The Thrill of It

No Regrets - 1

by

Lauren Blakely

This book is dedicated to Monica Murphy.

She is the bomb. I love her like a pimp.

Prologue

Six Months Ago

Harley

I’m a sex addict and a virgin.

I know everything about sex and I’ve never done it, though I came close last night.

I know nothing about love.

I know men.

I can size up a guy in seconds. If he wants my sweet and innocent side, or my sophisticated persona, or if he just wants me to shut up and nod while he talks about his day, because some just want to talk. I know how he’ll like it, how he’ll want it, and I know by the end of the hour or two if he’ll request me again.

But those days are behind me.

The past is the past.

This is now.

That’s what I have to believe as I walk into a church in Chelsea off Ninth Avenue to repent. It’s a fading white church, rather plain looking, unmarked by flying buttresses or soaring angels. The white brick is streaked with gray from soot and dirt and New York itself breezing by over the years. There’s a requisite steeple on top, unassuming, but still there pointing to the sky, and a small plaque outside the doors that declares its non-denominational-ness. Every flavor of fucked-up is welcome.

On Mondays, you can find the alcoholics. On Tuesdays the former drug abusers. On Wednesdays this place is home to those trying to kick the gambling habit. And tonight? I will spend the next hour with people like me, who are addicted to love and sex, sex and love.

Some to both. Some to only one.

I know both in ways I never wanted to. But in ways I still long for too.

That’s the problem.

I am nineteen years old and I have kissed twenty-four guys, which amounts to four guys per year since my first kiss at age thirteen. I kept a running list of their first names and how they rated. They were all ones or zeroes. Those names on the list are all the reasons why I’m pushing open these wooden doors, the brown paint cracked and peeling.

Fitting. I am cracked and brittle too, hardened by all the things I saw, and mostly all the things I heard over the years.

I spot the first sign and I stop in my tracks. The blocky letters wallop me with the reality that I now belong to a club I never wanted to be in.

On a sheet of white paper the words SLAA-College have been written in all caps with a big blue marker.

How embarrassing. As if anyone can’t figure out what the acronym means. But still, I follow the arrows on the sign pointing to the stairwell, then down the musty wooden steps that creak at every footfall as they announce my descent to the basement. More signs are plastered to the flimsy brown plywall, more arrows directing me through the dark hallway, around the corner, then past another bend, deep into the bowels of the church.

My insides are comprised of knots tightening in and wrenching around themselves, pinching all my internal organs.

I wish, I wish, I wish that I weren’t going here.

But yet, I have to.

I took the fall and that brought me here.

I run my fingers across the fabric of my red shirt that’s touching my shoulder, tender today after my new tattoo. My reminder of who I was. But even so, the reminder on my skin is not enough to quell the nerves. They snake through me, setting up camp in every cell of my body, as I enter a standard-issue Sunday School room with thinning brown industrial carpet. Earlier in the week this room was probably crammed with cutesy blue wooden chairs adorned with drawn angels, clouds and fluffy bunnies. Now it’s filled with cold, hard, folding metal chairs for addicts. The walls are bare, except for a few inspirational posters — “Hang in There” with the kitten dangling from a branch, “Perseverance” with a man climbing a snow-capped mountain, and “Patience” with a lone woman standing at the edge of a cold beach in the winter.

I’m five minutes early and there’s one other person in the room. A thin woman with pink hair cut in a stick-straight bob rises and greets me.

“Hi. I’m Joanne. Welcome to the SLAA meeting,” she says, pronouncing the name of the group like slaw.

“Layla,” I mumble, not sure how words are even coming out of my mouth as I give her a fake name. There is no way I’d use my real name here. Besides, Layla is the name that brought me here. Layla is my other name. Layla is the other me.

I shake Joanne’s hand. It feels smooth and she smells like lavender. Maybe she just put on lotion.

“Coffee?” She smiles brightly at me, as if coffee is the answer to every addict’s deepest desires. Because it’s the only acceptable drug.

I am a junkie. I take what I can get.

I nod, barely able to speak. I sit in one of the chairs as Joanne pours coffee from a pot into a chipped ceramic mug with the slogan When in Doubt, Don’t.

Great. If only I’d had a collection of mugs emblazoned with Keep it Simple and Just for Today, maybe I’d never have slid down that slippery slope into Layla.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Layla,” Joanne says, flashing me another happy grin. “Do you knit?”

Crap.

Do I have to make small talk with her?

She gestures to her canvas bag, spilling over with yarn, steely blue knitting needles and what looks to be the start of a maroon scarf.

“I’m not very crafty,” I say and leave it at that as she talks about the scarf she is working on, and how she’s going to pair it with a matching sweater, and I simply smile at her without showing any teeth.

There. I’m keeping it simple.

I’d rather go mute for this meeting because my mouth feels like cotton and my head is a pinball machine and the last thing I want to do right now is talk about how my life has spun out of control.

Except for last night. Because there is one guy who didn’t make it on my list. One guy who never felt like a list. The guy from last night who inked my shoulder, and kissed my body, and who gave me something I’ve never felt before – touch without agenda. A true and real want. He didn’t want anything more from me than me. It was such a foreign feeling, but such a wondrous one.

I’ll never see him again.

Soon the room starts to fill and I keep my head down, doing everything I can not to meet their eyes. I don’t want to know what other addicts look like. I don’t want to know if they look like me. I stare at my shoes, my Mary Janes, the black buckle shiny because it’s always shiny because that’s what made me top of the line. I was the whole package – the shoes, the plaid skirt, the white blouse, the beyond-innocent look on my face.

I hate that I miss that me.

I miss her terribly.

Even after last night, and all that it could have become, all the ways it was different from the past, I still miss me when I was Layla.

The circle of chairs has been filled in with guys and girls. I scan their faces and all I see are their secrets.

Then my blood goes both hot and cold when he walks in. The guy from last night with the scar across his right cheek.

Trey

This is the last place I want to be even though it’s the only place I should be.

Seeing as how I have a permanent reminder on my face of what happens when you go too far.

I’d be able to handle this better if I could extradite the memory of last night from my stupid head. But I can’t because she’s staked a home in my skull, and the images aren’t going away anytime soon. That girl who walked into No Regrets, the West Village tattoo shop where I work, was the hottest girl I’d ever seen, and so damn innocent looking – a combination that killed my self-resolve to start over. She had a sweet smile, a sexy t-shirt and a skirt that left just enough to the imagination at first. She wasn’t like the women I was used to. She was the total opposite. She wasn’t like my regular customers at the shop either. She’d never been inked and she didn’t look like the type who’d want to mark up her body. She was the kind of girl who’d wear pearl earrings, blow dry her hair, and apply pink lip gloss. She was all Manhattan preppy, gorgeous blond hair, and brown eyes, and so not the type for a tat.

“Can you do a red ribbon? The one I sent you when I made the appointment?”

“Yeah. I can do whatever you want. It’s all ready for you,” I said, then brought her back to my booth, and showed her the transfer paper based on the ribbon design she’d sent me online. I figured it was a cause tattoo, like for all those charities that use red ribbons. “Anything special about red ribbons?”

“They’re special to me.” That was all she said on the subject. But we talked about everything else – music and school and what we wanted out of life – as she sat in the chair and pushed up her sleeve to her shoulder. It was a damn good thing I knew how to concentrate because I could smell her. She had on some kind of wild cherry lotion, and the scent drove me wild, along with her hair, her eyes, her body.

Which made zero fucking sense since I’ve never been attracted to girls younger than me.

Never ever ever.

But maybe the scar I’d landed last month was all I needed to change my ways.

When I was done with her tat she said thanks, then turned on those hot little heels and started to walk out.

That’s all.

Nothing more.

But I wanted more. My shift was over, so I followed her to the door. “Don’t go,” I said.

I didn’t have time to craft a line, or feed her some bullshit, and trust me. I know how to feed lines. I know how to spin them on the spot.

But I didn’t want to lie anymore.

We went out for coffee, we wandered around Manhattan, and we rode a midnight train where I first kissed her. There was this strange vibe in the air, like we were in Europe and had met on a backpacking trip, and only had twenty-four hours to spend. So we spent them together.

There was a ticking clock all night long.

We went back to my apartment near school, and I hadn’t had a thing to drink, but I felt buzzed and tipsy just being near her.

We didn’t go all the way. But she let me touch her. She wanted me to touch her. She told me she’d never let anyone touch her the way I did. Hell, if that wasn’t a crazy turn-on I don’t know what is.

Nothing could even compare to it.

So when I walk into my first meeting of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, I grab the doorway and hold on tight. This whole room is rocking, like we’re on a ship and hit choppy waters. I must be seeing things. There’s no way she can be here.

My heart trips over on itself, then it sputters out of control and collapses.

Harley.

She’s the only girl I’ve ever been with who’s not older than me. She’s the only girl who didn’t feel like a fix.

And, evidently, she’s a lot like me.

No wonder the clock was ticking last night. We both took one final hit before going on the wagon.

I grab an empty chair and try not to think about her during the meeting. But it’s impossible. Because the night with her is the last I’ll have like that for a long time. Even this Joanne lady running the show issues the reminder – some sort of rule we should follow. A guideline so we can stop being fucked up from sex.

“And it’s recommended that you abstain from sexual, romantic or any type of love relationships in your first year of recovery,” Joanne says, while her knitting needles click faster and faster.

But I’ve never been one to heed warnings.

At the end of the meeting, I walk up to Harley, who calls herself Layla. “What were the chances?”

She seems nervous, worried. She looks down, away, then at me and whispers, “Everything I said last night was true.”

My heart thumps faster.

“Good,” I say, and wish her words didn’t turn me on so much. I know I need to stay away from her. But I don’t want to. I want something with her. “We could be friends maybe.”

She nods and smiles. “Yes. Let’s be friends.”

At least it’s something.

Chapter One

Six Months Later

Harley

I am more than halfway done.

I tell myself that as I walk purposefully to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, taking a deep, steadying breath. Trey is by my side. He holds my hand. He almost always holds my hand.

Correction: He almost always holds my hand when we’re far, far away from the rest of them. “It’s what friends do,” he says, and I hope he says it to remind himself of our rules – rules we have both followed to the painful, white-knuckle letter – no touching, no kissing, no nothing more whatsoever – but this – this we allow. Only we never talk about why. We never discuss what happened the night before we met again. There is some unwritten rule that we are on the other side.

But I won’t truly be on the other side until I can slice off this albatross.

This debt. I have been up late, up early, and up all around. I have been living and breathing and choking out the words this woman demands of me.

All the tawdry tales. All the names – anonymously – from my list.

She makes me dive into them. Makes me share the story behind the kiss, the man, the where, the when, and most of all – the why. Make them titillating but reviling too, she says. Make sure you come across as someone who desperately needs redemption, absolution.

Sometimes, I wish I could punch a hole in the story of my life that I am forced to write for her – Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict.

Trey grips my hand tighter, looping his fingers through mine and I shiver. I’m not cold. It’s May, and it’s warm, and any kind of contact from him sends me soaring. The more I know him, the more I want him, and the more I can’t have him. We are in recovery, and he’s told me many times he wants to make it through.

“I don’t need another one of these,” he’ll say, then run his index finger absently across the scar on his right cheek. But I love his scar. I want to trace it and kiss it and touch it. Scars are sexy – they say you’ve lived and that you’ve survived. That’s how I see him. But I don’t want to be the one who knocks him off the wagon. So this friendship, this hand holding is all we allow. No fooling around. That’s what we promise to do in SLAA. One year. Alone. Without anything. Without kissing. Without dating. Without relationships.

But abstinence, withdrawal, a break, whatever-you-call-it doesn’t stop my worn-down, wasted heart from wanting this boy by my side to be more than my friend.

I squeeze back, taking the slightest bit of contact with him. I’ve never held hands with anyone before. The men who ordered jailbait teenage call girls weren’t the type who liked to hold hands. Shocking, right?

Trey flashes me a grin.

“You can do this, Harley. It’ll be over soon.”

I scoff. “Not soon enough.”

When we’re one block away from the church, I say goodbye. “And this is where you must go, my sweet escort.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I should have been an escort.”

“You’d have been the best. Anyway, I don’t want her to see you. She’ll find some way to dig her claws into you.”

He looks over his shoulder as if he’s checking out claw marks on his back. “Damn. I still have some other ones there. Scars everywhere.”

I swat him. Fine, this is another allowed touch. “I like your scars. Besides, I’m sure you had many marks on your back.”

“Covered in ‘em. Everywhere.” His eyes light up. There’s a part of him too that misses his past. Longs for his drug.

“Get out of here, boy toy.”

This is how we operate. I know his past with women. He knows my past with men. And we can tease each other. No one else knows my past.

“Call me later though, okay? Let’s hang out after I’m done with work?”

“Of course,” I say because we are addicted in a new way now. To contact with each other. We talk every day, text every day, see each other most days.

He salutes me and walks off to catch a subway back to the West Village where he’ll spend the evening studying history for his final exams in between making permanent marks on the skin of customers.

I walk one more block, grit my teeth, narrow my eyes, and tell myself I am iron, I am steel, I am unflappable.

I enter another church.

I never thought I’d spend so much time in them for reasons other than worship. I grip my field hockey stick in one hand. I don’t even play anymore. I simply like weapons, and I like flexing my fingers around it as I pass through the musty vestibule, ignore the holy water and the candles, and take my customary spot in the fifth pew from the back, laying the stick across my bare legs.

I’ve been summoned by my Dark Overlord, and I can’t say no.

Such is the life of a former teenage call girl who’s being blackmailed.

It’s a Tuesday afternoon so there’s no service now. I glance around at the other churchgoers; a few scattered faithful are here. Or desperate, depending on how you slice it. As I scan their bent heads, I wonder if anyone hears their silent pleas. Maybe some are even asking for forgiveness for their sins, which is what I’d be doing if I were a religious girl.

But I’m not.

I hear the familiar sound of Miranda’s heels clicking across the stone floor.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…

When I reach one in my head, she’s sliding into the pew, maintaining a two-foot distance between us as if getting closer to me would infect her. I kind of wish I had pink-eye, could touch my eye, then zoom in on her with the pad of my index finger just to watch her pull away and freak out.

But then, she’d find some way for me to pay for that too.

She says nothing as she stares at the sweeping altar ahead of us. Her golden blonde hair is piled high on her head with a clip, her medium length bangs swept over her ear. She looks amazing, especially in her sharp grey skirt that fits well and the pretty indigo blouse she wears. She’s lost about twenty pounds in the last six months.

I want to tell her it wasn’t the twenty pounds that did it. But she’d never believe me. I’m dog poop on her shoe, a gnat buzzing by her ear, the smoke alarm that won’t stop bleeping.

I am nuisance made human with killer legs and face to boot.

I am her worst nightmare.

Or I was until she realized she could turn the tables on me.

She bows her head, clasps her hands together and steeples her long fingers, pale pink polished nails meeting at the points. I imagine what one would look like chipped.

She’d shriek in displeasure, like a kettle on permanent boil. I stifle a smile.

“You should pray, Harley Coleman,” she says crisply.

“It’s not my thing.”

“It should be.”

“Thanks,” I say, but don’t give in to this request. To others yes, but not this one.

Rule Number One when being blackmailed: maintain some lines.

The more you bend, the more your extortionist tries to break you.

She begins a low prayer, inaudible to anyone else, but crystal clear to me.

It’s the Catholic prayer of purity. “Jesus, lover of chastity. Mary Mother, most pure, and Joseph, chaste guardian of the Virgin,” she says, the icicles in her voice stabbing at the last word.

I roll my eyes and bob my head as she continues on, substituting “begging you to plead with God for me” to “begging you to plead with God for Harley.” She finishes with “Have mercy on her,” though she doesn’t mean a word of what she’s saying. There is no mercy for me from her. Well, unless I told my mom everything. And telling her anything or everything is the one thing I will never do. Never as in never-ever-ever.

Rule Number Two: Know your own lines.

I’m stuck here. Protecting my mother. I have to protect her.

“Ah,” she says with a hearty sigh and a hugely false smile. “I feel so much better, don’t you? Cleaner, right?”

“Like I just took a bath in holy water.”

She glares at me. “You jest in God’s house?”

I nod. “I do. I do jest in God’s house. Frequently, in fact.”

“I’ll take the pages now.” She holds out her long-fingered hand to me, her wedding band with its sapphire and diamonds reflecting across the stained glass windows.

I dig into a side pocket in my purse and hand her a thumb drive.

She takes it, looking at it with disdain. It’s part of the routine: I give her a thumb drive every time and every time she regards it like a diseased object. “Hmm. You couldn’t bother to print it out?”

“I don’t have a printer.”

She snorts, then slips it into her vast purple purse. “I want this book done soon. One more month at the most. You need to work on the next chapters. And make them tawdry. Make them sordid. Make them as lurid as they can be.” I inhale sharply. This woman is sick. “Then, give her the redemption she doesn’t deserve,” Miranda adds in her cool, calculating voice.

I stand up, eager to play even a lowly two of clubs in the form of leaving first. “I’m late for my British lit class.”

“You can expect a followup from me sometime this week.”

“Sometime, like anytime?”

She shrugs smugly. “Perhaps any day of the week.”

Rule Number Three: Know when to bluff.

“If you don’t tell me the day, I’ll tell my mom everything.” She may hold most of the cards, but the thing about blackmail is everyone has something to lose. Including Miranda. I don’t want my mom to know about the book she’s forcing me to write anonymously, but she doesn’t want my mom to know she’s making me write it either.

She purses her lips. “I’ll email you.”

“I can’t wait.”

As I scoot out of the pew, she grabs my wrist and her pink nails dig into my skin. I fantasize about brandishing my field hockey stick and whacking her upside the head. There’d be a brilliant gash across her forehead. Blood would ooze into her blue eyes and leave a sticky trail in her blond hair.

“Don’t. Sass. Me,” she says in a low hiss, determined to have the last word.

I yank my wrist from her, clamp my lips together and let her have what she wants. My silence.

I leave, but I don’t go to British lit, because I don’t have classes today. I have a dinner at my mom’s house. It is date night with a new man, and so she needs me there. She always needs me. And I need her.

Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict…

Page 3…

It’s been my mom and me as long as I can remember. I don’t remember much about my dad, so this story won’t be about him. All my memories are of my mom, starting with how unhappy she was after my dad walked out when I was six.

My mom was miserable for more than a year. She cried late at night, deep tears that could fill rivers and overrun their banks. She thought I was asleep, blissfully in dream land and unaware of her pain. But I heard her phone calls with friends, her “what did I do wrong” pleas, and her desperate, endless self-doubt. She missed the bastard, against her better judgement.

She tried to hold it together during the days, but I’d still find her crying in her cereal, or wandering aimlessly around the apartment, sniffling, and missing, and hurting.

“Don’t cry, mom,” I’d tell her, and she’d wrap me in a tight embrace.

“I won’t, darling. I have you to make me happy.”

After endless days and nights like that, she started to heal, to let go, and eventually the sobfests died down.

Then she was ready to start over. To carve out her new happy.

Dave was the first after my dad. I was in third grade, and Dave spent many nights at our house. He had a son one year older than me. Sometimes, when Dave visited in the evenings, my mom told us to play together. She and Dave wanted to chat and have some time alone.

“I’m happy again,” she’d whisper to me before she closed the door to her room. “Isn’t it great to see me happy?”

“Yes, mom.”

“You’ll play with Dave’s son. That would make me so happy right now.”

His son was nine, I was eight. We played Monopoly.

Technically, I count Dave’s son as the first time my mom set me up with someone. Not that anything happened with him. But that’s how it all started, and this is the story of how I became a high-priced virgin call girl by the time I was a senior in high school. Kick back, grab a glass of wine, and prepare for the sordid, salacious tale of how I became Layla.

(Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Innocent? Ha. As if anyone is.)

Chapter Two

Trey

Elevators were my downfall.

But I can handle them better now.

The doors open with a soft metallic moan and I step inside the mirrored elevator in the Lexington Avenue office building. The lift shoots me up six floors to my shrink’s office.

Dr. Michele Milo.

I head into the lobby. It’s empty and that’s good because I’d rather not see who else is fucked in the head or the heart. I walk to her office and tap on the door.

“Good afternoon, Trey,” she says in the calm voice I’m used to. I’m pretty sure shrinks don’t have any other voices. It must be part of shrink training – how to speak in a serenely modulated tone all the time. Never waver. Never vary. I wonder if shrinks are all peaceful and even on the inside too. Unflappable, never bothered by the shit life serves up.

I can’t even imagine what that would be like.

Like living inside a Valium, maybe.

“Hey.”

I flop down on her couch. She’s been my shrink for six months, and granted, she’s totally my type – maybe a little young since I think she’s in her late twenties – but I’ve never had a single dirty thought about her. Not one. Maybe that means I’m getting better. Maybe I’m not so hooked on older women. Maybe I’m breaking my addiction.

“So,” she begins, clasping her hands together. “How is everything going for you this week?”

I shrug. “It’s fine. The school year is almost over.”

“And your plans for the summer? No Regrets full time?”

I nod.

“How are your parents about that?”

I roll my eyes. My parents. My perfectly plastic, perfectly put together, perfectly empty parents. They wish I were going to school to be a doctor. Yeah, like that’ll ever happen. “Guess how they are with that,” I say sarcastically. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Whatever you want to talk about, Trey. This is your time.”

I look away, at the plants on her windowsill, at the books on her shelves. Books with names like Real Choices, It’s Not Love–It’s Addiction, Healthier Lives. All the shit I need to be. I stare at her walls and the framed abstract art. Red squares, yellow brushstrokes, blue lines all mixed together. I’m glad she doesn’t have those stupid inspirational pictures I’m tired of seeing at SLAA.

She waits for me to speak.

“Harley,” I say in a low voice. I always want to talk about her.

“You want to talk about Harley.” It’s not a question; it’s a statement.

“Sure,” I offer in the most casual, offhand way I can muster.

“Harley, the girl you spent one night with and have now become best friends through a love and sex addicts support group,” she states, but there’s no judgement in her voice.

I cross my arms. “You think it’s dangerous that I’m friends with her.”

Michele shakes her head. “No. I think it’s worth exploring how and why you’re actively focused on recovering from your addictive behavior and you spend most of your time with someone who also has that goal in mind. And yet she also happens to be a young woman with whom you’ve been intimate.”

“You think we can’t be friends because we almost slept together?”

She shakes her head. “No. I think you can be friends. I also think the situation is complicated and unusual, Trey. Because you’ve gone from feeling as if your life was spiraling out of control and deciding to go to SLAA, to meeting Harley, to becoming close friends and sharing both the details of your past and your recovery with her. Is that a correct assessment of the last six months?”

“Yeah,” I say tentatively, and I have the feeling of being subtly cross-examined even though I know that’s not Michele’s style.

“And yet, you and your parents don’t talk about what brought you to SLAA. You don’t share it with friends. You don’t share it anywhere but here and with Harley.”

My jaw tightens and my shoulders tense. “I feel like you’re calling me out on something.”

“I’m not. But I want you to think about why you’re able to be this way with her. Why you go all over the city with her, and she meets you after work, and you hang out in between classes, and you know all about these memoirs she’s being forced to write, and you, by your own admission, are not a terribly open person. So why her?”

I picture Harley. Her blond hair. Her brown eyes. Her banging body. But then I shift away from the physical, and I flash onto all the other parts and honestly it comes down to pretty much one thing.

“I can talk to her about just about anything,” I say.

“You can,” Michele nods. “Except one thing. The why behind all of this.”

I run my palm over the tattoo on my shoulder, underneath my shirt. The why of all of this.

Harley

As soon as I open the door, the familiar greeting pours forth.

“You look so pretty,” my mom says in this incredibly reflective air. As if this is the first time ever, in my whole life, I’ve looked so pretty. I’m wearing a short skirt, a t-shirt, and my Mary Janes. I look like I do every day. Still, no matter what, without fail, you can set your ever-loving clock to it, You look so pretty is always the first thing my mom says to me.

I wish I hated it.

I wish I didn’t need to hear it.

But I ache without it. It’s become as necessary as air and sun.

It’s my confirmation that all is right in the world. She raised me to be pretty. She trained me to be pretty. She is pretty too.

The difference is she never used her pretty to win things in life. She earned all her accolades, all her praise, all her awards. She doesn’t even hang them on the walls or frame them. She’s so humble, brushing them off as if they’re nothing when people praise her. But they’re not nothing. She’s won national awards from every journalistic association in the world, it seems. She’s earned the most prestigious prizes in her field since she’s a top-notch investigative reporter on “Here and Now,” the venerated show that has exposed government secrets about the wars, not to mention high-profile politician shenanigans. My mom uncovered the Sexting Senator, the congressman who hired young male escorts to give him blow jobs on Uncle Sam’s dollar, and a child prostitution ring run by an ex New York City Mayor.

Barbara Coleman.

Her name even sounds like a kickass reporter who takes no prisoners.

She is the most feared whistleblower in America, and her two non-fiction books have topped the bestseller lists. She’s been called The Cleaner and I’m told that politicians shudder and quake in their boots when she starts investigating them. She’s been relentless in her pursuit ever since my father took off when I was in first grade. She kicked him out after several affairs. Then, with the help of her editor, who plucked her from the assignment desk, mentored her, and fed her reporting opportunities, she refashioned herself into some sort of avenging angel, a righteous doer of good, exposing all the evils behind closed doors.

She is one of the most admired women in America.

And she has a slut for a daughter.

She stands tall and regal at the stove, stirring a pot with a long wooden spoon. She wears a flowy magenta blouse, the color so blazingly rich she looks like royalty. She’s paired her top with trim black slacks and suede pumps, and her raven-colored hair is pulled back in a comb. She’s beautiful and she is ready for a new man.

“Hi Barb.” I leave my purse by the door as I head into the kitchen.

“I’m making Moroccan stew tonight in honor of you being nearly done with your second year of college,” she says coyly. I’m not sure why she says it coyly, but perhaps she’s flirting with the stew.

“But of course. British lit originated in Morocco,” I say, since English is my major. I love to write, but not the kind of writing she does. And not the kind of writing Miranda makes me do. I like to make up fantastical tales of talking animals, magical doorways, portals to other worlds. Only I don’t really have the time to do that kind of writing anymore. I used to have notebooks and journals full of tales, until Miranda subverted my love of words with her twisted debt.

But I don’t like thinking about Miranda when I’m here.

My mom winks at me, loving our sisterly banter and jokes. That’s what we are. Sisters.

“Who’s coming over tonight?”

She screws up her forehead. Maybe she can’t remember. Or maybe…no…not this…not now. Her eyes go glassy, and her lower lip quivers. “Not Phil,” she chokes out, dropping the spoon and covering her eyes.

I pull her to me, wrap an arm around her. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” I reassure, even though I wish she’d never met Phil, her last boyfriend. Tears leak onto my shirt as she heaves out several thick sobs.

“I miss him,” she moans. “I don’t know why he left.”

I do. I know why he left. I won’t tell her though. “Because he’s a jerk and you deserve better, Barb,” I say, because she doesn’t like me to call her mom.

She nods against my chest and sucks in her breath. There. She’s pulling herself together. One hug from me, one firm but loving reminder, and that’s the magic formula to make Barb Coleman happy again. “Forget about Phil, okay? Get that dick out of your head and your heart for once and for all. Now tell me about this new guy.”

She pulls back, exhales, brushes a hand across her cheek to wipe away the streaks of her sadness.

“His name is Neil. And he has a son who’s just as good-looking,” she says, and winks at me knowingly.

She picks up her dropped spoon and resumes stirring. “I want you to meet him. I think he might be perfect for you.”

I cringe inside and a new knot of nerves takes hold. I hate being set up. But I don’t know how to tell her this. Not when she’s given me everything. Not when she’s the only one who’s been here for me since my dad is quite simply gone. Off in Europe with his new bride, or so I hear. I don’t talk to him and he doesn’t talk to me. I haven’t seen his parents either – my grandparents – since they split, and we used to visit them often. Some days, when I am feeling hollow and empty, I miss those visits even more. They don’t even write or call, not even on my birthday, and they promised they would. They promised they’d tell me stories of the times I spent with them. But when my parent split, I was excised from everyone. All I have is Barb.

“It would make me happy. You know I love playing matchmaker,” she adds.

That’s what I want. The desire to take away her sadness fuels me every day.“What’s his son’s name?”

“Connor. Lovely name, don’t you think?”

No. It’s just a name. It’s neither here nor there. It tells me nothing about him.

“Yes. Great name.” I press my fingernails into my palm so I can feel the flesh starting to pierce. The prospect of one of her set-ups makes me desperately want to return to Cam, the man who made me Layla, the man I miss. I dig harder. I need the visceral reminder to stay strong, to keep on course. I will not bend. I will not break. I will not go back to the way I was. Layla is gone. Layla has been put out to pasture, and I am my mother’s daughter – good, honest, righteous.

I picture my red ribbon tattoo. My reminder of how much I love my mom. Of all the good times we had. Our mother-daughter bonds. All the tests she helped me study for, all the times she took my temperature when I was sick, all the nights she tucked me into bed, the only parent there for me. Every single night.

How I will do anything for her. Including protect her from the truth about me, and my call girl days with Cam.

I try to practice all the mantras SLAA has taught me.

This too shall pass. The three-second rule. Let the past be the past.

There. Better. I won’t think of Cam, and his baby blues, his sandpaper stubble, his faith in Layla to reel them in. We were partners in crime. Partners in secrets. Partners in power.

I miss my partner terribly.

My mom stirs her concoction. “One of my sources sent me this recipe. She knows I love to cook. It calls for peanuts and carrots and sausages…”

“Gotta love a sausage fest,” I say with a smile.

“Harley.” She pretends to shoot me a chiding look. But she loves that I’m one of her girlfriends.

“Want me to set the table?”

“That would be divine. And don’t forget wine glasses,” she says, then wags a finger at me. “But none for you.”

“Of course not, Barb. I’m underage. I don’t drink.”

She gives me a soft peck on the forehead. “You are such a good girl.”

I flash her the smile she loves. I am her good daughter. I am her prize pet. I make her happy.

I reach into the cabinets for the yellow plates. They are her middle-of-the-road place settings. If she can’t quite remember the guy’s name, he hasn’t earned the fine china yet. I lay them neatly on the table, then align the silverware and cloth white napkins. Wine glasses are next.

“Red or white?”

She purses her lips and considers. “Stew calls for red, don’t you think?”

I nod, as if I’m a wine connoisseur. “Absolutely. Merlot?”

“You always know the perfect pairing.”

Yup.

Soon, the doorbell rings, and Neil arrives with his son Connor, one of the very many men my mom has set me up with throughout my life. Connor is a decent-looking guy, and he’s studying finance in college, and he likes the Yankees, and I put on my best pretty pony show, laughing, and flirting, and bantering with the best of them, and I know that Connor is falling hard for me because it’s so easy to reel them in. She trained me. She taught me. She made me who I am.

Then Cam made me better. Cam made me the best.

When dinner ends, my phone rings, and it’s Trey, reminding me he’s closing up in thirty minutes.

“I have to go. Forgot about my study group,” I say, and excuse myself as soon as dinner is over.

“But Harley,” my mom calls out, truly saddened by my departure. “We were having such a nice time.”

“I know. But I have a calc test, and I need to go.”

I’m lying because I don’t have any more tests, and after another show, I need to be with the one person who requires no lies.

“Wait!”

She scurries from the table, pops into the kitchen, and returns with a tupperware container of blond brownies. My favorite. “For you. I made them earlier.”

I take the brownies. “Thanks, mom,” I say, slipping in a mom, even though I know she’d rather be Barb.

Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict

Page 12…

When I was in grade school, my mom hosted elaborate parties every month. She was celebrating her liberation, she claimed, from a marriage in chains. A marriage to someone who didn’t want her, didn’t love her, who loved other women far too much, who cheated and strayed like he was earning points in a video game.

Before the very first party, more than a year after my parents split, she brushed my blond hair til it shined and tied a red ribbon in it. She dressed me in a red dress with spaghetti straps and a sparkly bodice. When I watched her do her makeup I asked if I could wear some. “Of course,” she said and thus began my first lesson in how to apply makeup properly. She let me wear blush and eyeshadow, even demonstrating ever so carefully in the mirror how to use a shadow brush. Then she paraded me around, introducing me to everyone the same way:

“This is my daughter. Isn’t she pretty?”

I smiled my prettiest smile, sometimes even gave a curtsy. After the fourth or fifth party, I was a show horse, a little pony, a figurine she’d acquired from Tiffany’s. By then, we did our makeup together before a fete. I’d bring my little wooden stool into her bathroom and stand on that as we peered in the mirror and put on our faces. It was our ritual, our bond, the way we became sisters, rather than mother and daughter.

Then it was party time. The ratio of men to women always tipped in favor of the Y chromosomes. It wasn’t a party unless the pickings were plentiful. She’d bring me round and introduce me.

“Here, honey. I have someone I want you to meet,” she’d say and I’d flash my best smile as she continued. “Isn’t she pretty, isn’t she pretty, isn’t she pretty…”

I was good at writing too. Still am. I eat stories for breakfast. I read them, I write them, I plot them, I breathe them. But somehow, I never got the “This is my daughter. She’s good at writing,” introduction.

I was pretty. That was my purpose.

Is it any surprise I became what I am? I was programmed for this.

Chapter Three

Harley

I thumb through Trey’s drawings in a portfolio at No Regrets, stopping at an image of wings. Feathery, pillowy wings that could whisk you away to a better world. I flash back to the time he created this tattoo image, late one night at his apartment. He drew in his sketchbook and I huddled in the corner of his futon, laptop on my knees, pounding out every word Miranda wanted me to write. Chronicling my lurid stories of the twenty-four men who were my downfall. He stopped sketching, sat next to me, and swiped the tear from my cheek that I barely even realized was there. I don’t think I was even aware of how those tales Miranda demanded would be an excavation, and unearth not only memories of all those men – my mom’s and mine – but the way I felt. I’d never shed those tears when I was younger. Never when any of it was happening. Only when I revisited them, all with my gut twisting, my heart splintering, Trey by my side.

He knows everything about me.

He’s the only person I’ve ever let in.

He learned my wishes and hopes the night I met him, and he learned I had secrets the day I ran into him at SLAA.

So, really, I am an open book to him, and he to me. Add that to all the reasons we can’t ever be, because no one wants to be with someone they truly know. I glance up from the portfolio and watch him. He looks so sexy in his well-worn jeans, a t-shirt that shows off his strong arms, those tattoos snaking down his carved muscles. Black ink, tribal patterns, lines and shapes, skating over his skin, everything in threes. His shoulder is marked with three suns, his chest with a trio of silhouetted birds. Symbols of the people he never knew, he’s told me.

That’s all he says about them. He won’t tell me more.

He locks the drawers where he keeps his equipment, straightens up the portfolios that grace the wooden tables in the entryway, and then closes up.

I hand him a brownie and he takes a bite.

“It makes me crazy that your mom is such an awesome baker,” he says.

“I know. You wish she were all bad.”

“Sometimes,” he says, and I tuck the tupperware container back in my purse as he finishes the brownie.

“What did you ink tonight?” I ask as we leave the shop, and my ears are assaulted with the screeches of cabs and cars, my nostrils with a blast of exhaust from a nearby bus turning onto Christopher Street.

“Some dude came in wanting two arrows on his bicep.”

“Did it mean something?”

Trey nods. “He’s in recovery. He used to drink himself stupid. Said it means it’s the pain of the arrow coming out, not the arrow going in.”

“I haven’t heard that one. Must not be a regular Joanne mantra.”

“Yeah, me neither. But do you think it’s true?”

I shrug as we pass a sleek bar called the Pink Zebra. It’s a magnet for cougars. My chest seizes up and I silently hope that a whole pack of them won’t spill out as we walk by. Trey’s temptation – sexy, thirtysomething women. But I have no such luck. The door opens and two gorgeous, skinny women emerge. One is wearing Jimmy Choos, the other Louboutins, both decked out in painted-on jeans and slinky tops. I want to cover his eyes so he can’t see them, but I’m too late. He’s drawn to them, moth to the flame. But they turn the other way and we keep walking. I ignore the look of hunger I saw in his beautiful green eyes as he shakes his head, as if he can shake them off.

“I guess,” he says in a low voice, then trails off. Maybe his mind is wandering back to the women. Or maybe that’s all there is to say because we both know what’s unsaid. Somedays, the arrow coming out hurts like hell. Somedays you miss your drug like you can’t even believe. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise — withdrawal is a bitch on wheels. It feels like someone is ripping your fingernails out with pliers.

“How was dinner tonight? Did your mom try to set you up?”

“It was the usual. The way it always is.”

“Did it make you miss Cam?”

We stop at the light on Seventh Avenue, waiting to cross.

Cam.

Trey’s question pierces me because no one would ever ask it; no one else could. I can’t seem to tell my mom the truth, or my roommate Kristen, or even Joanne at SLAA. But Trey? The only guy who’s ever made me feel any sort of reckless abandon, any sort of true desire – apparently I can open up to him about taking money for not-quite-sex.

“Do I miss Cam?” I muse out loud as if I’m turning over the words, considering them from every angle.

With a vengeance.

With the blaze of a thousand suns.

With every piece of twisted DNA in my body.

Cam is the arrow. I miss being his. Being in control. Being powerful. I want the arrow back in.

Being Cam’s was the only thing that ever made me feel like my life wasn’t orchestrated by a master puppeteer.

“Maybe a little,” I admit.

“Did you call him?”

I shake my head. Not calling Cam is a daily battle, but it’s one that makes me hate myself. Because how can I want to hold hands with Trey and yet still miss Cam like a phantom limb? I am gross. I am disgusting. Miranda is right. I don’t deserve redemption.

“Have you ever gone skydiving?”

I stop and stare at Trey’s non-sequitur as an ambulance zooms down the street, its horn blaring. “What kind of segue is that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we just need a thrill in our lives. Don’t you miss the high?”

“Every day,” I admit as we cross the street.

Miranda forced me to go to SLAA but I knew I belonged there, because I was drugged on love, on almost sex, on power. Knowing didn’t stop me from wanting my drug though. I am dependent. I still am.

Trey stops at the subway entrance.

“Maybe we just need to find the daring in the every day,” he says, then perches on the railing that leads down into the subway station. He’s seated on the edge, holding on with his hands. He leans so far that his back is nearly parallel to the sidewalk.

“Trey!”

He lets himself fall further, so his head is upside down. It’s New York, so most people ignore him, but a few of them on the steps below point as they keep clicking down the stairs. Trey hooks his feet around the bottom of the railing, and then lets go with his hands. His head, arms and chest drop down.

Rationally, logically, I know he’s not going to fall. But all I can picture is his gorgeous face smashed to bits on the concrete far below.

“If you’re worried, just grab me,” he says, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. I reach for his brown leather belt and jerk it hard, yanking him upright. His face is red and near to mine and the air is crackling like an electrical storm. My heart is racing and my adrenaline is surging, and I’m no longer thinking about Cam. I’m thinking about this guy. So close to me. His mischievous grin. His sparkling eyes. How they know me, see through me. How I let him in that first night, and we talked about everything – music, happiness, the future, even my grandparents who I never see and who I miss terribly some days. I’m remembering too the way I felt when he first kissed me, then touched me. Then, his mouth on my body. All over me. Soft, and slow, and caressing.

Like something I wanted.

Fuck. I can’t go there. I haven’t let myself think about our one night in ages.

“You know I won’t fall.”

I shake my head. “You know that scares me,” I say. I don’t let go of his belt. He places a hand on my hand. Skin on skin. His flesh on mine. I try not to shiver. But it’s useless. I do anyway as my stomach executes a huge somersault.

“I’m like a bad horror film director. I can’t resist scaring you because you’re so damn cute when you get scared.”

He jumps down off the railing and engulfs me in a hug, wrapping his strong arms around me, pulling my face to his neck. God, he smells good. All sweat, and work, and some woodsy scent that’s just so him.

“Sorry about Miranda and your mom and all those stupid guys,” he says softly in my ear, just for me, just to me. “I don’t want you to be with any of them. I don’t want you with anyone.”

I dig my fingernails into my palms to stop from pressing my body into him, from whispering kisses across his neck. Because this Trey, this soft, sweet, caring Trey, is the only guy I ever let touch me without agenda, the only man I wanted to kiss, the only man who’s ever made me come. I never faked it with him. I never knew not faking it could feel so good. That giving in, letting go, could be scary and intoxicating all on its own.

Now, with him so close, arms looped around me, his smell in my nose, his strong body pinned against mine, I don’t know anymore what happened to withdrawal, because nothing feels painful right now. I only feel potential. Possibility. The slim hope of starting over, like a stone skipping across the water, whisking up a few drops.

Maybe this is the new high. He skims one hand once across my back, so lightly it could be a friendly touch, but even through my flimsy shirt, my insides flutter like hummingbirds, and my mind is back to our night.

His hands on my naked skin.

The unfamiliar ache in my body that craved more of his touch, of the way he seemed to memorize me with his palms and his fingertips, as if he needed to trace every inch, to imprint the feel of me, the outline of my body in his memory. Then his lips everywhere, traversing my arms, neck, breasts, belly, legs, ankles, and back up to calves and knees and thighs, then in between. His lips and his tongue made me want to die and live and soar. I’d never let go like that, never moved like I did with him, with abandon, with desire, with the sharp, sweet rush of wanting someone to touch me for the first time.

I let go with him. I gave my body to him. In a way so many of them would have paid top dollar for. But I didn’t ever want anyone to see me like that. To watch me, feel me, hear me come.

Maybe he’s the arrow.

Maybe he’s the thing I’m not withdrawing from.

