The Thrill of It

by Lauren Blakely

  “I believe we are fully caught up,” I point out, giving him a saucy stare, and I love everything about being with Cam, because I can say these things. I can sass and tease and be as snarky as I want. I can toss out barbs and heated remarks, and it’s like tasting freedom and power on my tongue, like little sugar crystals are dissolving, leaving behind a wonderful flavor that only makes me want more of them.

  That makes me want to lap up more of this secret life of mine.

  “Then stay standing, because I want to show you what I might have for you.”

  “I told you I needed a week. Don’t make me walk out of here. If you’re going to be pushy I will walk so fast. Wait. I will run,” I say and it’s true because I can speak the truth to him. I can say all my truths that I can’t voice to my mother. “And I don’t feel like sitting.” I jut out my chin, and back up against the bookshelves stacked with his law tomes. He slinks over, like a smooth, agile cat.

  “Sit. Stand. Run. It’s all good with me, baby. Don’t you know that? With me, you can be whoever you want. You can be anybody. You can do anything. And I will always love you.”

  “What? You don’t love me. This isn’t about love. Don’t say love. Love is a dirty word,” I tell him.

  “I love you in my own way and sooner or later just accept it. I’m proud of you and I always will be, and I will always take care of you. So listen, I got a businessman coming in from California. This is easy. So easy. I slide you back in, baby, with the simplest of jobs. All he wants is dinner. He’s the honored guest at a swank charity dinner. A tux and evening gown shindig on the town, five hundred bucks a plate kind of thing. And he wants the most beautiful woman at his side. All you have to do is wear a gorgeous dress and smile and say you’re his girlfriend. He wants to introduce you to everyone as his girlfriend. That’s it. An easy one. I told you we’d get back in nice and smooth.”

  “How much?”

  He rattles off a four-figure number as he stalks closer.

  “For that? Just for the girlfriend experience? Seriously? Where do you find these men?”

  He shrugs and grins. “What can I say? When you are known for having the best, all the men pay top dollar.”

  Cam is a foot away from me now and he leans in close, pressing a hand against the wall, half-pinning me. “You’ll do it, won’t you?”

  “I have to think about it,” I say.

  “C’mon. What do I have to do to convince you? You know you love it. You know how much you fucking love the way they fall at your feet. Even the freaks. You love all my freaks.”

  He’s right. He knows he’s right. I love his freaks because they own their freakish ways. Because they know who they are. They might be fucked up fifty ways to Sunday, but they let themselves have their freak. In the most honest way. By buying it.

  When you live with someone and she is a freak in front of you but paints her ways as normal, that’s how love becomes a filthy thing.

  Maybe that’s the truth about love. It’s only for sale. It’s only an exchange.

  “So you’ll do it,” he says and puts his other palm against the bookcase. Now I’m not half-pinned. I’m all pinned. But I’m not scared, because he’d never hurt me, never ever in my whole life, and there’s a part of me that’s still bewitched by his promises, that’s still drawn to all that we were together. “I’ll beg you if I have to, babydoll,” he says playfully. “I will, I swear I will. I will get down on my hands and knees for you.”

  “Stop,” I tease. “You’ve never begged for anything in your life, Cam.”

  “I’d beg for you though. Say yes.”

  He wants what I have. My words, my yes, my no, the permission slip I was never allowed to sign with my mom is what Cam presents to me, always has, always will. Never changes. He is the rock. He is solid and steady and reliable, and he will always be there for me.

  And I love him – a dirty and filthy, a true and pure kind of love.

  But I also love what he gives me.

  He lets me hold the cards for the first time. Holding them feels so good, so unusual, so fucking great. So I play them. “Tell me what the story is my mom is working on. She said she was working on a blackmail story.”

  He twines a strand of my hair around his finger, and raises an eyebrow. “This file she sent over is for a congressman tip she’s looking into. But blackmail? Isn’t that your thing?”

  “Yeah,” I admit.

  He shoots me a quizzical look. “You don’t think she’s looking into something involving you?”

