Chapter 8

When all else fails, there should at least be the possibility of having sex—any sex at all. It can be the quick sex that satisfies a tight schedule, or the slow and sultry kind of sex when nothing else is taking place that day, especially when the two people involved are unemployed and have nothing else to do but engage in sex. Or how about the type of rough and angry sex that follows a caustic argument or drawn-out fight that seems to last for days until the sex itself serves as a final resolution that allows their day to resume normally after mutual aggressions are carried out. Then there’s illicit sex—the kind that takes place between two people who aren’t even supposed to think about having sex with each other, lest they take their families, their companies, and their empires down with them. There’s the dangerous type of sex that can get someone killed, should the couple be found out by stronger and more passionate others.

Or how about incongruent sex between a short person and a much taller person, or even taboo sex between a mother and her son, or a sister and a brother? A father and his daughter? There’s always the possibility of interracial sex, which is almost an offshoot of taboo sex, especially when the two members involved hail from rival gangs on opposite sides of the tracks. Of course there’s sex with multiple partners and wild orgies that a man is rarely invited to but secretly knows takes place behind his back, and this, quite arguably, is the most frustrating sex of all.

There’s sex with farm animals and pets and sometimes with inanimate objects, such as old Electrolux vacuum cleaners or plastic sex toys, but Charlie thought it better if there were actual flesh-on- flesh involvement instead of resorting to the desperation of having sex with machines. There’s science-fiction sex, where there’s a robot or an android involved or some other device that pretends to be human, or even totally free and unencumbered sex in the form of wet dreams that arouse a man in the middle of the night without his ever asking for it. There’s environmental sex—the kind of sex that takes place in the wilderness or on a bus or a subway car, or especially in the ocean or in a hot tub at a ski resort. It would be worth it to learn how to ski just for such a chance, worth it just to take a sauna and have sex with someone on a hard cedar bench, the sauna pungently sweet, hot to the touch, hard, and ruthlessly uncomfortable to lie on, like the thin padding of an infant’s incubator.

Then there’s masturbation, which does the job in a couple of minutes and leaves one feeling a bit guilty afterwards that he had to resort to it when the entire world has access to vital sexual experiences that he has been missing out on—as he’s suddenly all lonesome and somehow falling for some porn actress on a wide screen television set. There are the call-girls he can resort to and the massage parlors, but Charlie couldn’t for the life of him afford such services, because if he did get caught again, they’d likely send him up to state prison, where there’s the possibility of homosexual sex—but a fist fight first just to defend himself from his horny cellmates. Anything but abstinence would work for him, he figured, especially now that he pulled his coat collar up against the oncoming chill and walked under the cover of night to the side entrance a month after his first meeting with his probation officer. He surrendered to an old church about a mile away from his apartment. There he would attend his first Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting as mandated by the town court.

When he walked into the church basement, he knew he was in the right place, because somehow he also thought of having sex in the church basement, because technically the basement wasn’t in the church itself, but in an offshoot of it, almost like a separate compartment down below something that was holier, and it could have very well served as a place where non-spiritual acts could be performed, but in a separate place. Charlie figured church basements might have served that exact purpose at some point, but he wasn’t about to rock the boat now or test the waters when God lived right above him on the ground floor. It wasn’t like God turned a blind eye to what went on in church basements, the basement being the illegitimate offspring of the main church where all of the higher ceremonies took place. The basement was where the after-party was held. It was almost like a retarded cousin or a sibling whom the elders try to hideaway from all of their friends. And it is in the basement where most of those who have gone beyond their own limitations address addictions and shortcomings in quasi-parliamentary fashion, a town meeting-cum-revival ceremony that is both secular and quasi-spiritual, totally neutral from any denominational influence, and patterned off of a series of steps or suggestions that may rid its participants of their hidden desires and the unruly beasts that inhabit the mind and spirit all at once.