The one person who knows all my stories, the one person I’ve become best friends with in recovery, is the only one who knows exactly how I feel, what I think, what I want, what I hate, what I need.

Who I am.

I don’t know how to be known like this. In this naked kind of way. Like, I’ve taken everything off and am waiting for judgement.

Or touch.

Maybe they’re one and the same.

I sigh once, then manage to pull away from his grasp and look at him, giving him a quick nod. “Thank you,” I whisper.

He tilts his head to the side, his hair falling past his ear. His hair is light brown with hints of copper. It’s thick and full and he could be a shampoo model, only he doesn’t have that overly coiffed, perfectly combed look. His hair is deliberately undone, purposefully tousled, and all I want is to run my fingers through it and cling to it and never let go. Hold his cheeks in my palms and kiss deeply and without regret.

Hear him groan.

Let him do the same to me.

Look in his eyes, see myself reflected back. Because his eyes, like the rest of him, are beautiful. They’re the color of a forest, of a green beer bottle, of lush grass after it rains. They are the reflection of every girl and woman falling in love with him, because they all do. Then there’s his face — strong cheekbones, the stubbled jawline, and his scar that tells me he’s like me.

He went too far. He hurt others. He was hurt.

But that hurt is part of the connective tissue of our strange friendship that blurs all sorts of lines, that spills over into the feeling of more, even if we don’t truly venture there. Sometimes he looks at me like he wants to go there again, and he can probably tell too that I still want him that way. It’s so hard not to rake my eyes over him. He’s tall and sculpted, and I bet if you turned off all the lights and it was pitch black and there was a sea of shirtless twenty-one-year-olds guys I could find him by touch.

No one has ever felt like him.

But if I acted again on these desires, then he’d be Twenty-Five. And if he’s Twenty-Five, then I’m just the same. And I have to be different. So only when I stop wanting him, stop feeling for him, stop thinking about him, can I have him. But even then he’d never have me, so it’s a moot point. Besides, what do I know about feelings? Nothing. They make zero sense to me. I don’t know if they ever will.

Trey

Her hands on my belt drive me crazy. But I won’t be the one to break her. She is trying so hard to be good. She is so fucked by Miranda and by her mom and I hate all they do to her. I can’t be the one to lead her down this path. Even though I think of her all the time, and the memory of our night has fed my imagination countless times.

The trouble is I know she’s dying to see Cam again. And I know I’m fighting all these stupid chains that my past keeps clamping on me.

The other day I stopped by my parents’ building to have dinner with them, and it was like walking into the lion’s den. Everything about that place reeked of my past, of all the afternoons I’d spent in those corner penthouses with those women. Those pent-up, ravenous women whose husbands never gave it to them enough, or whose husbands had grown tires around their midsections and bald patches in their hair.

Like Ms. Rachman in 10E. I nearly ran into her in the lobby the other day, and seeing her brought back the memories of how needy and hungry she was. She used to run her fingers through my hair and hum happily. Like she was blissed out beyond any and all recognition. I was eighteen then, and she loved to be on top, her fake breasts barely moving as she rode me, her wine red nails raking through my hair.

“God, Trey, I love your hair. You have so much of it,” she said.

Didn’t take a genius to figure out Mr. Rachman was on the thinning side upstairs.

Her husband, a corporate litigator, never found out. He still travels all the time, defends companies from lawsuits, and ignores his hot wife. She still wants me to not ignore her. She crooked her finger to call me over when she spotted me in the lobby a few days ago. I pretended I didn’t see her. I faked her out with the earbuds I had in, Screaming Trees blasting in my head. I wear them every time I go to my parents. So I have an excuse to ignore them all. I try desperately to avoid all the beautiful women who live there.

I can’t not go. My parents pay for college. They want to know how I’m doing. They want to know what I’m learning. They want to know if I’ll switch majors and study medicine like they did and become a plastic surgeon.

“That ship has sailed, dad,” I said the other day.

Still, they try. They’d rather I change my mind, stay in school for many more years, turn pre-med, become a respected doctor in the family. Not a guy who studies art and history and works part-time at a tattoo shop. I’m their only hope after all. There’s no one else.

When I make my weekly visits to their building, my parents and I serve up uncomfortable small talk. We dart around all the things and people we’re not allowed to bring up. Like they never even existed.

They taught me how to ignore the obvious.

But I can’t ignore Harley. She’s not like them. She’s not like anyone I’ve ever known. It’s almost enough to make me tell her why my family doesn’t talk, why we are so closed-off, messed-up, and perfectly plastic on the outside. But I’ve told no one except my shrink. Harley tells me everything, and I can’t manage to give her the simplest truth. I never learned how.

Maybe that’s why we can never be together.

That, and the rules, and the group, and the fact that I’d never know what to do with a girl like her. She’s a girl. And I only know women, and I only know sex. I don’t know what to do with someone who’s not a game, a conquest, a way to numb the pain. With her, I’d have to be myself, be honest, and truthful, and let her all the way in. Besides Harley’s a former call girl. So really, the fact that I want to inhale her all night, to run my tongue from her delicious earlobe down to her neck and between her perfect breasts – that are real, that are so fucking real, and soft, and full and demand to be kissed every time I see her – is irrelevant.

She would never want me the same way. That one night was a last hurrah, a final goodbye to the past. She could have anyone. But she hardly seems to want anyone. Except Cam, and the thought of that makes my skin crawl. I don’t even know the guy, she told me she was never involved with him, but he was her fucking pimp. He whored her out, and that makes me hate him. That makes me want to do to his face what the husband of the lady in the penthouse apartment did to mine when he caught me with his wife.

“I should go,” I mutter.

“Me too,” she says.

“Are you going back to your mom’s tonight?”

She shakes her head. “Back home. I’m sure Kristen misses me,” she jokes. Kristen and Harley have a run-down railroad apartment not far from here that’s rent-controlled and has been for one hundred years. Or so it seems.

“Cool. I’m going to meet Jordan for a beer,” I say, referring to my buddy who works at the coffee shop next to No Regrets. He hates coffee, can’t stand the smell of it or taste of it from working with it all night long. He needs beer more than ever to get the scent of caffeine off of him, he likes to say.

“Have fun. Tell him I say hi,” she says and gives a playful wave, as if I’d pass that on to my friend. “We should set him up with Kristen someday.”

“Yeah. They might like each other.”

She starts to leave, but I reach for her arm. Damn, her skin is so soft. I could layer kisses on her arms and be satisfied. Actually, that’s not true. Any kiss would make me want more. “I’ll walk you home.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

I take her hand, and the feel of her is the thing I want most and dread most in the world. But I can’t stop holding her hand, even though I’d never know what to do with her for real.

When we reach her building, she turns to me. “Did we even have plans tonight?”

I shake my head. “I just like seeing you.”

Maybe I’ve said too much. Maybe I haven’t said enough.

“I like seeing you too.”

“Better me than Cam,” I say, then want to kick myself for admitting that. For saying those stupid words. But I don’t stop. “Don’t call him. Please.”

I sound like an idiot, begging her.

She stands on her tip toes, and brushes a soft, sweet, dizzying kiss on my cheek, on my scar, whispering, “I won’t.”

I want to believe her.

Chapter Four

Harley

“Were you at your writing workshop with the hottie tattoo guy tonight?”

Kristen lowers her red cat’s eye glasses and stares at me over the pages of a script. Kristen is a film major and she always has her nose in a story. She’s scrunched up on the couch in our apartment, studying a marked-up screenplay.

“Yeah,” I say, the lie rolling seamlessly off my tongue.

“Are you guys hooking up?”

I scoff. “No. It’s only class.”

If she only knew.

“Can I have him then?” She waggles her eyebrows. She’s met Trey. She knows he’s unbelievably beautiful. She has no clue how I met him though.

“Sure,” I say as if the thought doesn’t make my insides churn. I don’t want anyone to have Trey. But I can’t tell Kristen about the meetings we go to, the real way I know him. I try to throw her off the scent. “Or his friend Jordan. He’s cute too, don’t you think?”

She nods knowingly. “Honestly, either one of them would be fine. Why don’t you just make that happen, Harley?”

“I’ll text Trey that we should all get together and go see a band or something,” I say, and then fire off a quick message.

Kristen and I have been friends since the start of high school, but she doesn’t even know the half of it. Or the half of me. If anyone were to know about the SLAA meetings, about my past, about my men, it’d be Kristen. She is my closest girlfriend. But that word—close—it’s all so relative. Close means you share clothes, dreams, secrets, maybe even the darkest of secrets. That’s how it’s supposed to be. And sure, I know things about her because we’ve been friends since we played field hockey together at our high school. She was a beast on the field. She took no prisoners and was known far and wide for hitting below the knees. I asked her once why she had so much aggression and she said she took out her frustration over her parents’ crappy relationship when she was playing.

They were divorcing when we were in high school.

Here’s the thing. She’s open. She’s let me in on her secrets. She struggled with bulimia when she was in high school, and she was in therapy our senior year to help her have – as she likes to say – “a better relationship” with food. I know her insecurities too. Sometimes she’s abrasive, or too in-your-face, and it’s all part of her tough gal persona. But underneath, she wants what most people want – happiness. I know her hopes too. After college, she plans to jet west to California and become a screenwriter, chase the Hollywood dream.

But I barely tell her anything. Maybe because she’s so together. Because she’s battled her demons and won. Or maybe just because I’m no good at telling the truth.

She knows I like music and doing make-up, how I take my lattes, that I like to invent stories about animals and magic, that someday I want to live on the beach and soak up the sun and sleep to the sound of ocean waves lapping the shore. She knows that my dad ditched us long ago to move to Europe and that I’m close with my mom. But more than that? I wouldn’t even know where to start. I’m like that person who scatters clues across several states, making it tough for the cops to gather enough info, or enough witnesses, to assemble the whole sordid story.

No one except Trey.

It’s weird that one person can know your before and your wish for after.

And that’s not Kristen.

Because I haven’t told her a thing about my mom’s habits. And, honestly, there is nothing I want to say. My mom is my mom. She needs me. I need her. She took me to every doctor’s appointment, tended to every scraped knee, and read to me every night before bed. So what if she had men over all the time? She wasn’t cheating on anyone. She was the one left. She was the person abandoned, and she finally found a way to be happy again. It doesn’t matter that I knew all her boyfriends, that I heard her late-night moans and groans, that I know what it sounds like when my own mother has an orgasm, that I’m too familiar with the things she says when she’s getting turned on. No one, no one, no one in the whole wide world can be privy to the fact that my mother, who has done more good for society than most people, has another side. The side that turned her daughter into a prostitute.

Those secrets are lodged so far and so deep inside me I don’t even know how I’d get the words out. I’d need more than a shovel to dredge them up. I’d need a bulldozer to exhume them. And even if somehow, some way, the words could tunnel out of me, I know they’d spill out my mouth all disfigured and unrecognizable, a foreign tongue no one could understand. Sometimes when I say the words silently, in my head, at a whisper, I can still feel a fierce red blush covering my cheeks. I was a call girl.

But yet, the real reason I don’t tell her is this–because I loved it. I loved the crazy burn, the rush, the thrill of the power. Because I needed it, I wanted it, I craved it.

I still do.

I’m not cured.

SLAA hasn’t fixed me.

If Kristen knew where I really go when I say I’m at the writing workshop, she might not want to be friends with me. She wouldn’t want to have lattes with me or share an apartment with me. I’d be the slut, the sex addict, the whore that everyone would think I am. That Miranda thinks I am. That all those stories – true fucking stories – that Miranda makes me write prove I am.

No wonder Trey won’t touch me again. No wonder he keeps me at a distance. He’s getting healthy, he’s healing, he’s moving on from his past and he can see me for what I am.

Dirty. Slutty. Whore.

Soon, he’ll walk away too. That’s why I don’t tell Kristen about Layla. She’d walk straight the other way. This is what people do. They leave when you get too close.

“Are you hungry?”

“Nah, I ate at my mom’s,” I say.

“Damn. I wanted to split a pizza.”

“I’ll eat a slice if it’ll make you happy,” I offer. I can do that. Kristen doesn’t like to eat by herself. Says it reminds her of the times when she scarfed on food alone.

She claps once and smiles widely. See? This is so simple. I made her happy by saying I’d have a slice. She dials her favorite pizza delivery place and orders a cheese pie. I wish I could do the same – have a healthy relationship with love.

I wish love were like pizza.

She kicks her feet up on the coffee table. “We should have a girl’s night out Friday. Let’s go somewhere. Meet some guys. There’s no one at this college I like. I want a man. Not some stupid frat boy.”

“No you don’t,” I say. “You don’t want a man.”

I’ve had men. Most of them are awful.

Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict

Page 107..

I didn’t sleep with any of them. I could lie and tell all sorts of sordid stories about being seventeen and fucking forty-two-year-old men, but I won’t. Because I didn’t do that. My pimp loved me. He took care of me. He would never have sent me on jobs like that. Sometimes, I played the escort role to the buttoned-up guys who wanted the sexy young girlfriend at a fancy dinner function. Or the suit who had a hankering for a schoolgirl on his arm at a bar.

But I was also assigned the middle-aged men with weird fetishes.

Like one of my regulars. His name was Gerald, and he was a banker. We met every Friday at 4:15 when the markets closed. He wanted me to wear my green plaid skirt, starched white blouse, and my good old faithful Mary Janes. Our regular meeting spot was a hotel in midtown because no one knew him in midtown. He liked to hear about my day at school, the things I learned in class, but he especially longed for my stories of what my friends and I talked about in the locker room. I made it all up. I told him we discussed lingerie, and what kind of lacy underwear we preferred to wear when we masturbated.

“I wore a black bustier when I fingered myself last night,” I told him. “My friend Holly gets herself off wearing her red silk teddy.”

He’d start breathing hard, then ask for more. I served it all up for him, tales of trigonometry and English literature, chiffon and lace, fingers and spread legs.

Then he’d ask me to kiss him once, spank him ten times, and tell him to sit in the corner.

That was all he wanted. Stories and spanking.

I can only imagine what sort of fucked-up shit he was dealing with to want that every Friday afternoon.

Then I would find my pimp and tell him everything. He’d grin, pat my shoulder, and we’d toast. Like we’d conquered the fucking world.

Chapter Five

Harley

A needle clicks. Joanne is cradling her latest creation, an earthy looking brown and yellow mass of yarn that appears to be transforming into a sweater. She knits at meetings because it became her hobby in recovery. I suspect she transferred addictions – sex to knitting. But I’m pretty sure knitting is healthier.

She begins the meeting with an affirmation. I despise affirmations, so I look down and fidget instead as the others join in. It’s Chloe, Ainsley, and me – only the girls today. The guys are in a guys-only meeting a few doors down.

“I release the fear of rejection, the fear of pain and all the past beliefs that have led me astray. I am comfortable with who I am. I think before acting. I seek honesty, truth and trust in all my relationships.”

I feel all squishy inside as I mumble a word or two with the others. Sometimes, it’s too much therapy, too much insight, too much introspection here. Sometimes I want to rage against the calm, healthy, boundaried, love-is-not-a-battlefield-it’s-a-quilt attitude.

Why can’t love be a battlefield?

Life is a fucking battlefield. Who said love was supposed to be any different? Maybe there’s no truth or honesty in love. There doesn’t seem to be much in life. Not what I’ve seen. Not from Miranda. Not from Phil. Not from the assholes my mom busts with her investigative pieces. Maybe everyone, everywhere is an addict of some kind.

At least some of us admit it.

Chloe says all the words, loud and proud, not missing a single syllable. Chloe is one of those super involved people, sharing every detail of her recovery from having slept with twenty-two guys by the time she was the same age. Sometimes I think about all the stuff I know about Chloe from these meetings, but how we’ve never once hung out, and, frankly, I don’t think either one of us has the desire to. We just don’t have that much in common, to be honest. She admitted a few weeks ago that she’s had three STDs, and one pregnancy scare.

Yuck.

I didn’t sleep with any of my clients. I drew lines, a lot of lines, and I didn’t cross them. Before Trey, I never came close to going all the way. I never even almost did it. I stuck to north of the border. To places I could control. Mouths, tongues, lips, words, names. When I was with a man, I was in control, complete and total control, because I didn’t let go. I didn’t want someone’s hands going there, drifting down, traveling to places on my body where I might start making sounds too.

Nobody has ever heard me for real. Nobody but Trey.

I don’t hang with Ainsley much either, but she’s new and started a few weeks ago. Teachers are her vice. She lost her virginity to her high school music teacher, then proceeded to work her way through the rest of the arts departments before she started college.

I don’t say much to them at the meetings. They’re doing better than me, they’re further along. I’m too ashamed to tell them I miss the man who sold me, I’m dying for a boy in the group next door, and my own mother wants to set me up on dates. But I don’t have to talk today since we have a guest speaker.

Joanne puts her knitting down and introduces a woman named Danielle, keeping it first names only, as always. “She’s twenty-five. She’s a total rock star because she’s been on the wagon for —” Joanne turns to Danielle as the two women sit down, “—how long?”

“Four years,” Danielle says. She’s thin, with pointy elbows and sharp cheekbones. I wonder if she has an eating disorder, if she’s anorexic and just channeled one addiction into another.

Maybe Danielle will tell a tale that will remind me of me, that will help me move on, that will let me heal. But I don’t even know what I’m healing from, except myself. My own bad choices. My own horrid decisions that brought me here. But yet, how can they be so awful if I miss them? If I desperately long for those moments. When I walked into a job, I savored the power, the control, the dominance. When my heels clicked, and my hair swished, and my lips shone, I thrilled to be in charge.

As Danielle talks, my mind starts to drift, to return to that heady rush of a call from Cam, a booking from Cam, reporting back to Cam. The money was irrelevant. It was never about the money. It was about the way all my senses tripped into supersonic speed when his name appeared on my phone, when he delivered the details, the things to say, do, and not say or do.

Wear the red satin dress from Bloomingdale’s when you have dinner at Le Cirque with David. Ask him about business and be fascinated with everything he tells you about computer chips.

Handcuff Saul and run your nails down his back.

Scold Carter sharply when you “catch” him masturbating in the hotel bathroom.

Walk up to Robert and ask him to dance with you when Prince starts playing at the nightclub in Soho.

John wants you to bathe him in a bubble bath. Quietly. Say nothing.

Everything was clear. Everything was decided in advance.

I flash back to the jobs, hearing bits and pieces of Danielle’s requisite story — how she desperately wanted men to think her pretty. She was told she was never attractive as a child because she was fat. “Good thing you have brains, girl,” her mom told her.

That snaps me out of my daydreaming.

My jaw tightens because who would say that? My mom would never do that. My mom would never tell me I was ugly. She would never put me down in that way.

“But I was a smartypants and I figured out pretty quickly that I could be skinny if I threw up,” Danielle says. Yup, she’s a cross-addict, went from food to men. “And it became a game to me in a way. It was all about control. And then I thought maybe there are other things I can control too. You all know where this is going of course. But I’ll tell you anyway. I thought I could control men and sex. Getting the boys to notice me, the fat girl who was now skinny, became my new project. And if a boy didn’t notice me, I’d amp it up. Wear shorter skirts, tighter shirts, flirt more. And boys became like the ideal weight on the scale — this thing I wanted and had to have. I didn’t sleep with any of them. I was a virgin when I graduated from high school.”

I look away, feeling a strange twisting in my belly. I don’t want to hear her story anymore.

“And I justified my behavior. Because I didn’t do much with any of these guys. Made out, kissed, a little more. But by the time I was graduating, I’d made out with a couple dozen guys in my school alone. Even though I never did more than kiss.”

Never did more than kiss. Those words echo, then circle me, threaten to ensnare me.

I push my chair back and mutter “Excuse me.”

I leave the room and walk down the hall to the bathroom, clutching my stomach on the way. I feel like I’m going to throw up. My stomach churns and twists. I push open the door to the church bathroom and it’s freezing in here. It’s May so how can it be so cold? But it’s like they’re pumping ice into this bathroom. I jam my hand against the door of a stall, pushing so hard the metal smacks the inside wall. I shut the door and kneel down on the floor, pulling my hair back into a makeshift ponytail to protect it.

But nothing happens. Nothing ever happens. I never barf. I never wretch. I don’t even dry heave. I just feel sick to my stomach, so I come here, and I kneel, and I wait, as my gut tightens, like two hands are grabbing my insides, gripping them. I stay like this for a few minutes. Then I flush, flushing nothing. I stand up, leave the stall, go to the sink and wash my hands.

It’s quiet in here, so quiet. No one is talking, no one is telling stories, and I find the silence a relief. I think of Cam, of how being his made me forget the noise that had surrounded me. With every gig, I was erasing all those sounds I grew up overhearing, erasing the part I played at all those dinner parties, all those dates she set me up on.

So one note to Cam won’t hurt. It won’t set me back. I take out my phone and send off a note to Cam before I can even think about what I’m doing, before I can even contemplate.

Hi. Missing…

I stop typing the message. What am I missing? Him?

I return to the keys. I know what I’m missing. I know what I want. I want Trey.

Badly.

But I can’t have him.

Last night when he wrapped his arms around me by the subway entrance, when I ran my nose along his neck and inhaled him, when his hand brushed my back and I sighed like I wanted him again – that only reminds me now of how vulnerable I felt the one time with him so many months ago. We’re not together, and we can’t be, so how can I live with being vulnerable, with wanting, with feeling?

I don’t know how.

I don’t have a clue.

Love isn’t a quilt. Love isn’t patient, love isn’t kind. Love is a game, a chase, a thrill. Love is wild and war-like, and every man and woman must fight for themselves.

I can play the game.

I can control love.

I need to feel in control. I need to hold the world in the palm of my hands, my world, my life, and be the one who sets it in motion. The only one. I’m not controlled. I control.

I finish the message to Cam.

Hi. Missing things...

I hit send and return to the room. Joanne gives me a faint sympathetic smile. I don’t look at Danielle the rest of the meeting. I spend the time contemplating my fingernails and considering how to finish the next chapter for Miranda.

When the meeting ends, Joanne asks me to hang for a minute. I pour a cup of coffee from the coffee pot on the table as I wait. It tastes bitter and sludgy, but I drink it quickly while Joanne makes small talk with Danielle and Ainsley.

Then they’re gone and she turns to me.

“Hey, Layla. Everything okay?”

I nod several times. “Just peachy.”

Just peachy? Who says that? What is wrong with me? But I have to act like I mean it. Like I’m peppy and healthy. Otherwise she’ll know what I was up to. Sneaking off. Texting my drug.

She raises her eyebrow, noticing my weird word choice. “Danielle really bugged you, huh?”

“No. Not at all. Not one bit,” I say. If I lied to mother, to my flesh and blood, to the woman who raised me, I can lie to this lady.

“Layla, I just want to make sure you’re okay. I want you to get the help you need,” she says gently.

Can you rub out Miranda then? That’s what I really need.

“I am okay.”

“I’m here anytime you need me,” she says softly. Sweetly. Kindly. “If you don’t want to talk in front of the group, you can talk to me. I want you to know that.”

No one has ever offered to help me before. Talk to me. I don’t know what to say. “I have to go,” I say, then I take off.

Before I reach the top of the steps, I feel a buzzing in my back pocket. The possibility that it could be from Cam winds me up, like I’m a slot machine and someone is about to hit the jackpot and all my bells and buzzers are whirring. I grab my phone and my fingers feel slippery as I unlock the screen. Please let it be from him.

Please, please, please give me my fix.

It’s not Cam, though. It’s Trey. The other guy I want. The guy I can’t have.

I’m at the coffee shop around the corner. Guys meeting ended early. Come find me.

Part of me doesn’t want to go. Another part knows I’ll do what he asked – come find him. Because at least someone replied. At least someone wants me.

Cam. Trey. Trey. Cam. I feel like I’m seesawing back and forth, being pushed in one direction, then pulled in another by unseen hands. When I reach the shop, I spot Trey through the window. He gives me a curt wave – a guy wave – but his eyes light up.

I push on the door and quickly join him at the wooden counter.

“How was the girls’ only meeting? Tell me all the tawdry tales,” he says with narrowed eyes.

“Ha. It sucked. How’s that?”

He nods several times. “Know what you mean.”

He gestures to his friend Jordan behind the counter. “Can we get this woman a triple espresso?”

“Ten-four, man,” Jordan says, and turns the handle on the espresso machine. It hisses and whirs.

“How’d you know I’d want an espresso instead of a latte?”

“Because when you get stressed you need more caffeine,” Trey says as if the answer is obvious. But it melts me the tiniest bit that he remembers these details. That he keys in on my stress without worrying, or making it seem like a big deal. He just knows. He knows me. He’s the only person I’ve let know me. I wonder if we’d have become friends if we met under other circumstances. If we met first in group therapy would I have pushed him away? Or did meeting him at his shop, having him ink my shoulder, and then kissing and making out all night long – is that why I kept no secrets from him?

“That’s cute,” I say softly. “That you remember that about me.”

He raises an eyebrow. Tilts his head. “Did you think I turned stupid in the last hour? We’re friends, right? I should know these things.”

Okay, so that’s all. He remembers because we’re friends, not because we might be more.

I heave a sigh. I’m so out of sorts right now from Danielle’s story ripping up my heart, feeling all too familiar and all too foreign at once. I want to punch her mom and I want to run away from Danielle at the same time. I want to spill all my guts and secrets and lies to Joanne now that she’s invited me to lay them at her feet. I want to word-vomit everything I’ve kept inside me, every story I’m being forced to dig up for Miranda’s twisted mind-fuckery. But I want to shove all my secrets down and never let them out again too.

On top of that, I’m amped up from my own wait-wait-wait for Cam to reply. Maybe I don’t want him to reply anymore. Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t have a clue. Maybe I am still so fucked up. Maybe if Trey was more than a friend, I could get a grip. But it’s as if there’s something ticking inside me, harder, faster, and it hurts more. A sharp, metal object in my chest, struggling to break free.

Jordan finishes the espresso and places it in front of me. “For the lady,” he says with a sweet smile. Jordan is adorable. He has dark blond hair and blue eyes, and the four of us – Trey, Kristen, Jordan and I – are making plans to see the band Over The Edge on its tour after that text I sent Trey the other night. Jordan and Kristen would make a cute couple. Healthy, normal, not six degrees of fucked up. I reach into my purse for money when Trey gently brushes my hand away.

“I got it,” he says in a low voice and gives Jordan the money.

“Thanks,” Jordan says, and tends to another customer.

“You didn’t have to,” I say as I take a drink of espresso.

“Hey.”

“What?”

“What’s with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t seem like yourself.” He lays his hand on mine, and like that, the tension inside of me starts to dissolve. His hand is safe and warm. When he touches me I feel like I belong to something true.

I take a breath, meet his eyes, and do the thing I didn’t do in the meeting. Share. “I don’t know. It was just a weird meeting. This gal talked and she said all this shit about how her mom wasn’t nice to her, and it bugged me.”

Trey furrows his eyebrows at me, but says nothing.

“What?” I ask pointedly.

“Did it bug you because your mom wasn’t always nice to you?”

I tense up again. “Why do you have to say that?”

“Because it’s the truth,” he says, not backing down.

“She was nice to me,” I mutter.

“Harley,” he says, and the tone in his voice is both caring, but also correcting. As if he knows I’ve made an error. “She wasn’t. She made everything she did seem okay.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and I want to shrug him off, swat him away for saying crap about my mom. But I don’t want to lose his touch right now. I barely know this kind of contact, and I’m not ready to dismiss it. I want to explore it, so I inch – hell, maybe I even millimeter – closer to his fingertips that brush my earlobe, sending warmth sparking through me. I feel that strange, but wondrous thing I only feel with him as he touches me. A flurry of wishes and hopes race through me – him doing this as more than friends. Him doing this as the guy who wants to comfort me, who knows me, who can say the right things.

“She wasn’t always good to you, and I don’t like it when people aren’t good to you,” he says as he lets go of my hair, the strands falling against my clingy red shirt.

His words hurt, but they don’t sear. They hurt in the way the truth sometimes can. “Maybe she was too nice. Maybe that’s what you meant,” I manage to say.

“Yeah.”

“I guess it hit close to home what that lady said at the meeting,” I admit.

“I can imagine.”

I drink more of my espresso, finishing it quickly, then set the small cup on the counter.

I still feel edgy, antsy. I tap my fingers against the counter, beating out notes of my frustration.

“Hey. Let’s get out of here. Get away from people, okay?”

“Sure.”

Trey grabs his backpack, makes some kind of see you later gesture to Jordan, places a palm on my hip, and guides me to the back of the coffee shop, past the bathroom, then a tiny office. He opens the door to the office, shuts it, and unlocks a green screen door that opens into the smallest garden courtyard I’ve ever seen. Lined with red brick and planted flowers, this tiny garden area is wedged next to a vacant apartment building slated to be razed. There’s a stained glass window in the empty structure, and it makes such a beautiful piece of random found art.

A pink stained glass window in an abandoned building.

I look at Trey. “What is this little place?”

“Jordan said they’re going to open it up soon. Make it like a tiny outdoor area for the coffee shop. There’s room for a table or two.”

“Wow,” I say, and turn in a circle. On the other side, we are fenced in by tall wooden posts. Ivy skates down the wood. “I feel as if I’ve made my great escape.”

“Yeah.”

“Can we stay all night?” I joke.

“Maybe,” he says softly, and his voice sounds different. I don’t know what it is, but he seems vulnerable, like he’s about to say something.

“Maybe?”

He shrugs, drops his backpack to the ground, and leans against the wall. The night air is warm, and I can hear the sounds of traffic not far from us — horns honking, tires squealing, but then it fades in my ears as he lifts a hand, and it feels as if he might be reaching for me. I don’t know, I’m not sure, I don’t know how to read this moment, and how it’s shifted to possibility. Because I don’t know what happens when a girl likes a boy, and a boy likes a girl, and if that’s even what’s going on here. All my finely-tuned radar is off, it’s skittering, it’s pointing in every direction because everything is different when I’m not being paid for pleasure.

The world slows down as he touches my arm. The second he makes contact, his fingertips both electric and unbelievably soft and gentle on my skin, I know he senses that something has changed. Maybe he could tell I was at the end of my rope, was veering toward Cam. I close my eyes for the briefest of moments, delighting in how my arm is tingling. The sensations race through my body, and I want to be touched by him. I don’t have to feign interest, or fake a turned-on look.

But an ominous sound squawks from my back pocket. Darth Vader’s theme music.

“Fuck.” The moment isn’t just broken. It’s shattered into a million shards that cut me and leave me bleeding.

I grab my phone and open the email from Miranda.

There’s no subject line, she never bothers with subject lines, I’m not worthy of a subject line. I have to open the email to see what she wants. It’s a small act, but it sends a powerful message. She holds all the cards.

I click on the email. She doesn’t write my name.

It just says: package coming friday after 330 by courier specific time unknown return per usual

Which is bullshit. She knows the time. She knows it down to the fraction of a second, I’m sure. She probably has an advanced computer simulation program on how to blackmail most effectively and relies on the perfect combination of algorithms and data and past behavior and future predictions to determine exactly when, where, why and how to send me her next set of instructions. And she’s not going to tell me the time, never has, never will. Her whole game is for me to be on pins and needles waiting for the package while simultaneously keeping my mom from intercepting the package. She often sends them to my mom’s house, so she can torture me, make me scamper across the alligator pit.

I write back to Miranda, equally curt, but managing to capitalize and use periods: Message received.

I shut down my email and close my eyes. I feel Trey press his hand on top of mine.

I open my eyes and look at him again. I am twisted inside out. I could punch this brick wall now, split my knuckles open, and slam it all over again. I push my hands roughly through my hair and groan loudly in frustration. “I fucking hate her.”

“Me too,” he whispers. “I hate her for you.”

“I hate how she controls my life,” I say between gritted teeth.

I breathe out hard, wishing I could release all this coiled tension from my body. Trey is still leaning against the wall, and his gorgeous arms are on display, the art swirling down in lines, shapes, patterns that mesmerize me. His arms are strong, sculpted and muscular. I want them around me.

Fuck everything else in the world right now.

I step toward him, cup his cheeks. “I’m tired of waiting for you,” I say, shedding all my walls. He knows all my secrets and lies. He can know my truth. “I’m so tired of it,” I say softly, then I hold his gaze and trail my fingers along his jawline, from his earlobe, across his scar to his chin, watching the expression in his eyes shift from surprise to desire. To desperate want. I run my index finger across his top lip, and he closes his eyes briefly, his chest rising and falling, his breath catching. He opens his eyes again, watches me. I touch his bottom lip, and he nips on my finger, then flashes a quick grin that fades as he whispers, “I’m tired too.”

That’s it. That’s all. I can’t wait. I don’t want to. I’m sick of it. I need this contact with him. I need this moment. I need to know what it’s like again to have this kind of connection.

I kiss him.

Slow. Soft. But full of need. Full of hope. Full of my wish for this, us, him and me, to become more than just friends. I want him so badly, I want to return to our night, I want him to take away the pain again. I want his touch to remind me that there is good in the world, that two people can care and be close, and it doesn’t have to be a game, or someone using the other.

That there can be something real and true.

He groans as I trace his lips with my tongue. His lips part, and he lets me lead the kiss, lets me taste his mouth and his tongue. Then, in seconds, the kiss changes. He spins me around, and now my back is against the brick wall, and he threads his hands into my hair, running his fingers through the thick strands, all while kissing me deeply, his tongue sliding against mine, his breath tasting so good, his lips capturing mine. It’s a fiery kiss, full of months of pent-up longing, borne of a night when everything seems so far out of reach that sometimes you have to grab the visceral, the physical, to tie you back to earth. To make you forget all the ways your life is spinning beyond your control. He kisses harder, insistently, as if he can’t get enough of me, as if he needs to taste me, to drown in this kiss with me.

I lose myself too. I let go of the meeting, of the SOS to Cam, of Danielle’s words, of my mom’s insatiable need to hook me up, of the stories Miranda makes me write, of my past. I shed them all. They are vapor, they are nothing, I am new again.

I am no longer that person.

Layla is gone as I am at once lost and found in a kiss like this. A kiss that has nothing to do with power, or games, or control. A kiss that simply has to be. His hands in my hair, then roaming down my back, then grappling at my hips. And all the while we are in this together, we both want this, we both need this, there is no uneven distribution of desire, or money, or want. His lips consume me with desperation, and soon he’s traversing my neck, and kissing the hollow of my throat, and I gasp quietly.

“Oh,” I say, but for me that’s everything because I don’t make noise, I don’t vocalize, I don’t let on when I’m turned on.

“Fuck, Harley,” he says, and grabs my ass and pulls me against him, so I can feel how much he wants this too. He licks his way up my neck, and I melt inside with longing as his lips brush my earlobe. As if he’s about to whisper something. Maybe tell me how much he wants to taste me and touch me.

But then his hands are on my shoulders, and he’s no longer holding me close. He’s holding me back. I’m standing here panting, lost in some sort of crazed moment of lust, and he’s suddenly all cool and calm as he says, “But I can’t. I can’t go there. And I have to get the fuck away right now.”

He grabs his backpack and leaves, the screen door swinging with several creaks.

He’s gone.

And I’m alone in this ridiculously romantic courtyard in the middle of New York. Hot and bothered and utterly left behind. Like an idiot. Like a stupid fucking idiot.

My phone buzzes. I grab it in milliseconds, hoping it’s Trey.

But it’s Cam.

Missing things? Missing me? That can be fixed in an instant, sweetheart. Tomorrow night. Bliss Bar. 7 p.m. Be there.

Chapter Six

Trey

I slam the door to my apartment, lock it and slide the chain.

As if I can sequester myself. As if I can shut myself off from her, and stay inside my home, far, far away from Harley. Like I’m sealed up and safe again.

But the thing is this….

She has to go to SLAA.

She was forced to go.

She’s being blackmailed.

I chose to go. No one made me. No one forced me. I guess you could say Mr. Thompson did when he found me making out with his wife in the elevator at my parent’s apartment building. I run my finger across the scar on my cheek, and the pain echoes, even months later as I head to the cramped kitchen. I don’t think I realized just how strong he was. Or how mad he’d be, but when his fist connected with my face, I felt his college ring rattle through every bone in my body.

They make the rings damn solid at Yale University.

Yeah, it hurt.

When you’ve been pummeled by a man who’s six-five, two-hundred-forty pounds and wears one of those big-ass class rings, I guess that’s how you manage a self-imposed monkhood for a year. The ring sliced my cheek apart. I could actually see several millimeters of the meat under the skin right after it happened. My mom sewed me up that evening without a word. The scar would have been much worse if I didn’t have that sort of access to one of the premier plastic surgeons in Manhattan. She wasn’t happy with me but what could she do? I was twenty, and she couldn’t control me. She could have cut me off from college, but she wants me in school more than anything. Besides, in my family, we deal with the practical. We shut the door to rooms that aren’t used, we stitch up cuts, we take painkillers to numb the day, and we don’t talk about things.

I didn’t talk about my brothers. Because they didn’t talk about my brothers. So why would they want to talk about why I was spending so much time with the married women in the swank Upper East Side building where they lived? But I knew I had a problem, and the cut on my face was my rock bottom. I didn’t need someone else to find the bottom of addiction for me. I fucking found it, and I decided to get my shit together after I spent the better part of my teenage years screwing married women in my building.

I knew what I was doing was messing me up. Had known it for a long, long time. Not because the sex was bad. It was good. It was great. It was the stuff of legend.

But as I toss my backpack on the floor, grab a cold beer from the fridge, and turn up the music on my iPod so I can blast Remy Zero throughout my whole apartment, I am also reminded that it was hollow.

That I was so disconnected from all of them. I was ghosting through life, taking what I wanted, stealing what others had.

But the one night with Harley was the closest I’ve ever felt to right. Maybe that sounds crazy, but I felt like we were both in it together, that we weren’t chess pieces for the other person to move around. We’d showed our cards and there was no bluffing.

That’s the problem, I realize, as I drink my beer, and the band sings about falling to the ground.

She can’t operate like that, and hell if I know if I can either.

So if I get caught up in her, and I will, I fucking will, what happens to me when she realizes she’s not ready? What if I’m just a quick fix to her, and she turns around and goes back to Cam? Or ditches me? And then I’m worse off.

Back to all my old ways.

To all the afternoons in high school I spent tangled up with Cassie Fitzgerald in her penthouse, or Elle Windsor in her husband’s town car, or even the sexy trophy wife – Sloan McKay – of one of the biggest hedge fund manager’s in New York. All while he was busy pulling millions, I was taking care of his wife in the bedroom since he didn’t anymore. She was an artist too, a painter, and the only one I ever felt an inkling of a connection with, the only one who remotely seemed like more than a conquest. She moved out of the building quickly though, and I moved on to the next woman.

Such a rush. Such a thrill. They got what they wanted from me. From how I made them feel. From the high of being the young guy who could turn them on.

If I walked into a frat house and told my story, I’d have high-fives six ways to Sunday. If my friends knew they’d make a statue for me, give me the chair at the head of the table in the cafeteria, build an honorary wing in my name and ask for blessings before any date with a girl, praying to Trey Westin, patron saint of Has A Way with Women.

It’s the tale that gets passed down from one generation of frat brothers to the next. Only there was more to my conquests than bagging the hottest babes.

There always is.

They were a way to forget.

I rub my hand absently against the trio of sunbursts on my shoulder, one of the tats that I designed myself a few months ago. To remember. To never forget. Then I toast heavenward, a futile toast, and finish my beer. The coldness and the fizz roots me back to the moment. Shakes me out of the past, the memories. If I spend too much time there, I’ll never move on. I need to start over tomorrow. See my shrink. Sort this out. Go back to being friends with Harley again. Because I can’t stand not having her in my life.

Almost as much as I can’t stand not kissing her.

I turn my head and sniff my shirt, and fuck…I can still smell her on me. Her wild cherry smell lingers all over my shirt. Her intoxicating, sexy-as-hell scent from when she was all snug against me. I close my eyes, inhale, and I am right back to thirty minutes ago in the courtyard, remembering how she touched me, kissed me, ran her hands in my hair.

In seconds, I am rock hard again. This is what she does to me. This is all it takes.

She slides into my head, and I am turned on beyond belief. Wanting her. Wanting all I can’t have.

I put the empty bottle down on the coffee table, yank off my shirt, and inhale it one more time, so she’s filled all my senses. I head to the bathroom. I turn on the shower, adjusting the temperature all the way up. Then take off my jeans, leaving them in a heap on the floor, my boxer briefs next. I step under the water, wetting my hair, my skin, soaping up all over, then rinsing it off. I close my eyes as the water beats down hard on me, and then I say fuck it.

I picture the moment from earlier, going further, going everywhere I wanted it to go.

I take off her clingy t-shirt, toss it on the ground somewhere. She doesn’t care because she wants my hands on her. She’s licking her lips, and I bury my face between her perfect gorgeous breasts. I grip myself harder, imagining kissing her breasts, sucking hard on her nipples, hearing her moan. I want to feel her hands in my hair, tugging hard as she pushes me down her body. I want to lick her all over, taste every inch of her skin, from her breasts to her belly, to her legs. Kiss her all the way down to her ankles, feel her tremble all over, hear those sexy, breathy moans she makes.

I swear I’ve never wanted anyone so much as I picture doing all sorts of things to her.

Images flash by quickly. Her hands on me, unsure at first, then all over. Then me on my knees, pushing up her skirt, peeling off her underwear in the courtyard, tasting her, licking her, kissing her. She can’t help herself – she moans and sighs and pants like she did that time we were together. She made the sexiest little sounds when I was with her that one night, as if she didn’t know what was happening to her own body, as if it was all happening for the first time and she was overcome, lost in all these new sensations that I brought to her.

