“Were you expecting someone this early? Another passionate lover?” Mary said coyly.
“Ignore it. It’s probably just that guy across the hall who keeps borrowing my towels,” Peter said, clearly still eager to kiss her.
Mary felt inclined to take his advice. She leaned in again, but more knocking followed. This time, it was more urgent, indicating that ignoring it might not be an option.
“Damn. I better get that,” Mary said with a sigh.
“You sure?” Peter asked.
“You made me breakfast. You let me borrow your shirt. The least I could do is answer your fucking door,” she said playfully.
He didn’t argue with her flawless logic. Mary, having to temper her passions for the moment, reluctantly pulled out of Peter’s arms and got up from the table. He went back to eating his eggs while she made her way to the door, hoping this was someone she could tell to piss off so she could get back to her lover.
As she approached, Mary heard another round of urgent knocking. This time, however, a voice came along with it.
“Peter? Peter, are you in there? Please open up.”
Mary froze for a brief moment, her hand just a few inches from the doorknob. She recognized that voice immediately. She also realized this was not someone she could just push away.
“Sister Angela?” she gasped. “Is that…?”
Mary got her answer before she could finish. As soon as she unlocked the door, the person on the other side pushed it open, and the next thing she knew, Sister Angela was standing right in front of her.
“Oh, dear God,” the older woman gasped. “Mary?”
“Uh…hi, Sister Angela,” replied Mary instinctively. “Um…what are you doing here this early?”
“You’re in Peter Rogers’ apartment, wearing his clothes, reeking of carnal sin and you’re asking me what I’m doing here?”
Mary bit her lip to stop herself from responding in a way that would’ve made her more foolish. This might have been the most awkward moment she had ever experienced with clothes on. It wasn’t just that she was now standing in front of a nun—her sex addiction counselor, no less—wearing only a pair of panties and a shirt that clearly wasn’t hers. In seeing the older woman’s worried eyes, she realized something that had completely slipped her mind and Peter’s, for that matter.
In their effort to explore their new passions, they’d completely forgotten about Sister Angela and the Chapman Hill Addiction Outreach Program. She couldn’t remember calling, texting or even mentioning her since that fateful night. It had left her and everyone else at the program to assume the worst.
Her presence—and the rather strident way Sister Angela had addressed her—got Peter’s attention. He immediately came over from the table, and as soon as he saw Sister Angela, he froze.
“Whoa. Uh…Sister Angela?” Peter said, now sharing Mary’s awkward disposition. “This…isn’t what it looks like.”
“You’re right, Mr. Rogers. This is far worse than I thought,” said Sister Angela in a dire tone.
The older woman stormed farther into Peter’s apartment, acting as though a demon were present. She barged past Mary and Peter, mumbling a series of prayers under her breath. Mary glanced over toward her lover, who had the same befuddled look on his face that he’d had in third grade when he’d forgotten his homework. They were both in an awkward situation. It had been bound to come up sooner or later, but it should’ve been sooner.
Sister Angela began pacing, praying and lamenting. She carried herself like a woman who’d just walked in on an unfolding disaster. She didn’t know the context or circumstances of what had led to this newfound passion with Mary and Peter. That meant she had to assume the worst.
“This is my fault. After you didn’t show up for your first-year ceremony, I knew something was wrong,” she mused.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that,” Mary said sheepishly. “I…was distracted.”
“Sorry about that,” muttered Peter.
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Mary said to him under her breath.
Sister Angela kept pacing. She looked on the brink of tears. Mary tried to a
pproach her, but the older woman wouldn’t stop panicking.
“I thought you needed space. I thought after Susan, you were…conflicted. I didn’t want to push you. Pushing someone just before a milestone is rarely appropriate.”
“You didn’t push me,” assured Mary. “You—”
Sister Angela didn’t let her start. She just kept on pacing. “I challenged you too much. I challenged Peter too much. You’d both worked so hard to put yourselves on the right path.”
“It’s not like that,” Peter said.
“It’s true. It’s…actually not like anything you’re probably thinking right now,” added Mary.
It still didn’t work. Sister Angela either wasn’t listening or didn’t hear them. She just kept pacing and praying, agonizing over this strange new development.
“I should’ve been more supportive of you, Mary. The first year of healing is always the hardest. This program fully acknowledges that.”
“I appreciate that, but—”
“Please, let me finish,” said Sister Angela, cutting Mary off again. “This relapse doesn’t have to be a failure for either of you. It’s perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed—even a bit empty at times. It’s part of the struggle that we all endure on the road to recovery. That’s why we need to keep praying—to support one another. It’s the only way we can strengthen our souls. With a strong soul, we can overcome our addictive urges.”
“I get that. I understand,” Mary said, still trying to get a word in. “I just need to let you know that—”
It was no use. Sister Angela was on a roll.
“I’m not finished,” she said, cutting Mary off once again. “I believe your soul is stronger than you think. I believe you have the strength to come back from this. You may not think it. You may not feel it. But it is there. I believe that strength is enough to overcome these urges.”
“Yeah, about those urges—”
“I also believe you can become an inspiration to others—to everyone at the Chapman Hill Addiction Outreach Program. Your story doesn’t have to end like Susan’s. You can become living proof that through prayer and healing, even the worst addicts can achieve this strength.”
