Prologue: His New Addiction
Chapter 1: Money Well Spent
Chapter 2: Close Enough
Chapter 3: The Next Right Thing
Chapter 4: A Way Out
A text from Jasmine: See you tonight.
He had convinced himself she wouldn’t come back. That she
had only been a nice girl taking pity on an awkward, creepy, sad man.
He had been to meetings from Florida to California. The same
slogans hung on the walls everywhere.
A restaurant-industry relic of a coffee maker gurgled out
bitter coffee—warm, not hot. People orbiting the table added powdered creamer
and sugar. They had run out of the pink packets of off-brand Sweet’N Low last
week.
Marvin sat next to him.
“You nervous, brother?”
“No. I’ve done this enough.”
This was a lie.
He had given a handful of leads, each one a little easier
than the last. His story—what it was like, what happened, what it was like
now—had become rote. An extended elevator pitch.
But tonight he was nervous. He just wanted to know if
Jasmine would really be there.
People settled into their chairs. He looked around the room,
face to face, but didn’t see her.
It’s for the best. I didn’t really think she would come.
Marvin gave a brief introduction, and the audience laughed
at his description of John at his first meeting—how John had stuttered and
mumbled so badly Marvin thought he wasn’t speaking English.
As John settled at the podium, he saw her.
She was different. Hair, face, clothes—everything about her
commanded his attention. All black. Not tight or form-fitting, but tailored.
John cleared his throat and began his lead.
“Hello. My name’s John, and I’m an alcoholic. But I wasn’t
always like that. I was a quiet kid, a mama’s boy, a Boy Scout…”
This part of his story flowed freely and easily. He
sprinkled in the same jokes as the last time. It wasn’t until the end that he
really had to think.
So he watched Jasmine take in his story—smiling at the
jokes, softening at the serious parts, mirroring the rest of the room. Except
her eyes kept darting to the right.
Instinctively he followed her gaze to a disheveled blond man
a few chairs down.
A newcomer. Young. Maybe a week sober.
He kept sneaking looks at her. She glanced back.
John became aware that he had stopped talking and that
several seconds of silence had passed.
Dammit, man. Get a grip. Don’t get distracted now.
He cleared his throat.
“I’ve vacationed at some of the finest places—Pendleton
Penitentiary, Madison County Jail, Worthington Correctional Facility.”
John waited for the chuckle from the crowd.
“Ah, I see some of you have too. Pendleton had the best
food—but my tenure in the canteen had nothing to do with it.”
Another laugh—but the eyeball tennis between Jasmine and the
young man kept pulling him off track.
He white-knuckled the edge of the podium. He continued to
the night of his last drink. “Why that night? I suppose it was divine
intervention. Nothing different than any other night. I just got sick and tired
of being sick and tired.”
He moved through the familiar beats—his first meeting,
working the steps with Marvin, the slow grind of trying to live by the
principles.
“The hardest thing for me has been surrendering my life and
will over to a Power greater than myself. It would be so much easier if God
spoke in a loud, clear, booming voice. But alas, it’s usually coincidences,
windows of opportunity, and the people around me. Like my sponsor.”
Glancing at the clock—five more minutes—he locked eyes with
Jasmine.
“You know the literature says God wants us to be happy,
joyous, and free. I never had trouble believing God wanted that for me—for all
of us. But it’s only recently that I’ve started to believe it might actually be
possible. Ten years in, and I’m finally excited for tomorrow and the day after.
I hope everyone here has a chance to get what I have, if they want it.”
As usual at the end of these things, a group formed around
John to share their predictable reactions.
John responded politely. Thanked them. Of course—here’s my
number. Call me anytime.
He scribbled his number on receipts and scraps of paper, but
his eyes remained on Jasmine, who stayed seated.
The blond man ran a thick, dirty hand through his hair and
approached her. They talked back and forth. John couldn’t hear a word, but her
face told him everything he needed to know.
This wasn’t good.
“Excuse me, man.” John pushed past another well-wisher and
strode over.
He stopped beside the newcomer, who reeked of alcohol and
four-day-old sweat laced with hormones and anxiety. A nostalgic smell from
John’s worst days.
“You did so well!” Jasmine said, hugging him. Her hands
trembled slightly on his shoulders, squeezing twice. “Have you been working out
more?”
“Same amount. Just upped the protein.”
The other man shifted warily and backed away, slurring,
“We’ll finish this later.” He wandered to the coffee pot and poured himself a
cup.