I feel a build in the base of my spine, the release starting to rocket through my body. I squeeze my eyes shut, scalding water pelting my hair, turning my skin red, and I don’t care, because I’m where I want to be right now, on my knees, my hands cupping her ass, bringing her closer to my mouth, until I can taste her coming on my tongue.

“Fuck.”

I groan loudly and come hard.

I rest my forehead against the tiles for a minute as the aftershocks chase me. God, I wish she were here right now. I wish I could touch her all night long, spread her out on my bed, and bring her there.

Then spend the night with her.

Be the guy who doesn’t pay.

Be the guy she wants.

The guy she’s not set up with.

But I’ll never know if she wants me for me. Or because I’m part of her fix.

Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict…

Page 123…

I learned to lie from my mom.

When I was thirteen my mom and her boyfriend took me to a carnival in Great Neck out on Long Island.

His name was Pierre and he looked the name. He wore pressed khakis and a button-down short-sleeve shirt even in the summer, even to a carnival. He had manicured hands, his nails were buffed and filed in perfect half circles. He bought me pink cotton candy and handed it to me daintily with those hands that smelled of honeysuckle lotion. Then my mom spotted the carnival dude who guesses your age. If he comes within three years, you lose. If he doesn’t, you win a stuffed blue bear.

“Guess her age,” my mom said, thrusting me forward, taking the cotton candy out of my hands before he even saw it, in case it made me look too young. I wore low-rise jean shorts and a cami-tank. My hair was down, falling past my shoulders. I stood there for a moment before him, holding my ground, holding his gaze, like a cat staring down her prey before she pounced. Then I did what I knew mom wanted me to do. I tossed my hair ever so gently, ever so casually, but completely seductively. Like she’d taught me all those times when we prepped for our parties.

The Guess Your Age guy was young. He was a teenager, probably a high school guy working the carnival after school.

He appraised me up and down, his big, brown eyes on me, liking what he saw. He flashed his smile to my mom.“Write down her age.” He handed her a pen and piece of paper from a notebook in his back pocket. She dutifully wrote down my age, folded up the paper and handed it back to him. He took the paper but didn’t open it.

“She’s sixteen,” the carnival man declared.

Triumphant, my mom shook her head. “Thirteen,” she said proudly as he opened the paper to see my age. She ran a hand over my hair, petting her prize racehorse, and we walked away. She didn’t bother to get the blue bear she’d won. She got what she wanted. A thirteen-year-old who looked sixteen.

“He’s cute, don’t you think?”

“Mom,” I chided.

“He’s adorable, Harley,” she said in a teacherly tone. As if she were instructing me in the ways of taste and attraction. “He’s probably fourteen, maybe fifteen. You guys would be cute together.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely.” Then she lowered her voice. “We’re going on the Ferris Wheel. Go back and see him.”

Butterflies filled my belly. But she’d given the go-ahead. She’d encouraged me. This had to be the way the world worked.

When my mom and Pierre were up in the sky, I returned to the carnival guy. He leaned against the Guess Your Age sign, searching for his next customer. I tapped him on the shoulder.

“You were right,” I whispered near his ear.

His lips curled up. “You really are sixteen.”

“I really am sixteen.”

“Me too,” he said. “Good thing I didn’t give her a bear.”

“Good thing,” I echoed back.

He licked his lips slightly, tasting what I imagined was the salty heat on them from a muggy summer night. Then I gestured with my eyes to the nearby whack-a-mole and toss-the-ring games. Behind the games was a little hideaway spot, a private corner of the carnival world. There, against the dirty once-white concrete wall I reached out to him, my hand linking through his, bringing him closer to me. I lifted my other hand to his face, brushing my fingertips against his cheek.

I’d never kissed, I’d never been kissed, but somehow I was a natural. I was all instinct.

Later, when we were home, my mom asked me how it went.

I told her everything. Because, that’s what we did. That’s normal, right? She squealed and clapped. “Your first kiss!”

Then she gave me kissing tips for the next time. A lesson in seduction from my mother.

Chapter Seven

Harley

I sink into my pillow, practicing deep, calming breaths.

Reciting mantras Joanne taught me at SLAA.

This too shall pass.

The three-second rule.

Let the past be the past.

I lie flat and picture calm waters. Blue seas. Shining sun. A warm breeze. The beach I want to run off to. The ocean I want to carry me away from New York. The sand between my toes. Everything is peaceful in the world. My life is serene. Each day flows into the next and I go through life with a smile, a nod and a feeling of good will towards humankind.

There are no sirens, no email demands, no mothers who set you up, no fathers who leave you, no boys who run away from you when you throw yourself at them.

But that life is a lie. A pathetic, bald-faced fabrication and I don’t believe me for a second. There is no peace, there is no serenity, there is no happiness in love, and it’s as if someone or something cranked me up a notch, turned the timer on a once-dormant, now-ticking bomb inside me. I try to ignore the noise and the sound and the tightness in my body.

I pull the covers over my head and close my eyes, but I can’t sleep. Classes are nearly over, I have no more homework, I have no summer plans, I need something to do. I kick the sheets around a few times, flip on my back, then my stomach, even toss off the bedspread. I feel itchy, antsy. I clench and unclench my hands. I glance at my phone. It’s alive, calling out to me, whispering sweet nothings. Touch me. Put your fingers on me. Use me to deal.

I can’t deal by going back. I want to deal by going back.

I can’t. I want. I won’t. I want.

Like enemies in tug of war, the two sides of me pull, they yank, they jerk.

I close my eyes, trying to push away the flashing images of my messages, of Cam, of going back, back, back. They’re like bumper cars knocking, clanging.

I flip over and bang my fist into the pillow.

I can’t believe I did that to Trey. I can’t believe I jumped him like that when I know he wants to be good. When he’s trying so hard to heal. He’s not like me. He’s better, he’s healthier, he’s closer to moving on.

Trey doesn’t want to be a recidivist. He doesn’t want to slide back into the old skin.

And I was the call girl. The temptress. The little vixen school girl who uses charms and wiles to get what she wants.

I smash my hand once more into the pillow.

That’s who I am though. Why fight it. Why fight Layla?

I grab my phone, open my messages, read it again.

Missing things? Missing me? That can be fixed in an instant, sweetheart. Tomorrow night. Bliss Bar. 7 p.m. Be there.

I run my finger across the note, gasping for breath. My mind is drowning in a sea, crashing upside down under the waves. I let them carry me, toss me back into the waters. Before I even think about it for more than a fleeting second — because I don’t think at times like this, I act, I do, I operate on impulse — I reply.

Can’t wait.

Trey

The second I flop down onto my Michele’s couch, I blurt it out. “We fooled around last night.”

She doesn’t raise an eyebrow or give me a haughty look. She simply waits for me to say more. Her dark hair is pulled back in a low ponytail and she’s decked out in standard shrink garb. Gray pants, a white blouse, pearl earrings. I don’t know much about her. It’s not as if we talk about her or her family or why she became a shrink. All I know is she specializes in this kind of stuff. In my kind of problem. She was on the list of recommended shrinks from SLAA.

I heave a sigh. “It was at the coffee shop. We went into the back, and one thing led to another.”

“Stop right there.” She holds up her hand, then points her index finger. “That’s not how the world works. One thing doesn’t lead to another. There are actions and choices. Now, you know I don’t judge you for any of them. But by the same token, if you want to have an honest discussion here, let’s not say one thing led to another. Take responsibility for your actions, Trey.”

I narrow my eyes. “Fine. She kissed me. I kissed her back,” I say in a huff. “Okay? That better?”

She nods. “And how do you feel about it?”

“I fucking want her like crazy.” I roll my eyes, pushing my hands in my hair. “Like that’s a surprise? But it will never happen.”

“Why? And what is it? Is it sex you want? Or a relationship with Harley?”

“She doesn’t want either.”

She arches an eyebrow. “I find that hard to believe since you said she kissed you. But that’s not what I asked. I want to know what you want with her. Sex or a relationship?”

“It doesn’t matter. Neither will happen.”

“Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe you’re not ready for a relationship.”

“Obviously,” I say sarcastically. I hold my hands out wide, stretching across her beige couch. The window is open slightly, and the horns and the honking of midtown traffic bleat in the distance. “Not as if I know how to have one. Not as if I know anything.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is maybe other things should come first with her.”

“Like?”

“Like working on being honest with her. Practicing honesty.”

“I’m not dishonest.” I cross my arms over my chest.

“I know,” she says calmly. “But you also know you could take your friendship a step further. And it will be good for your healing if you tell her about your family.”

My heart skitters at the thought. I shake my head. “I can’t.”

“You can. You want her to know you, right?”

“I don’t even know how to say it.”

“You just say it. That’s how you say something that’s hard. You put one foot in front of the other. You take it step by step. You say the words. There is no magic formula. There is no secret sauce. But there are words,” she says emphatically, as if she’s delivering an impassioned speech. As if she’s saying something that matters deeply to her. “And words are all we have. That’s all there really is between people. At the end of the day, we have our actions, and we have our words. And you simply say them.”

I try them on for size, as if I’m talking about what I did today. Casual, cool, offhand, like we’re walking to the subway and I’m making a random observation. “Oh hey, Harley. I thought you should know. One night when I was fifteen, my brother –“ but I choke on the rest of the words.

Chapter Eight

Harley

I touch up my makeup, outline my lips and apply Cam’s favorite color lipstick, then some shimmery gloss. I press my lips together, smacking them lightly, and appraise my appearance. He’ll be pleased, but he’s always been pleased. Fact is, I’m pleased. I like the way I look. My faux school uniform is like a power suit, my armor, a super hero’s costume that makes me feel on top of the world. Short skirt, white blouse, knee-highs and Mary Janes. When I wear this, I make the rules. My phone buzzes as I open my bedroom door. Trey’s calling. I’m supposed to go to the meeting with him.

I ignore the call.

Then a text message flashes by. Hey. Hope you’re OK. Sorry about last night. See you in fifteen minutes?

But I don’t want to go to the meeting.

I don’t want to be a recovered addict.

I want to be addicted. I want to take a hit. I want to inhale all this control.

I turn the phone on silent. I feel a strange mix of guilt and thrill from ignoring Trey for the first time ever. Guilt because I have no lies with him. Thrill because the rush of the game is starting and now I am toying with Trey—something I’ve never done with him. Even last night when I practically attacked him, I was all honesty and guts, laying it on the line for him, letting him know how I felt. Where did it get me? Rejected.

I look at the phone one more time, scrolling over the missed call, my fingers hovering over his name. I could call him back. I could text him. I could be honest. I could confess. I could stop what I’m going to do. This is like my lifeline. The universe giving me one more way out.

But I am beyond repair. He deserves more than me.

I hide the phone at the bottom of my purse.

Fuck lifelines.

I sail down the stairs in the apartment building, feeling the rush of anticipation, of flirtation, of sparks about to be ignited. I feel bubbly and alive in a way I haven’t felt in six months. It’s like someone hit a tuning fork against me and I am now vibrating at the perfect frequency again.

My frequency.

I hail a cab and though it’s still rush hour, one comes squealing by in a heartbeat. I’ve never had a problem catching taxis. I give the driver the address of Bliss on Sixtieth and Lexington, far enough away that I might as well be in another world.

Even Miranda isn’t an East Side gal.

When she had me followed, it was all West side operations.

The time Miranda confronted me I was walking to my mom’s for dinner and talking to Cam on my cell phone. I’d given him the rundown on one of his top-paying clients, and he was laughing deeply, then lining up another gig for me. I turned south on Central Park West and spotted Miranda marching toward me, her slightly pouchy chin the identifying mark along with her customary skirt that sat high on her waist, a sartorial attempt to mask the few extra pounds. She was chubby then. The next thing I noticed were those laser-like eyes, like an assassin’s zeroed in on a target.

Me. In her crosshairs.

I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to Cam. The next thing I knew, she’d slapped me, like in the movies, her palm smacking my cheek, my head careening to the right at impact. I dropped the cell phone, the battery spitting itself out onto the sidewalk of New York City.

“I bet you thought you were going to get away with screwing my husband,” she said.

“No,” I squeezed out, as I pressed my hand against my stinging cheek. That was true. I didn’t think I’d get away with it. I bent down to grab the phone and she kicked it farther away with her brown leather boot.

That pissed me off. I looked up at her. “Really? Did you have to do that?”

She laughed, but the sound was cold and hurt, so much hurt, rage and shame mashed together in her tangled voice as she tried to keep some semblance of control while I scrambled to pick up the phone parts. “That,” she said, hissing out the word, “is nothing compared to what I am going to do next. And you will be wishing for a broken cell phone for months, Harley Coleman. Months. Because you’re more than just a cheater. You’re a whore.”

A chill swept through me, as if icicles were breeding on my skin. She’d found out the whole truth. But I had it coming. Whatever she was going to do I would have to bend over and take it. Even though I never screwed her husband.

And maybe that’s another reason why I am in this cab tonight. Because I have been taking it from her for months. I want to take something for me again.

The driver makes small talk and I exchange pleasantries with him as I give my breasts a boost so my cleavage peeks out of the top of the lacy bra. He does his best to appear surreptitious as his eyes dart around for a peek. I adjust my knee-high white socks making sure they fit just so.

“Excuse me for a sec,” I say, but I don’t move out of the way of the rearview mirror. Let him enjoy his job today. Let me be in charge. I undo two buttons on my blouse, making sure my boobs look good.

The driver breathes hard. I smile into the mirror, knowing I’ve just given him his happy ending for when he gets off work. When he pulls up to Bliss I thank him. He turns around and says, “No, thank you.”

I press a twenty into his hand and hop out.

When my heels hit the sidewalk, I am officially in Trey’s territory since he grew up on the upper east side. But I won’t run into him here because he lives downtown now. Besides, I’m not thinking about him, or about the cell phone stuffed at the bottom of my bag, nor the fact that I’m crazy certain he’s called again and texted again. I always answer for him. I’m available all the time for him. I rely on his friendship more than anything.

He knows all this, and so he’ll know I’m up to something.

But I don’t care right now.

Hugo, the muscly dude at the Bliss door knows me well, but still asks for my ID. He hasn’t seen me in six months. I show him the one that says I’m twenty-two.

“Been a while, Layla,” he says, using the name on my ID.

“Missed you too, Hugo,” I say with a wink. He blushes, waves me in and gives me a kiss on the cheek as I go by. I blow him one back.

Then I’m inside. Just as easy as it’s always been.

Cam’s waiting by the bar, tall and sturdy and five-o-clock-shadow-stubbly, with the biggest shit-eating grin you’ve ever seen pinned across his face. He wears pressed black pants and a silk shirt the shade of raspberry. He’s ridiculously tall with wavy, receding brown hair. Gelled, of course. He looks like Vince Vaughn. He talks like Vince Vaughn.

Just like the day I met him two years ago, thanks to my mom.

But here’s the best part. She doesn’t know he’s in my back pocket. She doesn’t know one of her sources is now mine. That I set myself up for my new job, my other life, because of someone I met through her. She didn’t intend to hook me up with Cam. She was simply meeting him for a tip on a story, and when she stepped away to answer a call, we got to chatting, and then we got to exchanging numbers, and then I got to know more about him than she ever did.

I learned something he never told her.

I learned about his moonlighting job.

“You and I could go places,” he said to me that day.

He’s a lawyer and he was one of my mom’s sources on a huge story she broke uncovering the sexting senator. Cam had all sorts of shady clients, but that also meant he knew all sorts of shady things – things she wanted to know to bust the senator. He’d played a role in prosecuting the guy, but yet he also ran a high-class call girl ring on the side.

Call Cam morally ambiguous. Call him a hypocrite. Call him the best fucking time I ever had.

“Hey babydoll! You look so fucking beautiful,” he says as I sit on the bar stool next to him. I barely have time to say hello, because he continues, “How could you let me go this long without seeing you? I’ve been starving. I’m like a dying man in a desert and you walk in and I can drink again.”

“You’re mixing metaphors. When you’re starving you’re hungry. When you’re in the desert you’re thirsty,” I say playfully, wagging my index finger as I correct him.

“When it comes to you I’m starving and I’m thirsty,” he says, inching closer, so I can smell his cologne, a cool, forest-y scent that’s both sexy and sleazy at the same time.

“Looks like you already started.” I tip my forehead to his martini.

“I couldn’t help myself. I was waiting for you, babydoll.” Then he leans in for a kiss. I turn my face so his lips brush my cheek.

I loved teasing him then. Turns out it still rocks. It still sends a tingle from my toes to my nose. God, this feels so good. It’s the opposite of being blackmailed. It’s the other side of my mom setting me up with boys.

It’s my side. My turn. My time.

“The cheek? Six months and I get the cheek? It’s been a long six months. C’mon, just one kiss for your old man Cam.”

I shake my head. Cam’s never been about the kissing. Cam’s about the access for me. An entree into a world of power, into my very own war games.

“How about a drink then?”

“You don’t remember?” I give Cam a pointed look.

He leans in to whisper. “Course I do. But you’ve got your ID. And Tom —” Cam nods to the bartender at the other end “— has always believed you were twenty-two, my babydoll.”

“Cam! I’m not talking about my age. I’m talking about the fact that I don’t drink.”

He holds up his hands and shrugs. “You changed everything else. How’m I to know you didn’t change that too?”

“Touché,” I say.

Drinking has never been my thing. You could surround me with trays of cocktails, with tables full of sexy, little frothy drinks, sugared on the rim, and I wouldn’t even notice them. I wouldn’t even touch them.

“A Diet Coke for my babydoll, Tom,” Cam says to the bartender, then winks at me.

“Hey, Layla,” Tom says and I flash him a bright smile. Then to Cam, “You remembered.”

“I remember everything about you. I remember you’re a junkie for your diet pop. And maybe for what I got going on again too?” He raises an eyebrow.

I give him a coquettish shrug. This is what I miss most. The banter, the back and forth, the chase.

“C’mon. You miss the biz, don’t you? You miss the way we played them all. You wore my favorite outfit after all. You wore the outfit they all wanted you in,” he says and trails off to look me up and down.

He holds me tight with his dark blue eyes, the color of the early-morning dawn before the sun breaks. His eyes are like a tractor beam and I can’t let go. I know I shouldn’t be looking at him like this, or letting him look at me like he’s doing, reeling me in with reminders of power, of playing, of the game being on our terms. But I’ve taken the pill, I’ve swallowed it once again, and now the effects are kicking in.

I finger the hem of my skirt — my admission that I came to play.

Then the low whistle from between his lips, the shake of his head, the grin that won’t stop. I’ve been ignited again, a sweet rush of what once was is now draped over me, and the past is no longer the past. It’s the present once more. I am back in time and it’s all so familiar and safe in its own way.

“You were easy,” I say. “You always liked the schoolgirl in me.”

He cocks his head to the side. “So I’m easy, babydoll. So sue me.”

“I know a good lawyer,” I tease.

“I couldn’t represent you. Conflict of interest.”

I laugh as Tom plunks down my glass of Diet Coke. I tell him thanks, then take a drink. “That’s a good way to describe me.”

“I like conflicts of interest,” he says. “But somehow we found the loopholes, baby.”

“We were all loopholes,” I say because Cam and I covered ourselves in secrets. Like pulling a blanket over our heads, we were huddled in our fort, never letting anyone know we were running the numbers, making a mint, playing all the strange men in Manhattan who wanted a pretty young thing to look at them, talk to them, spank them, or tell them how big they were even when they were tiny little men.

Never more than that. He kept me clean. He never wanted anything to happen to me. Never wanted anyone to touch me below the waist. One of his clients tried to slip a hand up my skirt when I met him at a bar, and Cam made sure the guy had trouble walking the next few days. He protected me.

“Look at you,” Cam says, his eyes gliding over me, cataloguing every curve, every shape. “Back here at Bliss with me.” This was our spot and no one ever knew we were here. The place where I was Layla, Cam’s top earner, not my mother’s daughter, not the pretty pony she pawned off on her suitor’s sons. I was the player, I was the one who decided. I could say yes or no to anyone Cam brought to me. I could turn down the clothes he picked up for me at Bloomingdale’s. I had veto power over everything. He gave me choices.

“Just like old times. You by my side.”

“It’s not like old times, Cam,” I say, but I don’t mean it, because it is like old times. Meeting him after a job. Toasting, like we were painting the town red because we’d figured out the trick. We were like con artists, and our marks were men who liked girls.

“Tell me you miss it, baby. Tell me you miss the way we pulled them in,” he says again, moving closer to me, trying to nuzzle my neck.

“Not a bit,” I say, keeping my hand on his chest. Familiar ground—his chest, the game. He’s playing too. He loves it too. We are cut from the same cloth.

“Not one tiny little bitty baby ounce?” He holds up his thumb and index finger to show a sliver of space. I press my index finger between them, shake my head and bat my eyes.

“Harley,” he says softly. “You know I missed you.”

“Don’t call me Harley,” I say sharply.

“Harley, you’re my Harley,” he says. “I missed you more than anyone. You know that right? Nothing’s been the same without you.”

“You know who I am to you.”

He sighs and says, “Come back to me, Layla.”

I let him come closer, especially now that he’s used the name he gave me, the name I took when I was his. “Layla,” he says again. “My Layla. You know I missed you.”

My Layla.

All the months melt away. I fall back. Back into pre-Miranda, pre-meeting, pre-Trey, prehistoric Layla before I shed all this, before I learned what I’d been doing was bad for me. Because nothing is bad now that the past is here again. Everything feels right, how it should be, how it was.

So in a tiny voice, barely a whisper, I say, “I miss it too.”

Cam hears me, taking my cue, running his big hand through my hair. I let him, leaning into his hand, a cat arching its back to be pet. He closes his eyes, sighs and says, “You belong to me. Work with me again.”

“I know,” I whisper, sliding into my old skin. It’s so easy, so simple to return to the girl I once was, the only girl I have ever known myself to be.

“You’re mine. You’re not theirs. You don’t belong with them, those people in your group. You belong by my side. We can conquer the world again.”

“I do. I do belong to you,” I say, and I feel the thing I missed, the thing that I’m terribly withdrawn from. The tug, the pull, the flip in my stomach that takes away all the confusion, all the uncertainty, that coats it over with a feeling of blissful nothingness. There is no more aching, no more wondering, no more worry as Cam leans into me, inhaling me. I close my eyes as he smells my hair as if I’m his drug too. And I know he’s not the only one who’s high right now. I am too as the night turns hazy.

“Mmmm,” he says again, his voice a low moan this time.

When my eyes flutter open I take in the scene. Cam’s still there, lingering on me like I’m long line of cocaine and he’s taking me in grain of powder by grain of powder. There’s Tom, mixing a drink. There are men and women, coupling and uncoupling, along the length of the bar. There’s me on a plush, velvet stool I’ve perched on too many times to count.

I spot a woman at the other end of the bar. She’s with a guy and they’re wrapped up in each other. He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, then kisses her gently on her jawline, and something, I don’t know what exactly, but something in the way he touches her – soft, tender, caring – tugs at me.

Reminding me.

Not of Cam.

Not of men.

But of one guy.

The one I kissed last night. The one who kissed me back like I was air, breath, and all the stars in the sky at once. Who tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear.

I clench my teeth. Force myself to look away. I don’t want to think of Trey right now. I don’t need him invading my brain and burrowing into my unknowable heart.

I want desperately to slip into my old clothes, my old comfort zone. I was fluent with Cam, I spoke our language like a native poet. Without him, without everything I was when I was Layla, I am clunking around without even a beginner’s dictionary.

But Trey’s with me now in my head. Telling me to be careful, ordering my triple espresso, checking in to make sure I’m okay. Asking if I made it through another dinner with my mom.

I am a rag doll yanked in one direction, then another, tossed and turned and twisted.

I don’t know which way to go. But the moment – the promise, the hit – isn’t quite as good as it was a minute ago. Because now I’m thinking of what’s beyond the door of Bliss. I’m thinking of Trey and SLAA and whether the arrow’s coming or going.

I place my hands on Cam’s chest and push him gently away. He’s flustered but he has this groggy sort of happy smile. His brain and body are still on other things.

“I should go, Cam,” I whisper.

“Don’t go,” he says in a soft whine, placing his hand on my thigh.

I shake my head. “It’s not you, Cam. I swear it’s not you.”

“Then don’t go. You make me feel like all the others when you go.”

“You were special. You are special,” I say, correcting myself. But the words come out flat now. Because now I’m here, now I’m present. I’m aware again, thinking again, catching myself again.

“Don’t leave me again.” Cam wraps his hand around my arm. His touch is both possessive and gentle. Demanding, yet caring. “I’ve got jobs for you. No one can work them like you. You could be a partner in my business. Help me recruit others. Train up a new crew of sexy schoolgirls. We’ll be in this together.”

“I don’t know,” I say in a half-hearted protest because I desperately crave what Cam offers me. He gives me the one thing I never had growing up. Control of love. Control of sex. Control of the men in my life.

But yet, there’s a traitorous part of my hardened heart that longs for what I felt that one night with Trey. For what I felt in those seconds in the courtyard last night. For the possibility of the other side.

“One more job then,” he says.

“Let me think about it,” I say because I don’t know which side of me is strong. Which side wants more. Which side will win.

Before Layla. After Layla.

“Let me know in a week.”

“Okay. One week.” I stand up to leave.

“Why are you going?”

“I have stuff to do,” I say, and now the pull is coming from outside Bliss. It’s coming from the other side, from the things I’ve had a glimpse of, a fleeting taste of beyond this bar. Things I don’t know if I’ll ever have.

Cam doesn’t like that pull. He feels it too, like gravity, me slipping out of his grasp.

“Stay, babydoll. Have another Diet Coke. Hang out with me. Talk to me. Tell me things. I want to know everything.”

“I have to go,” I say, my voice breaking, hurting, missing. I stand up, slinging my purse on my shoulder. My phone’s on silent, it can’t even vibrate, but I can sense it, red hot and boiling. It’s like an ankle bracelet on a criminal, a reminder not to cross a certain line. I give Cam a quick peck on the cheek, his forest scent filling my nostrils, a sensory reminder of the world he inhabits, the world he gave me. I feel a sliver of pain, like a phantom limb, shoot through me as I break the chaste kiss.

“A week though. You’ll let me know in a week, right?”

“I promise,” I say, then I leave, moving quickly past the other people, past the entryway, past Hugo as he says, “See you soon, Layla.”

“Sure,” I say and raise my hand to hail a cab. But Hugo puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles. He’s faster than me at hailing cabs. I turn back to him briefly and meet his eyes. “Thank you.”

I slide into my taxi, give the driver the address of my apartment, and practically rip open my purse. My hand dives down and I grab my phone. I missed two more calls from Trey and a few texts.

“Hi,” I say when he answers.

“Hey you. You okay?”

“Yes. No. Maybe.”

“Where are you?” he asks.

“In a cab.”

“Did you see Cam?”

I nod again. “How did you know?”

“Good guess. That, and it takes one to know one.”

I hold the phone closer, glad I’m not alone, glad that someone else — one person at least — understands. “Where are you?”

“Sitting on your steps waiting for you.”

Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict…

Page 167…

Peter had a really small peter.

Ironic, huh?

And look, hey, it happens. Some guys are packing, some guys are lacking.

But that’s why he needed Cam’s services. My job was to prop him up, give him pep talks, encourage him about his size. I’d use my fake ID, meet him at a punk dive bar in the East Village, all run down and luring the goth crowds with plugs in their ears, and piercings in their noses. I think it made him feel dangerous, especially as screeching music with indecipherable lyrics echoed in the bar. He was probably a product manager or an accountant or something. He never told me, and I didn’t need to know. But he hired me to dirty talk him, to have a drink, and tell him how big he was.

“Have you ever seen a dick bigger than mine?”

“No,” I said, with wide eyes, and a firmness in my tone. As if it were even possible for a dick to be bigger than his.

“It’s huge, isn’t it?”

“You have the biggest dick I have ever seen. It’s huge, and thick, and absolutely massive.”

“Do you want to touch it?”

I’d shake my head coquettishly because Peter knew the rules. Peter played by the rules. Peter paid top dollar to follow those rules.

“But I want to watch you touch your huge dick,” I said.

Then I’d lead him into the ladies room that probably wasn’t any cleaner than the men’s room. The sink was dirty, the trash can overflowed with tissues and the tiny stall smelled of beer and piss. He’d jerk off, and I’d watch, telling him the whole time how monstrous his dick was. Honestly, I couldn’t even see it in his hand.

Poor Peter.

But I will say this, Cam told me he was one of the happiest guys he’d ever known. So maybe all Peter needed to feel good about himself was a pretty young thing stroking his ego, rather than his dick.

Chapter Nine

Trey

“You’re at my apartment?”

She sounds shocked. As if I broke into her place.

“Well, outside,” I say, half-defensively, because I’m not sure if she’s annoyed that I’m here, my ass parked on the stoop of her building, waiting for a girl who doesn’t want someone waiting for her.

“I thought you were going to the meeting?”

“I was at the meeting. And when I didn’t hear from you or see you there…” I say, but I don’t know how to finish the sentence. I sound like a stalker. Like I’m that pathetic stalker guy.

“Sorry I didn’t go,” she says in a small voice. A skinny hipster ambles puffing on a cigarette as he walks a pug. The dude tugs at his shirt. The night is muggy and the heat in the air clings.

“You don’t have to apologize to me.” There’s a part of me that wants to hang up on her, to get the hell out of here, and let her deal with her shit all by herself. But I guess there’s a stronger part that doesn’t want to lose her, because I came here after the meeting on a mad hunt for the girl I kissed last night. “Anyway, I had a feeling you might need someone to talk to.”

“I didn’t do anything with him, Trey,” she pleads, like she desperately wants me to know this vital fact. I don’t know if it’s because we’re friends, or because of what happened last night. But I don’t want to ask.

“Do you want me to wait for you?”

“Yes, please. I want you to wait for me,” she says, and with her words, the stronger part wins out by far. I stretch out on the stoop, like the step is a couch, my backpack forming a pillow. I draw in my sketchbook, mapping out a new design of a dragon with spikes, a long, snapping tail and breath of fire, something a regular client of mine wants.

A few minutes later a cab pulls up, and she pays the driver, then escapes. I squeeze my eyes shut when I see what she’s wearing. Then I open them.

“Hi.” She offers a meek little wave as she sinks down next to me. I close the sketchbook.

The cab races off, kicking up exhaust into the night breeze, mingling with all the other scents nearby. This is New York for you – I can smell Harley’s wild cherry lotion and I can smell garbage that needs to be picked up tomorrow, the fume from cabs, and the trailing scent of cigarettes. The ugly with the beautiful.

“You look guilty,” I say. “But you don’t have to look guilty on my behalf.”

“I feel guilty.”

“Why? Are you going back to him?” I ask in a strangled voice. The thought makes me sick.

She shrugs. “He made me an offer.”

I recoil, then stand up quickly as if I can’t even be near her when she’s like this. When she’s in this zone. “Are you going to take it?” I ask with a sneer. I don’t mask my disgust. I can’t mask my disgust.

“I don’t know,” she says, and her voice breaks, and I fucking hate that she can be like this.

Tempted.

I push both hands through my hair, grabbing hard. “You’re not a fucking whore, Harley.”

“It’s not like that,” she spits back.

“Fuck that,” I shout through clenched teeth. I pace down the block, walking away from her, far away. To the end of the block, where I stop and slam a hand against the street sign. I take a sharp, deep breath, then turn around. She’s still on the stoop, and she’s fiddling with her shirt, shakily fastening the top two buttons.

When I reach her I bend down and grip her knees. I stare hard at her, her brown eyes like pools. One lone tear streaks down her face. “You are better than that,” I tell her, never breaking her gaze. “You are so much better than that.”

“But what if I’m not?” She chokes out in the tiniest voice.

I wipe the pad of my thumb across her cheek. I want to kiss her tears away, but I can’t go there right now. For a million reasons.

“You are,” I say firmly. I want to shake her. I want to smack some sense into her. “How can you even say you’re not?”

She drops her head so I can’t look at her. “Because I’m not. Because I went to see him. Because you’d never do this. You’re stronger than me. You’re never even tempted.”

“You think this is easy for me?” I crouch on the sidewalk, my hands still gripping her knees. I glance down at her socks, then shake my head. “I hate these socks,” I mumble, as I peel the right one down her leg. She lets me, lifting her calf for me. My fingertips brush her skin, but I manage to resist running my hands up and down those calves. The mission to get her out of this awful costume is stronger than my desire to touch her. I unbuckle one shoe and take off her sock. I do the same to the other leg, rolling down the white knee-high, undoing the shoes, and tugging the sock off her foot, ignoring how smooth her perfectly shaven legs are. I hand her the offending items, and she stuffs the white socks into her purse. Out of sight. Somewhat out of mind. “I can’t stand seeing you dressed like this. I wish you were wearing a t-shirt and jeans right now.”

I earn a small laugh for that, and she lifts her head, flashing a quick lopsided smile. The Harley smirk that makes me want to wipe it away with my mouth. Kiss that sexy smirk right off of her. Hear the sweet sighs she makes when I kiss her. “I’ll go change then,” she says, tipping her forehead to the door.

“Want me to wait out here?”

“We can talk inside.”

“Okay.” I sling my backpack over one shoulder and follow her up the steps, waiting as she unfastens three locks on the battered, creaky, brown door of her building, leading into a hall so cramped you have to walk single file to the stairs. I try not to stare at her legs as she walks up the staircase, but it’s a losing battle because her calves are perfection. Strong, shapely, smooth.

Plus, I know how they taste. I know how every inch of her tastes. Her ankles, her calves, behind her knees, her thighs, belly, breasts, neck and everyplace else. The answer? She tastes fucking spectacular. I watch her, enjoying the view, picturing those legs spread out and open for me. If she only knew how much I want to go down on her again. And again. And again.

We reach her floor, and I grab my backpack from my shoulder and hold it in front of me, so she can’t see that I’m hard from staring at her.

She unlocks the door and calls out. “Kristen?”

But there’s no answer.

She lets the door fall shut behind us, closing with a loud clanging sound.

“Oh. It’s Thursday. She goes to some film showing at the arthouse nearby. Something for one of her film classes. They see all these festival flicks,” she says as she tosses her keys on the kitchen table.

“Sounds like she and Jordan will be the perfect match,” I say sarcastically. “Given his love for shoot ‘em up action flicks and horror films.”

Harley laughs, then tells me she’ll be right back and she ducks into her room. I head straight for the fridge. Harley doesn’t drink, but I can count on Kristen to have something on hand. I find a couple of six-packs of Coors Light, grab a bottle, then a Diet Coke for Harley, and wait for her on the couch in the cardboard-box sized living room.

When Harley returns my heart trips on its dumbass feet. Her hair is in a ponytail, and she washed off all her makeup. She has on dark blue jeans that hug her legs and a gray t-shirt that says Eat, Sleep, Read. “Picked it up at this indie bookstore in Brooklyn a few weeks ago when I was stocking up on old paperbacks. Thought it was cute,” she says, pointing to the shirt.

“Yeah, it’s cute,” I say but my throat is dry so the words come out croaky. That’s the thing – she looks so much better like this. Not that there’s anything wrong with Harley in a skirt. But seeing her like this, in jeans and a t-shirt, hair pulled back, makes me feel like I have secret access to the Harley no one knows, the side she doesn’t show anyone else. Cam never sees her without make-up. Her clients never did either. She looks beautiful as herself. All fresh and perfect and sweet. She’s the girl I know, the girl I want, the girl I can’t let myself have.

She joins me on the couch, tucks her legs under her, and cracks open the can. She takes a sip. “Why did you wait for me?”

I raise an eyebrow. “At your apartment?”

She nods. “Yeah.”

“Um…because I give a shit about you.” I knock back more of my beer. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“But you hate him,” she says as she runs her thumb around the top of the can.

“No shit. He’s a pimp. But I figured if you missed a meeting chances were you were up to something. And if you were up to something I figured you probably needed someone to talk to. Or someone not to talk to. Just someone to be with.”

“You’re not judging me for seeing Cam?”

“Kettle, can I introduce you to the pot?” I point to myself. “You think it’s so easy for me, don’t you?”

She shrugs. “Well, does this ever happen to you?”

I scoff. “What? You think I’m never tempted? You think I’m just this good little boy? Like I’m a saint or a Mormon?”

“You. A Mormon,” she says dryly.

I lift my legs onto the couch, cross them at the ankles, stretch out. She shifts closer to the cushion, giving me room. “The ladies would have loved that even more. Can you imagine? Seducing a Mormon boy?”

“I think it was the other way around,” she says, and wiggles an eyebrow, and I like that we’re back to us, back to how she can tease me about my past, and I can at least be honest with her about hers.

“A few weeks ago I went to see my parents. You know, the usual check-in, how’s school, when are you going to be a bio major and give up this art shit. But I gotta do it, right? So this investment banker woman moved into my building last week with her husband and two young kids and I swear she gave me this look in the elevator like she’d heard about me. Like they all share stories and here she is thinking, ‘Now it’s my turn.’”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Well, what happened?” She smacks my leg playfully. “I want details.”

“So she gets in the elevator same time as me. She looks at me. Her eyes light up. She says ‘Hi, aren’t you Trey?’ One name only, like Madonna or something. Like my name is known in the building, shared in their circles. Trey.”

“What did you do, Trey?” She says, saying my name with smolder, like she’s the newest hot MILF in the building, ready and eager to pounce.

“I nodded and said yes, and then in the span of a twenty-second elevator ride, I played out a million ways I could take her so I forced myself to sing nursery rhymes in my head so I wouldn’t open my mouth and say something inviting.”

“Nursery rhymes,” she laughs. “Which nursery rhyme?”

“Jack Sprat.”

“Sing it to me.” She rests her head against the couch pillow, relaxing and smiling. I don’t know that I came here to make her smile, but hell if it doesn’t make me happy to see her like this. To know she’s here, and she’s safe, and she’s not with him, and even if it was hard, and even if she’s thinking about going back, at least for tonight she’s with me and she’s laughing as I tell a story. “Jack Sprat could eat no meat. His wife could eat no lean….” I sing softly, then stop.

“That’s it?”

“Might come as a bit of a shock, but I can’t remember the rest of the words, so I just repeat those two lines.”

“Jack Sprat could eat no meat. His wife could eat no lean,” she sings to me this time in a sing-song voice. I join in and we both sing it low and soft. Then our words fade and we stop talking, but neither one of us moves. I just stay there, next to her on the couch, and the mood shifts again.

“Did you want to be with her? To sleep with her?”

I swallow, consider, let her question unfold in my mind. “I don’t know. It was more that I wanted to seduce her. I wanted to know that I could win her over in a matter of minutes, maybe hours.”

“That’s all it took?”

“For some of them, yeah.”

She parts her lips as if she’s about to say something, then stops herself. She looks down, breathes out hard, then takes a sip.

“What is it?” I ask softly.

“Is it because they were easy or you were so good?”

I bite my lip for a second, trying not to let her question make me all crazy inside for her. But I am that way. Even more so because she’s blushing now. Red is rushing to her cheeks in splotches. “You think I’m good?”

“Yes,” she says in a breathy voice that sends a buzz through my whole body. “But you knew that.”

I shake my head. I did know that. But I don’t know that either. I don’t know anything with her. I don’t know what’s real and what’s a game.

“I didn’t know that,” I say, and maybe I’m lying, but I can’t help it. I want to hear her say it, even though this is the riskiest thing to do in the world. To tread on this territory of us, of the almost-sex we had. I’m already burning up, I am hot all over.

She raises her eyes, meets my gaze. “You know what I told you that night. I mean, I don’t have anything to compare it to –“

I cut her off. “–Good.”

“But I’ve never let anyone do that to me before.”

She said that the night we were together. It made me feel electric all over hearing it from a hot girl I wanted to have a one-night stand with, a last fling before I went on the wagon. Hearing it now, knowing her, understanding her, being privy to all her deep, dark secrets is the biggest fucking turn-on of my life. I’m dying for her to touch me right now, even though I know we won’t go there, but I want it so badly. I want to feel her hands on me, I want her to unzip my jeans and do something about how fucking uncomfortable I am right now with my dick straining hard against the fly.

“Yeah?” I say in a hoarse voice because I can’t manage sentences, much less coherent thought. I can’t move either, because if I shift an inch, I will lunge at her, pull her under me, and fumble at all our zippers to get our clothes off. And I can’t, can’t, can’t do that to her. She’s a virgin, and she’s messed in the head, and if I take her virginity because she winds me up with a few words then I am more of an ass than those pathetic men who hired her.

“I told you that, Trey,” she says softly, and there’s something about this moment that feels like a confessional, like she needs to tell me these things, like she has to say them. “But I want you to know that now. Now that we’re friends. I know how you feel about what I’ve done, but I want you to know it was so different with you,” she says, and even though she’s perfectly still, her words are moving toward me, reaching deep down inside me, gutting me.

It was so different with you.

She is killing me. I am hanging on to the frayed end of a rope with the smallest bit of self-restraint left.

“No one has ever made me come. I’ve never let anyone touch me. I never wanted to be touched. I never even knew what it would feel like to have someone do that,” she says and licks her lips, and I am dying. Completely dying right now. My hands are twitching, and I grip hard on the beer bottle, so hard I could break it, but I have to hold onto something, because all I want right now is to touch her. The whole living room is burning, the space between us is hot and humming and full of all this hazy desire I feel, and it’s taking over my body, my brain, my heart, and the air between us.

If I weren’t already sitting down, I might collapse. Because this feeling is knocking breath out of me. It is staggering.

“Harley,” I say in a low voice.

“Trey, what happened last night?”

The room spins, and I know I should go, but I also know I won’t leave. But neither one of us moves. Neither one of us breaks. Maybe we are both stronger than we think. Or maybe we are both afraid of getting hurt.