  “No. How could she?” I say.

  But then…

  Could she? Could she somehow have heard Miranda is blackmailing a former call girl?

  No. That would be too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Trey

  I crouch down on the floor, wrist looped over the top of the sketchpad, like I’m cradling it, as I draw. A candle flickers from the scratched-up kitchen table that’s wedged next to the counter of my studio apartment. The flame illuminates the pages and all the crumpled-up, tossed-aside ones behind me. I am adrift in a sea of discarded drawings, a jumble of not-good-enough sketches.

  Angels are littered behind me.

  I’m no angel. I would laugh at me if I wore angels on my body. The sign of the hypocrite. Pages upon pages of wings have formed a towering pile by my side. How can I wear wings on my body after all I’ve done with it? Numbers, dates, names. I’ve tried them all, in every script imaginable. But they give too much away. They invite questions, and questions demand answers, and my life, my past, my brothers are not answers anyone can have or know.

  They are mine, they stay with me, by my side. Always.

  I outline a new drawing in a faded pencil. This one could live on my ribs, grow roots in my flesh. The candle burns until my hand is cramped, until my wrist hurts, until my knees are sore from digging into the floor for hours upon endless hours.

  I’ve probably missed a meeting. I’ve probably missed everything. But everything is already missed.

  I blow out the candle as my phone rings, and now her name is the only light in my home.

  I slide my thumb across the screen and bring the phone to my ear, but when I open my mouth no words come out.

  She says hello. She says my name. She asks me if I’m there.

  But I can’t manage speech, so I hang up.

  Don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about it.

  * * *

  After Will died, I figured the house would feel like a funeral home. Hushed voices, sad music, the sounds of distance and longing echoing against the walls, the sad lament to our lives. My mom, my dad and I would trudge to the breakfast table, go through the motions, manage a spoonful of cereal, a bite of cold toast, we’d heave a sigh, a pat on the hand, some kind of we’ll-make-it-through gesture and then we’d be on our ways. Me to school. Them to the hospital.

  Eventually, over time, we’d find a way to move on. I hunted for those ways. I tracked down a non-profit that planted trees to remember the dead. I printed out information online, brought it to the dinner table, and took a deep nervous breath, steeling myself.

  “Maybe we could plant a few trees for Will, Jake and Drew.”

  She cringed when I said their names. “Why would we do that?” She asked, as if my question made no sense.

  “To remember them. Don’t you want to remember them?”

  My mother glared at me with cold eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But I thought it would be nice. I thought it would help.”

  She shook her head, huffed out through her nose. “No. There will be no trees.”

  I tried to protest, but she held up a hand, then left the dinner table, her chicken salad untouched.

  I looked at my father. “What did I do wrong?”

  He sighed. “You didn’t do anything wrong. She’s just having a hard time.”

  A hard time. That was a euphemism if I ever heard one
. More like an ice age. Because that’s what she became.

  The next morning, she locked the door to the room that would have been the nursery. But at dinner that night, I decided to try talking about them again. I’d received a sympathy card from one of my teachers. A drawing of a midnight blue sky with winking stars, next to words from The Little Prince.

  I showed the card to my mom, then gulped nervously before I read the words out loud. “In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night.” I placed the card on the table. “I believe that. Do you believe that too?”

  Something mournful flashed in her eyes. For the briefest of moments, I saw all her sadness well up, all her pain, and I swore she was about to fall apart. Maybe that’s why my dad reached over to her and gently laid a hand on her shoulder. But then her eyes went dark as if any remnants of light had been snuffed out.

  “No. I don’t believe that,” she said crisply, and stabbed her pasta with her fork. She took a bite, then started rambling about a new clinical study she was undertaking on a better form of Botox.

  She buried herself in work, in her patients, in fixing noses, tucking tummies, lifting breasts. Same for my dad. As for me, the message was clear. That was that. My brothers were gone. Dust off your hands, don’t discuss it, move on.

  Jake, Will and Drew were not be mentioned. Their names were never breathed in the house again.