But ridding these demons from both mind and body would simply take a single day at a time of not engaging, he figured, in any sexual activity whatsoever, and being as green as Charlie was, he took this to mean that he would never have sex again for the rest of his life and would have to wait ever-so patiently until after his death when he enters the gates of heaven and finds a wonderfully baroque Playboy mansion where he can live out his days and nights in eternity. It was no wonder why the Muslims always saw paradise as sleeping with seventy-two devoted virgins. Charlie hoped for this kind of heaven as well, should he have to abstain from sexual activity for the rest of his life, and maybe these terrorists did have a point, considering how the act of sex is so fiercely regulated in their part of the world and suddenly so regulated in his part of the world as well. Only the very elite made off with the bulk of the women, and this hegemonic imbalance over sex and reproduction was enforced by the local police, such that no sex could be had unless only the most proper of procedures were followed.

The people who control the means of reproduction will rarely admit to the vital contributions prostitutes have made to society, he thought, as they alone keep the most woebegone of men from falling off the edge of oblivion with the services they offer. And while such acts are looked down upon, it’s obvious that there is some hidden sliver of society that actually wants men to kill over women instead of having sex with prostitutes, as not having sex, or not being invited to have sex, would surely lead to a truly unfortunate end for any man. A man simply had to crawl out of such an unfair predicament through crime, perhaps, or other such deviances that create the illusion that he is somehow more of a man—that he is really man enough within the gaze of any woman—to arouse female interest, as her interest is quite naturally whetted by his capacity to kill, his capacity to gain power and corner her, as this is what makes him attractive.

The women Charlie liked were subtly training him to be part of the new wave of assassins, revolutionaries, and killers, as there is no other way to become attractive to them without these fundamental parts of a man’s character fully developed and finely tuned. Otherwise, it’s a wet noodle that a woman gets. The more brutal, the better his chances. The more cavalier and obnoxious, the more likely she will sleep with him. But Charlie didn’t see himself as a brutal person but simply a man who tried to circumvent the ordeal of becoming brutal and obnoxious by sleeping with comely prostitutes as a way out. But since he was caught and forced into the church basement to rid himself of his desires, it must have meant that his society somewhat preferred the wet noodles who kept silent and tolerant and accepting while cultivating its killers and assassins at the very same time. There’s an obvious reward for not ever getting caught as opposed to the severity of being left alone, should one be tolerant, accepting, and giving enough never to tempt the law or the system of things ever again.

He knew he was through fighting it, though, as he would no longer be able to withstand another prison term, and because of what Big Dawg taught him, perhaps there was more to being a wet noodle than actually went with being a wet noodle. There was the possibility of being a healthy man again, whatever that term meant—a way to relieve himself of his obsessions, because perhaps it was his obsessions with women’s bodies that had to be relieved and not any reorganization or re-adjustment of society or church that needed to commence in order to grant him his own freedoms. It was hard to say if individuals could change or if his society had to, as Charlie sensed that he was the lonely individual up against the weight of the world, and when fighting the world, there’s probably an assassin that is thrown into the mix of the masculine mind, as the mind more readily buckles against the weights of its restrictions and resorts to killing the world off in parts instead of developing it or sustaining it when sex is easily had. Perhaps Charlie’s main fault hid in being totally and utterly alone, being too much of an individualist for his own good. There was still too much of the rebel in him even though he had earlier been reformed.

He was one of the first ones to arrive at the meeting. The chairs were arranged in a circle, more like group therapy than the town meeting he originally pictured. The basement was cold and damp, the paint on the walls peeling, its floor littered with boxes of old clothes and small household appliances from a recent fundraiser that the church had. There was a coffee pot and a bag of Oreo cookies on an old table. The two men who sat there silently sipped their coffee and greeted Charlie with a slight nodding of their heads. Apparently their presence at this meeting may have been too temporary for them to shake hands, and considering the nature of their addiction, the meeting wasn’t exactly fertile territory for any camaraderie or male bonding that handshakes would have normally permitted.