“What do you mean?”

“What happened with us in the courtyard. Last night was weird.”

“You didn’t like it?” I sound defensive, and my guard is back up. Maybe this is good. I need some self-protection around her.

“I liked it. Too much.”

I run a hand through my hair.

“Did you?”

I roll my eyes. “Do you seriously have to ask?”

“Yes,” she says emphatically. She juts out her chin. “Yes. I do have to ask.”

Then I hear the sound of the key in the lock. The door groans open loudly, and Kristen spills in, all keys and big purse and her black hair in a crazy mess.

“Oh,” Kristen says, surprised to see us on the couch. Two statues caught in unexpected lust. The roommate and the guy who was seconds away from claiming her sexy, pouty, lipstick-free mouth. “What are you guys up to?”

“Just hanging,” Harley says, smoothing out an unseen wrinkle in her shirt.

“You took one of my beers,” she says to me, zeroing in on me from behind those cat’s eye glasses.

“Yeah. That okay?”

“I can’t let you drink alone. Harley’s diet soda doesn’t count.”

Then Kristen grabs a Coors, and plops down between us on the couch. I’ve never been so ready to toss someone from the room, nor been so grateful to have a barrier in my life. “The movie sucked. I need to get the taste of it out of my mouth.”

“What was it?”

“Some Romanian film about a guy who leaves a goldfish on the roof of his car as he writes haikus while driving cross country.”

“Sounds wretched”

“It was. Let’s get drunk. Or caffeinated in your case,” she says, tipping her forehead to Harley.

“I’m in,” I say because I could use a few more beers right about now, that’s for sure.

Then my phone buzzes. I tap the screen to see Jordan’s name. “Shift’s over. Beer time?”

“Jordan wants to get a beer,” I say to Kristen and Harley.

Kristen holds her arms out wide, as if to say The answer is here.

Harley catches my gaze and raises an eyebrow, her reminder that she wanted to set them up. “Invite him over.”

“If you insist.”

Chapter Ten

Harley

“Never have I ever worn ladies shoes.”

Kristen nearly spits out her beer with laughter. She points at Jordan, who’s cross-legged on the blue carpet in our living room. “So not fair. We have to drink,” she says with an indignant whine.

“Obviously we’ve worn ladies shoes,” I add.

Trey smiles along with Jordan. “Drink up, ladies.”

Kristen shoots a wide-eyed stare at Trey, then Jordan. She parks her hands on her hips. “Well. The more interesting question is whether you guys have?”

Trey laughs and shakes his head.

Jordan holds up a hand, like a stop sign. “Once. I did it once and I did it for a chick.”

Kristen cracks up.

“Drink!” Trey shouts at Jordan, like he’s smack-talking him. Then he raises both arms over his head, victorious. “I am the only one whose feet are pure.”

I laugh as Matt Nathanson blares from my iPod. Kristen and I picked the music for the game and we love Matt Nathanson. He is sex in musical form.

Kristen is running at full buzz, and both Jordan and Trey are chasing their own intoxication. We’re down to one beer left from the two six-packs in the fridge.

“I’ve never had a threesome,” Kristen blurts out. She scans the rest of us quickly, first me, and I shake my head, then Jordan does the same. She stares at Trey, asking the question silently. He has a guilty look in his eyes. He shrugs and takes a drink.

My face burns. Jealousy slithers through me. It crawls and wraps around my internal organs as Jordan high-fives his friend. “Dude. Why have you never told me that before?”

Trey shrugs and laughs. “I guess I wasn’t drunk enough before,” he says, moving on easily. Making me wonder if that’s how he was with his women. Switching on and off. Seamlessly jumping from one to another. Or to three. “Never have I ever given a blow job,” Trey offers next, looking awfully proud of himself. Then he taps his chest. “I, obviously, have not.”

Jordan bangs his beer down emphatically on the coffee table. “Never have. Never will.”

Kristen rolls her eyes. “Plenty,” she says in a deliberately seductive voice. “And I’ve been told my blow jobs are quite spectacular.”

Jordan blinks, intrigued and then some. He grabs the neck of his bottle. “I have to drink just because that was a crazy hot thing to say.”

Kristen turns to me and eyes my Diet Coke. “C’mon. Drink up, bitch.”

I shake my head. “I don’t meet the qualifications.”

“For real? You have never given a blow job?”

Another shake. I run my index finger once across my lips as if I’m zipping them up. “These lips are pure, baby,” I say playfully.

“How does that happen?”

“Just happens.”

“No. Seriously,” she presses, and now I don’t feel so playful anymore.

“Just never have,” I say evasively. I could lie. I mean, who doesn’t lie in this game? But then, I’m kind of proud of not having blown a guy. Not like it’s some huge accomplishment. But I’m only admitting the truth for me. Because I’m glad I didn’t put any of my client’s dicks in my mouth. I drew some lines, and so I don’t take a drink.

I’ve done so much but yet I’ve done so little.

Kristen waggles her empty bottle. “So sad. No more beer.”

“Want me to get more?” Jordan offers.

“Hell yeah.” Kristen says. “I’ll go with you.”

She hops up from the couch, ready for more, and they head out.

“I guess his love for action flicks and hers for art house movies didn’t get in the way of their shared love of beer and drinking games,” I say.

“Evidently, they found common ground.” Then he yawns. “I should go,” he mumbles, but he shows no signs of leaving. Instead, he sinks deeper into the couch, and his eyelids start to flutter. I glance at my phone. It’s past midnight.

“Do you want to stay?”

He smiles weakly. “I’m so fucking tired,” he says and then he goes horizontal on the couch.

“I’ll get you a blanket.”

“I’m fine.”

“No. I want to.” I head for my room, grab a blanket and bring it to the living room where he’s already stretched out. He’s untying his shoes, kicking them off, and I dim the light.

“Are you going to tuck me in?”

I stick out my tongue. “No.”

“C’mon. Read me a bedtime story.”

“Three little kittens lost their mittens,” I begin, and he smiles. A sweet, warm, happy smile that erases the faint traces of annoyance I felt moments ago in the game. My phone lights up and I grab it from the coffee table, swiping the screen. I read Kristen’s message. “Hungry. Stopping at Wendy’s Diner for fries and burger. Want anything?”

I write back: No thanks.

I drape the blanket over Trey, but he pushes it down to his waist.

“It’s hot. Can I take off my shirt?”

“You don’t need my permission.”

He raises an arm behind his back and tugs in one swift motion. He’s shirtless, and he hasn’t been since the night we were together. My breath catches. Even in the dark, I can make out the outline of his chest, solid and strong, his arms, all muscled and corded and covered in tats.

Reflexively, I lick my lips.

“Lie down with me,” he whispers. He sounds sleepy drunk and sexy, and the invitation is far too inviting to pass by.

I slide in next to him, so he’s spooning me, and it’s innocent, I suppose, or I’m letting myself pretend this is an extension of the hand holding and the hugging and the sock removing. Right? We are simply two friends sharing a small couch, but then he wraps his arm around me, sighs happily, and exhales against my neck. A strand of my hair flutters.

“Harley,” he sighs, but it’s not a question. More a statement, an expression, and there’s some kind of wonder, happiness in it that I want to let myself believe in, that I want to cocoon in and hold in my hands, a fragile glass globe that could break. But yet, I’m pretty sure it’s the Silver Bullet talking when he whispers, “This is so nice.”

“You’re drunk.”

I feel him shrug against me. “Maybe a little.”

“Maybe a lot,” I counter.

“So then you won’t get mad in the morning when I ask you about this. Have you really never given a blow job?”

I roll my eyes, even though it’s dark, even though he’s snug behind me and can’t see my eyes. “No. I told you that.” I tense up. “Why?”

“Did you ever want to?”

“No.”

“Do you?”

I laugh. “You offering yourself?”

He laughs too, and I can feel his breath against my neck. There’s a faint smell of beer, but it’s mingled with him, and I have the sudden urge to taste beer now for the first time. On his lips. “Anytime,” he says softly, but that’s all. There’s no innuendo in his voice. Nothing more than a continuation of the game in some ways.

I push against his arm playfully. “And how the hell did you have a threesome, king of the studs?”

“Two ladies.”

“Yeah. I kinda figured it was two ladies,” I say. Then in a more serious, searching tone. “Was it good?”

I’m not even sure why I’m asking. It’s like I’m picking at a scab, hunting for a wound, so I can worry away at it.

“I barely remember it,” he says in a sleepy voice. A warm breeze blows through the open window, carrying with it the faraway sounds of cars and cabs on late night Manhattan streets. Somewhere, Jordan and Kristen are out there having fries. In here, I feel as if we are the only two people in the world. In the dark, hushed voices, whispering about our pasts.

“But you remember you had two at once,” I point out.

“Yeah and that’s it,” he says, and loops his arm tighter around my waist. I inhale sharply at the closeness. More, tighter, closer. He’s bringing me nearer to him, his jeans against mine, his bare chest against my shirt, his breath on my neck, and now, there, his hand on my belly. Then, slinking under the bottom of my shirt, inching its way to my stomach.

I gasp quietly as his fingertips reach my bare skin.

“But there’s this other girl and I remember everything about her,” he says, and in an instant, all I see, all I feel are his words. They have their own heartbeat and pulse, a living being, surrounding me.

He traces lazy fingers across my stomach, and I want this feeling to last forever because it’s so out-of-this-world intense. I swear my body is sliding into another plane of existence, some realm of pleasure I’ve never allowed before, as feelings spill over – want, desire, fear all wrapped up in a messy package, without a bow.

I close my eyes and revel in the sensations zooming and racing through my blood and veins and body at the slightest touch of his fingertips on my belly. I want so badly for him to touch me more, and I am so scared of what will happen if he does. I don’t know how it would feel. But that’s not true. I do know. Because he’s made me feel this way before, and now he’s doing it again.

And I don’t know what it means. If it means we’re something, or we’re nothing, or we are just this moment. We are the here and now.

“You do?” I ask.

He nods against me, his lips practically brushing my neck in a sweet kiss. Not quite, but almost. “I remember the way she smelled so sexy and sweet,” he begins, and my heart stops, and then speeds up, and I don’t know if I can breathe. He plays with a strand of my hair, running it through his fingers, then leaning his head into my hair, inhaling me. Everything inside of me is burning with a tingling heat, and butterflies I’ve barely known. I never felt a thing for my clients. Not one iota of a flutter, a wish, a hope. With Trey, that is literally all I feel. As if my body is glowing, like a firefly, and I am flickering with every second of contact, or even merely the promise of contact. The possibility. Just the slightest touch from him is the sweetest escape. “And the sounds she made,” he continues, and I feel my cheeks flush, but still I’m dying for more, so I have to ask.

“What did she sound like?”

He sighs happily, and buzzes his lips against my earlobe. “Like no one had ever made her feel that way before.”

“No one had,” I say, and he spreads his fingers across my stomach. I shiver and my breath hitches.

“Like that,” he says, and I can hear the grin in his words. “That was how she sounded when I touched her.”

He draws circles on my flesh, lazy lines across my belly, and I can’t help it. I am beyond turned on, I am floating on a cloud of lust and wishes and wanting, and so I wriggle against him, feeling how hard he is against my backside.

He groans in my ear at the pressure of my body against his erection, and it’s still strange to me to want to do this. To want to be touched. To want more. And after last night, and tonight, and where I was, to want to do this right now is bizarre to me. As if my life is built into separate rooms, and I’ve left one and entered another. And here, now, in this room I am only a girl of the moment, of flesh and blood and want, and I am aching all over for him. He’s drunk, I know he’s drunk, I know if he were sober, he wouldn’t be doing this, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t care.

“It sounds like she liked it when you touched her,” I whisper, and I’m silently praying that he’ll slide his hand down my pants, that he’ll touch me again, taste me, do something, anything to alleviate the throbbing between my legs. This is so rare for me, so unusual to feel this way. To be wet. To be wanting. To be turned on. But he does this to me. He lets me experience my body in a new way.

“I loved touching her,” he says, and with one strong hand on my hip, he shifts me 180 degrees so I’m facing him. His eyes are barely open, he’s in such a twilight state right now, but he bends his mouth to my neck, and begins kissing me there, and in seconds, I am asking for more.

“Trey,” I whisper as if his name has ten syllables and I have to say them all, feel them all, taste them all as his soft lips explore my neck. He tugs me closer, hooking a hand around my thigh, moving my leg on top of his, and then yanking me closer so I’m practically straddling his thigh in this position. More kisses rain down on my skin, and I can’t help it. I start rubbing myself against his thigh, and I whimper at the contact that’s both relief and a wish for more.

“Do that, Harley,” he says in a rough, ragged voice. “Fucking do that and don’t stop. I want to get you off.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I loved doing that to you. I love everything about making you come. I want to make you come in every way. With my mouth, with my fingers, with you just riding me like this right now,” he says, before he dives back to my neck, layering hot, desperate kisses on me as I move against him. I should be embarrassed, I’m dry humping his leg, after all. But I want to do this, and maybe that’s why I’m not ashamed. Because I am wound full of desire and this dark craving for him. My breathing grows stilted and erratic as the feelings build inside me, like lightning crackling through my veins, hot and wild and electric. Soon his hands are in my hair, and his mouth returns to mine. He kisses me with the kind of deep, furious kiss of a man who has to have his woman, and that woman happens to be dangerously close to coming.

He doesn’t even have to touch me, though I wouldn’t mind if his fingers were down my pants, or his tongue again, but right now I am close, so close, just from the friction of my body against his. He shifts one more time, so he’s on his back, and I’m on top, totally clothed, but my legs are spread, and he’s under me.

“I want you to fuck me like that, Harley. I want you to ride me, and I want you to come while you’re doing it,” he says, grabbing at my hair, and pulling me back down to his mouth.

His tongue swirls wildly with mine, his lips crushing mine with such intensity, as if he would fall off the earth if he stopped, that I start to lose control.

The thing I value most, that I quest after. That I seek.

Control.

I try all day and night, all my fucking life, to find it and then hold onto like it’s a precious treasure. But right now, it falls through my fingers as I give in to my body, with my thighs spread, his fantastically hard erection thick and heavy and doing its job between my legs, even with all this denim between us, as his mouth searches mine like I’m the answer to every and any question he’s ever had. He roams a hand down my back, cupping my ass to keep me close as I bite my lip, because I don’t know how to let go and shout and scream even though I want to. Instead I shudder several times and pant heavily as I come.

“Oh,” I gasp, keeping my voice low. I don’t want anyone to hear me, even though we’re the only ones here.

Without wasting a moment, he pulls me closer, wrapping his arms so tightly around me that it feels as if he’ll never let go, and I can’t say I want him to. His legs are tangled with mine, his arms hold me close, and I don’t know where I end and he begins. He kisses my forehead, my cheeks, my hair, and I feel cared for in a way I never have. I also feel pretty fucking amazing, like my whole body has taken a bath in golden sunlight and is shining. Is radiant. Is beautiful, and new, and pure again.

Maybe that’s weird to feel pure. But I do. With him.

“You’re beautiful Harley, so beautiful,” he murmurs and his voice is fading again, sleep threatening to overtake him as I roll off of him and return to lying side by side. He pulls at the sleeve of my teeshirt and kisses my tattoo.

“Are you going to tell me why you have a red ribbon on your arm?”

“Yeah, but you go first. You tell me why yours are all in threes. Why do you have the sunbursts and birds and all your abstract patterns in threes. What’s with the threes?”

“Hmmm? Those?”

“Yeah. Those,” I ask. He’s never told me. But I want to know.

He snuggles closer, tucking his face into my neck and breathing me in. He sighs happily, then says, “So I don’t forget my brothers.”

Brothers? Something doesn’t compute. Trey is an only child.

“What do you mean?”

“Will, Jake and Drew. They all died at birth. They’re my three dead brothers.”

My blood stops pumping, and it’s as if someone turned off the music at a dance, and turned the lights all the way up on me.

I push both hands against his shoulders. “What do you mean, Trey?” I ask, hoping, praying he made a mistake, that he will unsay what he just said. “Take that back, please.”

But he falls asleep, the drinking finally taking over, and he is passed out in arms, the marks of his three dead baby brothers permanently inked on his beautiful body.

Chapter Eleven

Harley

The first thing I do after I shower in the morning is locate a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Not for Trey. But for me. To separate myself from how I used to dress, used to look, used to play. I need to feel as comfortable in Converse as I do in Mary Janes.

As I do in evening dresses.

In trenchcoats and leather.

I can’t be like Layla all the time, at least not the Layla I was last night with Cam.

I want to be the person I am with Trey. I want to be that girl. Real and true and honest and scared.

I pull my hair into a tight ponytail and apply only the barest of makeup — gloss and a dab of blush.

But it’s hard, so incredibly, unbearably hard, to resist doing everything I can to look pretty, to be the prettiest girl in the room, as my mom taught me, as my tattoo reminds me.

So I go through the motions.

I linger over the powder, eyeshadow and mascara in my makeup bag, wanting — longing — to put on a perfect face. I pantomime the moves. Foundation dotted on the chin, the cheeks, under the eyes, then the forehead. Makeup brush spreads the foundation smoothly, then the makeup wedge to spread the powder. Blush next brushed onto the cheekbones, then eyeshadow, three to four applications so the eyes stand out. Then eyeliner on the lids. Mascara next, a full five minutes to achieve the right length, the right fullness above and below. Five minutes to make the eyes pop.

Mascara is the most essential of the five makeup vitamins — foundation, blush, eyeshadow, lipstick and mascara. Mascara is the hardest to apply, takes the longest, but reaps the most rewards. It’s the difference between a finished look and one that says I just don’t care.

I care. I care deeply. Painfully.

Too much.

I close my eyes, grit my teeth, hold the pink tube tightly in my fist and then let it go. It drops to the bottom of my makeup bag with a dull clank as it hits the powder case.

I zip the bag shut. I look myself over in the mirror. My face looks naked. It’s jarring and I feel jumpy, jittery. I remind myself what Joanne would say. Change is supposed to feel weird. You don’t get to the other side by feeling the same way you felt before. But knowing what’s coming this afternoon from Miranda to my mom’s house — a black-and-white reminder of who I was and what I did — it’s hard to imagine I’ll ever get to the other side. I want to cover myself up. I want to hide my new self. I want to slather my face with makeup.

I also just want to be me.

But I don’t know who she is. I don’t know who I am. I am two people. Torn and tattered in split halves.

I leave the bathroom and return to the living room. My apartment is quiet and the sun is barely rising. The first pink slivers of dawn peek over the horizon, pulling the night away. It is early, but I want to get ahead on my debt.

Kristen is probably sleeping, and Trey is still here, stretched out and gorgeous on the couch. He sleeps on his stomach, his cheek pressed into a pillow, one arm hanging off the side of the couch. I kneel down and reach for his arm, not quite touching, but tracing the air near his shoulder, outlining the sunbursts.

Did he mean what he said last night?

Does he have three brothers he’s never told me about?

He knows all my secrets. All my terrible truths. I want him to trust me. I want him to tell me about the marks on his body. I want him to feel safe with me. I want to know him as deeply and as truly as I think he knows me.

I need to resist Layla to do that. I bend closer to his arm and brush my lips ever so softly, ever so gently against his shoulder. A wisp of a kiss, a hint of all that I might feel for him.

A wish.

Then I grab my computer bag, head for the nearby diner, order a strong coffee, and steel myself for the next sordid chapter in my Memoirs. Soon, soon, I’ll be done.

Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict…

Page 198…

Most of the time I was requested to wear my school girl uniform. But there were a few other outfits my clients liked. Some wanted me decked out in evening wear regalia so I could be the arm candy attending fancy parties, events and galas with them when they wanted the full girlfriend experience. But there was one client in particular – let’s call him Morris, shall we? – Who wanted me in something else.

Who wanted me in leather.

With a leash.

Those were the times I prepped elsewhere. I couldn’t undertake that kind of prep at home. So I’d arrive at the five-star hotel in my trench coat and heels, the risk of being seen part of the thrill. But I was never seen. Sunglasses were my best friend, along with doormen whose palms had been greased by my man.

I pressed the button for the elevator, shot up several floors to the penthouse level, and knocked – sexily of course, I’d been trained to knock sexily, and yes, there is a way to do this – on the door of his suite.

Once inside, the trench coat came off and the collar went on. Not on me. Never on me. On him. Black, leather, spiked. I attached the leash to it. Then, wearing a painted-on leather skirt, a skin-tight bustier and heels, I walked Morris around the suite.

Like a dog.

He was on all fours, he was naked, and he liked it when I pulled hard on his collar. He was a naughty boy, and he needed lots of corrections when he sniffed chairs and rugs in the suite. But if he was a good boy, a perfectly well-behaved pooch, he’d receive his reward. I’d take him to the balcony, remove one high heel, and let him lick and suck my perfectly manicured toes.

Funny, the things high-ranking political advisers want to do behind closed doors, isn’t it?

Kiss the feet of call girls.

Trey

The sun beats cruelly through the windows. A mean yellow ball blaring at me. A reminder to get the fuck up.

My mouth is like cotton, and I lick my lips, desperate for a drink of water. My head pounds, but it’s nothing that a stiff cup of coffee won’t cure. I sit up on the couch with a groan and kick off the blanket. I look around for Harley, but the living room is empty. Hunting for my shirt, I find it on the other side of the coffee table, in a heap on the carpet.

A faint memory flicks by of taking it off last night, tossing it somewhere, then wrapping myself around Harley. Then the rest of the night floods my mind, and my brain is filled with the best wake-up images ever. The sweet smell of Harley’s neck, the way she trembled when I touched her stomach, then her on top of me, grinding against me.

I’m pretty sure I fell asleep two seconds after she came, which is the best send-off into sleep I can think of. To be honest, though, I must have been really drunk to let that happen. Not that I don’t want her riding me when I’m sober. But I don’t know that I would have gone there if not for the beer. I hope to hell she doesn’t regret it. I pray she won’t regret me.

I yank on the shirt, head for the kitchen, and pour myself a glass of water. I down it in one gulp, then fill another glass and drink that up too.

Better. Now I’m not so parched. I look for a clock and find a radio by the sink. It’s almost noon. It’s Friday. I need to be at work in an hour, and I need to shower. Then I realize my mouth tastes like a sock.

I hate morning breath even when I’m alone, but if there’s a chance she’s still here, I better brush my teeth now. I head for the bathroom. The door is open and no one’s in there. It’s a tiny bathroom, with squeaky faucets and a streaked mirror.

I check out the toothbrushes. One’s red. One’s green. I have no clue which is Harley’s. She’s the kind of girl who likes red, but then Kristen wears red glasses. I shrug. What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll buy them both a pack of new toothbrushes as a gift. Yeah, I’m classy like that.

I take my chances and grab the red one, squirt some toothpaste on, and a minute later, I have minty fresh breath.

“That’s my toothbrush.”

I startle when I hear Kristen’s voice.

“Sorry,” I say as I return the toothbrush to the cup holder. “I’ll get you a new one. Where’s Jordan?”

“At work,” she says, then walks away.

“Where’s Harley?”

“I don’t know. I’m going back to bed. I don’t have class, and I have to work tonight at the restaurant.”

Well, that’s that. The morning has its own stark way of erasing all the good that darkness brings. Story of my life. I head back to the living room, find my boots, tug them on, lace them up, then grab my phone and stuff it in my back pocket. I snag my backpack from the floor – seems like eons ago that I sat on the front stoop drawing and waiting for her. But she’s nowhere to be seen, and she didn’t leave a note.

I sling my backpack on my shoulder, run a hand through my messy hair, and head for the door, computing how quickly I’ll have to haul ass across town to shower, then race back to work. I reach for the handle, but someone’s unlocking and opening the door. I step back quickly, but even so, she nearly bumps into me and grabs my arm to steady herself.

“Oh, sorry,” she says. Then, in a softer voice, meeting my eyes briefly. “Hi.”

Oh shit. That voice slays me with its sweetness. I’m a dead man walking when she looks down at her shoes in a strangely shy way. And maybe it was the beer lubricating us night, but right now, regrets or no regrets, I want more. Because not only was last night the hottest thing ever, but now my heart is thumping like a jackrabbit for one simple reason that has nothing to do with sex, and has everything to do with how I find it immensely cute that she’s shy right now. I want to swipe my thumb across her lips and tell her not to be embarrassed, because she’s beautiful and sweet and kind and funny and has the biggest heart I’ve ever known, and that no one has ever cared in the way she has. Because she gives a shit about me.

She lets go of my arm. I wish she hadn’t let go. The slightest contact from her is electrifying.

“Hey,” I say, and I’m probably grinning like an idiot too, and damn, I’m glad I brushed my teeth.

“I got bagels,” she says, and thrusts a brown paper bag at me. “Sesame seed. Just-out-of-the-oven from the bagel shop around the corner. Your favorite.”

This girl knows me too well. I reach into the bag as my stomach growls. She laughs first, then I join in. “I guess you’re a mind reader. And these are definitely my favorite. I need to get to work soon. Mind if I eat and run?”

“You can even eat on the run if you want. Don’t let me hold you back,” she says playfully.

“I’ll stay a minute,” I say, though I really want to stay all day and night. Call in sick, curl up with her, watch a movie, kiss her more, touch her everywhere.

She’s in jeans again, like last night, and a black t-shirt with an upside-down monkey on it in pink. She wears her Converse sneakers, and she has two leather bracelets on her wrist. I love it when she dresses like a hipster instead of a schoolgirl.

“You look nice,” I say, but then I want to kick myself, because I really want to tell her she looks hot and sexy and smart and strong and independent and not the least bit like her mother’s daughter. But I’d probably sound like a guy who’s spent way too much time in therapy, and I’ve got to maintain some degree of dude cred.

“Thanks,” she says. “So do you.”

I take a bite, then look down at yesterday’s clothes. “You like the day-old, Harley?” I tease.

“Yeah. And I suppose now I should let you know those are day-old bagels too,” she fires back, but she can’t hide the smirk.

“May I never ever hear you use the adjective day-old to describe a bagel you’ve given me.”

“I’ll have to keep you on your toes then. Always worried about such a horrid breakfast possibility,” she says, leaning against the wall in her entryway as I eat more of the bagel that’s fresh and hot and perfect.

“So what are you doing today?” I ask, and it’s nice to slide right back to the joking, the teasing, the way we are. I don’t know what’s next, but I know I can’t lose her, and right now, I feel like I still have her as a friend. That’s what matters most, I remind myself. Not how much I want to have every inch of her.

“I have to go to my mom’s. Intercept that package from Miranda. Besides, my mom wants me to come by anyway. She wants me to work with her this summer. Be an intern or something for her articles,” she says. “I don’t have anything else to do.”

“You could take summer classes,” I suggest.

“I guess.”

“You said you miss creative writing. You could do that. Go back to the fun stories you want to write. Your animal tales and magic stories and whatnot. Take a writing workshop for real. Because you don’t even like the kind of reporting your mom does.”

She shrugs. “I know. But I need to do something,” she says. I hope she’s not thinking about other ways she can earn money. The ways she was considering last night. But then, it’s not as if one drunken grind on me is enough to make her change her stripes, is it?

“Hey. I have a question, Trey. About last night…”

I stop eating, look at her, and she’s the Harley I’m crazy about. I should just kiss her again. But I don’t know if everything changed last night, or nothing. I don’t know if we’re coming or going. Harley is both my best friend and my biggest fear. I need to put my armor on, protect myself from her. But I don’t know where I left it.

“Yeah?” I raise an eyebrow. Waiting for her question. Hoping she’s going to say she’s done with Cam, done with her past, and she wants me as much as I want her. If she said that, I’d tell her. If she told me I was the only one, I’d chuck all the damn rules, and tell her I think about her all the time, and it’s not obsession, it’s not addiction, it’s something.

Something real.

“You said you had three brothers, Trey. You never told me that before.”

The moment slips out of focus and the room blurs.

That’s not what she’s supposed to say.

That’s not what I’m supposed to hear.

That’s not what anyone’s supposed to know.

Because we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about them.

The floor starts spinning, and my stomach plummets to the ground. There’s a ringing in my ears, and it spreads through my whole head, rattling hard against my skull. I said that? What the fuck is wrong with me? Why the hell would I have said that?

“What do you mean?” I ask in a strangled voice, as if there are rocks in my mouth.

She reaches for me, touches my shoulder, rubs gently. “I asked you about your tattoos.”

I close my eyes, shrug off her touch. No fucking way I said that. This can’t be happening. This moment is a stitch in time, a hiccup. A massive fucking mistake we’re all going to forget in seconds when it’s undone. Because there is no way way I am standing here in yesterday’s clothes with this girl who was with her pimp last night, then with me, and then I told her about the three brothers I never knew. My family that no longer exists. The reason why I became all sorts of fucked up.

I open my eyes, shake my head, adopt a false smile. “That’s crazy,” I say wishing I were an actor so I could pull this off.

She shoots me a worried look. “Crazy? Why?”

“Seriously, Harley. You should not believe the shit I say when I’m drunk.”

Then I grab my phone, check the time, and shake my head. “I gotta jam. I’ll be late and I have ton a of shit to do. I’ll catch up with you later. At the meeting or whatever. Thanks for the bagel. It’s awesome.”

* * *

A breeze blows through Michele’s open window, and it feels like a crime that there’s a gentle, warm wind right now. It should be sleeting, hailing, lashing cold, cruel rain at me, like a punishing.

“He died in my fucking arms. My little brother. He died in my arms. How do I tell her that? How do I say that?”

“Like that,” Michele says in a kind, calm voice. “Just like that.”

I drop my head into my hands. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t fucking relive it,” I mutter. I don’t look up. I don’t want to look up. She’s the only person I’ve told, and it’s hard enough to look at my shrink when I talk about them. But I had to see her. I called in late to work and tracked down Michele for an emergency appointment. “It was so awful. Knowing he wasn’t going to live. My parents letting me hold him. And it wasn’t the first time it happened.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “It’s incredibly hard.”

“And I could never say that to her,” I mumble into my hands because they still cover my face.

“But you’re saying it to me. You’ve told me. You can do this, Trey.”

I raise my face. I bet I look like hell right now. A pathetic man. Boy. Man-boy. I don’t even know. “Because you don’t know me. Because I pay you. Because you have to listen.”

“I want to listen. That’s why I’m a therapist. I want to help.”

“You probably think I’m a loser,” I say, and I don’t know why I’m egging her on or fishing badly for compliments, but maybe it’s because my compass is off, the needle all skittish, pointing this way and that way, and I desperately need to right myself. I need an anchor. I need her to be that right now.

“I don’t. I would never think that. I think you are a bright, sensitive, caring young man, and I want to help you believe in yourself, and feel better about all the possibilities. And I know you want that too. That’s why you called in late to work. That’s why you asked to come in. Because you aren’t willing to settle for less from yourself. You want to grow and learn. And the possibility I want you to consider is what would happen if you told Harley?”

I shake my head, narrow my eyes, and run my hand roughly over my chin. I need to shave. I need to get my act together. “I’d fucking break down and cry. Because I would feel it all over again.” I stab my chest with two fingers, knocking them hard against my sternum. Watching him die, after my other baby brothers had died, it was like two giant hands cracking open my chest, reaching in, and hunting for my heart. “It would be like it’s happening again. And I have done everything I can to move on.”

“You have,” she says, nodding. “You’ve also turned to women and to sex and to conquests to move on. And that hasn’t entirely helped, has it?”

The question is an arrow piercing me, cutting through my flesh and blood, exposing nerves and guts and the frightening truth of the last few years of my life. When sex became a numbing agent for the pain.

“No,” I whisper, my voice broken shards of glass.

“Maybe it’s what you need then. To feel it again. To go through that pain. To know you can say it and you’ll survive.”

Chapter Twelve

Harley

The house is quiet when I unlock the door. My mom is nowhere to be seen or heard. She usually calls out to me when I come home, but if the house is silent she must be at the office.

Thank God.

That’s exactly where I need her to be. She’s out on assignment a lot, or meeting sources, or visiting with her editor – my chests tightens when I think of her editor, the woman my mom reveres, the woman who mentored her – for her books. And while she often writes her books and articles from home, she spends time at the office too. She says she likes the discipline, the sound of other voices, the clickety-clack of colleagues tapping away on keyboards. The camaraderie helps fuel her. No surprise. My mom is a social beast.

I say a silent prayer of thanks for her office mates, and now all I have to do is wait thirty more minutes. Miranda said the package – her marked-up pages of edits – would be here around three-thirty. I’ll grab it when it arrives, tuck it under my arm, and like a quarterback with the ball, keep my head down and run like hell out of here.

I leave my purse on the marble table by the door. My stomach rumbles. I never ate lunch. All I had was coffee and toast at the diner this morning. Then I picked up the bagels for Trey.

I feel so stupid just hearing his name in my head. I can’t believe I thought everything he said last night was real and true. Then he point blank admitted to me this morning that I shouldn’t believe a word he says when he’s wasted. Maybe that’s the reminder I need to apply the brakes because I was starting to think there was hope. But capitalistic love and sex and kisses are better. Safer. At least they’re honest. No one’s pretending they feel. The money is on the table, and no one can get hurt.

Without an exchange, you can be played a fool.

With money, everyone is safe.

Cash can be recouped. It can be made and multiplied. Feelings can’t. They are loaned and borrowed and you can never pay them off.

I head to the kitchen.

There’s a tupperware container on the counter, and a Post-in note bearing my name. For Harley, only. Your favorite cookies in the whole world.

Inside are chocolate chip cookies with walnuts. I run a finger along the edge of the container, feeling wistful for a moment, longing for more of the cookies, more of the homework help, more of the bedtime stories.

More of the mom.

These treats from her will be a reminder that she can play that part too.

But first I need food, so I open the fridge and find a tupperware container full of African stew from the other night. I have no interest in food my mom makes for her latest lover. I spot a container of pasta primavera, but I bet that was last night’s culinary offering to Neil, so I pass on that too. I grab some carrots and hummus, set them on the counter, and open the drawers for a napkin.

I see a shadow in the living room. Only it’s not a shadow. It’s a man. It’s Neil and he’s about to walk into the kitchen.

In. His. Birthday. Suit.

“Oh crap.” He is tall, lanky, furry and his parts are swinging around.

I jerk my head away, because I want desperately to wipe the image of his limp dick from my brain. But it’s like an ambulance siren, screaming at me. You just saw your mom’s lover’s penis, and you noticed it was smallish, and had a mushroom head and now you can never ever ever escape from the image of his pecker swinging flaccidly between his hairy legs.

“I’m so sorry.”

I drop the hummus container onto the floor and it explodes on the tiles.

He jumps back, makes sure the hummus didn’t hit his toes. I stare at him – above the neck only, I will not look down – my eyes wide with shock. “Seriously? You are walking around the house naked and you’re worried about hummus on your feet?”

“No. No. No. I was just surprised.”

I roll my eyes. “Obviously. Now get the hell out of here,” I say, and I don’t care that I don’t live here anymore. I don’t care that he probably has every reasonable right to have fucked my mom in an afternoon delight on a Friday. But he is naked and gross and in my house where I grew up, and I have had enough of my mother’s lovers.

“Barb went back to work, and I was taking a nap after –”

I hold up my hand in a firm stop sign. Shake my head forcefully. “No. Don’t go there. I don’t want to hear the story,” I say sharply because I don’t need to know he was taking an after-sex nap. I don’t need to know that my mom helped herself to a naughty nooner, then left her lover to snooze when she knew I was stopping by. That is the very definition of TMI.

“I’ll just turn around and go.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

I bend down to pick up the hummus, and I want to throw it at him. But then I’d have to lay eyes on his naked body and there isn’t enough bleach in the world to white out what I just saw. I grab a towel, wipe up all the hummus, then toss the towel and the container in the trash.

Tears well up, but I don’t let them out. Because they’re mixed with far too much anger. Too much frustration. And way too many foul memories. Even though my mom’s at work I can smell her. My nostrils are filled with a scent I want to erase from the entire universe, and I can recall other encounters like this, when I’d bump into her after she’d had a roll in the hay while I was home. She’d be wearing a red dressing gown, mid-thigh length and silk, and smelling of sex. Musky and dirty and adult, like sheets tangled up that beg for a washing. Her scent, the scent of her bedroom, her nightgowns, her sexuality that she shared freely with me. I wrinkle my nose and try to hold my breath as the olfactory memory floods my senses.

I grab the bag of carrots from the counter and crunch into one, biting down hard. Chewing as if I can rid my mind of these images if I bite hard enough. Drilling into another carrot, I bear down, my teeth now a lethal weapon, slicing the carrot in half. I imagine it shrieking. Wishing it could.

Screw this.

I leave the carrots on the counter. Let her clean up the bag when she returns to her den of iniquity. Maybe they’ll be dried out and inedible when she sees them. I leave behind the cookies too, my small act of defiance.

I head for the front steps when Neil reemerges. He’s wearing jeans, cuffed once at the ankles ,and a striped button down.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, as if a double apology alleviates his trespass. But I will never see him as anything other than unwelcome.

I don’t answer him. I walk toward the door.

“Wait. Harley. Something came for you a few minutes ago.”

My ears prick, and I spin around.

I spy a package on the coffee table. “Barb had left for work, and a few minutes later a courier knocked on the door.”

My lips quirk up into a traitorous smile. I want to jump up and cheer. He intercepted the package! He unknowingly intercepted it from my mom.

I race to the table and lunge for the envelope. It’s manilla, thick and padded. It already has the well-worn look of an envelope that’s been manhandled on its route across town. I clutch the package tightly to my chest. “Thank you.”

Then I want to smack myself. Why am I thanking him? He has nothing to do with the good fortune of my mom missing the early delivery.

“Is everything okay?”

He casts his eyes to the package momentarily, then back to me. He notices the logo.

“Of course,” I say quickly. Does this half-baked lover of hers think he can catch me in trouble since he’s seen Miranda’s name on the return address? I can lie with the best of them. I can dance circles around the truth.

“Because I saw the name on it,” he adds, gesturing to the package I’m clutching like a newborn baby. “Just curious.”

My heart races in my chest, but the wheels turn quickly, and the lie is already fully formed. “Oh. Yeah. Of course. Because it’s a gift we’re working on for Barb.” Then I press a finger to my lips. “Shh...Don’t say anything.”

“Ah,” he says with a knowing wink and a smile, since it’s natural that Miranda and I would pair up to give my mom a gift. Now, Neil and I are co-conspirators. Or so he thinks. He grabs his phone and wallet, and says goodbye.

Good riddance.

I peer out the window, making sure he’s gone, waiting until I see him raise a hand, and hail a yellow cab on Central Park West. He’s off in a sea of New Yorkers, fanning out from clandestine encounters, the city hiding all their secrets. The anonymity, the size, the surreptitiousness of Manhattan, the cloak we all wrap ourselves in.

I sink down on the royal blue couch, rip open the package and pull out the pages I’ve written in the last few weeks. Maybe fifty or so, full of Post-it notes and penciled-in marks, instructions to me. Notes that say things like: “More salacious,” “More details,” “Is this how it really happened or are you leaving out key parts?”

On and on, they’re all the same: More, more, more.

Shame, shame, shame.

I find one more note. I read it, and it’s a shovel digging through my innards, scooping them out, serving them bruised and battered on a platter for me. “This story about Pierre and the carnival? I don’t care that your mommy taught you to kiss. You should have some more respect for your mother. After all she’s done for everyone. I don’t need you psychoanalyzing yourself and why you did what you did. You did it because you’re a whore. Your mother is not to be dragged through the mud. Even anonymously. Shame on you.”

I toss the pages on the table, make two fists, dig my fingernails into my palms, then scream. A loud, shrill, sharp sound like a train whistle tearing through the cold, quiet midnight of a lonely town. It knocks picture frames from walls. It rattles vases off tables. It reaches all the way to the top of the building and out into the afternoon sky. Neighbors drop their afternoon coffee cups. Curious. Concerned. Terrified. Is everyone okay?

But none of that happens.

Because no one notices, nothing changes, my father leaves, my mother reinvents herself as my friend, and so when a tree falls in the forest and no one can hear it, it doesn’t make a god damn sound.

I reach for the pages and pull at the ends, wishing I could tear them apart.

If Miranda only knew how much my mother had done. If she only knew the full truth of why I’m writing these awful, horrid memoirs. I push up the sleeve of my shirt, grip my shoulder, as if the red ribbon will give me strength to finish, courage to get this monkey off my back. To leave Miranda behind me, say goodbye to this debt, and move into a new life.

I jam the pages into the envelope and tuck the envelope in my purse.

My phone rings. “It’s your mother. Neil just called me. Darling, I’m so sorry.”

“Hi,” I say, trying to collect myself, to let go of the rage. Of the sadness. So I can make her happy as she has always needed me to do. To be her best friend.

“I want to apologize. I feel terrible that you ran into Neil.”

“It’s nothing,” I mumble into the phone. I want to get out of here. I want to go. I want to finish this damn book. I want to rid my body and my mind of all these memories. And Miranda is wrong – it’s not the memories of the men that hurt so much.

It’s the other ones. The memories of her. Of us.

“Oh good. I’m so glad it didn’t bother you,” she says, and I can hear her clapping once, Happily. I roll my eyes. Seriously? She believes me? But I guess that’s what you get from spending your life pretending you’re fine with your mom’s parade of lovers.

“So,” she says in a flirty voice. “What did you think? He’s not too shabby in the downstairs department, right?”

My eyes go wide, they practically pop out of my head like a cartoon character’s, pupils bobbing on the end of their coiled wire springs. “What did you just say, mom?”

“Well, you know. He’s got it going on, right? He’s no Phil, of course,” she adds wistfully. “But not everyone can be Phil.”