  Harley

  “Hi. I’m Layla, and I’m a sex and love addict.”

  The meeting begins and I say the words of introduction, the words we all say, the words that make me cringe. Because I know what people think of love and sex addicts.

  They think you screw everything in sight. They think you have zero control over sexual urges, you’re a bunny rabbit, a bitch in heat, you bark at the moon. They think you climb the walls, scale the fences to get your next fix. They think sex addicts are nymphos, porn stars, jokes.

  And they think love addicts are just fine and dandy. They think love addiction is maybe kind of cool. There’s a song about it, right?

  What could be better than love? The thing that makes life worth living. If you’re going to be addicted to something, it might as well be love right? It’s such a better neediness than drugs or alcohol or eating disorders.

  Don’t ask me.

  I don’t have a clue about love.

  I don’t understand it.

  It’s a code, it’s a cryptograph, it’s the puzzle I will never solve.

  It’s the riddle that leaves me scratching my head, saying huh. Because I thought I had an inkling, I was coming close, but then bam. Blow to the head, knocked me down flat.

  I glance around the claustrophobic Sunday school room at the other junkies, parked on tiny chairs, with our nervous little twitchy fingers tapping out rhythms of worry, of wishes, of I-have-to-get-away. We’re all fumbling in the dark. Deaf, dumb and blind.

  Or maybe I’m the only one like that. Maybe my feet are encased in concrete, immovable, and the rest of the former users are gliding on, skating away from me.

  I scan the faces as we go through the requisite hellos, thanks for sharing, and daily affirmations, wondering if the rest of them flit through their days and nights tailed by the same black cloud of confusion.

  “Little victories,” Joanne begins, while the steadfast and hardy hanging kitten watches over us from her framed post on the wall, some sort of patron saint of recovery. “Let’s talk about little victories today. Who wants to start?”

  Ainsley raises her hand. She’s the gal who can’t stay away from her teachers.

  “Ainsley. Tell us about a victory.”

  “I made it through classes this last week and didn’t try to flirt with any of my professors.”

  There is clapping all around.

  “Excellent news. That is a huge accomplishment. Every little step matters. Chloe, what about you?”

  Chloe smiles proudly. “I had an awful day at work and I went for a run instead of trying to find a guy at a bar for a booty call.”

  More praise from Joanne. More clapping. Everyone has been so behaved today, it seems. Maybe something is in the air. A new drug, an elixir that makes us forget how love and sex, sex and love used to fuck us all in the head, and yet how much we wanted to be fucked back. It’s hard to stay away from the fix. Because the fix feels good. The fix takes away the pain. The fix mends the hole in the heart.

  Caoline turns to Gavin. He’s gay and he’s hooked on anonymous sex through Craigslist. “I haven’t been on Craigslist in a week,” he admits, and we all cheer him on.

  Trey should go next. Only Trey’s not here. He hasn’t texted, he hasn’t called, and I haven’t heard from him since he took off this morning. That boy vexes me, and I have no clue what to make of him. Trey is a riddle I can’t solve. Is what I feel for him real or not? Wise woman does not know. Fortune cookie doesn’t tell her. I cannot figure it out, it is too foreign. Nor do I know what to make of my mom’s work. My mind keeps returning to the terrible blackmail story she’s researching, but I remind myself there must be thousands of extortion stories unfolding every day.

  Joanne turns to me. “Layla? Anything you can share?”

  “A victory?” I scrunch up my forehead. Can we discuss all the ways the opposing team pummeled me instead? Fumbles, interceptions, and then how I let myself be sacked. All the losses I piled up from my own weakness. Because I can’t defend myself. I am indefensible. I am what Miranda called me, and there are no excuses, there is no redemption, there is only the never-ending payment.

  Victories, I scoff to myself. As if I’m capable.

  But then, I remember this morning in front of the mirror, how I resisted the mascara, and it’s the smallest thing in the world, but it’s the biggest thing in the moment, because it’s my only hope right now. I latch onto it. “I didn’t put on much makeup this morning,” I offer, because that’s all I can come up with.

