Addicted for Now (39 page)

{ 42 }

LOREN HALE

A lot can happen in one month.

Lily miraculously passed her finals and all her classes,
which means she’ll attend Princeton next year as a senior. Only one semester
behind. Connor’s emergency tutoring probably had a hand in her success.

The summer has turned fiercer and now at the end of June,
we’re all silently praying for rain.

The weather is the only thing I can predict anymore. I
thought four weeks would have been enough to dissuade the media and return us
to our semi-normal lives. The press may be slightly less ravenous, but cars
still sit outside the gates of the house, snapping pictures whenever we leave.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are the worst.

We sit in a corner office of a New York City high-rise, and
Dr. Oliver Evans gives me one of his patented you’re-not-really-supposed-to-be-here
scowls. I didn’t trust Lily to see a new
male
therapist for her sex addiction, so naturally I tagged along for her first
meeting.

Oliver’s theories about sex addiction are a one-eighty from
Allison’s, and our initial encounter didn’t go so well. I almost hit the guy
and walked right on out. But Lily’s adamant on appeasing her parents and making
things right with her family. She wanted to return to these weekly
appointments, and the only way I’ll sleep at night is if I accompany her.

So Oliver stares at me like I’m getting on his last
psychiatric nerve. He’s forty-something with dark brown hair and rectangular
spectacles that make him look more mousy than smart.

“It’s been four weeks,” I remind him. “I thought we’d be
friends by now, Oliver.”

He senses my sarcasm and scribbles something in his
notebook. This isn’t couples therapy. It’s just supposed to be for Lily, but he
often starts writing whenever I start speaking. He thinks it pisses me off, but
I just hope he gets a hand cramp.

“Lily, how are you doing abstaining from sex? A month is a
milestone for a sex addict. You should be proud.”

She folds her hands in her lap. “It’s been good.”

It
was
good. For
the first couple of weeks, I actually believed we could make a no-sex rule
work. But by the third week, she was skittish as hell. She wouldn’t let me
sleep beside her, and she flinched whenever someone touched her—not just me.
What was once abstaining from sex turned into abstaining from touch. I sensed
her withdrawing from me and everyone around her. She wouldn’t leave the house,
wouldn’t do normal things. So I cut the cord on that experiment, and it wasn’t
because I was horny too.

I knew I was losing my best friend.

I voiced my concerns to Oliver when she first withdrew from
my hand. I was just trying to lace her fingers with mine, and she shrunk into
herself like I was a monster under her bed. He told me it was natural. That she
was returning to the norm. I don’t know what kind of
norm
this guy lives in, but regular people don’t flinch when they
hold hands. It’s not like I was asking her to rub one out for me.

So I made a deal with Lily. She wants to appease her
parents, fine. But we’re not listening to this asshole’s advice.

“It’s normal for a deviant like yourself to miss sex.”

He calls her a deviant a lot. It aggravates me, and I’ll
spend the next twenty minutes after this meeting telling her all the reasons
why she’s not one.

“I do miss it,” Lily lies. “I miss the way it makes me
feel.” She felt it pretty damn well last night. She came so hard that she ended
up in a fit of laughter afterwards. We tried the abstinence bit. It didn’t
work, and we have no more
what ifs
.
We’re finally finding our groove in intimacy, and the only thing standing in
our way is this guy.

“We can’t have you missing it, Lily,” he tells her. “The
more you dwell on your deviant fantasies, the more you revert back to your
deviant ways. You’re just a whore now, but if you let this cycle continue you
could become something worse. A pedophile. A sex offender.”

Lily’s head whips in my direction, and she clutches my hand,
silently begging me not to lash out. This isn’t the first time he’s basically
called her a future pedophile.

“Give me a minute while I gather the tools.” He stands and
rummages around his office closet.

Shit.

This is why I don’t want her to stay here. I must wear a
pleading look because she says, “I’m fine. We can’t leave.”