“Uh….” My jaw is hanging open. I can’t believe we are discussing the size of Neil’s penis or Phil’s for that matter, like we’re a couple of girlfriends, like we’re Carrie and Samantha having Cosmos and discussing our conquests.

“What’s going on with you, darling? I feel as if I haven’t seen you in ages. Do you have a date tonight?” She can’t mask the hope in her voice. She’s dying for me to say yes. Dying for me to share every detail. It’s been so long since she heard anything. So long since I shared. There’s a part of her that’s probably wasting away from the lack of oxygen. “Maybe someone new? Someone you haven’t told me about yet?”

She might as well be saying, “Just a quick hit, Harley? That’s all I need.”

Maybe we are all addicts. I consider making up a name to make her happy. Creating a fake boyfriend, a fake date, a fable she’d lap right up and love. I could spin thousands upon thousands of tales, I could make up fantastical stories of boys and men, men and boys, and she’d love them. But I don’t.

Maybe this is progress. Maybe I will tell Joanne I had a little victory.

“No. Not tonight.”

“Anyway,” she continues, like my run-in with her lover is no big deal because it isn’t to her. “I know we were going to chat this afternoon about summer plans, and I want to. But I need to reschedule. I had to rush back to the office. I landed a tip on a new story and it’s terrible. A terrible blackmail story,” she says, and I nod. Blackmail is a shitty, shitty thing. “But I have another piece I’m snooping around on too, and I was hoping you could do me a little itty bitty favor. You know that lawyer I work with from time to time on stories? I need him to take a look at a document I received from a congressman’s intern. It’s on the thumb drive in my laptop on the dining room table. Can you grab it and drop it by his office? He’s only a few blocks from the house.”

“You have a lot of sources, mom. Who do you mean?” I ask because I’ve helped my mom on stories before. Ran errands here and there. Dropped off documents. Ferried information.

“The one who looks like Vince Vaughn.”

I grin, a wicked, thrilling grin at the description. Little does she know. Little will she ever know.

“It would be my absolute pleasure,” I say in my best happy daughter voice. If she’s going to be all delighted over me seeing her boyfriend’s dick, then I can act happy about seeing my ex-pimp.

Because you know what? It’s not an act. I am happy to see Cam.

Cam doesn’t lie to me. Cam doesn’t hide things from me. Cam isn’t hot or cold, turning me on or off, telling me secrets, then backpedaling. Besides, whatever sweet nothings, sweet somethings, sweet everythings that came out of Trey’s mouth last night were all lies. Probably lies to get me undressed.

There is no such thing as real love. There is only agenda. There are only expectations. And if you can remove the sticky mess of feelings from the equation, you’re better off.

Cam is a one-track man, and he brings me out of the mess of my life.

Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict…

Page 203…

Mac, short for MacDougal, was the first man I saw naked. Such a fond memory from the year I turned nine. He was a Scotsman visiting Manhattan for a summer for his dissertation and quickly became my mom’s lover.

One time when he stayed over, I woke up in the middle of the night to pee. As I left the bathroom, he was walking down the hall without anything on. I froze and so did Mac. Then he laughed and his laugh even had a Scottish accent. He kept walking and patted me on the shoulder.“Someday, you’ll like it.”

He didn’t even shut the bathroom door, just started whizzing with it still open. I slipped back into bed and tried to fall asleep. But I couldn’t because Mac and my mom were going at it again. It’s really hard to get some shut-eye when your mom is crying out, “Oh my god Mac, I’m so wet. I’m so turned on. I want you to fuck me hard, Mac.” I pulled the pillow over my ears, so tight and hard I was drowning my ears in pillowcase, but it didn’t matter. My mom’s cries rattled through my skull, then burrowed into my skin and I was never going to erase them ever. Because once you’ve heard something like that you can’t blot it out. Those bedroom moans are tar you can’t wash off your hands.

Chapter Thirteen

Harley

Cam’s towering skyscraper comes into view and memories race back. Day after day I walked into that building, pressed the elevator button for the fifty-fourth floor, put my hand on my belly as that weird twisty feeling from shooting up into the sky kicked in, then told the receptionist I was there to see him. I have no clue if she knew about his side business. Nor did I care. She gestured to his office down the hall and my stomach flipped and wiggled in a different way as I walked to him because he was my power broker, he was the man who set me free from how I’d grown up. He grinned when he saw me. Then shut the door, and gave me the details of the job. Like I was a hired assassin. Like he had a top secret classified file about the target and he was giving me the download.

We were comrades, partners, pulling off heists.

Wednesday was our big day. I’d head straight for his office when the final bell rang at my school, and we’d review the gigs for the next week. Sometimes I’d have one, sometimes several. It all depended on my schoolwork and my mom’s schedule, whether she was in town or out of town chasing a story. But even if she was around, I knew how to concoct cover ups. I said I was at study group, or extra field hockey practice, or I made up the name of a boy I was seeing, spinning my own tales of a date with Cody or Hunter or Jay or some other random nonexistent boy, stories of dates and ice cream and kisses in Central Park. But we always broke up too soon for her to meet this fictional mate.

When I had my regular appointments with Morris, Cam wanted me to prep at his sprawling Upper East Side brownstone, not far from the hotel where I met the political adviser for his doggy trysts. “It’s safer,” Cam said. “Safer for you. I’ll have a car waiting to take you to the hotel.”

We had a ritual before the Morris meetings. Cam took a bath and I polished my toe nails. Cam liked his sea salt crystals mixed with Sweet Lemon bubble bath in his baby blue claw foot tub, filled to the top with scalding hot water that he soaked in for thirty minutes, while singing along to big seventies classic rock, like the Eagles “Hotel California” or Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”

I perched on the closed toilet seat painting my toe nails — a mouth-watering fire-engine red for Morris. Cam chatted about whatever business meeting he was heading to during my session, all while dispensing little tips here and there. “Press hard with the right heel between his shoulder blades while he sucks your left big toe,” he told me. “Call me if there’s any trouble, but there won’t be.”

I looked away as he stepped out of the tub, the water sloshing around and cooled down to lukewarm, then dried off with an oversized white fluffy bath towel. He’d already have his outfit carefully laid out on the down comforter on his king-size Japanese-style bed, usually a suit, along with one of his colorful “cowboy shirts” — as he called them — and no tie. Cam never wore ties.

Then I’d zip up my skirt, slide on my shoes, and he’d give me a peck on the forehead. “Go make me proud, baby doll. Can’t wait for your report.”

He’d head off to a steak and lobster meal someplace, likely to woo a shady businessman into a shady deal that seemed legit – all smoke and mirrors was my man – while I’d let Morris slide his tongue between my toes for $2000.

Sometimes, I’d meet Cam at Bliss after a job and tell him how it went. We’d have drinks – soda and martini – and appetizers, and I felt like every second with him was a fantastic secret. A bubble I lived in that no one could ever touch.

“Who takes care of you? Who looks out for you?”

“You do,” I said poking him playfully in the chest.

“All the time, babydoll. Anytime you need it.”

He was proud of me. Like a proud papa.

I don’t think Cam ever knew how hard it was for me to leave him after those dinners. Every time I did, I felt like black sludge had settled under my skin, because then I had to deal with my mom, my house, the noise. He was the antidote — the only one I ever had — to what awaited me inside my own home.

When I reach Cam’s floor I’m greeted by a crisp, controlled energy in the air the second the elevator doors sweep open. Sharp women in fitted skirts and heels, men in tailored suits, and assistants with headsets melded to their ears pace from cube to cube on either side of the gleaming floor-to-ceiling glass walls flanking the entryway.

I walk inside.

“May I help you?”

I used to be a regular in these parts, but receptionists come and go, and since this one is new she doesn’t recognize me. She’s young and blond, with stick straight hair tucked neatly behind her ears.

“I’m here to see Mr. Cameron Jackson. I have a delivery for him. He’s expecting me. You can tell him Layla is here.” I don’t use my name. Nor do I use my mom’s name. I know better. My mom doesn’t reveal her sources, and Cam would never go on the record for one of her stories. He is all background, all behind the scenes. Besides, I’ve just used the one word that guarantees my entree anywhere Cam is.

Layla.

My name is probably sashaying its way through the air, down to his office, slinking behind the door, reaching his ears, all five letters whispered in that sexy, seductive tone that will turn him into the man he is with me – mesmerized.

“Let me just call him,” she says, then picks up the phone and stabs a finger against a button.

“Hello Mr. Jackson. You have a delivery from someone named Layla?”

I don’t have to hear Cam’s side of the conversation to know what he’s saying right now. He is all yeses.

The receptionist stands up, ready to escort me, but I tell her, “It’s okay. I know the way.”

Cam’s door is ajar. I knock lightly and he calls me in. His smile — that familiar broad grin that reveals all our naughty, tawdry, dirty, delicious little secrets – greets me first.

Then he leans across his desk, taps on the calendar, and pretends he’s deep in thought, his index finger resting on his chin. “Well, that’s funny. My calendar doesn’t say it’s my lucky day. But clearly it’s wrong.” He turns to me. “Because seeing you two days in a row means I am the luckiest son of a bitch in the entire fucking solar system.”

Has it been less than twenty-four hours since I’ve seen him? Since last night at Bliss? So much has happened since then, but so little too. Last night with Trey, the talking, the drinking game, the time on the couch, and then this morning and that dismissive denial from his mouth. I feel as if my world has been tugged, pulled and twisted through the smallest eye of a needle, and parts are bunched up on one side, left behind in a mess.

Cam walks over to me – no, he struts, because there is nothing subtle about this man. Not the five o-clock shadow, not those big eyes twinkling, and not his green shirt, so rich, so opulent in its shade, he could be wearing a button-down made out of emeralds. This man is flash personified. He might as well wear a gold chain around his neck, but that’d be trashy and Cam’s not trashy.

He wraps his arms around me, runs his nose over my hair, my neck, my shoulder. “Mmm….dee-li-cious,” he says.

I push him away, shaking my head. “Stop it. I’m only here to bring you this.” I reach into the front pocket of my jeans to hand him the thumb drive. As he takes it, I wonder briefly what my mom is working on. My mind flashes back to the stories she mentioned on our phone call.

He eyes me up and down, surveying my jeans, t-shirt and sneakers. I touched up my make-up before I left my mom’s. Applied mascara and a fresh coat of lipstick. “What’s up with the outfit? You slumming it today, Layla?”

I sneer at him. “Oh ha ha. It’s called casual Friday, Cam. Ever heard of it?”

“I had no idea you owned sneakers.” He gestures to the couch in his office. “Sit for a minute. We can catch up, my baby doll.”

“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.”

Her words trip me back in time. To Trey giving an alcoholic a tattoo saying that. Would this ache go away once the arrow is out? Or will I always hurt? Will I always feel wounded? “But how do you know? How do you know the pain isn’t just the pain? How do you know the pain doesn’t last?”

“Here’s how,” she says, her voice clear and precise as she keeps her eyes fixed on me. “Look at me.”

“I am looking at you.”

“Do you see a lying, cheating, whore?”

I recoil. “No! God no. I see you. You’re the woman who runs SLAA. You’re the pink-haired lady who knits.”

“So I’m not a bad person to you?”

I shake my head. “No. No. No.”

“Good. Because I was you. I am you. I will always be you. A sick person trying to be well. Not a bad one trying to be good. That’s how I know the pain subsides. Because I’m here. Because I made it through. I made it beyond. I survived. And you can too. Whatever is weighing you down now will pass.”

I start tapping my foot against the frayed brown rug and I know I won’t last much longer taking my medicine. There’s only so much you can down in one sitting. But then, maybe the medicine is working, maybe it’s churning up all the vile things inside me that need to come out, because the next thing I know I am spilling it all, only this time someone is here to listen. “It’s too much. It’s all too much,” I say, the words rushing out, landing on top of each other in a pile-up. “My mom talks about her sex life all the time and always has, the woman blackmailing me will never let up, the guy I think I like for real is the most confusing person I know, and the man who took care of me and made me who I was is the only person I can trust. It’s all safer and better and easier with him. My life is spiraling out of control, and I just want to return to the one thing that made sense. That felt good. That felt like I was living my life on my terms, not anyone else’s.”

I hold my hands out wide, and stare at her. Solve this, pink-haired lady.

“I know,” she says. “I know it feels like you can’t hold on. But you are more than those things that hold you back. You don’t have to listen to your mom talk about men. You can walk away when she does. You can tell her you don’t want to hear about her boyfriends. You can start with that,” Joanne offers and it sounds so simple and possible when she suggests it.

But I don’t know that I’d have to guts to walk away. “I don’t know if I can do that,” I say.

“And as for this guy,” she says, and now she slows down, speaks carefully, as if this is a delicate subject. “Is this boy Trey? Are you and Trey still spending a lot of time together?”

“Why are you asking?” I press my spine against the back of the metal chair, digging away from her trying to know the real me, the me I am with Trey.

“Because I know you’re friends.”

“Right. And you disapprove because I haven’t been in recovery for a year yet,” I say, raising my walls once more. I can’t let them down for long.

She shakes her head, smiles sympathetically. “Layla – if that’s even your name and I doubt it is, but I respect your privacy – I’m not going to say the heart wants what the heart wants, because if we followed that line of false wisdom that we’d all be partaking of our vices. But I will say this. Sometimes you meet someone in recovery and it feels like the real thing, but it’s not. And sometimes you meet someone in recovery and it is the real thing, and I’d be a fool if I told you to stay away. Because SLAA is not like AA or NA. You’re not going to withdraw completely from sex and love. All I want is for you to be able to have a healthy relationship at some point, if that’s what you want. And if the real thing comes along, I want you to have the strength and fortitude to deal with all the messiness and yuck-iness and problems, but also the wonder and potential and possibility of the real thing. And I think you can only have that if you can step away from the hold the past has on you.”

She makes it sound easy, but the path looks so shadowy to me. “I’m not capable though. I’m not fixed. I’m not healed. I can’t even tell what a healthy relationship is.”

“You are capable, sweetie,” she says, reaching for my hand, resting hers on mine. It’s not a motherly gesture, but maybe it’s a sisterly one, and I don’t mind it. It feels warm, comforting. It also feels appropriate. “You just let go of the past.”

Let go.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe, just maybe, if I try letting go of the past, at least one way it chains me, I can move forward.

“Is it really that easy?”

“Yes, it is. It is easy to let go. But to do so you have to take ownership of your behavior. Your choices,” she adds, and now her voice is firmer now.

“But I do take ownership of them,” I protest, but then I find myself wondering. Do I blame my mom for everything?

“I think you’re getting there. And I’m not saying you need to beat yourself up. But I think the key to healing is to acknowledge that while you might have had reasons that led you down the path of love and sex addiction, you also need to accept that you made those choices. You made them, you own them, you are accountable for them.”

“But what does it mean to be accountable for them?” I say, pressing her. I want to understand her advice, I want to be like her, I want to be happy on the other side.

“It can mean being honest about them. Talking to the people who might have been hurt, or shut out by your choices.”

With a sharp pang, I think of Kristen. Of my total lack of honesty with her. Of how I haven’t let her in. When you’re an addict, there’s a divide between you and your normal friends and that divide is their not knowing. The divide is alive, pulsing with its own secret heartbeat only you can hear every time you hang out with them, talk to them. It’s as if a ghost is in the room, chattering constantly, and you’re the only one who can see it or hear it.

Am I ready to banish that ghost?

“Does that make sense?” Joanne adds. “That’s my wish for you.”

I nod. “It does make sense,” I say, nerves jumping as I picture myself holding a chisel, banging it on the brick wall between Kristen and me. But what happens when the wall crumbles? Does the friendship fall to rubble too?

Joanne tucks her needles and sweater-to-be away, reaches into her white leather oversized shoulder bag and pulls out a book. There’s a stick drawing of a girl on the front carrying an oversize, misshapen heart. The caption says “Carry the heart.”

Is she carrying her own heart? Or someone else’s?

Joanne hands me the notebook. The white pages inside are empty. “It’s for you. If you ever want to write down any thoughts. Or not. Maybe it’s just a pretty picture on the front and you write grocery lists in it,” she says with a shrug. “It’s whatever you want it to be. All I hope is that you can someday know that love doesn’t have to be a brutal, bitter, power game. Love can be the ugly beautiful.”

The ugly beautiful.

I’ve never heard the saying before, but it resonates deep in my bones.

It’s an oxymoron. But like many oxymorons, it makes sense.

Like this malformed heart drawing. Like my lack of mascara, like my telling off of Neil, like the kitten hanging in there, like the arrow that’s coming or going.

I don’t know if the arrow is coming or going. I don’t even know where I belong. But the arrow is real, it exists, and it’s in my misshapen heart.

“Is that what you have with your fiancé now? The Ugly Beautiful?”

She nods. “I think so. He knows me. I know him. I am flawed and I made mistakes, and I did things that were horrible. But I learned to forgive myself. Because I learned how to change. I don’t have to be the person I was. I know she was sick. And she was hurt. And she was terribly flawed. But I own up to it. And now I try to live a different life. I try to make some good out of it by helping others.”

“By helping the ugly become beautiful?”

“Yeah. I believe that’s possible.”

“Thank you,” I say to Joanne and I mean it.

Because I don’t want to be stuck in the past anymore. I don’t know what my future holds, but I know I need to start moving forward.

I leave, feeling a surge of adrenaline as I run up the steps in my Converse. I dial Trey’s number again. I want to tell him my plan. I want to tell him what I’m going to do. I want to share this moment with him. Even if he’s vague, even if he’s hot or cold, even if he’s messing with my head.

He doesn’t answer, but that’s okay. I’ll find him soon, but for now I don’t need him. I don’t need Cam right now. All I need is myself, and the one thing I’ve been doing my whole life over.

Writing.

Because I am going to take care of one thing at a time. I will figure out how to say goodbye to Cam, how to let Kristen in, and how to be honest with Trey.

But first, I will pay off my debt to Miranda. I will stay up all night tonight and keep going all day tomorrow and I will be done. I will finish and I will be free of her. I will finish ahead of schedule.

I need to get the bitch off my back.

Chapter Fifteen

Trey

Beads of sweat form on my upper lip and I lick them away.

Another drop falls and lands on my tongue. Salty.

The needle is hitting every nerve ending in my body, frying them. My ribs rattle and shake, and I am queasy. I swear I’m about to revisit this afternoon’s turkey sandwich if this isn’t over soon because I can taste the bile rising in my throat. I draw a sharp breath, like that can center me. But nothing changes. A thousand bees still sting my ribs, my sides, my hip. I grip the edge of the chair, digging my fingers hard into the vinyl, as if I can relocate the pain, send it elsewhere, deliver it to this inanimate object I’m sitting in.

Then, like a rainstorm ending in a snap and the sun appearing, the pain ends. It doesn’t drift off, it doesn’t fade away. Nope. It’s like electricity. On. Then off when Hector removes the needle from my skin.

He steps back, a master artist appraising his work. “It’s beautiful,” he says.

“Thanks, man. It’s all you.”

He shakes his head. “You gave me a beautiful drawing. All I did was bring that drawing to your skin.”

“We were a team then. I couldn’t have gotten this sucker on my flesh without you.”

He hands me the vaseline and I apply it to the new ink, smoothing it over. Then he gives me a bandage and I wrap it over the tattoo and tape it down. I’ll leave it there for a few hours.

“You know the drill. It’ll scab over tomorrow,” he says.

“Like a sunburn.”

“It looks good, man. I want a picture of it. Those trees are works of art.”

A tree is the symbol of strength. Of healing. Of remembrance. Of understanding. But most of all a tree is the the symbol of regeneration, of new life. And it’s the record on my body of the trees I planted myself in a park one night when my parents were out on a call.

They are my trees. They belong to me.

Harley

I spend the next twenty-four hours running on Diet Coke and determination. I churn out page after page for Miranda, more than she asked for, more than she expects. I am a machine. I am a turbo-charged robot on meth. I am an elite athlete jacked up on performance drugs. I ride faster, climb harder, run further than anyone. Kristen knocks on my door a few times, asks if I’m okay, if I need anything. I tell her I’m working on an epic history paper for my final assignment of the year.

I only hate myself slightly for the lie. Because I am so accustomed to lies they feel true now.

“Want something to eat?” She offers. “I’m making myself a peanut butter and honey sandwich. It’s kind of awesome. Especially with a cup of milk.”

“Sure.”

I eat the peanut butter and honey sandwich, but not the milk. There will be time for calcium later. Besides, Diet Coke makes my bones stronger. I briefly consider ordering in a triple espresso too, but the coffee shop around the corner doesn’t deliver. Bastards.

I crumple up can after can as I down them. Sounds of crushing, followed by sounds of typing are the soundtrack of finishing. I give Miranda everything she wants. I satisfy her every salacious demand with more, more, more. Shame, shame, shame. Whore, whore, whore.

It’s what she wants. Even though she’ll never know the whole truth of how I got into the tangled mess.

I write more, stopping a few times to text Trey to check in, but I don’t hear back from him. My mother writes though. She tells me things with Neil are growing stronger, and that she’s even starting to forget about Phil. Isn’t that great?

I want to say: We should all forget about Phil.

Instead, as I do for Miranda, I give my mom what she wants. I am so happy for you, Barb.

Another lie. But soon the lying will be over.

At ten-thirty-five p.m. on Sunday evening I am done.

I should be exhausted. I should collapse. I don’t. I feel victorious instead. I want to kiss the moon, I want to tango with the fattest, brightest star in the sky.

I snatch the thumb drive from my purse and save the file on the tiny silver drive for safekeeping. Then I email it to Miranda. “Dear Miranda: I believe I have satisfied the terms of our agreement. Good bye.”

I jump up, snag my field hockey stick and pretend I am slamming ball after ball into the goal, raising my arms in victory.

Kristen opens my door. “If you are playing field hockey in the apartment, I want in.”

“Dude, I will crush you!”

“You’re on. Downstairs. Laundry room.”

“Let’s do it.” We grab a tennis ball and run down five flights of stairs and then one more into the basement with its storage room, washers and dryers, and a long hallway. We start whacking the tennis ball up and down the dingy linoleum floors.

Laughing, racing, chasing, trash-talking. Like the good old days in high school. Back when I was still a normal girl. Well, as normal as I could ever be. But before I wrapped myself in lies, concealed my life in secrets.

It feels good to play free.

“So Jordan is kind of cool,” she says.

“Yeah? Are you guys a thing?”

“I don’t know. But I sorta like him. Even though it’s complicated since he has bad taste in movies.”

“That’s an awesome kind of complicated.”

I deliver a punishing blow to the green ball, sending it careening down the hall and bouncing off the white concrete cinder block walls with several loud twangs. “Oh man! Someone is going to hear us,” I say. “But I don’t give a shit. Because I am a free bird.”

Kristen darts in front of me, her agile field skills in play, and she slams her stick against the ball on its return path. Then she smacks the top of the ball, skipping it up in the air and catching it in her hand.

“What are you free from?” Her eyes are brimming with curiosity. Nothing gets past this girl.

I suppose I should feel stupid for letting free bird slip out, but I don’t. It felt strangely good to unspool some of my wound-up secrets with Joanne the other night, and I’ve been wanting to do the same with Kristen. To take ownership of my actions, to be honest, to let go to the past, no matter how risky that may be. Because this is the real risk – will she stop wanting to be my friend when she knows? I can feel my heart beating faster, my nerves skating back and forth under the surface of my skin. This must be what it feels like to open yourself up, to let someone see who you really are.

Especially if that person might not like what she sees.

“Sometimes I go to group therapy,” I blurt out.

She tilts her head to the side, furrows her brows. “Does. Not. Compute,” she says like a robot.

I laugh, loving her ability to be totally direct and silly too.

“This group. It’s like a support group,” I say and I’m still kind of embarrassed to say it, am still totally ashamed, not of the group, but the fact that I am a card-carrying member.

“Like AA? Is that why you don’t drink?”

“Sort of, but not for alcohol addiction. For something else.” I swallow hard. “I’m in a sex and love addicts recovery group.” I don’t tell her that’s how I know Trey, or that he goes, because that’s not my secret to tell. Instead, I start to unravel one little lie. “Because I’ve made some pretty dumbass choices about boys and men.”

“But you’ve never even given a blow job,” she says, as if she’s found the loophole that will prove I’m wrong.

But I push through and focus on the facts. “I know. And I’ve never had sex either. Which I know makes it seem ridic that I’d go. But yet, therein lies the conundrum. I took money for sex. Well, not sex. But weird little fetishes. I was sort of an escort.”

Kristen drops the field hockey stick on the floor. “You were an escort?” She repeats. “Like an escort-escort?”

I nod, bracing myself for the goodbye. For the sneer. For the tell-tale signs that she’s thinks I’m disgusting. “Yes. A high-end call girl.”

“But you never had sex with them?”

“No. Never. Not even close.”

She exhales loud and long, as if that will somehow help her make sense of this news. She holds out her hands. “I don’t get it. You were a call girl during the time we were friends in high school?”

“I started when I was seventeen. So, yes. When I was a senior in high school and all through freshman year of college.”

She smacks her palm against her forehead. “Am I stupid? How did I not notice? Not see it?”

“You’re not stupid. I’m just really accustomed to covering up. It became a way of life for me. To cover up.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she says, still in a monotone, eyes wide as the moon.

“I’m sorry,” I say, as if I’m being chided. Maybe I am. I can’t just drop this bomb on her and expect her not to jump or flinch. But at some point you have to stop running from your past. You have to stop letting it define you. You have to puncture it before it swells so big and full that it takes over you. “It wasn’t something I told anyone though, Kristen. It was something I did secretly. It was something, to be honest, that I was kind of addicted too.” Each word tastes strange on my tongue, but not dirty, not bitter. They just taste like a new food I’ve never tried.

Then, as if Kristen has snapped out of her shock, she nods quickly many times. “I get it. I understand. I’m just kind of reconfiguring my hard drive now,” she says, tapping her skull. “And finding room for this new data point about you.”

“Do you think I’m gross?” I ask, worrying away at the cuticle on my thumb.

She shakes her head. Vigorously. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Why not?

“Because you’re not. You’re you. Yeah, I really wish you’d told me sooner,” she says in that direct and honest way Kristen has. “But I also understand that it’s not something you wanted to share. And if you do want to share, I’ll listen.”

We sit down on the linoleum floor and I tell her more. I tell her about Morris, about Cam, about Miranda, about the book she’s making me write. I don’t tell her everything. I don’t offer up every sordid detail. Being truthful doesn’t mean you have no boundaries. Sharing a secret doesn’t mean you have to overshare. But I tell her enough and her eyes go wider with every detail. It’s like stripping bare in front of someone and asking do I look fat, when you know you are fat, when your skin is rippling with cellulite waves.

And now I want to know if everything has changed. Worry lodges deep in my belly, and my throat catches as I ask the inevitable. “Do you still want to be friends with me?”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be silly. Of course. And I might want you to tell me tawdry tales from time to time so I have fodder for a screenplay someday. Could you do that?” she asks with a wink.

I laugh once. “I’d much rather give you my stories than Miranda.”

She smiles sympathetically. “That really does suck that you had to do that.”

“It was pretty much the worst homework assignment ever.”

Kristen leans forward, pats my knee. “Hey. I know that was hard to tell me. All of that. But I also think it’s kind of cool that you trusted me enough to tell me. And now I want to ask you something, and I want you to be honest, okay?”

I brace myself, my instinct, my fear zooming back. I try to remind myself it’s okay to let people in. “Okay. Hit me.”

“You are in love with Trey, aren’t you?”

My breath stops. I don’t even know what love is, I want to say. Instead, I borrow a phrase from her playbook. Because it’s the truth she asked for. “It’s complicated.”

“Or maybe it’s not. Why haven’t you seen him much in the last few days? Just busy? Or is he suffering from some tattoo-induced stupor?”

“What do you mean?”

“Jordan said Trey got himself a new tattoo today. I figured that’s why you guys weren’t together. That he was busy getting inked.”

My stomach contorts with fear and worry. With Trey, a tattoo is never just a tattoo. It’s a symbol, it’s a message, it’s the way he expresses the things he won’t say.

A tattoo is a cry for help.

I need to find him. Even if he won’t call me back.

Chapter Sixteen

Trey

I have my armor on. My earbuds are in and Over the Edge blasts in my head, the music a shield. I make it through the lobby, feeling like a character in a video game darting and dodging cars and trucks to cross a crowded street.

I press the button for the elevator, and it’s empty when it arrives. I step inside, then seconds later, I hear a voice. A sexy, sultry voice.

It’s like I’m being tested, but then that’s the point. I want the test. I’m here to prove to myself I can do this. I can make it across the alligator-strewn waters of my parent’s apartment building.

A gorgeous blond with impossibly long legs and a red dress that looks as if it’s been painted on waggles her fingers at me. “Hold the elevator.”

I swallow, my throat dry. I push the open button.

She walks inside. “Hello there.” The words are a purr from her cherry lips.

I grab the brass bar behind me, holding on for dear fucking life as the elevator shoots up.

Her stop is before mine, and she casts a quick glance before she leaves. I heave a sigh as the doors close.

I passed the first test. I picture some army dude, a colonel maybe, in a room with one-way glass, barking out orders. “Cue the cougar in the elevator. Next, roll out the MILF.”

But seconds later, I’m at my parent’s floor. This is the real test. The assault rifles, the grenades–-the army commander is preparing to launch them all at me as I head to Antarctica.

I take out the earbuds and turn off the music. I know this hallway in the dark, without a flashlight. I could find my way in and out of this building blindfolded. This is where I grew up, became fucked up, and then was told to shut up.

I stop at the door, then take a beat. Gritting my teeth, drawing a breath, steeling myself.

I knock.

My mother answers, and even though it’s late, she’s up because she rarely sleeps. She’s still dressed too. She’s wearing jeans and a button-down blouse. Her hair is in a neat ponytail. She holds a medical journal in her hand.

“Trey, is everything okay? What are you doing here at midnight? Come in.” She gestures to the apartment, every surface perfectly and pristinely cleaned.

I shake my head. I don’t want to go in. I don’t even want to be here. This place is a vacuum seal on feelings. I’d enter and they’d duct tape my mouth and tell me not to say a word.

“That’s okay. I don’t need to come in.”

“Did you want to talk more about school? Your studies?” she asks, because these are the only acceptable topics.

“No, I don’t want to talk about school. I wanted to show you something,” I say, and this is when I see if I can do what Michele has been urging me to do all along. To say it. Because if I can say something to my mom, I can say it to Harley. I’m at the edge of a cliff, I’m jumping off without a parachute, and I’m hoping for a soft landing, even though I know I could crash and break every bone in my body.

I turn to my side, pull up my shirt, and show her my new ink. The bandage has been removed.

“These are three trees. And they’re for Will, Jake and Drew,” I say, and she stumbles when I breathe their names aloud for the first time in years. Like she’s been punched in the gut and is winded. “And you might not ever say their names or acknowledge they existed, but I have and I will. Because I don’t want to forget them. I want to remember.”

And that’s all. I don’t wait for a response. I don’t need a response, and I don’t warrant a response. Because even after I turn around and wait endless minutes for the elevator to arrive, she doesn’t call after me, she doesn’t try to tell me she remembers too. She’s stuck to her guns, to her orders from when I was fifteen. Don’t talk about it.

The doors open and I’m inside now. I’d like to say I feel like a new man, like my life is unfurling before me. But that would be bullshit. Instead, my heart is frantic, and my skin is crawling, and I want to go jump into the ocean and swim out into the night, the stars my only companions. But there’s no ocean nearby, there’s only this claustrophobic, sticky, sweaty, smelly, muggy city that I want to escape from, that I’ve lived in my whole life, that’s made everything I’ve done possible.

But I am also buzzing with adrenaline, because I can’t fucking believe I did that. And if I can do that, I can do something that’s more important. I can tear down the fucking walls I have built with this girl I am crazy for.

I’m ready to find her. Ready to tell her. Ready to let her know everything. Damn the consequences. Screw the costs. Telling her everything is like inking my body. I have to go into it with no regrets.

When the elevator opens into the lobby, my heart stops because she is walking toward me.

I don’t freeze. I don’t run to her like in the movies. I just keep moving, one foot in front of the other, and this is the real walking of the plank. This is the true blind dive. I have no clue why she’s here. All I know is she’s not dressed for work. She’s dressed for me. She’s wearing her skinny hipster jeans, all tight and dark, and a t-shirt with a cat smoking a pipe and the words No Smoking under it. She doesn’t even have Converse on now. She has on combat boots, and I’ve never seen a girl in anything hotter than Harley in combat boots. Her hair is loose, and she has on pink lipgloss, and I want to taste it.

Then I give myself a mental slap for automatically going to the physical. I should focus on everything else. Like why she’s here.

“Welcome to the lion’s den,” I say, because I don’t know what the hell to say and humor seems as reasonable as falling at her feet and telling her how I feel for her.

She’s not having it. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

She furrows her brows like I’m crazy. “Um, hello? You haven’t answered your phone, except once and then you hung up. And you haven’t responded to a text or anything for days.”

“I think it was two days. You know, if you’re counting.”

She parks her hands on her hips. “Well, I am counting. And I went to your apartment to find you, and now I’m here.” Her voice echoes across the rose-colored marble lobby with brass trim. The doorman in a dark maroon uniform fixes his focus on something unseen across the street, probably doing his best to pretend he can’t hear everything we’re saying. He’s good at his job – see no evil, hear no evil.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say and grab her elbow, gently leading her out of the building and onto the street. We walk several feet because I need space and distance from my parents. We stop near the end of the block and I lean against the stoop of a brownstone. She stands next to me, and we’re the only ones on the quiet street at this late hour. Somewhere, in the distance, a horn honks and someone shouts. But here, the space between us is carved with silence.

I turn to her. She looks back at me. Who will make the first move? But that’s not really a question. She came to me. She found me. She hunted me down. But even if she hadn’t done those things, I still have unfinished business.

“I’m sorry I kinda disappeared the last few days,” I say softly.

“Why did you disappear?”

“I had to figure some things out. Get my shit together.”

She inches away from me. “What did you figure out? That you don’t want to be friends with me?”

I laugh, shake my head. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Jordan said you got a new tattoo. Are you going to tell me now why you keep getting them? What this obsession is? Because I think what you told me when you were drunk was true. Was it?”

She meets my eyes without hostility, without anger, without fear. I’m struck dumb by how masterful the two of us can be at playing people, juggling men and women, reeling off lies with vigor and abandon. But then, in quiet moments, she can strip that away and ask me for all my truths.

I lick my lips, part them, and I feel mute again, like when she called. For the briefest moment, I have the sensation that my entire world can smother me, that the buildings on the other side of the block will break free, topple over and crush me. That I will die. But then I tested that hypothesis a few minutes ago outside my parent’s door, and I’m still standing.

It’s now or never. And one thing I know for sure – never isn’t an option.

“Yeah. It’s all true,” I admit.

“Oh, Trey.” Her throat hitches and her eyes are brimming with sadness. She steps closer, touches my arm. Rubs her fingertips against my skin. “I’m so sorry. Do you want to tell me about them? About Will, Jake and Drew.”

I stumble. Like I’ve been hit. But she grabs my hand, steadies me. “You remember their names?” I can’t believe it. I can’t believe she remembers.

“Yes,” she says with a nod. She links her fingers through mine, leads me to the nearby stoop. I follow her, and the feel of her hand in mine is extraordinary. She sits down, turns to me, takes both of my hands in hers. I watch her, amazed that she’s not looking away, that she wants to listen. That she’s not going anywhere. That she cares. Deeply.

“Tell me.”

So I begin at the beginning.

* * *

My parents were young when they had me, just finishing their residencies. I was the only child for a long time, but when I was twelve they were ready to expand, they said. They were established, with a well-respected plastic surgery practice that doubled as a mint. They were raking it in and ready to become a bigger family.

Soon my mom was pregnant with another boy. All was well and her pregnancy was picture perfect. But at four and a half months, I heard her wake up shrieking at four in the morning, then my dad rushed into my room, told me he was taking her to the hospital and that Mrs. Fitzpatrick down the hall would come babysit.

I didn’t go back to sleep that night.

I stared at the clock and waited. When morning came, Mrs. Fitzpatrick told me to get ready for school. She took me to the deli at the end of the street, bought me a bagel, and walked me to school, even though I knew the route myself, thank you very much. When the day ended, my dad was waiting for me on the steps of the school.

He shook his head, gave me a sad smile, and then when we were far enough away from the school he wrapped me in the kind of hug you give when you’ve lost someone and you want to hold on dearly to those you have left.

“We had a son. He was too small to live,” my father said, choking out the words, his eyes rimmed with red.

“I don’t understand. What happened?”

“Her water broke too soon.”

“So, where’s the baby?”

“She was only twenty weeks pregnant. He couldn’t survive.”

I was glad we were blocks away from my school. I didn’t want anyone to see me cry, but I could feel the tears prick at the back of my eyes, threatening me.

“What did you name him?”

My father tilted his head as if the question didn’t make sense.

“Did he have a name?”

“No, Trey. We didn’t name him.”

“Oh,” I said, and that’s when my chest felt like a dark, black pit. He was nameless. That was worse than death. I grabbed hard on my dad’s arm, desperate for him to understand. “We need to name him, Dad. He needs a name. He has to have a name.”

“Okay,” my dad said, holding his hands out wide, a helpless gesture. “What should we name him?”

“Can we name him Jake?”

“Sure,” he said in an empty voice. “We can do that. We can name him Jake.”

Then my father broke down and cried on Madison Avenue, falling to his knees on the sidewalk and clutching me, like I was the anchor.

“You miss Jake, don’t you?” I asked.

He nodded against my chest.

My parents tried again, and my mom made it further, but at her seven-month appointment the doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat. She went to the hospital that day to deliver the baby, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick brought me over in the evening so I could meet my second brother. I held him, the baby boy named Drew who was wrapped in a standard hospital baby blanket, with fingers the size of matches bent into a miniature little fist and a heart that no longer beat.

The next day, Mrs. Fitzpatrick came by the apartment with flowers and sympathy and a year later with wallpaper samples and paint chips since my mom was pregnant once more. I was fifteen then, and this was their last shot. My mom was optimistic, bright, cheery. Third time’s a charm, she said, as Mrs. Fitzpatrick helped her pick out colors for the baby’s room.

When Will was born – alive, red, screaming at the top of his lungs – everyone erupted into cheers. But soon after he was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect and given only a few days to live.

The doctors told my mom, “At least we know now why you keep losing the babies.”

As if that gave her solace.

We brought Will home to give him “comfort care.” We were hidden away in the apartment, on some sort of death watch. The clock was ticking, and we were simply unwinding the minutes until he died.

I was the one holding him.

I didn’t let go for the longest time.

Then, my mom cleaned out the baby’s room, threw away the crib, ripped off the teddy bear border from the wall, and turned it into a cold, sleek, modern office, with two desks where my parents buried themselves in medical journals each night.

The expansion plans had failed, and so it was time to move on.

Dust off your hands. Don’t look back. Don’t even breathe a word.

I planted the trees myself. In Abingdon Square Park alone, late one night, the moon and the city my only company. The only one who wanted to remember.

And if they were going to numb themselves, I figured I could too. When I turned sixteen, I started visiting Mrs. Fitzpatrick, ostensibly for her home-baked cookies and for her keen interest in talking about feelings and all the things my parents would never discuss. Like that card with the saying about the stars in the sky. She looked at it with me. She talked about it with me. She said she believed too. Then, we stopped talking about feelings because I was done with them. I wanted to feel other things. I wanted to feel her. I wanted to numb myself in pleasure, in women, in sex. I wanted nothing but euphoria, but never-fucking-ending ecstasy. I wanted the opposite to take the pain away. She taught me everything I knew, and sent me off on the merry path of curves, and breasts, and sixty ways to make a woman scream your name at the top of her lungs. I worked my way through the building and the beauties and the cougars and I made them feel all the highs that only losing yourself in sex could ever bring.

* * *

Her cheeks are stained with tears. Her lower lip is quivering. She’s swiping at her cheeks, trying to wipe the evidence of her sadness away. But it’s futile.

She blinks several times, swallows, and says in a broken, choppy voice, “I am so sorry.”

But her words don’t stick. They bounce off me, like I’m made of rubber. It’s not her though. It’s me. To tell that story I had to disengage. Disconnect. That’s the only way I could get it out without choking on a river of tears. I barely feel rooted to the steps right now. It’s as if my vision went blurry, and I’m seeing fuzzy, silver streaks before my eyes. I’m a ghost, floating above, watching this scene transpire from another plane of reality, from one where I can’t be hurt.

She brings her hand to her chest, and her shoulders are shaking. The tears fall like a fucking rainstorm now, unleashed, and it’s so strange to watch someone else’s reaction. I’ve been living my own reaction for years, inside of me and locked up in my head, and now this story that’s only been told in hieroglyphics on my body is someone else’s to own, to process, to feel. It’s as if I’ve given her a piece of my heart, and said there, do with it what you will. I’m frozen in time, waiting, to see if she’ll kick my heart away.

“I can’t believe you kept that all inside, Trey,” she says in between sobs. “I can’t believe that’s your history, and your family, and you never said a word.”

I shrug. Or the me I’m watching shrugs. He’s not sure what happens next. “I got used to not talking about it. It’s like this black hole in life.”

She grasps my hand, slides her fingers through mine. “You. Are. Brave.”

I scoff, then sneer for good measure. “How does that make me brave?”

She grips harder. “You are brave to tell me. You are brave to let me in. You are brave and crazy and you are stupid to think you can handle that all yourself,” she says, laying a gentle hand on my cheek, her smooth skin on my rough stubbled jaw.