The two men, a bit older than he, stared down at their feet while sipping on their Styrofoam cups, and Charlie immediately went for the bag of Oreo cookies, as he had no need for the coffee. The two men, sitting at opposite ends of the circle, seemed tired and sullen. They preferred waiting in silence than talking, their minds half-asleep and lacking energy, as though they had struggled through too many ordeals to remain so wide awake. Their clothes were too thin on their bodies for the wintry weather that accosted the town, and they seemed perfectly still as Charlie took a seat apart from them, all of them now sitting as far apart from each other as possible. One of the men simply folded his arms and shut his eyes.

But Charlie considered how the meeting could possibly get more exciting should the women of the group roll in, and every few minutes he eyed the basement doorway with the expectation and false hope that the women who attended would be stunning-looking and that finally they would have something in common : a goal of abstinence they could work towards and discuss even beyond the basement of the church, as this was where healthy relationships began and friendships were made among the very women he could never get to know outside of a sex addicts meeting. He remembered his early childhood warnings, however, that he should not expect too much out of life and that every day above ground was a good day.

An African-American man in a hoodie and drooping pants took a seat near him after he had entered, and then a Mexican laborer in jeans and a canvas work jacket wandered in and immediately took a seat. At least there would be a little diversity at this meeting was the next thought that came. But then, just when he thought all hope had been lost out to a basement of poor and tired men, he heard female chattering outside of the room, and lo and behold! Two women entered—a black woman and her white friend, but alas—they weren’t exactly the Playboy bunnies he had hoped to make friends with but rather two heavy-set women, big-boned and cheerful in their Wall- Mart clothes, holding cups of coffee bought from the doughnut shop down the street—but at least they were like chirping birds in contrast to the men who had no talk to them at all, and although Charlie had been thoroughly let down by their size and shape, at least they woke up the men in the room, as the men started looking around as though jarred out of a dream. Charlie came to the harsh conclusion that the men in the room at least had choices, and these were the two women that they had to choose from for any kind of remotely-possible companionship. It was a hard blow, but somehow he knew that their collective ordinariness was right and just and good for his recovery in some cosmic and spiritual way. A collection of poster children they were not, but at least he could learn to be himself around them and talk freely about his addictions instead of forever being that show pony whom most comely women use for their escorts. There was no need for posturing or veiling his words. He could simply tell the truth of what had happened to him without fear of offending anyone, and perhaps this was a gift that only a cold and damp church basement could afford.

It turned out that the leader of the group was the African-American woman who had come in with her white friend. She was built like a tank, but Charlie noticed how her hair was overly slick and shiny and falling all about her shoulders in black ringlets and rounded curlicues that added a prettiness to her that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. He hair was like candy almost, as though one could simply pull on one of her curls out and eat it like chocolate. There was a small scar on her forehead from some burn or childhood injury, and it lent the woman a certain toughness, and he could tell that she probably had fought in some fierce battles over on her side of the tracks with men who were simply no good. And yet her smile was radiant and welcoming, as she may have been a friend to anyone who sought her help. She didn’t seem to hate men either. Her radiance was a counterweight to the lowly and woebegone condition of the rest of the group, and even though the group members were the throw-aways of a civilization that would never honor them properly, Charlie Zero, now included in this esteemed bunch, couldn’t help but notice that a light shone from the woman’s dark eyes, as though she truly cared about the men there despite their addiction to sex.