“We can actually,” I refute. “There’s the door. Fuck the
trust fund.”

“It’s not about the trust fund.”
I know.

She trying to fix all the damage she created. She’s even
rebuilding a relationship with her father. We still don’t attend those Sunday
luncheons, but he calls her after they end to catch up.

Her mother is a different story.

Lily squeezes my hand, and I stare at the way her fingers
intertwine with mine. Last week, we wouldn’t have been able to do this. Last
week, she would have burst into tears before I touched her.

“Just trust me. It’s like a game,” she says.

I narrow my eyes. “A game in which you get shocked for fun?”
I mock gasp. “Are you into the S&M part of BDSM and didn’t tell me?”

She punches my arm, and I grab onto her wrist, pulling her
in for a kiss. She’s going to need it.

{ 43 }

LILY CALLOWAY

“What did I say about kissing and touching during
our sessions?” Dr. Evans says angrily.

I try to subdue my smile as I break away from Lo. “Sorry.” I
don’t feel that apologetic. I’m only here for my parents. I don’t believe in
Dr. Evan’s methods anymore, and I try my best not to take his words to heart.

But the armor that I’m building still has a few chinks.

Like right now. Dr. Evans holds a small electrical box, and
I have the sudden urge to vomit all over his ugly carpet. He sticks two
electrodes to the inside of my wrist and then passes me the box. I set it on my
lap and rotate the knob to the lowest shock level.

“I think you can go higher than that today.”

“She doesn’t want to,” Lo interjects.

“Make no mistake, Loren, this is my office. I can have you
escorted out if I feel like you’re hindering my patient’s treatment.”

“It’s fine,” I say quickly and turn the dial a couple
notches. Too bad I don’t have the remote. That device rests in Dr. Evans sweaty
palm, the commander of this torture.

“I’ll let you choose what you want to try today. Fantasies
or porn.”

“Porn.” Having to relay my fantasies out loud is incredibly
embarrassing, and he shocks me more when I start describing positions and body
parts.
 

“Actually, how about we do both.” He reaches into his desk,
pulls out a magazine and slides it to me. I set the mag on the armrest between
Lo and me, and then I flip it open, already knowing the drill. Nude women don’t
make me aroused, but the photographs with the couples do. As soon as I glance
at a picture—
Buzzzzz!—
the shock
ripples through my wrist and up my arm.

I let out a short breath and clench my hand. Lo rubs my
back, and another shock jostles my wrist. My hand twitches.

“What the hell?!” Lo shouts.

Dr. Evans ignores Lo for the moment. “Look at the pictures,
Lily, and describe a fantasy you might have if you were staring at these on
your own.”

I instinctively glance at Lo, considering he would be in my
fantasy, which is the wrong reaction. The shock pulses through my hand again,
and I try to keep my arm still so Lo can’t tell. But he’s breathing heavily
beside me, forcing himself in the seat and not at Dr. Evans’ throat.

“Loren, can you please move to the other chair.” Dr. Evans
points to a cushiony one in the
corner
,
as far away from me as possible.
 

Lo opens his mouth, and I have to cut him off. Last time he
told Dr. Evans to suck his cock, and I’m not sure that’s going to blow over
well a second time. “He’s fine. I don’t even see him,” I say quickly, returning
my focus to the pictures.

Buzzzz!
 
I flinch. What did I do?
 

I’m starting to think Dr. Evans just likes to press that
little button.

“Find a picture that’s particularly arousing for you.”

I flip through the magazine, bypassing all the large jugs
and vaginas but having no luck. They really don’t make these for women.
“Anything?”

“The internet just has a better selection,” I admit, still
flipping aimlessly.

“Use this then.” He holds out an electronic tablet. I
haven’t been on the internet since Lo banned surfing the web, and the lack of
temptation has been nice. My days are easier without it.
 