“So I’m stupid. Like that’s news.”

“You are stupid brave. And stupid courageous. And stupid amazing. And I won’t let you go through any more of this alone,” she says fiercely, eyes blazing with an intensity I’ve never seen before. She grabs the neck of my shirt, pulls hard on it, tugs me closer. “I’m sorry about your brothers. And I’m sorry your parents never talked about it. And I’m sorry you had to carry all that around by yourself. But I want to know whatever you want to tell me, Trey. I want you to show me all your tattoos and tell me what they mean. I want to see the tree you planted for them,” she says and she twists harder on my shirt. “I want you to know they’re not ever going to be forgotten because I will remember them for you.”

In an instant, I’m back on earth. I’m no longer floating, removed. I’m here, next to her, and my chest is cracked open, and I’ve given her my bleeding, beating heart, and she’s holding it in her hands, and she’s not crushing it, she’s not destroying it. She’s doing the opposite. She’s getting me. She’s understanding, she’s burrowing her way so far under my skin, into my head, and around my heart that I am dangerously close to joining her in the tears department. I’m still a guy; I don’t know that I can go there in front of her. But I don’t have to because I’m going someplace else it turns out. She ropes her arms around my neck, and I bury my face in her hair, and I don’t ever want to let go of her. She clings to me, tugs and pulls and brings me closer, like she doesn’t ever want to let go either. And I don’t know how we’re here, how we’re back on a stoop in New York, and we always seem to wind up on a stoop in New York, but more than that, we always seem to wind up in each other’s arms. We are magnets and I can’t resist the pull.

There is no distance between us and I don’t want any more distance. I want closeness, I want connection, I want it with her. Then she loosens her grip. Not by much, but enough to bring her sweet lips to my ear. She grazes me with a whisper, her voice soft. “I want you to take off your shirt and I want you to tell me everything. I want to see your new ink. I want to understand you.”

I am an electrical line, buzzing. “Do you want to come to my place?”

“Yes.”

Chapter Seventeen

Trey

The subway takes too long. But if I were in a cab with her, I’d probably jump her, and whatever is going to happen between us tonight needs to happen behind closed doors. I want to be alone with her. I want to have her to myself. I don’t want anyone around, anyone to walk in, anyone to find us. I want to hole up with her and kiss and touch her all night long, until morning comes and our lips are red and raw, and we still can’t get enough of each other.

But the practical matter of transportation downtown comes first.

“I have big news,” she tells me as the train rattles underground.

“Yeah?”

I trace the vein on her forearm, from the heel of her hand to her elbow. Goosebumps rise on her skin, and she shivers. I will never grow tired of the way she responds to me.

“You make it hard to focus,” she chides. “And I want to tell you something. I finished. I’m done with Miranda!”

“Shit! Are you serious?”

She nods several times. “One hundred percent. Sent it off tonight.”

“That’s amazing. I’m seriously proud of you. Which I know sounds like a weird thing to say, but I am.”

She pats her back, pretends to look over her shoulder to see what’s there. “See that? Oh wait. You can’t. Because the monkey’s off my back.”

“Good riddance, monkey.”

There are other chains that bind her though. My chest constricts as I ask the next question. “But what about Cam? Did you tell him you’re done? Are you done?” I ask, hoping, praying, needing her no more than air right now.

She lowers her eyes. “I haven’t told him, but I will now.”

She takes her phone from her pocket, taps open a new message. I look away as a thick plume of jealousy snakes through me. I don’t want to know what she’s saying to him. I have to trust that it’s exactly what needs to be said.

She stuffs it back into her pocket. “Done. I’m free of these burdens. I want to start over. Start my new life from this day forward. Start everything like it’s the first time.”

“So this is it? No more Miranda, no more Cam, you’re done with the past?”

She nods.

“I don’t want you with him, Harley. He’s no good for you, and you don’t need that anymore. Okay?”

“I know. I know,” she says, and she seems resolute.

“Promise me you’re done? Promise me he’s the past?”

“I promise. I told him I won’t do the job he asked me to do. Some stupid dinner event. I said it’s over.”

I shake my head in disgust. I hate every single guy who’s hired her. I hate every dude everywhere who’s hired a girl. Because I’d be willing to bet most of those girls didn’t really want to be hired. Fine, Harley made her own choices, but she also didn’t. Her mom boxed her into a corner, gave her no choice, no options. So Harley did what I did. She tunneled her way out through sex.

“Good. Because I don’t want you with anyone else,” I tell her as the train winds around a curve, and I’m struck with how easy that was to say. I used to think speaking honestly was impossible, but now I’m two-for-two tonight.

“But what about rules? And trying to stay away? And being in recovery and all?”

“Fuck the rules,” I say, squeezing her fingers. “I want to be with you.”

“I want to be with you so badly it’s killing me,” she says in a breathy, desperate voice that makes me want to stop time and never forget this moment. Because this is perfect. Us. Here. Now. On the graffiti-filled subway, chugging into my stop, after I’ve told her the ugly truth of me, and she wants everything I’ve ever wanted too. Each other.

“I’m dying, Harley,” I say, bending my head to her neck. “I’m fucking dying without you. I need you. I want you. I want to teleport to my apartment right now because I can’t stand being on this train a second longer. I want to touch you all over. I want to be with you.”

“I want that too but we can’t go all the way. We can’t have sex. I’m just not ready.”

“We can do whatever you want. I have waited six months for you. I can wait longer if I have to. I can wait as long as you need. If all you want to do is kiss, I will happily spend the night doing that. Hell, if you want to play bridge we can do that too. Even though I have no clue how that game works.”

“I bet you know how to play strip poker though,” she teases.

“That I do.”

“Or just strip.”

When the train stops, we practically leap out of the car and bolt up the steps. After several blocks of near race-walking, we make it inside my building and up two flights of stairs. I unlock the door to my tiny studio, open it, and before the door closes, my hands are on her face.

“Kiss me,” I tell her. “Kiss me, Harley. And don’t stop.”

“Never,” she says, and then her mouth is on mine. She kisses me hard and ruthlessly, attacking my mouth, sucking on my tongue, nibbling and then biting my lips, and it’s like she’s devouring me and I want it. I desperately want her to feast on me, to leave bite marks all over my neck, to pin me down if she wants to, I don’t care, I just want her. I want to know what it feels like when the girl I am mad about is consumed with this kind of wildfire, this kind of intensity that she digs her nails into my wrists and slams her body into me, like we’re being crushed by some unseeable force that’s pushing us together, and if there’s any air or space left we’re dead. She wriggles that sexy, beautiful, insane body of hers against mine, her breasts smashed against my chest, her hips jammed into me, and her lips insisting on exploring every inch of mine.

This girl can take me, have me, tie me up, blindfold me if she wants, even though that’s honestly not my thing. But how I feel for her threatens to overpower everything else because this is a sweet unraveling as she obliterates my hold on the world, on time, on space, on anything but the ferocity of her kiss.

Then, in an instant, she breaks the kiss. She’s panting, and her brown eyes are wild, so wild, and her lips are parted and bruised already, and I feel like I’m a cartoon character seeing stars swirling around my head. Like I’m one step away from a dizzying collapse brought on by all these sensations that don’t just race – they tear like crazy fucking race cars taking curves at high speeds – through my veins.

“Hi,” she says, breathing out hard.

“Hi.”

“Are you going to show me your tattoos now?”

“Um, yeah,” I say, managing a few syllables though I doubt I’ve recovered the power of speech, considering how she kissed me raw and senseless. I am standing here stupid with lust, hard as a rock, and unable to form coherent thoughts.

Fortunately, I don’t have to.

She takes my hand, guides me over to my futon a few feet away. My apartment is crazy ass small, like most in New York, but it’s mine, and it’s stuffed with my notebooks and drawings and paperbacks and music. I hit the on button on my iPod in its base next to the futon that doubles as a bed, and turn Arcade Fire on low.

“Best. Band. Ever,” she says as we fall down onto the futon.

“No. Questions. Asked,” I say, with a smile, repeating the words we both said the night we met. I curve a hand around her neck. Bring my mouth to her ear. Hear her sigh. Whisper. “You said that the first time I saw you at my shop.”

“I know.”

“And we talked about everything that night. We talked about the beach and how much you want to go there again, and how you felt when you were there as a kid visiting your grandparents. And we talked about the music we love, and what we wanted out of life. And now here we are again.”

“Full circle or something like that,” she says with a smirk. “If I were a poet I’d make that sound all artful. But I’m just a wannabe. And now I want your shirt off.”

“Be my guest.”

She’s up on her knees now, grabbing the waistband. I raise my arms over my head and she tugs off my shirt. There’s no striptease, no slow, lingering removal of clothes. It is frenzied and necessary. She closes her eyes briefly, then opens them and inhales sharply. Seconds later, her hands are on my chest, her palms spread wide on my pecs, and I don’t ever want her to stop touching me.

She moves her index finger to my throat, then trails down my chest, softly, painting a line, drawing on me. I feel like I’m being marked by her, like she’s claiming my body. Down my ribs, along my side, across my waist.

I hitch in a breath as she touches my abs, her fingers turning me ragged with want.

I’m fighting every instinct to yank her down on top of me, to rip off all her clothes, then flip her over, open her legs and thrust into her. To look into her eyes as I enter her for the first time. I won’t do that though until she’s ready. But I won’t do anything tonight either until she explores me like she wants. Her hands leave my chest, reach my arms, her fingertips traveling from my shoulders down to my wrists, each second of contact winding me higher. I swear I’ll have to grip the edge of the futon soon to stay still.

She stops at my wrists, then bends her head, and her lips are on my skin, mapping an agonizingly slow trail of kisses up my arm until she reaches my right shoulder with the trio of sunbursts.

“What are these for?”

“Life,” I tell her. Her hair is draped over my arm, silky soft sheets, as she layers quiet kisses on my ink. First one sun. “Energy. Heat. Strength,” I add.

“To remind you to be strong?”

“Yeah,” I say with a forced laugh. “Didn’t work.”

She looks up, her eyes fierce again. Powerful. Passionate. “You are strong, Trey. You are so strong. Don’t ever think otherwise.”

Her belief in me is the strangest thing I’ve ever known. I’ve felt lust, I’ve felt rage, I’ve felt pain. I’ve felt sadness. I’ve felt power. But now this – faith in myself from another person. It’s foreign, and it’s heady, and it’s addictive in its own way.

She returns to my arm, kisses the other sun.

“And, I know this may seem obvious, but the sun means a lot of things to different cultures. Some believed it had the power to heal,” I tell her.

“And you wished the sun could have healed the hearts of your brothers?”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding, choking back the emotions that threaten to overtake me again. “But it’s also a symbol of light. And light in hard times. So I kinda wanted the sun to represent that. That the sun would shine through the past, and the darkness, and the death. That the day would start over, and maybe…” I say then trail off, because this is too much, too much closeness, too much admission.

The shadows from the moonlight stream in through the window, playing across her beautiful face.

“It’s okay, Trey. I believe that too. That maybe the sun can shine through the darkness. That’s what you were going to say, right?”

I nod.

“You wanted all of that,” she says, and it’s like she can see inside me, like she understands on such an instinctual level. “You marked your body because these were your hopes and your wishes for a new life. For a new future. For a life without so much pain. So much death.”

She moves to my chest now, kisses the three small silhouetted birds on my right pec. “And this bird? Is that for freedom? Flying away or something?”

“It’s a phoenix,” I whisper.

She tilts her head to the side. “I didn’t realize it was a phoenix.”

“It’s small. It’s hard to tell. It’s supposed to just be a representation anyway.”

“And does it mean resurrection? Rebirth?”

“Yeah. That’s why I did it. But then I was researching the phoenix when a client wanted one, and I learned something kind of cool. The Chinese believe the phoenix represented grace and femininity.”

“Really?”

I nod. “Yeah. It’s like a yin and yang thing. Dragons and phoenix together are a yin and yang. They are each other’s other halves.”

“They’d make quite a couple.”

“Maybe I need a dragon now. You know, so I can be whole again,” I say, reverting to mocking myself, because sometimes that’s easier.

She flashes a quick smile, but then continues her travels, the tip of her fingernail outlining one of the birds. I draw a deep breath. The feel of her is almost too much. “Or you could put a dragon on me,” she says in a low and husky voice.

I swallow. “I can?”

“Yeah. I liked it when you inked me. I want more.”

“I would love to give you another tattoo,” I tell her, and I can’t resist. I thread my hands through her hair, grab hard on the back of her head, and pull her in for another kiss. This time, I lead. I inhale her, savor her, run my tongue along her sexy lips, then crush my mouth to hers, hearing her whimper as I kiss her deeply. I want to kiss her so hard and so fiercely that it erases every other kiss she’s had, every memory, every client, every moment with another man. I want to brand her with my kisses, mark her as mine, make her lips all red and swollen, so everyone knows I’m the only one allowed to touch her, the only one with permission, the only one she’s ever wanted.

We kiss like that for hours, or maybe minutes, and she’s wiggling against me, and sighing into my mouth, but then her hands are back on my chest, and she pushes me away. A firm clear push.

Her nimble little fingers sneak their way down to my ribcage, to the new fresh art on my body. Three trees, twined together.

“Your trees,” she says, ginger with her touch, even though it doesn’t hurt. “You had them done today.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“They’re beautiful. And they’re perfect, because a tree can be many, many things. But it is always, forever and ever, the symbol of life,” she says with a kind of reverence as she stares, mesmerized, tracing the outlines on my flesh.

Life. It’s what’s happening now. It’s the real, scary, dangerous, amazing possibility in front of me. There are no guarantees. I don’t know what happens next or tomorrow or in a week or a month. With all my other women, I knew what they were. They were temporary. They were pills, they were bottles, they were long, slow hits on a pipe. Some left you high for hours, some for days, the rare few for a week or more. But you always came down. You always found another. I kept painting over all the vacant corners in my heart, a new coat, then another, then I’d try for one more.

But now, I don’t know what’s going to happen.

And I have to be okay with that. All I know is this moment, this night, is the closest I’ve ever come to magic, and I want to feel every second of it.

“Your turn,” I say, grabbing her hip, tugging at her shirt. “Let’s take your shirt off.”

“Why, I thought you’d never ask,” she says, playfully, and in seconds she is shirtless too.

God, she’s breathtaking. She has the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen plenty. But no one can hold a candle to Harley. I could say it’s her breasts or her belly or her legs. But it’s not. It’s the tiny mole on her right shoulder. It’s her elbow. It’s her ragged cuticle. It’s the slim white scar on her kneecap from field hockey. It’s every part.

“I have no choice. I have to take your bra off,” I tell her, then loop my hands around her back and undo her bra, letting it fall to the floor. I cup her breasts and she gasps. I knead them and watch her reaction as she closes her eyes and her head falls back. Her lips are parted and she breathes out hard as I run my thumbs over her nipples. Reflexively, she moves closer, shifting her hips, and I don’t know how the hell I’m going to hold out, because I love everything about how her body reacts. I want to know every inch of her. I want to kiss her from head to toe. I want her under me, on top of me, beside me. I want to drown myself in her scent, in her taste, in her.

I bury my head between her breasts, licking and kissing and squeezing, and her hands shoot up to my head. Her fingers grapple through my hair, and she tugs my mouth closer, and I go with it. I give her what she wants. More of my mouth, kissing and flicking her pert nipples, until she’s panting harder, and I can’t fucking wait anymore.

I’ve gone six months without tasting her on my lips, and I want to be drenched in her right now.

I pull back, plant a quick kiss on her lips, then trail my tongue along her jawline up to her ear. “Let me go down on you.”

She doesn’t answer immediately. Then quietly, in a small, squeaky voice, she says “Okay.”

But she’s all monotone and she doesn’t sound into it. I give her a sharp stare, tilting my head. “Okay? That’s it? Just okay?”

“Trey,” she says, and her voice is shaking.

“Trey what?”

“Do I have to spell it out?”

“No. I mean, maybe yes. I just want to make sure you want it.”

“It’s hard for me to say what I want,” she says, turning her head, and flinging her hand over her eyes.

I gently remove her hand. Kiss her eyes. “Hey. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I don’t want to pressure you.”

“I want it,” she says. “I want you. It’s just that I’m not used to wanting it. Okay? I don’t know how to ask for it.”

I grin. I can’t help myself. “This is how you ask for it. Trey, I’m dying for your face between my legs. Say that.”

She narrows her eyes at me and huffs.

“Just try,” I say softly, nuzzling her neck.

“Why?”

“Cause it’s so fucking hot to hear you say that I think I might come just from hearing you say that.”

She smacks my shoulder. “Jesus.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re insanely hot, and I’m dying to taste you and I know you’re not vocal or into saying what you want and that’s fine. But fuck, Harley. I’ve never wanted anyone like this. And I could spend all night touching your body. And it’s not because you’re hot or beautiful. Because you are those things. It’s because you’re you. You’re the girl I want. You’re the girl I want to be with. You’re the girl I’m crazy for.”

She inhales sharply. “Trey,” she whispers. I meet her eyes, they are fiery and wild, but tentative too. Then she pushes through. “I’m dying for your face between my legs,” she says in a broken little whisper, so low it’s almost inaudible, but I hear every delicious word and they set me on fire.

I undo her jeans, pull them off quickly, then tug off her panties. I don’t even have time to admire them. I have a mission and I’m going for it.

My whole body is a live wire right now. I am consumed with nothing but desire for her. My bones, my blood, my nerves are all firing at mach speed with the need to have her. Of course, I’m pretty sure all the blood in my body has been diverted to one place and one place only because I am too hard for words.

But fuck words.

It’s time for action.

She trembles with anticipation and looks at me with desire, want and the tiniest bit of fear, but I know she’s not scared of me. It’s the fear of letting herself feel that’s gripping her. But I am going to make her feel everything. I place my hands on her knees. “I’m going to spread your legs now,” I tell her.

“Okay,” she says with a twinkle in her eyes, giving that lame-ass word right back to me. But her okay doesn’t bug me now. Because her body has made everything clear. She’s so ready, she’s beyond ready, it’s like she’s fucking glistening for me, and I can not wait to taste her.

She lets her legs fall open, and that’s it. I’m fucking done. I kiss the inside of one leg, from behind her knee, up her thigh. She shivers, the soft little hairs on her leg stand on end. Then I switch to her other leg, inching closer, and she’s already breathing harder. Her hands search for me, her fingers lacing through my hair as she tries to pull me in.

“Do you want me to lick you, Harley?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to taste you now?”

“Yes,” she says again, her voice nearing a beg.

“Do you want me to make you come on my tongue?”

“Yes, please,” she says, and that last word has several syllables as it turns into a long, low moan of pleasure as I bring my lips to her. To where she wants me. God, she tastes fucking amazing, and I have missed this, I have dreamed of this, I have jerked off to this many, many times. And now I’m back in the promised land, where I want to be. I want to have her, to kiss her, to do everything to her with my mouth. To feel her body move and arch against my face.

I grab her ass, cup her cheeks, pull her closer, and she makes another sound. A bit louder this time, but still, she’s a quiet one. She might always be a quiet one and that’s fine with me. I don’t need her to scream or shout to know I’m doing it right. I know because of how she’s moving beneath me, how she’s starting to rock her hips and grab my hair. I know because of how she’s breathing out hard and stilted, and how she tastes on my lips and my tongue. I will never get enough of her, I will never stop wanting this, wanting her, wanting to taste her come on my tongue.

Judging from the way she’s arching her back and thrusting into me, I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen any second. I follow her lead, kissing and tasting and licking her exactly how she likes, in the ways that make her go crazy, make her thrash around. I glance up, watching her reaction, as she grabs the pillow, digging her nails into it, gripping it hard.

Then she says the most glorious thing I’ve ever heard. She says my name so loudly, and she doesn’t stop saying it until the orgasm has rocked her body, and even then she’s still gasping, her legs trembling as it fades like a wave rolling back out to the sea at night.

Harley

I feel it in my fingertips. In my toes. In my hair. Hell, I feel that orgasm in my split ends. Not that I have any. Split ends, that is. But if I did, I’d feel it there too. It’s still radiating through my entire body, and I think I may be floating for days on this cloud of absolute and utter bliss, like the whole world has turned bright white and gold, and everything is beautiful.

Trey flops down next to me, looking immensely pleased.

He nuzzles my neck, whispers in my ear. “You are so sexy when you come.”

“Thank you,” I say, feeling the slightest bit embarrassed. I’ve only had five, maybe ten orgasms tops, in my life. I’m guessing four have been ones he’s given me. All the others were self-delivered, and I’ve never been terribly preoccupied with rubbing one out. Sex has always reminded me of things I don’t want to be reminded me of. There was too much sex around me anyway—smells and sounds, all those awful sounds from my mom’s bedroom or her office. Sounds I never wanted to hear. Sounds I never wanted to make. To be honest, I’ve never wanted to be touched before. I didn’t want someone trying to get me off, trying to make me feel good. I didn’t want to know what I’d sound like when someone did that to me.

But with Trey, I let go of all that. He’s the only man I’ve ever wanted to feel things with, feel things for. With him, I am learning to let go. Learning that sex doesn’t have to be embarrassing. That contact doesn’t have to remind me of all the ways I grew up. Giving up control, and trusting another person doesn’t have to be the scariest thing in the world. It can be incredible on its own.

“Hi,” he whispers.

“Hi,” I say back.

“You look woozy. But that’s a compliment.”

I smile, but say nothing. I’m not sure what to say.

“I know I should feel guilty since I’m supposed to be a monk or something,” he says, tracing lazy circles on my belly. He bends his lips to my stomach, kisses me there, makes me tremble. “But I don’t.”

I run my fingers through his hair, so soft to the touch, so nice on my hand. “Me neither.”

He tugs me closer. I’m naked against him and he’s still wearing his jeans. With him wrapped around me, I can feel his erection. I can feel how hard he is through the denim, his size pressing against my naked skin.

I feel a rush of heat between my legs, thinking about how hard he is. Damn. I already had an orgasm and now I’m wet again, ready again. I squeeze my eyes shut, and I don’t know what I feel. If I’m ashamed, or excited, or both.

He kisses my eyelids. Then I open my eyes so I can look at his beautiful face and trace his scar that I love.

“What’s wrong?” He runs his hand along my arm, concern in his features. I don’t think he can stop touching me.

I open my mouth to try to speak, but my throat feels dry. How was I able to be such a seductress when I worked the men up and down Manhattan, and now with him I can barely eke out anything but okays? This is a new language I am learning. I am relearning the basic words, saying them for the first time, mucking up the pronunciation.

But this is Trey. He wants me as I am. He takes me as I am. He wants me sans makeup, sans costume, no lies, no airs, no tricks. So I try on the words for size, hoping I can get them out. “I’m turned on again, feeling you against me.”

His eyes widen with lust, and he groans loudly. He clamps a hand onto my hip, pulls me closer. “Fuck, Harley.”

“You say fuck a lot,” I say.

“I know. But fuck. Fuck. Fuck. You say these things to me and I’m dying. You don’t even know how sexy you are. How hot you are. How much I want you.”

Want.

I decided to borrow his words. To mimic. “I want you,” I say.

He raises. “You do? I thought on the subway you said…”

“I know. And I’m not ready for sex. But you know that thing I said I’ve never done? In the drinking game?”

“Oh god,” he moans roughly, pushing his hand through his hair.

“Can I?”

“Please,” he says, his voice has already turned into a beg, and he’s so ready, so turned on that he already has his hands on his jeans and is starting to unbutton them.

“Wait,” I say.

“For?”

“I don’t know how to do it. You have to teach me.”

“It would be my greatest pleasure,” he says.

I sit up on my knees. Place a hand on his belly. On his ridiculously flat and carved abs. “You have to let me undress you.”

“I won’t argue,” he says, and lies flat, tucking his hands behind his head.

I undo the button, then unzip his jeans, tug them down his hips, over his knees, and off. He pushes off his socks. I return to his underwear. White boxer briefs that leave nothing to the imagination. He’s so hard and I can see the outline of his cock perfectly. I draw a sharp intake of breath because he’s So. Fucking. Big. I don’t know how I can take him in my mouth, let alone have him inside me someday. But yet I want to know. I want to learn. Because I love that he’s big and I place my hand on him through his briefs, and he groans and rocks his hips against me instantly.

“Take them off, Harley. Please,” he says, and this guy, he has no problem asking for it. Like he asked me to kiss him. Like he’s asking me to undress him. I don’t want to linger on the why, but he has no hangups and there’s something so freeing about that. Maybe because he’s so different from my clients. Because this is so different from any encounter I’ve ever had. It seems so normal, so right, so the way a guy and a girl feel for each other. All want and heat and lust.

I reach for the waistband, pull down his briefs, and his erection springs free.

I touch him and he’s hot and hard and smooth. And I have no fucking clue what to do next. Do I just wrap my lips around him and suck?

His eyes are closed and he’s already breathing hard. “Um, Trey,” I say, red rushing to my cheeks. I’m an absolute idiot. A clueless idiot. Because I’m a former call girl and I don’t know how to give a blow job.

He opens his eyes. They are hazy and glassy and he looks like he’s drifting off to a happy land.

“I don’t know what to do,” I admit.

He props himself up on his elbows and this is awkward. His cock is in my hand, twitching against my palm, but we’re talking about what I’m about to do as if it’s a medical procedure.

“It’s actually pretty simple,” he tells me. “You just take my dick in your mouth. And you try not to bite, and the way you do that is like this,” he says, then he shows me by pushing his lips over his teeth. “And that’s really the most important part. Trust me, as long as you don’t bite down hard, I’m going to be coming in about a minute.”

I nod. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

Then he stops me. “Wait. Do you want me to come in your mouth?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

“That’s up to you. But if you don’t I’ll just tell you when I’m about to come, and you can stop sucking, and then just use your hand, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, and I smile, and I laugh, and I drop my face into my free hand.

“What is it, Harley?”

“Nothing. I mean. It’s just this is funny, right?”

He nods and smiles too. “Kinda.”

“I mean, we’re sitting here, and your dick is in my hand, and I’m asking you for tips, and you’re giving me advice for my first blow job, and I’m laughing, and you’re laughing, and it’s kind of awesome.”

Then I lick the head of his cock. “Holy fuck,” he says, and that’s all I’ve done, but he’s into it.

I lick more, kissing the head, then bringing more of him between my lips. He groans and moans, and I love the way he sounds, how he just lets go, and curses like a sailor, or a biker, or a guy in a bar.

Or really, like himself.

Like my Trey.

I pull my lips over my teeth, like he said to do, and I take him in further. I can feel myself start to gag, but then I relax my throat. I don’t know that this is my new favorite thing in the world, I don’t know that I’ve found a hobby like knitting is for Joanne, but I know this – he likes it.

And he likes it because it’s me. Because I’m doing it. Because I’m licking him, tasting him, and wrapping my lips around his hard length, and he likes it because he’s not paying me, and I’m not seducing him, and there’s no agenda. We are just a guy and a girl trying to figure out what it’s like to be with someone when it’s not a game, when it’s not an addiction, when it’s not a transaction.

Soon, as in seconds later, he grabs hard on my hair and moans loudly. “Fuck, Harley. Fucking, fuck. Use your hand too. Grip me with your hand,” he tells me in a hoarse voice, pulling me close, but not too far that I gag. Because, let’s face it, he’s occupying a lot of my mouth right now and I had no clue I could open that wide. I wrap my hand around the base as I move my mouth up and down. He’s salty and musky, and it’s a scent I could get used to because it’s him and I want him. I want him so badly, I am aching between my legs again. I am slippery wet because the sounds he’s making are the complete opposite of me. He’s loud as he curses and narrates everything. “Just like that. Oh god, Harley I’m going to come. I’m going to fucking come now.”

I could finish him off in my hand, but I’ve gone all in. I’m not giving my first blow job in a half-baked, half-ass way. I’m going all the way. He comes in my mouth, and I swallow the taste of him.

He shudders and hisses, and then he whistles. Yes, he actually whistles as I release him and slink up next to him. His eyes are closed, but his lips are curved into this crazy sexy grin, and he’s fucking humming.

“That’s adorable that you whistle after a blow job.”

“I’m whistling a happy tune,” he murmurs. Soon, he opens his eyes, and he looks drunk and happy. “Congratulations on your first blow job, Harley.”

I roll my eyes, swat his shoulder. He grabs me, pulls my naked body next to his.

“How was it?” I ask.

“You want to know?”

“Yes.”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes, idiot. That’s why I asked.”

“Now, I’m gonna tell you. But you can’t get mad at me. And you can’t analyze it. And you can’t hold it against me.”

I tense. “That’s not good.”

“No. It is good. It was good. Harley,” he says, holding my gaze, looking intensely serious. “It was the best ever. Because it was you.”

I melt and wriggle against him. Then, he slips his hand between my legs. Raises an eyebrow when he feels how wet I am. “You liked doing that to me evidently?”

“Yes,” I say, and I feel no shame. I did like it. I like him.

“A lot, huh?”

He slides his thumb across me, and in an instant I am gasping for breath.

“Yes,” I pant.

“So much that it made you this wet?” He draws a delicious line through all that wetness. I’m sure I’m coating his fingers right now, and I’m also sure I don’t care.

Nor does he. Because he brings his fingers to his mouth, licks them, them returns them to me. “You’re so fucking delicious,” he tells me, as he strokes me more, and I grab his shoulder to hold on. We’re lying next to each other, facing each other, and he slides his fingers across me, and I moan.

“Oh,” I say, and I start to close my eyes and just let go, let myself feel what he’s doing to me.

“Open your eyes, Harley,” he tells me, and I do. “I want to watch you when you come. I want you to look at me as I touch you.”

I nod, whimpering heavily as he rubs his thumb against me where I want him most. I open my legs more for him, hooking my thigh over his as he runs his finger across me. I’m so aroused again, throbbing with heat, and I can’t believe I am already this ratcheted up after what he did to me, but I am.

My body is unlocked. Everything I’ve kept inside, everything I’ve forbidden myself from feeling, is happening. It’s like I had lost my voice for ages and I didn’t even want to find it, but then I found it, he found it, and he opened the treasure chest and set me free. Now I’m feeling the most delicious, delirious, intense feelings in the world, in the solar system, in the whole damn universe as he strokes me, his fingers slipping across my wetness. “Rock into me,” he tells me in a hot whisper as I dig my nails into his shoulder. “Rock into my hand. I want you to get off again. I want to be the one who makes you come again and again. I want to hear my name on your lips.”

“Trey,” I whisper.

“Like that,” he says, and I move again, arching into his hand, his touch some kind of deliciousness, his eyes searching me, knowing all my past, all my secrets, all my shame, and even so, he still wants everything about me, every part of me, and this part too. I grip his shoulder harder, needing terribly to hold on to him as pleasure ripples through me, lighting me up, like fireworks sparkling through my whole body. My belly tightens and my breathing grows erratic as he sends me off into another orgasm.

“Trey,” I say, then I manage two more words. Words I have never said out loud to a man. “I’m coming.”

“Yes, you are. You’re coming for me Harley. You’re coming for me.”

“I’m coming for you,” I repeat as the pleasure floods me, and I close my eyes, rocking into his hand, the spasms and aftershocks rolling through me.

Chapter Eighteen

Harley

That’s how it goes for the next few days. We are together. We make it to our final classes and work. He takes me to the tree he planted for his brothers in Abingdon Square Park. We hold hands the whole time, until I see the tree. I let go of him so I can I wrap my arms around the tree and kiss the small trunk. Then we return to his place and we touch each other more. He gives me more orgasms than I ever knew I could have, and I learn how he likes everything.

We don’t go all the way though. I know we will. Just not yet.

I even hear back from Miranda. She emails me on Thursday morning.

The final file you sent has been received. The material contained in it has been approved. I will take care of everything from here. The terms of our agreement have been fulfilled.

It’s over then. My debt is paid. The slate is wiped clean.

I should feel light as a balloon. I should feel buoyant, ready to float to the sky on a cotton candy cloud. But I feel oddly unsettled when I see the next note. It’s from my mother.

I have to tell you about the story I’ve been trailing. Meeting with a source now. About to bust this wide open. Love, The Cleaner.

I remind myself that she’s investigating a congressman. That she busts big-time liars and cheaters. She’s probably going to call me soon, and want to celebrate her next potential award-winning piece.

But she’s not the only writer in the family. I can write again, and I can write for me.

While Trey’s showering, I take out the notebook Joanne gave me, opening it to the first page. It’s fresh and white, like falling snow. I imagine a dusky night sky, stars twinkling, and a bright shining moon. It’s cold, but a pair of walking, talking dogs joke about not needing jackets. It tickles a memory of when I was younger, of making up stories like this for someone. But who? I try to grasp at the memory, but it’s too hazy and it fades away. Still, the image is enough for me to go on, and I start jotting down notes about a new story. Because I can finally write what I want to write. Something simple, something magical, something for kids.

When Trey steps out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, he tips his forehead to the notebook. “You writing?”

“Just playing around with some ideas,” I say.

He sits down next to me on the futon, and I’m thoroughly distracted by the fresh, clean, sexy smell of him. I lean into his neck and plant a quick kiss. He pulls at the strap on my tanktop, and I’m pretty sure we’re about to go for another round of something.

But he taps my shoulder instead. “Hey. Weren’t you going to tell about your red ribbon? You were supposed to tell me what it meant to you.”

I cast my eyes down. “You won’t like it.”

The muscles in his arms tense. “It better not be for Cam.”

I shake my head, then raise my eyes. “It’s for my mom. It’s to remind me of her. She used to put this red ribbon in my hair when she did my hair for her parties,” I say, and as I tell the story I hear it for the first time as a dispassionate observer. I was her pretty pony. Her little doll of a daughter. Then I became the prize to help her catch men.

He blows a long stream of air from his lips, shakes his head. I swear I can feel the fumes of his anger. But he’s not mad at me. He’s mad at her. And maybe, just maybe, I am too. I didn’t want to be dressed up and paraded around. I didn’t want to be her wingwoman. I wanted to be her daughter.

He grips my shoulders. Narrows his eyes. “When you’re ready, say the word. I’ll redo that tattoo for you.”

“You will?”

“Fuck yeah. Almost one-quarter of our business is redoing tats from years ago. Covering them up. Reworking them. I can do something else for you. When you’re ready.”

“Okay. I’ll think of something else.”

“But thank you for telling me, and you’re right. I don’t like it. And I don’t like your mom. And I don’t like what she did to you. But that’s just the way it goes.” He points to my notebook. “Will you show me sometime what you’re working on? Because I’d be a hell of a lot more interested in your stories about animal magic, and why you are so drawn to those stories, than about that shit Miranda was making you write because you were covering up for your mom.”

I laugh. “Definitely. And check this out,” I say, closing the notebook and showing him the cover. “Joanne gave it to me. Isn’t that a cool heart drawing?”

He traces the misshapen heart with his index finger. “That’s an awesome illustration. I love how it’s all stretched and pulled and twisted, but it’s still whole.”

“It is still whole. It’s the ugly beautiful.”

Trey raises an eyebrow. “The ugly beautiful?”

“It’s this saying, I guess. Joanne told me about it. I think it means that beautiful things can come from an ugly place. That it’s the flower that grows in a landfill. Or the stained glass window in an abandoned apartment building. Or maybe,” I say, then take a beat, my heart skittering, “It’s meeting you in the middle of all the awfulness. Because you’re the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.”

He closes his eyes briefly, then winces, as if the sentiment is too scary.

Fear grips me. I’ve said too much. I want to take it all back, and time stands still in the wretchedness of this moment that I’ve ruined.

Then it revs up and my heart is racing at the speed of light as he curves a hand around my neck and leans his forehead against mine in the most tender gesture. All the hairs on my arms are standing on end and I’m coated in warmth and anticipation and something else too. Hope. The most painful, wondrous, delirious kind of hope that’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. And this feeling is hope multiplied. My hope and the hope he is falling for real.

“I’m falling for you in a big way, Harley, and I have no clue what to do about it but let it happen.”

“Let’s let it happen.”

“It’s happening and I don’t want to stop it,” he says as he cups my cheeks. He brushes his lips to mine, and my breath catches from the softness, the sweetness.

But the kiss is cut short when my phone rings loudly.

My mother’s ringtone. I ignore it and return to Trey’s lips. But she calls again. And again. And again.

I finally pick up. “Hi. What’s going on?”

“I’ve been looking into a story. I saw some pages of a manuscript and – call it a reporter’s hunch – I feel like I might know the writer. Are you Layla?”

My blood freezes and my brain goes numb. The walls around all my secrets are cracking.

Even when I try to escape her, I can’t. She is at the beginning and the end and the middle of every twist and turn and dead end in this maze.

Miranda is my mom’s editor too.

* * *

Miranda is the most important person in my mother’s career.

Miranda plucked my mom from the lowly assignment desk, honed her journalist chops, and molded her into the fearless cutthroat reporter she is today.

Miranda is like a fairy godmother to my mom.

Miranda is also the woman cuckolded by her most prestigious investigative reporter’s daughter.

Phil is Twenty-Four on my list. I had an “almost affair” with my mom’s editor’s husband.

But I had my reasons, I swear I had them.

I never shared them with Miranda. Because I don’t want her to know my mom stole her husband first, and I walked into the trap I knew was being set. I walked into it with my arms wide open, ready for the photos to be snapped, the evidence to be amassed. Only I never expected Miranda would do what she did and handcuff me back. How could I? Those things don’t occur to you as possibilities. You don’t think, “Oh, if I have an affair with my mom’s editor’s husband to willingly get caught, the editor will then blackmail me into writing Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict.”

It’s a catchy title, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t pick that up? It has mega bestseller written all over it. Especially since it’ll be shrouded in secrecy when it hits bookstore shelves.

Because it’ll be by “Anonymous.” Everyone will be abuzz trying to figure out who this Layla character is who learned how to kiss at a carnival, then went pro and made money hand over fist when she became a high-priced call girl. But wait! The salaciousness doesn’t end there! The girl got caught! Gasp! The girl confessed! The girl then cleaned up her act! She went to recovery! Who doesn’t love a tale of redemption? The hooker with the heart of gold. The whore turned good. It’s Heidi Fleiss, it’s Elliot Spitzer, it’s Tiger Woods. Only sexier and scarier.

Because it could happen to your daughter. It could happen to your son. Your kid could be a sex addict. Your kid could be a prostitute.

You can just smell the movie rights, can’t you? Miranda could. So she kept them all for herself. Because Miranda is the only one who knows who “Anonymous” is. Miranda found the story. Miranda brought the story to the publishing house she runs. Miranda alone is “Anonymous’” editor. And Miranda alone will cut the checks — or claim to — for “Anonymous” when the book finally lands on shelves in a few months. After all, she’s done editing it. Anonymous won’t see a dime of the profits. Anonymous doesn’t want money from this story.

Anonymous wants to be free.

But I will never be free. I know that now. Because the secret only grows bigger. The wall only rises higher, more mortar slathered between each brick, superglue that’ll hold forever.

Until it topples. Because it will.

Because somewhere, some enterprising person, maybe another journalist, maybe some dogged detective, will want to know who Anonymous really is. And someone will recognize himself somewhere in the story, though names of course have all been changed. And enough someones will put enough somethings together that this enterprising reporter-detective-dog catcher will figure out that Anonymous is me.

Page one of New York Post! “Layla’s true identity revealed — the daughter of The Cleaner.”

Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict…

Page 212…

I don’t know a thing about Nathan. I never met him, never saw him, never heard him. But I heard her. And hearing your mom have sex with men is bad enough. But hearing your mom have phone sex is worse, especially when you are only thirteen. There’s nothing grosser I can think of in my whole life than hearing my mom masturbate every night for two weeks to Nathan on the phone.

“Oh Nathan, Oh Nathan, Oh Nathan.”

I wanted to die.

Chapter Nineteen

Harley

My past will never stop chasing me. It’s like a demon, a dark phantom, hunting me down across the streets of New York, always ready to trip me, topple me, wrestle me to the ground. I wonder how long I will spend trying to outpace my past, trying to stay one — no, many — steps ahead of what I have done. It’s exhausting, this race I’m running and I’m crawling now, my knees scraping against the rough asphalt. I’m nowhere near the finish line.

I stare at the door to my home. The cage I was raised in. It’s a big cage, but it’s a cage still, and my mom and I have been like two tigers in a pen at the zoo. Or maybe she’s the tiger and I’m the meal. That’s how I feel as I answer my summons.

Blackmail is the gift that keeps on giving. Because it means you have something to hide. And as long as that something is hidden, you will always owe.

I owe. I owe so much. I owe her everything.

The real debt was never to Miranda. The real debt was to my mother.

I open the door to my house. My mom is in the kitchen, stirring a large saucepan. Something hardens inside me – she’s still cooking for her lover, even while she’s planning on reaming me.

“I’m making risotto,” she says in a warm voice when she sees me. But it’s not the tone that worries me. It’s what she’s not saying. Her usual greeting–you look so pretty.

I walk to the kitchen, my legs feeling as if they have ankle weights.

She’s wearing black pressed pants, a royal blue blouse and black pumps with shiny piping around the chunky heel. Her hair is blow dried like she just stepped out of a salon. Her makeup has been applied with the perfection of a Hollywood stylist, long mascared lashes, smooth powdered skin and lips outlined precisely in plum lipliner.

“I bet it’s delish,” I say, and I’m not sure how I’m forming words, but somehow they’re coming out of my mouth as I take step after dreaded step into her kitchen, sun spilling in through the windows, the counters bright and white. But it’s as if I’m being marched into the darkened, shadowy back office of a mob boss who I’ve crossed. He’ll play with the mouse, bat it around, toy with his dinner.

Before he bites.

“Do you want some?” She waves me into the kitchen, the sleeves of her blue blouse billowing as she gestures.