“I didn’t think you’d really come,” John confessed.
“Of course I came.” She winked. “I just had some important
things to do. Saw family. An old mentor. Worked on some things. Took a break
from… distractions.”
Distractions? What distractions? Is she talking about me? She took a break from me.
As much as John appreciated the update, his eyes kept
drifting to the looming figure now dumping too much sugar into a Styrofoam cup.
“Look, uh… Jazz. What’s up with that?” He tried to subtly
motion toward the coffee area.
“Maybe,” she said, surveying the room, “maybe you could walk
me to my car.”
“Yeah. Let me get my coat and say goodnight to Marvin.”
Outside, the night was dark and bitterly cold. Though it
hadn’t snowed in two weeks, large mounds of snow—blackened by exhaust—sat
scattered through the expansive parking lot.
Their footsteps sounded loud in the quiet, crunching bits of
ice compacted into the asphalt.
“Jazz, you don’t have to tell me anything.”
“No. It’s okay.” She frowned, digging for her keys in a
black handbag with a gold chain strap. “He was a prospective client. I only saw
him the one time. But…” She trailed off. “He didn’t know how to play nice.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“I only saw him the once.”
That didn’t answer the question. What were Jasmine’s other
clients like? All this time he had imagined them suave. Rich. Cool. Sex gods.
Not like him.
What the fuck has she been enduring between weekly
slumber parties with me?
“This is me, John.”
It was not her usual silver SUV. No, a small red sports car
chirped cheerfully awake as she pressed the key fob in her hand. =
“Is this a different car?”
“Yes…” She seemed solemn, serious. “I’ve changed a lot of
things. I’m going to be doing things very differently from now on.”
Oh no. She was quitting. Done with the lifestyle. Of course she was. Between men like that—and creeps like me—how could she not be?
He breathed in her orange perfume deeply as he hugged
her—probably for the last time. He remembered when he bought it, the counter
girl proudly saying it was made in France. Four hundred and fifty dollars, and
he could hold that memory forever.
Then he heard Jasmine say, “Oh no.”
Behind him came the stumbling sound of heavy feet.
Turning and now face to face, yet again, with the drunk. The
asshole. Some guy who had probably been one of many to hurt Jasmine. Probably
right before she held John in his bed and had been so sweet to him.
The man approached with his hands raised in a mock peaceful
gesture.
“Just wanna talk.”
Tripping over his own feet and falling into John, he knocked
everyone against Jasmine’s car.
John grabbed the man and hauled him upright. Old instincts
took hold. He hadn’t felt this in decades.
Using his body to shield Jasmine’s view, he pulled up his
shirt just enough to reveal the 9mm Glock strapped to his belt.
His voice was steady. Scary.
“You don’t want to do this, man.”
With slow recognition, the man looked down, then back up at
John’s face.
Then John heard a click behind his right ear.
A surprising but unmistakable sound he knew well.
The hammer of a revolver cocking.
The man scrambled away, shouting unintelligible words as he
ran.
John turned.
Behind him, Jasmine stood in a balanced, firm stance, both
hands wrapped around a gun of her own.
She slowly released the hammer and slipped it back into her
purse.
All that followed was eerie silence, punctuated only by
their heavy breathing. Plumes of breath hung in the frozen air between them. Two
bodies, tense and alert.
“Occupational hazard,” Jasmine whispered, glancing down at
John’s waist where the holster was still visible. “What’s your excuse?”
“Protection.” John shifted his thick flannel to conceal the
belt.
“From what? What scares you, John?”
A hard breath, again, fogged the space between them.
“Fuck, Jasmine. I can’t have this. You know that?” He
gestured toward his waist. “I’m a felon. Felons can’t have weapons. This is
another felony,” His voice tightened. “This isn’t funny. You can’t joke about
it. You can’t tell anyone….I was just protecting you.”
“Okay. Okay.” She patted his shoulder condescendingly.
“Pinkie swear.”
She held out a pinkie.
He wrapped his around it.
“Ah, ah!” she chided. “You have to bite the thumb.”
She bit the thumb of her hand linked with his. He did the same.
“God… that was scary, Jazz. You use that thing?” He nodded
toward the purse.
“Do you?” She nodded toward his belt.
One cop. One security guard in that parking lot, and he could have been arrested tonight. And she—she wasn’t the sweet, innocent girl he thought. She was packing. That stance was of a woman ready to kill a man.
“You should go home, Jasmine. Be safe. He might come back.”
“What if he follows my car?” she whispered.