The white woman sitting next to her sipping store-bought coffee was also built like a tank—or maybe a truck considering the width of her hips and the rolls of flesh that hung over her waistline from a spandex top that was too small. She wore a lot of gold around her neck too, and her fingers were full of rings. It was an attempt at faux- lavish living, but her jewelry fell short of the high class she wanted to emulate. Perhaps she was trying too hard to look like a woman of the fast lane, as though the jewelry couldn’t quite smooth over her acne scars and the red-dotted blemishes that appeared on her face and neck, and yet despite her general unattractiveness, she seemed sweeter and more generous than any woman Charlie had ever been near. Her eyes were her most attractive feature. They were soft and blue to look at. They exuded a quiet vulnerability and calm understanding of the group’s dire situation. They were kind eyes and not the cruel ones that Charlie had been used to, and they seemed to smile all on their own without any help from her lips or her teeth, which were cracked and jagged.

Charlie thought for a second how these women had potential, but one wouldn’t find it in their most obvious features. These two women hid what was naturally exciting about them, as though their rolls of flesh merely protected the beauty living at their core, the sweetness that most of the women Charlie chased could neither touch nor claim. And the men on either side of these women in the circle were undernourished and gaunt compared to them.

“Why don’t we get started, then,” said the leader of the group, the African-American woman who then said her name was “LaShaun, and I am a sex addict.”

With all of the strength the group had, the group collectively heaved, “Hi, LaShaun,” as though they had just been laid to waste in some great battle where their defeat was inevitable.

After reading a long preamble that detailed the Twelve Steps that sex addicts use to fend off their urges, she said, “I guess staying away from sex, just for today, has made me a better person, because today I don’t act out, and I am sober, and I’ve stayed sober for about a year now. And I’m so grateful to this program for showing me a way out of something that could have easily destroyed my life. Because—and I tell you—I was down and out and ready to die. I was a hustler, and I had been working the streets, taking money from men so that they could have sex with me, and at first I thought that using my body was the only way out. I was having sex with clients sometimes five or six times a day. I’ve been arrested too, too many times to count, and I had been down so low that I thought there was no hope left for me.

“It all started with my family. My step-father molested me as a child, and so since then I’ve always confused having sex with love. I also thought that what my step-father did was normal, because I was only eight when he started coming into my room in the middle of the night, and I thought he did it because he loved me, which he did, but he showed it in the wrong way, because love just isn’t about sex, and that’s why I’m here today. Love is more than sex. It takes a variety of forms other than sex, and for a woman who’s a sexual addict, I’ve come to realize that there are other forms of love. There’s spiritual love and the love of God. There’s the love of understanding that another man has for a woman. There is the love we all have with our families. It’s not just all kissing and doing the nasty that proves that this love exists. And it’s hard, especially when I made my living by having sex with other men, because that was the only thing I thought I could offer them.

“But now that I’ve stayed sober, I’m going to the college here in town, and I’m working towards establishing a good career for myself that doesn’t involve sex but something that uses my mind instead of my body to get the things that I want. Because giving up my old career hasn’t been easy for me. There was something about my need to find love that pushed me to do it, and I wanted to find that perfect family with a man—the pie-in-the-sky dream of the nice house and the white-picket fence, and it wasn’t until I hit rock-bottom and face down on the floor of a jail cell that I realized that all of my drinking, drugging, and sex habits was really leading me into hell, and I had to stop, because otherwise I wouldn’t be here right now.

“So I want all of you to take a good look within yourselves and also pray to your High Power every day that you find other pathways to love and companionship other than acting out, because love isn’t sex. And sometimes I have those strong urges to return to my old life too, y’know, but I realize now that I’m not going to get the fulfillment I need by having sex all the time. Sex is not a good measurement of how someone loves you or how you love someone else is what I’m trying to say. And with that, I’ll take a few topics if any of you guys have any.”

Her friend next to her seemed to hang onto LaShaun’s every word, and after LaShaun’s qualification, she put up her hand.

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

“Hi, Eliza,” said three-fifths of the group.