“No thanks. I ate.”

“Good. Then we can get down to business. Because my heart tells me I’m mistaken, but my reporter’s instincts tell me I’m not. And my reporter’s instincts have never failed me before.”

So we’re done with the niceties. The food has been offered, the greetings dispensed, and now we get down to business.

I gulp, vaguely aware that I’m shaking. I try to collect myself, to draw on the same strength I felt with Joanne, the same courage I found when I told Kristen my truths, and the same well I tapped into this morning with Trey.

She places the spoon in a silver holder, turns down the heat on the stove, and then clasps her hands, steepling her fingers together. This is Barb Coleman The Cleaner. This is the woman who confronts seedy politicians. This is the lady who will tear a lying scumbag to pieces with her pen that has the teeth of a shark.

I am in her crosshairs for the first time.

“I have sources everywhere, Harley Coleman.” Her voice is cold and cruel. “And that includes at my publishing house. And an assistant editor told me about a certain anonymously penned Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict,” she says bitterly as if the title is vinegar on her tongue. “She thought I would find them particularly interesting given my credentials in investigating call girls and sex trafficking.”

I say nothing, but I don’t need to speak because Barb Coleman is on her high and mighty soapbox.

“So the assistant showed me some of the pages she’d received for production. Naturally names had been changed, and she didn’t know who the author was. Who this poor young teenage girl was. She thought I might be interested in looking into who’d written them, and if there was any sort of foul play involved.”

I dig my nails into my fists, relying on my old tricks when I felt tempted. Now I need them to stay grounded. To make it through the inquisition alive.

“I didn’t know who the girl was either at first. I didn’t know who the girl could be who told tawdry tales to clients of masturbating in lingerie. Or who informed a poorly-endowed man that he had a big penis. And I wasn’t sure at all who this girl was who led one of her clients around on a leash,” she says in her perfectly enunciated speech, sounding like a lawyer cross-examining a reluctant witness she’s about to corner in the lie. “But then I saw other parts. Sections about how her mother had tied a red ribbon in her hair. Stories about running into her mother’s lover in the hallway. And then came the piece de resistance. The story of the carnival.”

I try to shrink into the wall, willing myself to become dust and vapor.

My mother narrows her eyes, breathes through her nostrils. “Did you really think I wouldn’t know that was you?”

My jaw drops. This is what she has to say? I stumble through an answer, saying the first thing that comes to mind. “It never occurred to me you’d see it.”

“So it was you? You’re Layla.”

I could lie. I could try to spin a new tall tale. But what’s the point? I’m at the end of the rope, and it’s time she saw that I’m not beautiful. That I am ugly too. “Yes. I am Layla. I was a teenage call girl.”

It’s as if I slapped her. She raises her hands in the air, gesturing wildly as her tirade comes tumbling down.

“How could you do this to me? After everything I’ve gone through. After the way your father left me. After all I’ve done to expose this kind of horridness. There are girls all over the world who are forced, coerced, raped and brutalized to become prostitutes.” Her crispness falls away and her voice begins to break. But the tears that start flowing are tears of her own self-righteousness. Because I have made a hypocrite of the great Barb Coleman. “And I have fought and searched and investigated and done everything to expose that kind of crime. And to learn you willingly walked into it? You chose this life. You enjoyed it. You wanted it. You rolled around in it like a pig in shit.”

With that, she might as well have slammed a fist inside me, jamming hard on my guts.

The pain spills through every corner of my body. I am punched, beaten and torn into a million pieces with those awful words. I am shaking and sobbing as tears rain down my cheeks. I cover my face with my hands so she can’t see me. My whole body is wracked, and my heart, my lungs, my stomach, my spleen, every single part of me is quivering and twisting in on itself. Weeds are crawling up inside me, pulling, tugging, ripping, and turning my body into the dark shameful thing it is.

I feel her hand on me. Angrily peeling my fingers away from my face. She is so much stronger than me. She always has been.

“You have no right to cry,” she tells me, practically smearing the words on me through her own sanctimonious, superior tears. “What you did was disgusting.” She grips my chin, forces me to look at her. “And I don’t know how to ever forgive you.”

Another blow to the chest.

“Forgive me? You have to forgive me? I did it for you,” I shout.

“Oh! Don’t even go there. I’ve heard every backpedaling cover-up there ever was. There is nothing you can tell me that will make what you did okay. I’d be damn curious though how you were caught. Which one of your clients had something on you?”

“That’s what you think happened?”

She crosses her arms over her chest and nods, her eyes narrowed to slits. I can feel the fury building inside her. The storm clouds are growing darker, swirling closer. “That’s always how it happens.” Then like a hiss, she adds, “Layla.”

As if it burns her tongue.

Oh fine. She wants to play it like this, then I will roll up my pig-in-shit sleeves and fight harder. “You want to know?” I spit back at her. “You really want to know?”

“Sure. Try me.”

“Here’s your tip, The Cleaner,” I say, holding my hands out wide, taunting her. “Miranda is my editor too. That make things a bit clearer?”

She raises her eyebrows. She’s not putting two and two together yet. “Miranda? My Miranda? My editor? The woman who edits my articles and publishes my books? How is that even possible?”

“Yes. Mom. Your editor. Your Miranda. And what else do you share with Miranda?” I toss out, wagging my fingers in a come-and-get-it gesture. “It’s not that difficult. See if you can connect the dots.”

She clasps her hand over her mouth. “No,” she croaks. “Please tell me this has nothing to do with Phil.”

I nod, clenching my teeth. Then the tables are turned and I deliver the punishing blow. “It has everything to do with her husband, Phil. The man you were fucking. The man you had an affair with. The affair you told me every dirty, sordid detail like you thought I wanted to know how he liked it with you. That he liked to take you rough. That he’d bend you over the kitchen table. That he pulled your hair. You screwed your editor’s husband, and you thought you were smarter than her. You thought she’d never know because you were in love with him and because you knew how to cover your tracks. But guess what? She found out. And I saved your ass from her.”

* * *

My mom’s affair with Phil began last summer. I pegged it instantly.

Phil and Miranda were over for dinner along with a big group of publishing types. My mom’s agent, her agent’s assistant, publicists from the house and on and on.

The living room was abuzz with music, James Taylor or some other seventies singer type that all the adults loved. So much wine was in the air you practically smell the grapes. Drained bottles of reds and whites lined the dining room table and kitchen counter. Miranda was drunk already. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to keep them open, slumping down in a chair at the dining room table.

As I checked to see if I had any texts from Cam about a job, my mother sailed into the kitchen to open another bottle.

A Syrrah, she proclaimed.

“Let me help you, Barb,” Phil said. He stood up from the table and joined her, reaching for the bottle, placing both his hands on top of my mother’s.

“Why thank you, Phil,” she purred and they locked eyes.

She leaned in close to him, her shoulder brushing up against his as he opened the Syrrah. “You have such strong hands,” she said.

I watched as he raised an eyebrow. No one else was paying attention. They were too drunk. Then he said, “I can do a lot with these hands.”

“I bet you can.”

A few weeks later she told me she’d fallen for him. She grabbed my hands at dinner, like she had something incredibly important to say, and admitted she was in love with her editor’s husband. “I feel terrible. So terrible. But yet, he’s the first man I’ve truly fallen in love with since your father so long ago.”

“That’s great, Barb. But he’s married, you know. Maybe you want to look elsewhere?”

She didn’t look elsewhere and their affair continued into the fall. Every time I saw her, she’d drop a new detail. The necklace he bought for her in Soho, the dirty text message he sent the night before, the multiple orgasms he gave her while pounding her on the table. You know, the usual details any daughter wants to hear from her mom.

As they became more entwined, they grew increasingly careless, and soon Miranda started to become suspicious.

One morning while my mom was still fast asleep I dropped by to grab a book I’d left behind. I heard Phil pad out of the bedroom to make a call. He rarely spent the night, but Miranda was in London for business so he was free to come and go. Or so he thought.

“Hi darling,” he said quietly into the phone.

Pause.

“Oh, I’m just getting up and making some coffee.”

Pause.

“I didn’t hear the home phone ring.”

Pause.

“Five times? You called five times. I took a really long shower.”

Pause.

“Sometimes I shower before I make coffee. You know that’s true, darling. Anyway, how are you? How is London? I miss you so very much,” he said.

Idiot, I thought.

He was trying to nip it in the bud, allay her fears. But women are smart and Miranda is one of the smartest of all. Her hackles were raised and she wasn’t going to lower them on account of a shower-before-I-make-coffee cover-up from her philandering husband.

I tried to warn my mom. I tried to let her know she might want to cool it with him. But she would hear none of it. She was madly in love and nothing was going to stop her. Not even the private detective I spotted outside her building the next morning, leaning ever so casually against the building across the street. He held a blue cardboard coffee cup from the bodega around the corner and the New York Daily News, which he pretended to read. He had a mustache, naturally. I even nodded at him. He pretended not to notice and looked away.

As I walked to the subway that November morning, crunching on the last fallen leaves of the season, I counted off the things I knew for sure about the situation.

I knew my mom was going to get caught.

I knew I could prevent her from getting caught.

I also knew I didn’t want her to get caught. She depended on Miranda. She needed Miranda. She revered Miranda. As much as my mom made me crazy, she was still my mom and I would take a bullet for her.

I stayed at her house the next night, rose early, dressed in my sexiest schoolgirl costume, and timed my exit from the house to line up with his morning escape.

I walked out with Phil, chatted with him, linked my arm through his, and smiled flirtatiously at him. He probably thought it odd that his lover’s teenage daughter was being overly friendly. When we reached the corner of Central Park West, out of view of my mom, I grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him in for a long, hungry kiss.

I was going for broke. I had no clue if he’d push me away. All I knew was that cameras were snapping our picture, so I hoped to hell he’d like the way I kissed.

He did.

He liked it a lot. He kissed me back hard, twining his hands in my hair like I was his new lover.

I detested every single nanosecond of that kiss with Phil. I loathed everything about him. The way he turned on Miranda. The way he turned on my mom.

But I didn’t let on. I knew how to pretend. I pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell her. We’ll do this again tomorrow,” I said.

“Come to my office later today. I can’t wait that long.”

“Of course,” I said, figuring more cold, hard evidence would only help. The private detectives followed me that afternoon as I walked into his building, rode up in the elevator, and visited him for a make-out session that necessitated the longest shower I ever took in my life. I needed to wash off his disgusting.

But I sucked it up. I took one for the team. I led him into the trap he didn’t know was being set.

What I didn’t bargain on was that Miranda would have her guys keep following me. That’s how she learned about all the other men Layla had lined up.

* * *

My mom shakes her head in denial, shock taking over. Her eyes are wide and glassy, and she can’t speak at first.

Then the smoke detector buzzes, a sharp bleeping directly above us. The risotto has charred. I grab a potholder, remove it from the heat and turn off the stove.

“Miranda was on to you. Miranda knew Phil was having an affair. She had private detectives outside the house. She was going to bust you. And I didn’t want you to get caught. So I took him from you. That’s why he stopped seeing you, Barb. Because he was busted. Because I walked into her trap. On purpose. I got caught for you. I did it so she would never know you were the one screwing her husband,” I say as I toss the potholder on the counter.

She parts her lips to speak but no words come out.

“That’s why I’m writing the book. Because she kept following me. Because she figured out that I was a working girl, and then she blackmailed me into writing the memoirs, and she told me if I didn’t do it she’d tell you everything. So now you know everything. You know I’m a whore, and a liar, and I kissed Phil, and even made out with him to make sure the evidence pointed to me, not you. And you also know I saved your ass and she has no clue you were involved. That the great Barb Coleman who sends scumbags to jail could turn around and do something shady herself. And she never has to know. Because I’m the pig in shit. Right, mom?”

She gasps, then sinks down to the kitchen tiles, hanging in a low crouch before she flops to the floor, completely supine, one hundred percent horizontal. This is her rock bottom, right? This is when she’ll say she’s sorry. When she’ll thank me in some weird way for saving her.

But that’s not what she does.

“I can’t believe you kissed my Phil,” she moans. “I can’t believe you’re a whore. How could you do this to me?”

I blink twice, shocked that this is the part that bothers her most. That I did this to her.

But I don’t have a chance to answer because someone knocks on the door. My mom doesn’t make a move to get it.

“Do you want me to answer it?”

She waves a hand in the air like she can’t handle the question. The decision is up to me. I walk to door and look through the peephole.

“It’s Neil.”

She snaps her head up. “Don’t go near him. Don’t you even think about going near him,” she says and stands.

Well, I guess that settles that. I am officially the Coleman slut and I can’t be trusted with her boyfriends.

“He’s all yours, mother.” I grab the handle and yank open the door.

I run to the park nearby, sink down onto the first bench I see, grab my notebook from my purse, and turn to a blank page after the story of the dogs in the snowy moonlight.

I write words that are more awful than any I wrote for Miranda.

I am nineteen years old, I have kissed twenty-four guys, and my mother thinks I’m a whore.

Chapter Twenty

Trey

I scan her block again.

There’s a hunched-over lady carrying bags of groceries in each hand, then a dude rocking out to unheard music blasting through his oversized earphones. A young mom pushes a red stroller and dangles some kind of toy in front of her baby.

My heart hurts seeing them, so I look the other way, hunting for Harley.

Where the hell is she? She said she’d be back by now. That she’d meet me at her place at five after I finished working and she saw her mom. Now, it’s five-fifteen and I haven’t heard from her, except for one text a few hours ago with the words: It was awful.

That’s all. And now all I want to do is see my girl, and hold my girl, and let her know that no matter how awful her mom is that I’ll be there for her. I want to wrap my arms around her, let her cry on my chest if she needs to, have her soak my shirt in salty streams. I want to be her rock when everything around her is restless in the wind. I want her to know that I love her for who she is, not who I try to make her.

I nearly stumble into a tree when I hear that word in my head. Love.

Holy fuck.

Do I love Harley? Is that what this crazy feeling is in my chest, in my heart, in my head? I’ve never been in love before, never had a clue what it’s like. But maybe this is it. Maybe it’s more than feeling high. Maybe it’s feeling hope too. Because that’s what Harley is to me. Hope for a better future. Hope that the next part of my life won’t feel so dark or dangerous.

I grab my phone to try her again, when I see a short text from her. Running late. See you soon.

Then my phone rings. I don’t know the number but I answer it anyway.

“You can wait upstairs.”

It’s Kristen. She’s so no-nonsense it cracks me up. That girl is direct and here she is skipping right over greetings. Craning my neck skyward, I see her in the fifth floor window, waving down. “I have beer and Jordan is here.”

“Cool. Buzz me in.”

I save her number in my phone, then head up the steps and press hard on the door when the buzzer sounds. I wait for the second buzzer and open another door into the tiny hallway. It seems even smaller because it’s lined with boxes from UPS delivery or courier. I notice a bag from Bloomingdale’s among the boxes, and then a name on the bag written in black Sharpie.

For my Layla. 5E.

The hair on my neck stands on end and I stop in my tracks.

A wave of jealousy rolls through me. I push a hand through my hair, count to ten, walk to the end of the mailboxes, remind myself that this bag from Bloomingdale’s doesn’t change things. That it doesn’t mean anything. That Harley was with me this morning, and she told me how she felt, and I told her too. She carries my heart and I can do the same for her. I don’t need to look in the bag. I don’t need to see if Cam sent her something.

I trust her.

I trust her.

I trust her.

I repeat those three words as I walk back down the hall, focusing on the gray walls, the stairs in the corner, anything but the bag that seems to be ticking, like a bomb, a goddamn bomb that’s about to blow.

Screw mantras.

I have to defuse the fucking thing.

I pounce on it. Then I tell my frantic, jealous, angry, snake of a self to calm down. I at least need to open it carefully so no one will know I snooped. I undo the staple that clips both sides of the bag together under the handles. Then I open the bag and peer inside. There’s a box. The kind that probably holds a long dress. I wince and send a prayer somewhere to someone not listening because no one listens that this box is not what I think it is.

When I pull out the box, there’s a note card taped on the front.

I want to rip it open and tear it to shreds. Instead, I undo the tape and open the card. It feels like a filthy foul creature when I read the words.

For my baby doll tomorrow night. Mr. Stewart likes his girlfriend to dress in a subtle classy style. This dress should do the biz, and maybe even net you a nice fat extra chunk of tips. He’s that kind of man. My favorite kind – big-ass tipper for a job well done.

Who takes care of you? I do. Always.

I fall to my knees. No way. No fucking way. She’s going back to him. She’s working again. I can’t believe she duped me. I can’t believe I thought she’d changed.

“Trey?”

I raise my eyes and there she is, looking like she’s been battered in a hurricane, but I don’t care because she’s a liar.

“Are you okay?”

I clench my teeth. I can’t speak. I can’t breathe out a word. If I do, I will say something awful. Instead, I grip the note tighter, and soon I realize I’ve crumpled it up in my fist.

I open my fist. “I guess we should cancel our plans to see a movie with Jordan and Kristen tomorrow night. I see you have a prior engagement.”

I toss the note at her. She doesn’t even try to catch it. It hits her chest with a thud and falls to the ground.

“What are you talking about? Because I have had literally the worst day of my life. All I want is to see you and try to forget the things my mom said to me.”

“You’d probably have an easier time when you’re Mr. Stewart’s girlfriend tomorrow night. That might help you forget your mom and me. Oh wait, you’ve already forgotten me seeing as you’re going back to Cam.”

I point at the bag, the gleaming, beating body of evidence before our very eyes.

Irrefutable.

She bends down, opens the balled-up note, and reads quietly.

I push both hands rough through my hair, pull on it in exasperation. “You fucking told me you ended it with him.”

“I did end it! This is a mistake. I texted him the night on the subway. I’ll show you. I swear.”

She grabs for her phone from her back pocket and scrolls through her messages. She finds it quickly and jams the device at me, showing me the note saying she’s done working. I tap on the screen to open it.

“Oops,” I say when I see the message is in draft mode. “Looks like you forgot to send it. Guess that was a Freudian slip.”

Then I walk the fuck out before I say something I will regret for the rest of my life, even though the word is forming in my throat, on my tongue, on my lips. But I can’t, I won’t, I refuse to give that word voice, even if she’s acting like one right now.

* * *

Harley

I stare at the window in the door, unable to move, even though he’s long gone.

I close my eyes briefly, wondering if this is the end of my penance, if this is how I finally escape my past. If this is the moment when I am finally good again with the universe, when I have paid back all that I have done. Maybe this is my final amends.

Losing him. Losing Trey.

But was I really that bad?

Yes.

The answer is always yes.

I will always pay for what I did because I sold myself. I can try to hedge it, I can sugarcoat it by calling myself an escort, by having laid down limits, but in the end, I did what I did. I chose what I chose. And unlike the girls my mother covers for her articles, I wasn’t forced, I wasn’t coerced. I willingly walked men like dogs, dirty talked them, and told them lies about lingerie. Then I took the money and laughed with my pimp.

My man.

My Cam.

I collapse in a cross-legged heap on the floor, the dirty, faded, yellowed, linoleum floor of this apartment building, and I clutch the bag Cam sent me, my arms wrapped around it, a life preserver in the shitstorm of my day, my life. I hold it tightly and re-read the note, lingering on the last lines.

Who takes care of you?

That’s right. Who does?

Has there ever been any question? Has there every been any other answer but Cam? He is the only person who has ever been here for me. Who doesn’t cringe or sneer or judge my past. Cam accepts me for who I am. Cam loves me for me. And he doesn’t even try to fuck me, or fuck with me. He is the only person I can ever rely on. When my world spins wildly into the sewer, he alone can pluck me out.

He is the choice in my life. I chose him once, I can choose him again. Joanne has urged me to take ownership of my actions. I damn well will take ownership of this one.

Of this choice I’m making that is mine and mine alone.

I reach into the bag, open the box, and gasp when I see a long, flowy dress in the color of champagne. It’s gorgeous and it’s nothing a whore would wear.

I run my tired hands over the dress – it is the only thing beautiful in my ugly life. I can’t rely on my mother. I am wrung dry from her, worn out and tattered from her cruel words. Nor can I lean on Trey. I thought I was falling in love, but he walked out without giving me a chance to explain.

I rest my cheek against the soft chiffon. This. This is all I can depend on.

Power. Control. Manipulation.

Because there is no such thing as love. Love is a fiction, a fable, an ode spun by poets and drunks, a fantastical tale told across one thousand and one nights. It is the genie in the bottle, it is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it’s the lie designed to seduce you.

My almost-now-ex-boyfriend doesn’t love me, my father never did, and the woman who raised me didn’t want a daughter. She wanted a sister, a confidante, a friend.

And she wound up with a whore.

This is who I am.

I discard my soft side, my loving side, my vulnerable side. With my chin held high and my dress in hand, I march up the stairs.

I am, and always will be, a working girl.

“Where’s Trey? What happened?” Kristen asks when I unlock the door to the apartment. She’s draped over Jordan and they’re watching a Mark Wahlberg flick on her laptop. She’s compromising and it’s fascinating seeing what a boy and girl do as they come together. Fascinating like a science experiment I’m observing through a microscope. Because that’s all this closeness, this kind of compromise, will ever be to me. Something to take note of from a distance, to jot down on lined paper. But not to live. “Trey was supposed to come up thirty minutes ago. Did he get lost in the basement?”

I shake my head. “He left,” I say in a dead voice, then I head to my room and flop face first on my bed. I could cry, I could curl up in a ball, I could bang my fists into the bedspread until they turn blue.

But there’s nothing left in me. I have been drained of emotions, and maybe I never even had any in the first place. Maybe I’m missing the gene that lets you feel for real.

Seconds later, I hear my door creak open.

“Hey,” Kristen says in a soft voice. She pads over to my bed, sits down and pets my hair. “You okay?”

“I wouldn’t really use that word to describe what I’m feeling right now,” I say in a muffled tone into the bedspread.

“What’s going on? Want to tell me?”

I flip over, stare up at Kristen and shrug. “Where to start? Imagine your worst-case scenario. Double that. Multiply it by ten. And add one thousand.”

“Oh, sweetie.” She squeezes my arm. “What happened? Tell me what happened. I want to know.”

“You go watch your movie. I’ll be fine.”

“No. Jordan can wait. You’re more important. I don’t even like this movie.” Then she calls out to Jordan, telling him to finish it on his own. He shouts back a victorious yes, and I hear the volume rise again on the film.

“Talk to me,” she says. “You let me in the other night when you told me. Now I’m in. Let me be in. Let me help you.”

I choke up because her words might be the kindest ones I’ve ever heard. Then I suck back the tears, and I tell her about my shitty day. When I’m done, she gives me the biggest hug a girl could get.

I may not know love, but I am starting to grasp the concept of friendship.

This is the only thing I know to be true.

Chapter Twenty-One

Harley

Slut is a dirty word.

Slut is a loaded word.

Slut is for microscopic miniskirts and tramp stamps and tottering red plastic high heels. Slut is for ripped t-shirts sliding down shoulders, for shots drunk off of bellies, for names written on bathroom stalls.

Slut is for loose girls. For easy girls. And it is only for girls.

That’s why I hate the word. As I shower and shampoo my hair, I think about how I want to eradicate it from the English language. I want to extradite it, handcuff it, lock it up in the backseat of a sedan and shove its head below the window where no one can see it. As I turn off the water and grab a towel, I think about a thousand billion Sharpies blotting slut from every dictionary that ever existed in any language.

Just the word itself sounds dirty. Even if it meant kitten or unicorn it would still sound like a guttural insult.

As I zip open my makeup bag, I picture a counter revolution, I imagine girls taking back that word, co-opting it, owning it, declaring it theirs. “Oh, Sally! You’re such a funny slut!”

But see, there’s nothing tramp-stampy or bathroom-wall-worthy about the dress Cam bought me, the event I’m going to, or the way I look when I am Layla. I blow dry my hair, apply my makeup and zip up the champagne dress. I am classy, I am a prize, I am worthwhile.

The only slutty thing I’ve ever done was mess around with Trey.

And he’s history.

Grabbing the tattoo concealer I picked up this morning from the make-up counter at a nearby department store, I cover up the red ribbon on my shoulder.

Erasing my mom, erasing Trey. I am back to me.

* * *

Kristen barricades the doorway. She presses her palms on each side of the frame, feet out wide, forming an X.

“I can’t let you go,” she tells me.

“Kristen, I’m fine.”

“This isn’t you. You told me you were done with that.”

“Well, I’m done with being done. I’m back. And I have a job to do, so I really need to go,” I tell her in a firm, clear voice.

“Harley,” she says, sounding wistful as she shakes her head once. “Tell me how I can help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

“I don’t know what to do, but I know this isn’t what you want.”

“Actually,” I correct. “It is what I want. It’s the way for me. And if you don’t move I’m going to be late for a very important fake date that will net me a few thousand dollars for rent,” I add, figuring that will convince Kristen to move.

She doesn’t.

I sigh heavily. “Kristen, I appreciate this. I truly do. You’re trying to stage an intervention or something, and I will grant you mega BFF points for that. Seriously, you have earned a big-ass friendship bracelet or something. So thank you. But this is my choice, and I am fine with it, and I really need to go because there is a car waiting for me.”

She sags and relinquishes her post, holding her arm out in a defeated gesture.

“Thank you.”

“Wait. Tell me where you’re going. Just in case something goes wrong.”

“What? You think Mr. Stewart is going to shank me?”

“I have no idea! But it would just make me feel better if, god forbid, something happens to you.”

“Fine,” I relent. “I’ll be at the Parker Meridien.”

Then she wraps me in a hug. “I love you, Harley. I do. I know this is your choice and I don’t like it, but I’m still your friend and I won’t stop being your friend even if I disagree, okay? You need to know that. I will be by your side.”

The back of my eyes sting and I suck in the tear that threatens to ruin my perfectly applied mascara. “Don’t make me cry,” I whisper and squeeze back. “Oh, and that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. So thank you for being a friend.”

Her friendship is the closest thing I’ve ever felt to some kind of love.

Inside the air-conditioned town car, it’s as if I’m in a capsule, transporting me in its secure, hermetically sealed spaceship to a better planet. One where these messy things called feelings no longer prick me like porcupine quills. On the planet I’m rocketing to, we strip ourselves of emotions. We are stronger, safer, better like that.

* * *

Cam shakes his head in admiration. He drinks me in from top to bottom and back again, that appreciative gaze operating at full wattage. Dressed in black pants and a bright purple shirt, he’s holding a worn paperback, and his grin is so wide he’s like a neon sign of Vegas waiting in the lobby for me.

Seeing him is like a hit, an inhalation, a relief. A faint drifting off to someplace else, where no sounds permeate my ears, where no sights invade my vision, where I take a drink of something blue and sugary a waiter brings me, and nothing in this heartless city, no boys, no blackmail, no mom, no naked men in halls, no affairs I didn’t want to know about, no secrets, no empty spaces, can ever touch me.

“Mmm. Perfection, Layla,” Cam says and hearing him say my name is like lightness, like a whisper that fades away into nothing. Into sweet oblivion.

He plants a delicious kiss on my cheek, and it feels as if he’s transmitting bionic powers to me, and they’re surging through my blood, turning me invincible.

“Mmm,” Cam says, taking a step back for another view. “I knew this dress would accentuate all the assets Mr. Stewart likes in a girlfriend.”

“Speaking of, anything I need to know about the job?”

Cam gives me the download. “He loves elephants. Okay? Elephants are his passion, and he is a huge supporter of Save Orphaned Elephants. He’s being honored as one of the Gold Level Givers. He has the head table and you’re his girlfriend. Anyone asks what you do, you’re a model. That’s all you need to say. You’re a model, you’re crazy for him, and you care so very deeply for the plight of the orphaned elephant,” he says, placing his hand on his heart.

My lips curve up in a conspiratorial grin. “I can do that.”

“I’ll be kicking it at the bar on the second floor. Nothing is going to go wrong, but just think of me as your buffer, if you need me.” He slaps the paperback against his other palm. “Now, you do your thing, I’ll do my thing. Because I just got to the good part in Bridget Jones’ Diary and I’m dying to see how it all plays out.”

“You’re reading chick lit?”

“It’s just a damn good story. Get your pretty ass upstairs. He’s waiting at the hotel bar and you’ll go up to the ballroom together. Arm in arm, baby. Arm in arm. You stay by his side all night long and make us proud, baby doll. Now, no more cheek kisses from me, because I don’t want you smelling like me, I want you smelling like a beautiful model who loves elephants.”

* * *

At five-eight, I tower over the squat and balding Mr. Stewart, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s hooked his hand possessively around my waist, and he taps my hipbone now and then, as if this is our longstanding little lovers gesture. We are at the front of the ballroom, near the stage, and we don’t have to mingle because everyone wants to mingle with him – the guest of honor and his model girlfriend. Black-tied waiters circle and offer sparkling drinks in champagne flutes. I politely decline. Mr. Stewart does as well, then returns his attention to a portly businessman next to him who’s discussing a recent news story about elephants. I nod thoughtfully as they chat, squeeze Mr. Stewart’s arm now and then, bat my eyes, and gaze adoringly at him like a proud girlfriend. I am giving it more than 110 percent and Cam will be thrilled with my report card, since Mr. Stewart is clearly besotted.

“It’s terribly sad, isn’t it?” the portly man says.

“That’s why we want to earn as much as we possibly can to save the African elephant from extinction,” my date says. “It’s so sad how close they are to being wiped out. It’s a genocide of animals and all for their tusks to be made into useless little trinkets and statues.” He turns to me. “Don’t you agree, my sweetheart?”

I nod wholeheartedly, bring my hand to my heart. “I want to live in a world where I don’t have to say to my kids someday, ‘This is where the wild things were.’ I want to say ‘This is where the wild things are.’”

“I couldn’t agree more,” the businessman says and wipes a small tear from his eye.

Someone clinks a fork against a glass and the sea of glamorously attired men and women in tuxes and evening gowns turns to the stage.

“Thank you so much for coming,” a woman in a modest black dress says after clearing her throat. “We are so grateful for all of you, and we hope you are having a wonderful time. Before we sit down to eat, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to one of our most generous supporters, Mr. Stewart.”

The crowd claps and the chandeliers cast a warm glow around the cavernous ballroom as all eyes turn to the man next to me. He takes a quick bow, waves, and then slips his hand around my waist again. I plant an adoring kiss on his cheek.

He looks at me and smiles, a wide, happy, gooey smile that tells me I’ve earned that big-ass tip since he believes so thoroughly in the illusion I’ve created for him. I am his girlfriend. For tonight, I am absolutely his girlfriend.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Trey

When I reach the sixth floor, I race out of the elevator and down the hall, praying Michele is still here. I called her once, but it’s Friday night, so who the hell knows if she’s still working.

I yank open the door to her office suite.

“Trey,” she says with surprise. A black purse is slung over her arm, and she’s dressed in a pencil skirt and a sleeveless top. Weird – she’s not wearing her shrink uniform and it’s jarring to me to see her like this, as if I ran into a teacher at the mall, outside of her natural element. “What can I do for you? I’m just on my way to the theater.”

“What are you seeing?”

She flashes a quick smile. “Crash the Moon.”

“Oh. Cool. I’ve never seen it, but I heard it’s good.”

“It’s amazing. I’ve seen it several times. This will be my first time seeing it after it swept the Tony awards - best show, best director, best actress. But enough about me. What can I do for you? We’re going to need to talk and walk so I don’t miss curtain.”

“I fucked up big time,” I admit as we head back into the hallway.

“Then unfuck it up,” she says, as if that’s the easiest thing in the world. She hits the down button on the elevator panel.

“How?”

“Well, considering I don’t know what you did, the answer may vary. But it almost always starts with a heartfelt apology.”

On the ride down, I tell Michele what happened yesterday with Harley, how I freaked out when I saw the bag from Bloomingdale’s. “I didn’t even give her a chance to explain, but the fact is, she doesn’t have to explain. I believe her. I know I overreacted, because that’s what I do.”

We reach the lobby and leave the building together. “You need to work on that Trey. You have a lot of anger and you have some insecurity, but most of all you let fear of feeling control you. You can shut off and shut down, but none of those reactions are ultimately going to heal your heart. What will help you is speaking your truth. But don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t make assumptions. Say only what you know to be true,” she instructs me as I keep pace with her down Lexington Avenue. She looks at me as we slow at the crosswalk. “What is the one truth you most want to speak?”

A bus rolls to a stop, fumes pouring out and flooding the muggy June night. It’s sticky hot, and the nearby garbage can is overflowing, and this city makes me crazy, and I don’t even know if I want to be in New York anymore in the middle of all these piss-stained sidewalks and neverending garbage. But in spite of all that is ugly, there is her. Harley is what I want. She is the truth I most want to speak.

I tell Michele what I want to say to her.

“Good,” she says and smiles. “And now I want you to remember even if it feels scary to say that, I believe in you. I know you can do this. And don’t forget, we have a lot of other issues to work on still. So you better show up for your next appointment.”

Then I say goodbye, grab my phone from my pocket and dial Kristen as fast as I possibly can. But my fingers are shaky and I miss a number. So I try again. I miss another number. One more try and still my fingers keep slipping off the dialpad. I remind myself to slow down, to calm down, to stop being eaten alive by impulses. I don’t have to grab hard at what I want, and then run like hell from what scares me. I can take a moment, take a breath.

The call goes through this time. Kristen answers on the second ring.

“Hey. It’s Trey. How are you?”

“I’m good,” she says with a small laugh. “Thanks for asking.”

“So,” I begin, as I head north on Lexington. But I don’t even know if I should be heading north. She could be anywhere in the city. “Do you know where Harley is? She went to some,” I pause, fighting every instinct to spit out the next words with disgust, and instead I manage to be calm, “Some event. She went to some event.”

“Yeah. I know where she is. But if you’re going to fuck her up more, I’m not going to tell you. You did a number on her, Trey.”

I nod, absorbing the blow, deserving it. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“You need to tell her that, Trey,” she says and I can picture Kristen, hands on her hips, sharp-eyed stare through those red cat’s eye glasses, all intense and serious.

“I will.”

“And she is not in a good place. Her mother worked her over yesterday and said awful things, and then you walked out and didn’t even give her a chance, and she’s a mess, but she doesn’t even realize it because she’s trying to be all tough and badass.”

“Shit,” I say, feeling horrible for adding to her misery yesterday. “I knew it was bad with her mom. But that bad?”

“Like you wouldn’t even believe,” Kristen says, punctuating each word, as if she can emphasize the awfulness more that way. “So you need to promise me if I tell you where she is that you’re not going to ruin things for her.”

“I won’t.”

“And I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for her. Because I tried to stop her. I tried to keep her from going, but she’s spiraling bad. So if you can be the one to save her, then do it. But if you’re going to go show up and make her feel like shit, then I will fucking break your knees.”

I stop in my tracks, back into a doorway of an office building closed for the night. “Kristen, you are one scary bitch and I would never cross you, and that is not why I want to know where she is. I want to apologize. I want to grovel. I want to tell her I want her back. That I want her. Always.”

“Well then, as Carrie’s best friend said in Sex and the City, Go get our girl. She’s at the Parker Meridien. Ballroom level.”

I punch a fist in the air. “I owe you big time.”

“If you save her, I owe you.”

* * *

The Parker Meridien is a swank hotel on Fifty-Sixth Street near Central Park. It’s stylish and cool, with one of those sleek glass entryways tucked into a gray brick building, the kind that’s understated, that says if you need to know we’re here, you don’t deserve to know who we are.

But inside, the lobby is overwhelming with towering white columns and slick marble floors. I’d stand out if this weren’t the type of hotel that attracted all kinds – actors, rock stars and businessmen, so I walk past dressed-down dudes like me, in boots and jeans, as well as the tuxed-up and bow-tied guys and the women in slinky dresses on their arms.

A metal sign by the escalator tells me there are several ballrooms, so I decide to start on the third floor. I ride up the escalator, mentally talking back to my nerves that are operating on overdrive. I don’t want to fuck this up. But I know I have to rescue her before she falls too far away from herself. Her mom might have kicked and beaten her while she was down, but I delivered a punishing blow and now I need to undo it.

Stepping off the escalator on the second floor, I notice a dude in the bar reading Bridget Jones’ Diary. Weird choice for a guy, but he seems to be the happiest fella in the world, lost in a book. Fine, whatever.

I head up another flight.

Soon I find the ballroom on the third floor, and sounds filter out. Waiters serving drinks, glasses being clinked, small talk being exchanged.

I stop at the doors and my heart rises to my throat, then lodges there. I stare at the sea of people, talking, toasting, laughing. They’re milling about and chatting, so dinner hasn’t started yet.

I survey the massive room, scanning for her, wishing I had infrared glasses that would zero in on her instantly. But then, it’s not that hard to find the girl you’re in love with because she’s often the only one you see. There she is. Near the stage, a closed-mouth smile on her beautiful face, that dress nestled against her body like it was made for her. Her arm is tucked into the crook of her date’s elbow. I press my fingers hard, hard, hard against my temple to remind myself to think about anything but this red-hot jealousy.

I step into the hallway and flatten myself against the wall as if no one can see me that way. Which is stupid. But still, I need these racing feelings to die down so I can figure out what to do. I don’t even have a game plan. What kind of dumbass am I to show up at a formal event without even an idea of what to do?

But hiding here sure as hell won’t help me get the girl back.

I flash back on the last week with her, the nights we spent, the things we shared, the stories we told. They fill my body with strength and fortitude.

I turn around, peer into the ballroom, and assess the options. I spot a door leading into the kitchen. Then take note of how close it is from where Harley’s standing with the little dude by her side.

I walk into the ballroom, and a woman in a black dress is now on stage, clearing her throat, speaking into a microphone. “Thank you so much for coming,” she says as I thread through the crowds in Harley’s direction, hoping, praying, I can whisper in her ear, grab a quiet moment. “We are so grateful for all of you, and we hope you are having a wonderful time. Before we sit down to eat, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to one of our most generous supporters, Mr. Stewart.”

Everyone claps, and then the short guy with Harley takes a bow and waves. Harley plants a kiss on his cheek that makes my stomach churn. I grab hold of a chair so I don’t topple over.

“And now I’d love to invite Mr. Stewart to the stage to say a few words,” the woman says, and Harley lets go of his arm, squeezes his hand, and watches him walk to the stage.

I am withering as I witness her work, but yet this is the moment. This is my golden fucking opportunity and it’s not going to come around again. I seize it, moving quickly to where she stands.

As I near her, I’m sure everyone can hear my heart beating at this frantic pace, like it’s riding on a slingshot to the moon, and its safe passage hinges on the next ten seconds of my life.

I reach her, tap her shoulder, and whisper her name.

She turns to me, shock in her eyes for a nanosecond that quickly morphs into a cool, plastic mask. Distance, she’s keeping her distance.

“Can I talk to you?” I whisper.

She shakes her head.

That won’t do. That won’t fucking do at all. I didn’t come all the way in here for this. I came for her and I’m not leaving without her.

“I am deeply honored to see all of you here tonight. To know that you have come out to help the plight of orphaned elephants as well,” Mr. Stewart begins from the stage. The lights shine brightly on him, and I hope to hell they blind him to the audience and to what I’m about to do.

As he keeps speaking, I eye the door to the kitchen, then the stage, then her. I can do this. I have to do this.

I inch closer, lean in, and whisper in her ear. “I’m so so sorry for what I said, and I’m so fucking in love with you, and I can’t stand the thought of losing you, Harley. Please talk to me.”

She doesn’t speak, but her breath catches in response, and that’s all I need to know. I nod to the kitchen door, not far from here. She says yes with her eyes, and I step away first, not drawing attention, not making a scene. She follows me, so casually, so coolly, she could even be heading to the ladies room to powder her nose, for all they know.

Well, if the ladies room were in the kitchen.

But I stop caring what anyone else thinks when I push open the silver door and, seconds later, she’s behind me. Waiters bustle in and out with plates spread across their arms and cooks serve food for the next round of servers. They are too busy to care about us.

“What the hell?” She holds her hands out wide in question. The softness of the moment has unraveled. “You can’t just come in here and do this, Trey. You can’t. I am working. I am on a job. And you can’t show up and whisper this shit in my ear, and make it seem like everything is okay. You can’t,” she says but her voice is trembling with emotion, on the brink of tears.

“But it’s true, Harley. It’s true, and I’m sorry I was a dick yesterday. I’m sorry I freaked out. It’s not like I know what the fuck to do when I feel this way. I’ve never felt this way. I barely even know what it is. But I know I’m crazy about you, and I’m in love with you, and I love you, and it’s real, and true, and messy, and sloppy, and I don’t care because I want you back. I want you with me. I want an us. I want you,” I say, and I am helpless before her. I am serving myself up to her, giving her my bleeding heart, and hoping to hell she doesn’t take a knife and stab it to pieces, then eat it for a snack.

She winces as if this pains her.

“How can you do this?” She speaks in a low voice. “How can you just say these things? It’s so unfair. I’m working, don’t you get it? This is me. This is who I am. This is where I belong. This is the only place I’ve ever belonged. This is my job. You fell in love with a whore, okay? I know that’s what you were going to call me yesterday,” she says, nailing me with cutthroat honesty.

“But I didn’t,” I plead. “I didn’t say that. Because you’re not. You’re not a whore, you’re not a slut, you’re not anything but the most amazing, resilient, badass, tough, cool, hot, smart and brave person I have ever known.” I take a step closer, risking it. Reaching for her hands. She doesn’t brush me off. But she doesn’t push me away either. “You told me I was brave, but I think you are too. And I want to be brave with you, Harley. And stupid with you. We can be better together.”

She glances to the door, her eyes etched with longing. But for what? For what’s out there with that short little dude who hired her to play pretend? Or what’s here?