“Look… if you want, I’ll follow you. Make sure you get to
the door safe. But that’s it. I need to go home myself. This is over.”
“It’s not far. I promise.”
She slipped into the car, and John climbed into his truck.
Wrong road, John. Turn around, man.
He had passed this complex thousands of times. The kind of
place filled with single moms and college kids. Three levels of balconies
stacked against the brick walls. A winding cement staircase leading to floors
of tightly packed apartments.
An endless series of identical doors, distinguished only by
a small square plaque.
Jasmine’s read 3H, on the top floor.
She paused as she slid the key into the doorknob.
“Do you want to come in?”
Maybe it was because he had always envisioned her in a
glitzy, sleek, modern high-rise. Not this.
Or maybe it was because, just as his mother had always said,
he was always going to choose the wrong option.
Or maybe, deep down inside, he was still just a criminal who
hadn’t been caught in a while.
For some reason, he said yes and crossed the threshold into
a decision he knew he could never return from.
This is the furniture of a woman who convinced you to buy twenty-five thousand dollars of furniture. What are you doing, man?
The woman in question slung her coat over a chair and slid
her black pumps off her feet. She unbuttoned the single button on her blazer
and smoothed the black skirt beneath it.
And the most noticeable—and bitter—absence: no marble.
No nude marble woman, tweaking a nipple between forefinger
and thumb, the other three fingers splayed. No white roses blooming at her
chiseled feet. No Aphrodite statue.
“I need to go,” John croaked in a sudden panic. “This… this
is wrong. I’m sorry. This isn’t even real.”
Jasmine seemed cold and distant, turning an orange slowly in
her hand.
“It’s as real as you want to make it, John. You’re the only
person limiting it.”
“Look, I made sure you got home safe. I should go.”
“You think I’m safe because of you?”
She dropped the orange. In one swift motion she crowded him
against the wall, a sharp red nail pressing into his chest.
“No. I’m a pissed off woman. I had my own gun—and a legal
one, unlike you.”
Then she smacked his nose lightly, like he was a wayward
puppy.
“For weeks, John, I’ve been contemplating what to do with
you. Don’t you want to hear my plan?”
“I don’t know what this is, but, uh, I can’t do this. This
is wrong. It isn’t right.” He pleaded while edging closer to the door.
“Do you want to have sex with me?”
He swallowed the tight lump in his throat.
“I don’t think I can. I can’t. No… I can’t.”
“I didn’t ask if you could. I asked if you wanted to.” She
pressed wet lips to his ear. “Do you want to?”
“I think want and should are two different things.” John
pushed her away.
“Damnit, John. I’m sick of your thinking. Your brain
constantly wondering what’s right and wrong. You aren’t qualified to ponder.
Your brain is too dumb.” She released him from the wall and opened the door. “Just
do as I say. And if you want me to stop… just say stop. Then you’re free to
go.”
Move, man. Feet, move. Why can’t I move? I need to leave. This is different. Wrong.
“Is this some sort of… session?” he asked. “I’m not paying
you. Not for sex.”
“No. I’m done with hourly rates. But this is a sample.” She
stepped closer. “Of what could be. This is what you get when I’ve had four
weeks with no other clients. Four weeks thinking about only you.”
She tilted her head slightly, “Do you want to see what
that’s like, John?”
Betraying every shred of conscience, every Boy Scout oath he
had ever taken, he nodded.
“So that’s a yes?”
“Yes.”
With a fistful of his shirt, she grabbed him and pushed him
toward her bedroom, forcing him down into a chair.
He could see nothing but her as she moved to the bed in
front of him and lay down. Her slender pale hands slid up her skirt hem. John
gasped.
She wasn’t wearing panties.
“John, for too long I’ve tried to figure out what turns you
on. Lying in bed chaste like virgins with you. Wondering. What turns you on…”
She began to touch herself.
“Do you like to watch? Is that it?”
John’s body lead-heavy, glued to the chair. He tried to
swallow for a small amount of relief but found none.
“No, John, I think it’s that you know you’re bad. You were
bad today. A felon with a gun? Like you want to go back to prison and be
punished again.”
She studied his face and continued, “I bet you jerked off
every day in prison.”
Desperate to move—just to shift a little, to know his body
could move—he failed. He could only watch. Fearfully aware of how aroused he
was from what she was saying.
“You try so hard to be good. And most of the time you
succeed. A little fucking Boy Scout. But there’s this little devil inside you
aching to be punished, so you do bad things just to get caught.”