I swap the magazine for the tablet and log onto Tumblr. This
feels different than browsing through the magazine. Maybe because this has been
a staple in my routine. I haven’t looked at mags since high school.

Having Dr. Evans watch me do this is a little personal.

“Find a photograph and describe your fantasy.”

I don’t want to, but I remind myself that my parents have
been dealing with more difficult stuff than this.
Suck it up, Lily
.

I easily land on one that causes me to shift in my chair. A
sting pinches my wrist.
Fuck.
I
cringe, and Lo cranes his neck to look at the tablet.

“Talk,” Dr. Evans urges.

It’s a gif of a girl without any pants (or underwear) and a
fully clothed guy. We can only see the lower half of the couple, but the guy
runs his hand back and forth between her legs. “My fantasy?” I ask, wanting to
avoid this portion.

“Yes, what do you visualize when you look at the photo.”

“Lo,” I say, “doing this to me, and then maybe he’d actually
put his fingers…in…”
Buzz! Buzzz! Buzzzz!
“Motherfucker,” I curse under my breath and close my eyes tight.

“Take it easy, Oliver,” Lo sneers.

“Find another, Lily.”

I scroll through the tablet and land on a photograph of a
girl’s oiled ass, but large male hands massage her butt and even edge closer
and closer to her clit. Holy shit.
Buzz!

The shock doesn’t dissuade me from picturing Lo massaging me
this way. Maybe he’ll get some ideas from this session. Maybe it’s worth the
pain.

But as Dr. Evans shocks me again, all my thoughts morph into
shame. I guess, I shouldn’t want to like this. Dr. Evans boosts my fears when
he says, “You’re trying not to be deviant anymore. This is bad.” He shocks me
one more time and I wince. “Understand that we’re trying to relate these images
to a negative stimuli. You should reach the point where these images don’t
arouse you anymore. We’re going to shock the whore out of you, one way or the
other.”

I give Lo another look but his lip has curled into disgust
and he grips the armrest with white knuckles.

The clock ticks languidly.

We have one more hour.

***

My favorite part of therapy is the ride home. Even
though I feel like I’m a million leagues below the sea, Lo never stops talking.
He brings me back to the surface.

I press my forehead to the fogged window, rain pelting the
glass. After four weeks in a drought, the downpour almost feels like a dream.
He flicks on the windshield wipers and navigates the road. “Next session I’m
going to call him a whore,” Lo tells me. “Give him a taste of his own fucked up
medicine.” His eyes keep flitting to me in concern.

“You’re going to flip us off the road,” I say.

“You’re being quiet.” He merges onto the highway.
 

“I’m just thinking.”

“About Dr. Oliver Evans’ lack of pornographic magazines for
females? What the fuck was he doing giving you a guy mag?”

Though, this was furthest from my mind, I will gladly take
the distraction bait. I smile and rotate fully in my seat to face Lo. “You
remember in eighth grade when you used to buy me magazines and rip out all the
pages with only girl parts?”

He laughs. “It wasn’t all selfless. I thought the more you
masturbated the less you’d have sex with actual guys.”

“Huh…” I suppose that makes sense. “Did you know that I used
to dump out your bottles of Everclear?” I admit with a grin. The liquor was so
strong that he scared me whenever he plucked a bottle from the cabinet. I guess
I was too afraid to dissolve our system to actually tell him this, so I did the
next best thing.

“I always thought I just didn’t remember drinking them.”

It feels nice to know that we had each other’s backs, even
if it seemed like we could care less. “I never told you,” I say softly, “but I
was always worried about your health. Your liver…” We don’t usually talk about
the risks, at least we never have before. But somehow, banding together to take
on evil Dr. Shock Therapy has made us closer in a different way.
 

He lets out a long breath. “I know you were, Lil. And it’s
one of the reasons I can’t drink again.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“We have to take all these kinds of medical tests in rehab,
and the doctors basically told me that if I continued down the path I was on,
I’d do serious, irreparable damage to my liver.”