  “Hey, every little bit counts. Step by step. Day by day. You can do it,” Joanne says.

  I don’t know what I can do. All I know is what I can mess up. I am wading in the knee-deep quicksand of my mistakes.

  When the group meeting ends, Joanne calls me aside.

  “Hey. I know I said this the other night, but I’m here for you. If you want to talk. We haven’t had a one-on-one check-in in a while. You want to sit with me for a minute?”

  “Sure,” I say half-heartedly because what else will I do? Trey’s disappeared, so I might as well talk to her. I don’t have anyone else to talk to. I can tell my mom everything about a kiss, a screw, a schlong, but god forbid, I tell her my heart has been taking target practice my whole life and it’s full of bullet holes.

  Can you fix it, mom?

  No, but how about a mani-pedi and a little dish on best bedroom tricks?

  I head into a separate room with Joanne, who dips her hand into a canvas bag, and sets to work on her latest creation, an earthy-looking brown and yellow mass of yarn that appears to be transforming into a sweater.

  “Check-in time,” she says with a bright smile.

  “Is that a sweater for your fiancé?” I ask, beginning my ritual dance of avoidance. I hate telling Joanne things. I hate telling anyone things. I hate people knowing me. But I go through the motions because otherwise I’ll probably wander aimlessly around New York City tonight.

  “It is,” she beams.

  “Does he like sweaters?” I ask, another deflection.

  “He does.”

  “What are his favorite colors?”

  “Green and brown.”

  “Is this sweater a surprise?”

  “Layla,” Joanne says gently, cocking her head to the side. “Let’s talk about you. How was your week?”

  “Good.”

  “Now that is just TMI, Layla.”

  I say nothing.

  “Sweetie. I want to help you. I want to be here for you,” she says.
>
  Joanne is thirty-one and has been running this college branch of SLAA since her first marriage went up in flames a few years ago. She travelled a ton for business and dabbled on the side until her husband discovered what happened on the road.

  The divorce was swift, painful and embarrassing. He logged into her Facebook account and posted a status update - I’m a lying whore who cheats on her husband. She lost business, she lost clients, she lost face, she lost him, and worst of all, she lost the dog. He kept their German Shepherd-Border Collie mix who they’d named Jeter because of their mutual affection for the New York Yankees.

  That was four years ago. She hasn’t seen him or Jeter since. She also has been faithful and is changing. She’s now engaged to someone else. Someone she met last year. Someone who knows her history. Someone who loves her for who she was and who she is and who she’s striving to become. Someone she’s in a healthy relationship with, she’s said.

  A healthy relationship — one based on trust, respect, honesty. I wonder what that’s like.

  Joanne keeps talking. “I can see that you’re hurting. I can see you’re angry. Believe me, I’ve been there. You are amazing at hiding it, but I can see it in your eyes.”

  “What do you see in my eyes right now?” Maybe she can find the answers that elude me.

  “I see a girl wanting to change, but who feels stuck. Who doesn’t think she can. Who thinks she is damaged beyond repair.”

  I wish I could say her comment shocks me or hurts me or cuts me to the core. That it’s a swift punch in the gut that makes me reconsider everything in my life. That makes me take stock. But it doesn’t. Because it’s what I’ve known for far too long. “Yeah, and that’s why sometimes I want to go back to the way things were,” I admit.

  Joanne nods thoughtfully as her needles click, and the sweater slowly grows. But there’s no judgement in her eyes. No condescension. “Feels easier sometimes, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Safer, right? To go back to the past.”

  “Definitely,” I say, in 100% agreement.

  “That’s the thing.” She lays down her knitting needles. The room is silent now except for the low hum of the air conditioner churning out cool air. “The past is alluring. It puts on rose-colored glasses and seduces us. But if you return, you’ll only need more of the drug. You’ll need a bigger dose. You’ll need more to take the pain away. Remember, the pain is the arrow coming out, not the arrow going in.”