She paused, leaning her head back against the pillow. A free
hand began unbuttoning her blouse.
“Is that it? Why do you do bad things, John?”
“Right and wrong,” he said weakly. “I don’t know the
difference.”
“Tsk, tsk. Not true.”
She motioned toward a table to John’s right.
“Put the gun on the table.”
Unhooking the holster, he laid the weapon down at the white
feet of the ancient Greek goddess of love.
Not pawned. Not discarded.
Here. In her bedroom. In perfect view of her bed. Displayed
on the table next to him.
“John,” she asked, her eyes piercing, “did your mother ever
spank you?”
“No.”
As the word slipped out, John became painfully aware that
the internal voice—that doubtful, loyal friend—had been silent in the bedroom.
Mausoleum silence filled the room.
A silence he hadn’t felt in years.
In fact, he no longer felt inside his own body. Instead, he
seemed to watch as an impartial audience member while this young woman seduced
and manipulated an unsuspecting, weak, older man. Him.
It reminded him of the edge of a blackout—when he used to
lose control of his body and mind to alcoholic stupor.
“So she let the prison system handle you then?” Jasmine
asked.
She tilted her head.
“How many years in prison would you get for your stunt
tonight? “
John answered quickly and honestly, “At least ten years. In
Wisconsin.”
Tapping her chin in feigned thoughtfulness, Jasmine replied,
“That is where we are. So ten swats seems fair.”
“Excuse me?” The words fell clumsily from his open, shocked
mouth.
“I don’t have all night. Stand up. Pants down.”
She moved to sit on the edge of the bed, patting her exposed
knees.
Pulled by invisible strings—maneuvered by a puppet master
above—he watched himself make quick work of his buckle, button, and zipper.
Then he leaned over her lap. Vulnerable. Eyes squeezed shut,
muscles stiffening in anticipation.
Each strike reverberated through the small, dark room,
stinging sharper than the last. After each she rubbed the spot gently before
the next one landed.
After the last one, he finally released the breath he had
been holding.
The sounds suggested she spat into her hand and rubbed it
across his burning cheeks before telling him to lie beside her. And
suddenly—almost as if nothing had changed—it felt like those hundreds of nights
being held against her comforting chest. But everything had changed now.
His ass burned with embarrassed pain, and an undeniable
erection pressed against her bare leg.
No thoughts. No feelings. Just physical sensation.
He sought only friction—movement, pressure, rhythm—humping
her leg the way he had once humped pillows as a boy while she continued to
talk.
“I’ve known you for over two years. I’ve heard you talk
about your mom, your work, AA. I know you, John. You’re a man who needs to be
needed. Your mom, your coworkers, your sponsees.”
She ran her hands soothingly through his hair.
“Yes… Maybe you need direction. Someone to tell you what to
do next.”
Her voice softened.
“But you aren’t a fuck-up. You built that playground down
the street when you were a teenager.” She motioned toward the window. “You
don’t need to wonder what’s right and wrong. Let me tell you.”
With a sigh, she touched his face.
“Free up that brain to be useful. To be of service. To
someone. To me. I can’t waste time on other clients,” She tilted his chin
slightly, “Do you want that too?”
He felt the climax and the wet warmth on his thigh.
Perhaps only thirty minutes had passed. Perhaps an hour.
Time stretched and contracted as he contemplated what she
had suggested.
Body and mind drunker and higher than he had ever felt.
Like that first sip of alcohol—one that only made him want
the second sip, then the second drink, then more. Endless until blackout. He
needed more.
“Are you serious about no other clients?” he finally asked.
“I am, John. I only want to see you.”
“But how will you survive?”
She smiled.
“I believe we’ll be able to work it out.”
Then she glanced toward the door.
“But my roommate will be home soon. We have all the time in
the world to figure it out.”
John dressed and reached for the weapon lying like an
offering at Aphrodite’s feet.
“John…”
Jasmine’s voice stopped him.
“You know that will stay right here with me.” She whispered
softly. “You’ve been bad enough today.”
He nodded.
“I’ll be good until next time I see you, Jasmine.”
He left and sat in the solemn silence of his truck.
The quietest his mind had felt in years.
Something had been set into motion.
The future felt foggier than ever. He wasn’t returning to
the life he had yesterday.
But maybe he could get through Sunday.
Go to work Monday.
Find some way to answer the inevitable “Do anything fun
this weekend?” from Darlene.
That was a problem for a future John.
Maybe a happy, joyous, free future John.
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