My eyes suddenly start to burn, silent tears building. “Why
didn’t you tell me before?”

“Because I knew you’d be upset and probably blame yourself,”
he says, “and it’s not your fault.” He glances at me and then back at the road.
“Lil, please don’t cry. It’s really not your fault, and I’m fine. Nothing’s
wrong with me.”

“But it could be.” I wipe my eyes and shake my head. “And
how can this not be my fault, Lo? I enabled you all our lives. I should have—”

“What?” he says roughly. “What could you have done? Tell me
to stop? I wouldn’t have. Physically taken the bottles away? I would have hated
you. Tattled to my father? He wouldn’t give a shit. The only person who could
have stopped me was me.”

“I could have done
something
.”
I can’t sit here and act like I’m not to blame at all. I supplied him with
booze sometimes. I facilitated his addiction.

“You did do something. You were there for me when no one
else was.” He drives down another street and turns on the lights as the sun
descends. “And Lil…” His eyes meet mine for a brief moment. “If you’re going to
blame yourself for enabling me then I have to take fault for enabling you.”

“It’s not the same. Your addiction can kill you.”

“And those men you slept with couldn’t have beat the shit
out of you? You couldn’t have contracted an STD or HIV? I let you take those
risks and you let me take mine.” He turns a sharp left and I brace myself against
the door. “How about we call it even? And then we make a pact to never do it
again.”

“Okay,” I say. “Can we shake on it?”

His lips rise mischievously. “We can do better than that.”

Is he thinking what I’m thinking? “Like…”

He laughs. “Well, I saw you staring rather hard at that
massage picture.”

Ohhhhh.
Yes.
No.
Wait. “We shouldn’t.”

His brows furrow into a hard line, but he keeps his gaze on
the road as the rain falls heavier. “Why not? And you may want to choose your
answer carefully. If it begins or ends with the name Oliver Evans, I’m going to
eject my seat.”

“It’s deviant.”

Lo lets out a long groan. “Please, for the love of fucking
God never say that word again.”

“Well it is.”

“The only thing deviant is what that psychiatrist is putting
you through. You shouldn’t be shocked for being aroused by those photographs.
I
get semi-hard looking at them.”

I frown. “You do?”

“Yes!” he says, half-laughing. “Any human would, Lil. Even
if I thought aversion therapy was ethical, which I don’t, I’d only recommend it
to people who stare at those photos with violent thoughts. Like rape or child
molestation. You’re not a pedophile. The fact that he treats you like one kills
me.”

I watch the rain scatter my window as I think this through.
It’s not weird to be aroused by them, but it’s wrong to
compulsively
abuse porn. That sounds right.

“Hey,” Lo says, wanting my attention again. I turn to him,
and he gives me a hard look, his eyes flickering between the road and me. “If
his therapy methods are fucking with your head, then you’re going to stop.”

“I’m fine, honest. Talking to you helps.”

He grabs my hand and kisses my palm.

“So we went to our respective press conferences, finished publicly
apologizing,” I list off. “I’m seeing my new psychiatrist. All we have left is
the wedding, and after that I’ll receive my trust fund. My parents should
forgive me fully, and everything will turn back to normal—or as normal as we
can be.” Once a week, my father actually calls me to catch up. He even told me
he was proud that I was seeing this psychiatrist. After everything that I did
to his company—the backlash that he’s been through—for him to tell me that he’s
proud was enough to cause happy tears. I can’t screw with that.

My mother will take more finesse to win over, and I know she
won’t be completely content until the marriage. I can’t afford to stumble
anymore.

“What if they don’t?” Lo says softly.

“What?”

“Have you ever thought that maybe, even after you do all of
this, that your mother may still not forgive you?”

I shake my head, not willing to believe she could be that
cruel. “She has to.”

But the way Lo stares at the road, like he sees a colder
future than the warmth I’ve planned, makes me worry.