“Wow, LaShaun, thanks for opening up my eyes again and again and again,” she said too enthusiastically. “I mean you’re such an inspiration. You really are, because we come from the same background, and I remember a couple of years ago we were actually competing for the same customers, which is such a spiritual coincidence, because right now we’re here together struggling with the same disease, and I’ve been sober for just a few months now, and already I’ve seen such an incredible change in my life—all because I let my Higher Power back into my life and placed all of my reliance on Him, y’know? I mean I remember all those nights in strange men’s bedrooms and hotel rooms and broken-down apartments—even in the projects—and just feeling, like, this total despair and hatred for myself that I was actually addicted to sex. It was just so terrible and also very dangerous, because a lot of those men were violent, and I was beat up a few times, and when I wound up in the hospital after one of my clients freaked out on me, I knew that I either had to change and accept change, or I was going to die.

“You’re right—that sex and love aren’t the same things. They’re not the same things at all—and it’s the old saying that women touch only to be loved, but really, we’re chasing after the wrong things in life. I don’t want to live that life anymore, and I’d like to really thank you, LaShaun, because baby, you’re going to make it. I can really tell that you’re going to make it in this program, and I just wanted to thank you for showing me the way, because I never would have gotten this far without you.”

As the men in the group let out a collective groan, the two women embraced each other in thanks and gratitude. As Charlie sat in his chair and watched them, he knew now that it was all over for him and that there was really no chance that any of his dreams would ever come true. He had died in a way, and he had no idea what would come next—if anything was to come next at all. For a brief moment he pictured how he would jump out of his bedroom window later that night, as the image of it was much more aesthetically pleasing than watching these two women hug themselves. But this was only a passing thought amidst several of them that kept the men in the group enshrouded by a deadness that only the damned could attest to, their bodies going slack and numb at the fate that had befallen them, as though they were equally ruined and ruined so totally that the church basement became the only last refuge and sanctuary before God turned out the light in their lives. The basement now became that room below the church that led into the shadowy passages of the underworld, as they were alive in a way but walking off into the land of the dead.

“Okay,” said LaShaun, “how about some of you men in the room. Let’s check in with some of the guys in here. Phil? How about you?” Phil made an attempt to prop himself up in his seat, but generally he was unable to resuscitate himself fully to give an energetically balanced response.

“I’ll just listen today, thanks,” said Phil, returning to his slackened posture in his seat.

“Now c’mon, Phil. You haven’t shared in a long time. What’s going on with you?”

“Well, for one thing,” said Phil more angrily, “I can’t stop whacking off for some reason. I’m whacking off about five times a day, which is a shy higher than last month. It’s gotten to the point where my wiener is so red and raw by now that it actually hurts to do it. That’s the disease, I guess. We do it even though we’re hurting ourselves—and believe me, I’ve tried not to do it, but damnit, I’m always chasing that feeling, and it happens for only a minute—right when I come over the same old magazine that I’ve had for months now, and I’ve gotten so sick and tired of staring at the same women in the mag, but y’know what? That’s just my disease talking, and if I don’t change, I just think it’s going to fall off, just drop off like putty in my hands, and I really don’t want to see that happen. But right now it’s so raw and sore that I can hardly even walk, and I don’t know, I just want this insanity to stop, because there has to be some other way. But I don’t have any money, and it’s just awful how I’m living. I need a change—like a trip to Miami Beach or something. Anything to get out of this freakin’ town. Thanks for listening.”

“Thank you, Phil,” said the group.

“Y’know, Phil,” said LaShaun in a voice tailored to console a shattered victim, “you’ve been coming around here for quite some time now, and it seems like it’s the same problem again and again and again. I can identify with that terrible insanity, because I too couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t stop having sex with people I didn’t know, and I thought I needed to do it for the money, but it was really just about discovering what other potentials I had—other things that I could do with my time, because I have a mind and a spirit, not just a body to play with. So I can identify with your insanity, Phil, but you just have to hold on tight and keep coming.”

“That’s exactly what I plan to do as soon as I get the hell out of here,” he said triumphantly.

“See. Now that’s you’re disease talking. You have to keep showing up to these meetings, because there is hope, because right now, as I see it, it’s darkness just before the dawn.”

“That’s what you said the last time,” said Phil.

“Just hang in there, and keep showing up. That’s the most important thing.”

She then pointed to the next man in the circle.

“Hi, I’m Irving, and I’m a sex addict, if that’s what you want to call it.”

“Hi, Irving,” said LaShaun and Eliza simultaneously.

“I’m still letting go of my dog—”

“Oh, not your dog again,” sighed the hooded African-American man down the line.

“Now Jerome, you just wait your turn. Let Irving share, and we’ll get to you in a minute.”

“But he’s in denial,” said Jerome. “I mean, I’ve heard of a man’s best friend before, but Irving’s dog takes the cake.”

“Jerome—wait your turn. Please, go ahead.”

“Well, I just miss my dog,” said Irving. “I don’t think I have a problem with anything beyond that at this point.”

“It’s a fucking problem,” said Jerome. “When you’re banging your dog, that’s a fucking problem. Get used to it.”

“That’s enough, Jerome, or I’m going to ask you to leave, you hear me? Now what’s happening with your dog, Irving?”

“I don’t know. I went down to the ASPCA a couple of days ago. I told them I was sorry, and I already paid all of the fines and did my time in jail, but now it’s just a question of getting him back, and they just won’t budge. It’s all this frustration and worry that’s eating me alive, because I already apologized for the things I did to him, and I don’t want our relationship to be based on sex anymore. I want things to get back to where we started—like when I first picked him up from the pound. He was so cute and innocent when I held him for the first time, and yes, maybe I got a little too far ahead of myself with him, but I’ve changed. I recognize that my dog is not a suitable partner to have a relationship with, even though he’ll always be so beautiful in my eyes, but I’ve changed in that I no longer see him as a sexual object anymore. I’ve told the ASPCA that, and they still won’t release him no matter how many times I tell them, no matter how much I pay them, no matter how many papers I have to sign. I was never cruel to him. I just took a few too many liberties with him, and yes, I’ve paid the price for it in spades, and now I just want him back. It’s plain and simple. It’s my damned dog! It’s not the ASPCA’s dog. He’s in my name, and he’s mine. Not anyone else’s.

“We shared something special for a while, and I’m prepared to leave it at that. It’s probably the most meaningful relationship I’ve ever had, and he’s just so beautiful, through and through, but I realize that it has to end, and I’m prepared to step in that direction, but for now, I need my dog back! End of story!”

The group paused for a moment at Irving’s alacrity until LaShaun finally broke the silence.

“I think you said something very important when you said that we can’t use other things—or in this case, other creatures—as sex objects. We can’t really possess the one’s we love the most, because a lot of what men want—at least from my experiences with guys—is to use sex as a way to possess their women—or in this case, a pet. That’s part of the disease too, because possessing the animals that we love isn’t exactly the healthiest way to go about loving a person, or in Irving’s case, another part of the animal kingdom.”

“But he’s my dog!” said Irving sharply. “He’s mine legally, and I’ll take ‘em to court if it’s a fight they want.”

“Yes,” said LaShaun, “he’s yours, but with love it’s not that healthy to possess those people or those animals in our lives that we love, and I think it’s a mistake that a lot of men make in that they try to possess another animal sometimes and mistake that for love. It’s kind of a selfish kind of love, keeping the dog all to yourself, where if you really loved your dog, wouldn’t you let it free to associate with other dogs? I mean, wouldn’t you want your dog to be happy instead of letting it be imprisoned by your love? Wouldn’t you make that sacrifice and set the dog free?”

“We were happy and free. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Yes, but look where it got you. You were thrown in jail, and now the dog is locked up at the pound recovering what you did to it. You see, folks—love, I believe, shouldn’t be the kind that hurts another creature. That’s not love in my book. Whenever we start to hurt ourselves, or our animals—that’s when the red flags should go up.”