“Harley,” I say, gripping her hands tighter. She starts to squeeze back and the small gesture emboldens me. “You don’t belong to him or them.”

“I do,” she says, but her voice is fading out, like maybe she doesn’t believe it anymore. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever belonged to.”

I shake my head adamantly. “No. You belong to a stained glass window in an abandoned building. You belong to the flower in the junkyard. You belong to the beach that you miss. You belong to your shoes, even those Mary Janes I hate, but also your combat boots that I love,” I tell her, and her lips part, her shoulders rise, and she laces her fingers through mine. She is all I will ever want on this earth, and I have to make sure she knows without a shadow of a doubt that we might be damaged, but we are perfectly damaged together. “You belong to the beer you never drink, and to your friend Kristen, and to that group that I used to wish I never went to, but now I’m so damn glad I did because it might not be how I met you, but it’s how I fell in love with you. And you belong to my brothers,” I say, and it’s then that a tear slides down her cheek. “And to the tree you kissed. Most of all, you belong to the ugly beautiful. You belong to this messy, crazy, brave and honest love.”

She breaks her hold on my hands to loop her arms around my neck, her body trembling against mine. She doesn’t seem as if she ever wants to let go as she brushes her hands against the ends of my hair and says in a broken voice, but one that is still so strong: “Trey Westin, when I walked into No Regrets more than six months ago, I had no idea that I was getting a whole lot more than a tattoo. That I was getting you, and us, and a place to belong. Because I belong to us.”

The breath I didn’t know I was holding, the fear that lined my heart, falls away, crumbles to the ground, turns to dust and shadows. I pull her close, never wanting to let go. But she pushes back, her palms firm against my chest.

“But you have to understand that you can’t freak out all the time,” she says. “My past is messy and it’s unfinished and it will spill over into the present and the future and you can’t walk away when that happens.”

I make the easiest promise in the world when I say, “I won’t. I promise.”

“Then take me out of here.”

I glance at the door we came through, then look for another one. A waiter about my age, with a pierced ear and a tat barely visible on his neck that he’s trying to hide under his white button-down shirt, grips my shoulder. “There’s another door that way. It’ll take you to the escalators.”

I clap him on the back. “Thanks, man.”

Harley

“I have to tell Cam,” I say as we step onto the escalator. I expect Trey to fume, but he doesn’t.

“But you’re going home with me.”

“Seriously?” I roll my eyes. “Of course I am. Tonight, every night. Always.”

I want to run down these moving stairs with him, leap off the escalator like a ballerina, and fly out of here. Not because I’m running away, but because I’m running to something. I’m running to a new beginning, a new start, a new hope. Where I don’t erase the past. Where I own the past, but I claim the present and all of the future too.

Except, I don’t want to trip on an escalator and catch my dress in the metal teeth of these steps, so I walk carefully in my four-inch heels, then turn the corner to the bar.

Trey waits by the door as I find Cam where I left him, parked happily in a black leather chair with chrome armrests, a vodka glass on the table in front of him, his paperback open wide. He’s chuckling to himself, shaking his head as if he just can’t believe what he’s reading.

I am nervous as I walk to him, the unmistakeable sound of my heels clicking against the floor. But I’m also not nervous. Because I can be scared and I can be strong at the same time.

“Hi, Cam.”

He looks up, surprise registering in his big baby blues. “What’s going on, babydoll? Is he giving you trouble? Cause if he is,” he says, his voice trailing off as he smacks a fist into his other palm.

I shake my head. “No. He’s a very nice man. But I can’t do this anymore.”

He sets his book on the table and rises. “Now, now. You don’t mean that. You’re just nervous. You need your old man Cam to give you a pep talk? That’s what I’m here for.”

“No. I don’t need a pep talk. I’m sorry, Cam. I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m sorry to walk out in the middle of a job. I’ll pay you if you want for the money you’re losing. And I’ll give you the dress back too. And I’m sure you want to convince me, and there was a time a few weeks ago in Bliss when I wanted to be convinced, but not anymore. I have to let Layla go, Cam,” I say, and there’s a note in my tone like begging, as if I’m pleading for him to go gently into the night, to let me float away like a bubble blown into the breeze. But there’s another part of me that’s firm and resolute in a way I wasn’t at Bliss. I was toying then, teasing then, and he knew it. Now, I am serious and he senses the change. “I have to let her go for me, and I have to let her go because I want to know if I can love for real with that boy over there,” I say, gesturing at Trey who’s waiting – patiently as he can and I know this is progress for him – by the entryway to the bar.

Cam stomps his foot and curses loudly. “Fuck.”

He turns around, grabs his hair in his hand, and pulls hard. He’s such a big man, but something about him right now, the foot stomping, the hair pulling, reminds me of an angry leprechaun.

He whirls back to me, grits his teeth and blows out steam. “No. Really? You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not,” I say, standing my ground, shaking my head. “This is my choice. I have to do this.” I flash back to my conversation with Joanne about accountability, about ownership. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but I’d like to think I’m starting to figure it out. I’m stumbling and bumbling and messing it up, but at least I’m starting to speak the truth.

“I don’t want to say goodbye.” For the first time Cam sounds like he’s whining. A chink in his cool-as-a-cucumber style.

“I know. But I have to try. I have to do this.”

He grabs my shoulders, grips me tight. “No. You don’t have to do this,” he says, his hot breath painting my cheek. I can feel the burn of the vodka he just downed.

“Cam.” I stare sharply at his hands that pin me. “I do. I do have to do this.”

He moans angrily and narrows his eyes. But he lets go of his hold on my shoulders. “I just got you back, babydoll. Don’t do this to me.”

“Cam, I’m sorry.”

His eyes light up with a sneaky sort of glow. “Then, I’ll beg. I told you when you came to my office that I’d beg you, and I’m not fucking above begging.” He drops to his knees instantly, raises his face, and looks at me with those big blue eyes. He clasps his hands together. Holy shit. He was serious. “Please, don’t go.”

A part of my heart aches not just for him, but for me letting him go too.

“But this isn’t fair. You leave me. You come back. You leave me again,” he says, shaking his clasped hands at me to emphasize his point. “And I don’t like it. I don’t like being jerked around.”

All my instincts tell me to fall to my knees, to hug him, to say I’m sorry I disappointed him too. But I keep my body still. I can’t give in to him. And I can’t give into my past. I want my future. I want to make the better choice now. “I never meant to hurt you, and I’m sorry I jerked you around, Cam. But there’s nothing you can do to change my mind. I have to move on. ”

“You belong with me.” He pounds a fist against the floor. “You’re mine. You’re my Layla,” he says, grasping to keep me.

“Cam,” I say softly, but firmly. “You had Layla. But that’s not me anymore. I have to be Harley now. Only Harley.”

He sighs heavily, then bangs his forehead once, twice, three times against the cool hardwood floor of the bar. It must hurt like hell. When he raises his head, I can see the start of a red, angry bump but also the resignation in his eyes.

I offer him a hand. “Come on. Get up. Let me say a proper goodbye.”

“Dammit to hell,” he mutters as he stands up from his plaintive post.

Then I look him in the eyes and I speak from the heart. “I want you to know you gave me something that mattered deeply to me, that I needed desperately at that time in life. You gave me choices, you gave me control, and you gave me a place to belong. And I don’t regret anything I did, because everything I did brought me to where I am today. And I will never regret you. You were there for me more than my own mother ever was.”

I watch him, saying nothing, trying to gage his reaction, predict his next move. He’s still as his eyes glass over, then he abandons the begging and pleading. “I’m going to miss you. Like miss you for real, Harley,” he says, and I don’t blanch when he uses my real name. Because that’s who I am to him now. I am shedding Layla, right here, right now, leaving her behind.

I hug him one last time. I want to tell him I will see him again, that we’ll grab a cup of coffee and catch up, but we won’t and we shouldn’t and that’s okay too. Some people come into your life for a little while to help you through. Some stay a lifetime. Cam and I had our moment, and now the moment is gone, but it won’t be forgotten. I won’t forget him. I won’t forget how he took care of me when nobody else would.

That’s when it hits me. In some warped way, Cam was like family to me too. Only better than my flesh and blood parents.

He groans and flubs air through his lips, like he’s letting out a long train of steam. “I’m not going to say I want this, but if this is what you need, babydoll, then I’m not going to stand in your way. Mr Stewart is going to pitch some kind of fit, but I’ll take my lumps like a big boy,” he says, nodding, and I can see the gears in his sneaky brain kicking in when he adds, “I’m just going to go up there, tell him you ate something nasty, you threw up something fierce, and you’re sick to the stomach and had to go home, because that’s about the only reason that won’t have him slicing off my neck.”

I laugh once, but hope he’s joking. “I don’t want your neck sliced off.”

“Believe you me, nor do I. I like what’s above the neck and below it. Now get the hell out of here before I try to steal you back.”

I hug him and I’m betting Trey is quaking in his boots, and if he is then that boy will just have to deal, because I need to say goodbye to this man who loved me too.

We leave the bar together and Cam stops when he sees Trey, shakes a finger at him, huffs out through his nostrils. For a fleeting moment, I can see the worst unfolding. But instead, Cam takes Trey’s hand in his, then places his other hand on Trey’s shoulder. “Now listen, you better fucking take care of her because I am about to endure a shitstorm up there for her. I’m letting her go and this better be real, and you better love her and treat her like a queen. Because she deserves everything good in the world. Got it?”

Trey is stunned speechless. His jaw hangs open, then he quickly recovers, and nods. “Yes, sir.”

Then Cam marches upstairs to fix the mess I made for him.

Forget the myth of the hooker with a heart of gold. He’s the pimp with one.

I turn to Trey. “I’m yours now and you’re mine.”

“You better fucking believe it,” he says.

He grabs my hand and we run like hell out of the Parker Meridien and into the New York night to a new beginning.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Harley

Breathless.

I am breathless from running, from the night, from being kissed senseless on the cab ride downtown. From the anticipation that this is it.

Trey shuts the door behind him, and we are back where we were several nights ago. His apartment.

And now this is the unknown. This is all blind trust and faith. The leap off the dock into the dark waters, with the hope the current won’t pull you down.

I hope.

I have so much hope now, so much more than I had mere hours ago, and it’s amazing how hope can be replenished like a geyser, and you can be overflowing. I have hope for the future, for love, for happiness, for the end to my empty, aching need for a fix.

This is more than a fix. This is real.

Because he is not Twenty-Five for me. This is the other side, all the way on the other side. Trey is Number One on a list I will never keep again. And I am so in love with Trey I can barely stand it, I can barely hold the words inside myself any longer, I want to tell him, to shout it, to sing it. “I’m so in love with you,” I say, because I can.

All this honesty, all this openness, without guise, without tricks — it’s like the sky is expanding, spreading. As it stretches, I stretch. It feels good and it hurts at the same time.

We stumble into the entryway, all hands and arms tangled up together.

“I am so fucking in love with you,” he says hungrily, and he loops his arms around my neck, tucks his face in my hair, and breathes me in as if I’m his oxygen. I’ve never known what it’s like to be cherished, but I’m starting to get a sense, and it’s a heady feeling. I’m no longer a prize, but a treasure. His treasure.

Somehow we manage to move to the futon because it’s clear this night is going horizontal.

“So what now?” I ask as he touches my arms, my hair, my waist. He can’t keep his hands off me, and I’m pretty sure I want them all over me.

“I guess that’s up to you.”

I run my finger along the waistband of his t-shirt, my thumb grazing the hard planes of his belly. He’s mine. This man is mine and I’m terrified, but certain at the same time. “I know what I want.”

“What do you want?” he asks, his lips quirking up.

“I want my first.”

“Are you sure?”

I nod. “So sure. I want to know what sex feels like. I want to know what it’s like with someone I’m in love with.”

He swallows, breathes hard. “Harley, you know this is going to be like a first time for me too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never had sex with someone I love,” he says, running his hands through my hair, letting it fall through his fingers. All the while he never takes his eyes off mine. “Sex has always been separate. I’ve never been in love before, so this is like a first time for both of us in a way.”

The moment curls in on itself, and I am sure time and space have narrowed to only the two of us, here on his couch. There are no cars outside, no sounds, no noise, no buildings, no night, no day. It is Trey and me, only us, only now, only this. He takes the pad of his thumb, brings it to his tongue, and licks it. He presses his thumb against my shoulder and rubs off some of the tattoo concealer. “I’m giving you a new one soon. But I still like to see it on you because it reminds me of the night we met. And you were different than anyone I’d ever known, and I wanted to know you, and then you came back into my life. Like it was fate.”

I watch him rub his thumb across my shoulder, wetting and re-wetting it, like a restorer returning a work of art to its original glory. I don’t know that my red ribbon is glorious, and I don’t even know that it’s what I want anymore, but it’s a part of me, and it’s going to become a better part of me.

Then he’s done and with one finger he pushes off the strap of my dress, letting it fall to my elbow. He bends his head to kiss my shoulder blade and I shiver at the slightest touch. He reaches for my hands, pulls me up. Now I’m standing and his arms are around my back.

“I want to undress you,” he says in a hot, hoarse voice as his fingers reach the zipper of my dress, and he unhooks it.

He starts to slide down the zipper, but I can feel his hands shaking and he can’t undo it.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Yeah. Just nervous I guess.”

“You are? I never pictured you being nervous.”

“I am,” he says. “Because I want it to be perfect for you.”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect. We can keep practicing if it’s not,” I tell him, running my index finger softly against his cheek, tracing his scar.

“Sign me up for lots of practice then,” he says and returns to the zipper, easing it open, then gently pushing the dress past my shoulders, over my breasts, to my waist. He lets go and the fabric falls into a silky pile on the floor. I step out of it, still wearing my heels. His hands follow the dress, down my hips, over my thighs, brushing my skin, and I melt into his touch. It all feels so natural and so right. He kneels at my feet, then slips off one shoe, and I’m back in time, picturing the night on my stoop when he took off my socks after I’d seen Cam. So much is similar, but so much is different. Here he is again and we still want each other, but we want so much more, and we’ve let ourselves not only voice it, but feel it. We have finally given ourselves permission to let in that thing we barely understand.

He runs his hand along the arch of my foot. I don’t have a foot fetish, and I’m glad he doesn’t either, but there’s something so tender and caring about the way he’s undressing me as he removes my other pump and I stand barefoot now. Every move, every touch is like the sweetest caress. Every thing he does he does with care, and I feel like a new girl with him. Because I’m here with him, not for him. I haven’t been ordered, I haven’t been bought, and there are no step-by-step instructions given in advance. We are living each moment, seeing how each moment feels.

Picking up my dress and my shoes, he brings them over to a chair, laying them down neatly. It’s a small gesture, but the little things matter, and I kind of love that the dress isn’t wadded up.

When he returns, he looks me over, and there is something like reverence, like wonder, in his green eyes as if he can’t believe he’s here with me.

“Will you take off the rest of my clothes?” I ask in a nervous voice. I know he will, but I don’t want to take anything for granted, and I want to let him know what I want.

He groans, and it’s both an appreciative and terribly needy sound as he loops his arms around my back and unhooks my strapless bra. I grab it and toss it to the chair. In seconds his hands are on my breasts. “They’re so fucking perfect. I can’t stop touching them,” he says as he cups my breasts. “I know I’m supposed to be fighting any kind of addiction, but fuck that. I want to be addicted to your breasts. They deserve a shrine, Harley. I want to build a temple and dedicate it to your breasts.”

“What will you call your temple?” I ask, playing along, grateful for a moment of levity in the midst of this intensity.

“My favorite Ds.”

I laugh. “You wish. They’re not Ds. Cs though.”

“C, D, E, F, G. Whatever they are, I fucking love –” he emphasizes that last word “–having my hands on them.” Then he squeezes them. Hard. “Sorry, I’m supposed to be gentle.”

“It’s okay. I like the way you touch me.”

“You do?”

“Yes,” I say. “You make me feel incredible.”

“You are incredible,” he says.

He kneads them roughly once more, brushing his thumbs over my nipples. He moans and I sigh at the same time, and we both laugh.

“You forgot one more item to take off,” I tease.

“I didn’t forget. I just want to savor it.” Then he slides his hand between my legs. His eyes widen when he feels the cotton panel of my panties. Touches me. Learns how turned on I am. I rock into his hand. “Fuck savoring. I need to get these off.”

Then he is no longer slow or lingering. He is frenzied and fevered as he pushes them over my hips and down my legs. I am naked before him and I love being naked with him.

He eyes me greedily, drinking me in as if he’s desperate for what’s next.

“I want you, Harley. I want to sleep with you. I want to make love to you,” he says, breathing out hard as he starts tugging off his own shirt. “And I’ve never fucking said those words before. I have never said make love. I have never wanted to make love. And I think those words are cheesy and ridiculous, but they’re not cheesy and ridiculous with you. Because I’m so fucking in love with you that I will say things I’ve never said. I’m dying for our first time.”

Sparks of electricity zoom through me, and every single inch of my skin, of my body, of my heart is reaching for him, needing him, wanting him. I am longing for something I’ve never had before and now I can’t imagine being without. I am hot all over and tingling everywhere. My veins, my blood, my bones, everything is singing out to be touched.

I grab at his waistband, fumble at the zipper, tug down his pants, all while he’s kicking off his shoes, trying not to trip over his clothes. Somehow, he manages to step out of his jeans and is now only in his boxer briefs, and we are both panting and frantic.

“Condom,” I say. “Do you have a condom?”

“Yeah.” He steps away from me to reach for a foil packet in the nightstand next to his futon.

Then he pushes off his underwear, and he’s naked and gorgeous and throbbing. I draw in a deep breath and bite my lip briefly. This is going to happen. This is real. I’m going to say goodbye to my virginity, and I’m going to have him inside of me, and I honestly don’t know how there’s room for him in me.

“Are you sure you’re going to fit?” I blurt out, a touch of nerves in my voice.

He laughs once, wraps his hand around my waist and tugs me gently down on the futon, laying me next to him. Skin to skin, flesh to flesh. I look in his eyes and I’m flooded with so many feelings – love, lust, anticipation, fear. It is staggering, but I am ready.

“I’m pretty sure the parts are all designed to fit.”

I gulp, bringing my hand to his belly, letting my fingers dance near his erection. “You’re just really big.”

“We’ll take it slow, okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, but I’m scared. I don’t want my first time to hurt. I want it to be amazing, even if that’s asking for the moon. I don’t care. I want the moon and the sun and the stars with him.

“Do you want to put it on me?”

He hands me the packet. I look at it like it’ll bite. “Tell me how.”

He rips open the foil. “Pinch the top, then roll it on,” he says, and he moans in pleasure as I slide it on him. “See what you do to me? I get even more turned on just from you doing that. You can do anything to me, Harley. Anything.”

I lie on my back, propped on my elbows, and foreplay is over and that’s fine because the last several months have been foreplay, and now there is only this.

When he hovers over me, my shoulders shake once, twice.

“You okay?”

“Yes. No. I’m nervous as hell.”

“We don’t have to,” he says as if it pains him, but still I love that he offers an out.

“I don’t want an out.”

Then he teases me, rubbing the head against me through all my wetness, and it feels so good the way he’s touching me. I start to spread my legs wider for him. “You’re so wet it’s almost a sin for me not to go down on you. But I love that you’re so wet,” he says, then he pushes into me. Not far, maybe an inch. Hell, maybe even half an inch.

I tense up.

He meets my eyes, asks me with his if it’s okay.

“It’s okay,” I tell him as I wrap my arms around his shoulders. “You can come in more,” I say, with a silly smile because the words sound silly.

He slides in deeper, and I clamp my legs against his. “Are you sure?”

I breathe out deeply, yoga breaths, deep calming exhalations. Then I spread my legs again, relax my body, and tell myself that it will feel amazing because it’s him. I close my eyes and nod into his shoulder, then run my hands down his strong back, to his ass, guiding him.

He sinks slowly into me, and the pain is intense. It’s like my stomach has been jammed up into my neck. I am being stretched in directions I didn’t know I had. This man is so big, and I don’t know how he’s fitting inside me. Oh wait, I do know. Because when he thrusts once, my spleen leaps into my chest.

I grit my teeth and try to tell myself it’ll be over soon. It’ll be over soon. It’ll be over soon. He’s turned on, he’ll pump once, twice, three times, and he’ll come, and I can curl up and let the pain roll out to the night.

Then I feel his breath on my neck, his stubble on my cheek, his hand on my hip. “Harley, I don’t want to hurt you. I can tell you don’t like it,” he says, but he’s not mad, he’s not hurt. He’s simply being honest.

And I decide to do the same. I open my eyes, look up into his. They are so earnest, so heartfelt. “Yes, it hurts. But it’s okay. I can handle the hurt,” I say, and it’s strange, but true. Because maybe it hurts now, but it might not hurt the next time. Or in five minutes, or in five seconds. And with that, I start to relax, to let go, to give in. As I do I realize the pain is fading, and now I just feel full with him deep inside me. I let go of the tight grip I have on his ass, and of the way my strong thighs are holding him like a vise.

Then he slips his hand between my legs, and he slowly, softly rubs me with his finger while he moves inside me. I gasp in pleasure for the first time.

“Oh!”

I let my eyes roll back into my head, and I can feel him smile.

“That better?”

“Yes,” I say with a happy sigh. “More.”

He slides his finger across me, rubbing me, stroking me, all while sliding gently in and out, and the sweep of pleasure from his finger starts to consume me. And soon, I’m opening my legs farther, and I’m wrapping them around him, and I’m taking him in. And holy fuck. He’s all the way in me and it no longer hurts. It starts to feel good, this feeling of being filled, of his hard length moving in and out of me, of his nimble finger rubbing me. Then the tingling sensation grows stronger, ripples through my veins like a wave, and I shudder.

“God, I fucking love this, Harley,” he groans as he touches me. “I fucking love being inside you. I love touching you. I love you so damn much.”

His words thrill me. His feelings shred me and soon, all the hurt washes away, and I am left with only the barest of essentials – this imperfect moment in time with this perfectly damaged man who is mine and who knows all of me, and still loves me, and still wants me, and doesn’t want to turn me into his fantasy, but he wants us to create a new reality together. I wrap my arms around him and he sinks deeper. The stretching is still bizarre but it’s delicious at the same time, and I want to feel every second of it as I start to rock with him, to move with him, and then his pants and groans aren’t solo anymore. They’re meshed with mine, with these sounds and noises I make as I gasp and moan from his finger working me over in the most delirious way all while he thrusts into me.

“Trey.”

“Oh fuck, Harley. Is there any chance you’re going to come? Because I can’t hold back much longer. I am so fucking turned on.”

“Yes,” I answer, and I dig my nails into his back, so deep I’m leaving marks, but I have to hold on, I have to mark him. My body tenses, then it’s like there are sparklers set off in my belly, lit up and burning brightly, and they become an explosion of color and light and sounds, and that sound is my sound, it’s my voice, it’s me, calling out his name, and then he’s doing the same, chasing me into this sweet release on the other side.

Here, where there is sex and love, and love and sex, and they don’t just spill over into each other.

They are one and the same with him.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Harley

“I’ll expect your first writing exercises on character development by the end of the week. You can deliver them via email, and remember to think about what makes each person unique. What events informed them, how they grew up, how they were raised. All of those are part and parcel of what makes a character in a story come alive.”

My writing teacher taps the laptop screen for emphasis.

I grew up strangely, I was raised in a topsy turvy world. But now and then, memories flutter in and out of my mind of peaceful, sunny days from long ago. Maybe they’re all part and parcel of me.

“See you next week,” he says, then dismisses us.

Summer classes have begun, and I am hoping to enjoy writing again. That when I write for fun, it won’t be so bone dry. Funny, how blackmail can sap the love of something. I leave the classroom, grab my sunglasses from my purse and slide them on as I head outside.

I stop in my tracks when I see my mother waiting for me outside the building.

She’s been calling and writing to me for the last week, but I’ve ignored all her messages. Let’s be honest, there’s not much to say to each other.

“Harley,” she says crisply from her post standing sentry on the sidewalk.

“Barb,” I say, and this time I use her name not because she wants me to. But because she doesn’t deserve to be called mom.

“You haven’t returned any of my calls. Nor my emails.”

“That is a correct observation. I see your reporter skills are strong,” I say, and I can barely contain a wicked grin, because holy cow – I sassed her. I talked back and she’s not used to it.

She raises an eyebrow sharply as if that action alone can bend me back to her will, into her submission as the sister she wishes I were.

But I am not my mother’s daughter anymore. There was a time when we were cut from the same cloth, but no more.

“In any case, I’ve decided to forgive you.”

“Excuse me?” I scoff. “I think I might have heard you wrong.”

She nods. “I have been thinking about what you did. Your actions. Your choices. And I have a way for you to be forgiven.”

I’m dying to know what she has in store. “Oh, do tell.”

She gestures grandly to the modern building I just left. “I pay for your college. And I am glad to do so because education is a vital element in one’s growth. And I will continue to do so under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you come home and live with me again. That way I can help you.”

“Oh,” I say, letting the one syllable last forever. “Like rehab for my bad behavior?”

My sarcasm is lost on her.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I would call it. We can start over, we can have nightly chats, we can have dinners together. We can be open about your whereabouts so you don’t descend into your bad habits again.”

Right. Because talking with her would change things.

“So if I do this,” I say, as if I’m truly trying her experiment on for size, “Would you be willing to go to Miranda and confront her about the blackmail? Because I’m pretty sure what she did in forcing me to write that book is illegal, and you could expose her since that’s what you do. You expose people.”

She presses her plum-colored lips together as if she’s considering my request. “I could but I’m not sure that’s best. We don’t really want that getting out, do we? I think it’s best to let that sleeping dog lie.”

“Oh yeah,” I say, nodding as if I completely agree. “Definitely that one lie. I mean, sexting senators are so much more important than editors blackmailing your own daughter. You wouldn’t want that out. Because that might besmirch your unblemished reputation.”

“That’s not it. I just think we could both benefit from moving on. What do you say? Truce?”

She extends her hand. I look at it like it’s a diseased object.

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you leave me no choice but to cut you off.”

She parks her hands on her hips, waiting for me to grovel. She has the trump card, right? She thinks she can buy me back. She thinks she can buy my love.

I shake my head. I’d like to cry, but my eyes are dried for her. I have no more tears. I have no more emotions to waste on her.

“So cut me off then,” I say like it’s no big deal.

She blinks, as if a UFO has just crashed through the sky, splattered onto the sidewalk and little green men are pouring out of it announcing they’re from another solar system. She’s as astonished at my brinksmanship as she’d be by the miniature aliens.

“Are you just going to drop out of college? Become a hooker full time?”

I point a finger at her. “Actually, allow me to make a correction since I know precision is important in your line of work, Barb. I wasn’t a hooker. I was a call girl. I was a specialized one. A very high class, high price call girl. So guess what that means?” I can’t bother to contain the grin. This is wonderful. This is me stubbing out a cigarette with my pointy heel.

“What?” she says with a quaky wavering voice.

“I made some serious bank, and I saved every single penny of it. Never spent a dime. So you can’t buy my love and I don’t need your money. Which means I don’t really see that there’s anything more for us to discuss.”

I could snap my finger, swivel around then strut off, reality show style. But I don’t. Instead, I simply walk away, and it hurts that she isn’t who I wanted her to be, but it also feels good that I finally found the words to tell her so.

In my own way. In my own time.

* * *

I am not my past. I am my present. I am my future. The past can chase you if you let it. You can spend your life trying to outrun it or you can stop running, turn around and look it in the face. I’ve stared down my past, and now I’m moving on. I am more than my past. I am my future and it belongs to me.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Trey

“Do you trust me?”

She rolls her eyes and says “Duh. I thought we’d established that by now.”

“I know. But do you trust me to do this without watching? I want you to close your eyes or else look the other way, okay?”

“Yes.”

She sits on the stool, crosses her legs, and clasps her hands in front of her. She’s wearing a jean skirt, black combat boots, and a tank top with a cartoon cat on it. In other words – she looks like my girl and I fucking love it.

“I’m not looking, I’m not looking, I’m not looking,” she says in a sing-song voice as she pointedly stares at the framed photos that line the walls of No Regrets. Blue butterflies on upper backs, stars on hips, dragonflies on forearms. The shop is closed now, it’s nearing midnight on a Thursday, and I wanted to do this after hours when I’m not on the clock. Besides, it’s a gift to her. An early birthday gift.

I press the transfer paper on her shoulder, the drawing I made to replace the first time I marked her with a design that kept her tied to her guilt. The red ribbon that was supposed to symbolize her love of her mom. She’s moved past it now, and I want her to live a life with no regrets, and god damn it, if that’s the name of our shop, then I need to be able to deliver. I’m building her red ribbon into a new design.

An hour later, her eyes are still fixed on a point on the wall. Maybe the butterflies, or maybe the tribal ink next to it. Hard to say, because I’ve barely glanced at her. Only enough to know she’s focused, and she’s tough, and she’s gritting her teeth through the pain that’s very nearly over.

I finish the final letter, giving a script-y end to the T in the words.

Then I put down the needle, and she relaxes, her shoulders slumping forward.

“You did great,” I tell her.

“Now let’s see if you did great,” she says. “Am I allowed to look?”

“Yes. You can look.”

Harley

I can’t stop staring at my shoulder.

I trace my finger around the design, mesmerized by its beauty. By its perfect-ness. By what it means.

Trey turned my red ribbon into a heart. But it’s a badass heart, the edges of it torn and tattered. It’s like the one on the notebook Joanne gave me, only it’s not misshapen. It’s whole, and it’s complete, and it’s tough as nails with the way it’s frayed on the outside. An arrow pierces it, clear through the center from one side of the heart to the other. Then there are words in a V at the bottom–Carry My Heart.

“It’s so unbelievably perfect,” I say, and I am awestruck. “I love it so much.”

“You do?” His voice is wobbly.

I glance up at him, barely able to tear myself away from the new ink. “Are you kidding me? It’s the coolest tat ever. It’s perfect for me. And it’s from you. And it means something. Why wouldn’t I love it?”

He shrugs. “I was just hoping you would. I mean, I didn’t want you to have to hunt down some other tattoo artist to redo mine. Or worse, get laser removal.”

I cup his cheeks, stubbly against my hands. “This is never being removed. I love it and I love you.”

“Happy early birthday.”

“My birthday’s not for another month.”

“So I like getting you stuff. I’ll get you something else when you finally turn twenty. What do you think about the arrow?” He returns his focus to his work.

“I love the arrow in the heart,” I say, then consider it thoughtfully, running my finger across the art on my skin. “Is it coming or going though?”

He shakes his head. “Neither.” He reaches for my hand, links my fingers through his. “It’s staying.”

“Like you,” I say and I’m vaguely aware that my voice has turned breathy, but then so has the moment, shifting into something more, something expectant.

“Like me. And like you,” he repeats in a low, husky voice.

In one swift move, he lets go of my hand and yanks off his own shirt. There, over his heart, he now has an arrow. It matches mine, and I am overwhelmed, bursting with heat and light and unfettered happiness. My hand is drawn to his chest, and I trace the tattoo, then kiss the arrow on his chest. “I love it,” I tell him.

“It matches,” he adds playfully.

“Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “I figured that.”

Then, his hands are in my hair, and he’s pulling hard, exposing my neck, kissing me, marking me, claiming me with his mouth. I respond instantly, my hands looping around his back, tugging him close. His breath is hot on me, and there’s sweat on his neck from working, from inking me, and my skin is slick too. From the summer, from the heat, from the needle.

And I want to have hot, sweaty sex in his tattoo parlor.

I have become more forward, more outspoken in the last few weeks with him. So I unbutton his jeans, sliding them down to his knees, along with his boxers.

“I want you on the chair.”

“Gladly,” he says and he takes a seat, and in seconds he’s grabbed a condom from his wallet and handed it to me. It’s become our thing; I love to put them on him, and he loves it when I do. In an instant, he’s hiked up my skirt, pulled my panties to the side and is inside me.

I groan as he fills me. “Trey,” I say, letting his name slide off my tongue in a sexy purr, because I love the way his name sounds when he’s deep in me. As if I’m owning his name when we’re together like this. When I take him all the way in.

“So I guess this means it turns you on when I ink you,” he says, in a hungry voice as he rolls his hips upwards.

I inhale sharply. I can feel him so deep inside me, and I’m still not sure I’m used to his size. But then I don’t know if it’s something you get used to, or something you just thank the heavens for, then lean your head back, let your hair fall down, and imagine you’re on a wild motorcycle ride after midnight as he drives into you with abandon. And that’s what he does, fucking hard and fast. Soon, I am panting and moaning, greedy for more of this heat, this love, this life.

“Yes, it turns me on when you ink me,” I say, finally managing to answer in between my erratic breaths. “But then, everything you do turns me on.”

“Good. Because I want to do everything with you,” he says. “And right now, I want you to ride me hard, Harley. I want you to fuck me with everything you’ve got.”

I take over the reins, my hands gripping his shoulders. I ride him, up and down, until my thighs are quaking, and even then I keep going, watching as his face contorts in pleasure, and he tells me over and over how much he fucking loves me, and fucking loves fucking me, and fucking loves everything. His coarseness and his love send me spinning, and my body is consumed with wildfire, and the whole damn forest is burning down, taking everything in is wake.

I shout his name, louder than I’ve ever been, and then he’s doing the same, and we’re both savage and sweaty and hot and horny and we collapse into each other’s arms. He tosses the condom into the trashcan next to us, then wraps his arms around me again.

I don’t let go for a long time, and he makes no move to pull apart. The longer we stay like this, the more I know that there is a difference between love and addiction, and this here with him – this is some kind of love, and some kind of good.

My thoughts drift off, roaming these last few weeks, these last several months. How my life isn’t black and white, but it’s not gray either. It’s bursting with colors, and sometimes they are shades of black as I grapple with the darkness and the fear that still lives inside me, and other days it’s purple or blue when I’m happy and sad at the same time. Some days everything is orange and fiery and I am alive and burning like the sun.

I am learning to live with all these colors, all these pieces of me. I am beginning to stop swatting away the girl I was. Because I can let go of who I used to be, but I don’t have to hate her, nor do I have to be ashamed of who I was. She served a purpose. Layla freed me from my mom. Besides, had I not been Layla I might never have met Trey.

I trace my fingers over the trees on his ribs, the reminders of his brothers.

“Do you miss them?”

“Yes,” he says into my hair, as he gently rubs his hand up and down my naked back. “But then I have to believe there was a meaning behind it all. And look, if they hadn’t died, I might never have become fucked up, and if I wasn’t fucked up, I might not have met you.”

I pull back to look at him. “You’re crazy and I love your crazy, because I was thinking the same thing. Well, about me.”

“If we weren’t addicted we might never have met.”

“So maybe there’s a purpose to everything, even the shitty stuff in life,” I say. “Even Miranda.” Then, in a low worried voice. “I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

“But you’re not supposed to, right? I mean, it’s over?”

“Yeah, it’s over. But the book will come out, and what if someone recognizes themselves in it?”

Because some days it’s hard to believe our debts are really paid off. Are scores ever truly settled? Can we ever stop looking over our shoulders? I wonder if I’ll always sleep with one eye open, always watch my back to see who’s going to try to trip me up next. God knows, there are so many more people who could surface, who could emerge like a mirage in the desert made real, and demand something from me. More blood, more words, more ink.

“Then we’ll deal with it then. Together. Trust me, there is nothing, not a thing on this fucking planet, that we cannot get through. I promise you,” he says, and he taps my arrow. “Staying.”

“Staying,” I repeat.

The arrow is staying.

Now I know. Now I get it. I understand. This is love. It’s not a game. It’s not a razor’s edge. It’s not a transaction.

The poets are right. The dreamers are right. The lovers are right. This isn’t nothing. This is everything.

* * *

Four weeks later…

Joanne knits another row on a hot pink pair of socks as she begins the meeting. We go round and do the introductions at the girls-only meeting. Chloe, Ainsley, a new gal named Katrina.

They say their hellos and we say hi back. Then it’s my turn.

“I’m Harley, and I’m a sex and love addict,” I say and Joanne beams at me. It’s been a few weeks now since I started using my real name here. It still feels weird and clunky after having the mask of Layla for so many months.

“Hi Harley,” the other gals say to me.

Then we talk and we share, and look, I’m not going to say I am sunshine and unicorns and the girl who overshares. I am still mostly a closed book, and I don’t know that healing means being open about everything.

Sometimes, I just practice the words in my head. I like the way they sound as I rewrite my story.

I’m Harley, I’m a sex and love addict. I’m in recovery. I was a virgin, I was a call girl, I was my mother’s daughter. Now I am a friend, I am a girlfriend, I am trying. I am twenty, and I don’t care how many guys I’ve kissed. There is only one guy I am kissing and will kiss. Now and always.

And that has to count for something.

When the meeting ends, I chat with Joanne for a few minutes, then say goodbye, because it’s my birthday and I’m having cake and watching a movie with Trey, Kristen and Jordan.

I rush up the steps and out onto the street, heading to my apartment. For a brief moment, my stomach cramps as if I’ve run too far and I have a stitch in my side. It reminds me of field hockey practice when we’d do laps.

But the feeling fades quickly, and I’m grateful for its exit because it’s time for cake when I unlock the door to my apartment.

Kristen’s in the kitchen lining up twenty pink and yellow birthday candles in a circle on the chocolate cake. “Can’t promise it’ll be any good. I’m not really known for my mad kitchen skills,” Kristen says with a shrug.

“I bet it’s fabulous,” I say and squeeze her arm.

Trey and Jordan join us in the kitchen as Kristen lights the candles and they all start singing. I don’t even pretend to act humble, or like it’s no big deal. It is a big deal. I’m celebrating my birthday the way I want – with my friends, and my boyfriend, with a cake that’s not made by my mom, and my life is finally starting to feel like my own. Moment by moment. Like I belong to myself.

So I sing along, and the four us are loud as loud can be.

“Now make a wish,” Kristen says, gesturing to the candles.

Leaning close, I gather my breath, and blow the flames out at once. I wish for more moments like this.

“What did you wish for?” Trey asks as he reaches for my hand, laces his fingers through mine. I love that we hold hands, that we held hands as friends, and now as more.

“I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true.”

He sticks out his tongue at me as Kristen serves the cake on small plates for each of us.

“Mmm. Delicious,” Jordan declares after a bite.

Kristen rolls her eyes. “You’re just saying that to score points.”

“No. This really is good cake,” Trey says after he takes a forkful.

“Now you’re just backing up your buddy,” she says.

“Kristen, you are going to have to accept that you actually made a delicious cake in a tiny New York kitchen,” I tell her after I finish another bite.

Soon, she and Jordan have moved to the living room to pick out a movie on the laptop, while Trey and I wash off the plates. As I rinse the final one, he loops his arms around my waist, rests his chin on my shoulder, and sneaks in a kiss on my neck.

“Mmm. Is that my birthday present?”

He tugs me against him, my back to his front. “I have many presents for you,” he says in a sexy, suggestive voice.

I shut off the faucet and turn around in his arms. “Being with you, like this, is all I want.”

“But I still want to give you more presents,” he says playfully.

I brush my lips against his. “I will gladly accept. But this is already the best birthday ever,” I say, because it is. Because I am living in the moment. In the present. Making the most of it. Taking every day one day at a time.

Then we kiss, one of those sweet, lingering kisses that makes you feel as if you’re floating.

“C’mon. Opening credits starting,” Kristen says, calling out to us.

We head to the living room, and start the movie, all curled up on the couch, like puppies in a litter, Kristen and Jordan tangled together, and Trey and I wrapped up in each other.

But after a half hour, my stomach starts to churn again.

“Excuse me,” I say and head to the bathroom. As soon as I shut the door, I feel the cake rising back up, so I cover my mouth with my hand, then quickly realize that won’t do the trick. I bend over the toilet and say goodbye to my birthday cake.

I cough a few times, flush the toilet, then wash my hands. I reach for my toothbrush, squirt on some toothpaste and brush my teeth to get rid of the yucky taste. I watch myself in the mirror, the repetitive motion lulling away the strange twists in my stomach.

Then it hits me.

Like a bigass wave you didn’t see coming. It slams me to the shore, and I drop my toothbrush into the sink. As it clatters, a speckle of toothpaste ricochets into my eye. It stings momentarily, and I rub it away quickly.

I kneel and open the cupboard below the sink, rummaging for something Kristen once needed several months ago.

My heart is speeding and smashing against the walls of my chest. No way, no way, no way.

But as I count backwards, I’m certain it’s been more than four weeks, and I don’t know how this could have happened. We were safe. Every time. But then, condoms can break. Is it my fault since I always put them on him? Did I slip and nick one with my fingernail? No. I’m just freaking out. I’m being ridiculous like Kristen was when she bought this test. Hers was negative, as I predicted it would be.

She flashed the stick before me, cheering up and down over one pink line.

I reach for the other stick, the one she didn’t need since hers was negative.

I read the instructions, and it’s not morning, it’s night. But hell if I care. I need to know. I need to settle my paranoid heart.

I sit down on the toilet, pee on the stick, and wait all those interminable minutes for an answer.

Trey told me nothing on the planet could come between us, but if anything could, this would be it, right? Nothing would scare him more than this. Nothing in the entire universe.

I close my eyes, lean my head against the wall and pray.

When I open my eyes and hold up the stick, I am seasick, my future is out of focus, and even though my world has gone blurry I can see clearly two pink lines.

I have no idea how the father of the baby is going to take this news.

To be continued….

Stay tuned for book 2 in the No Regrets series, EVERY SECOND WITH YOU, releasing in early 2014. And for more of Harley and Trey and the full story of the night they met, check out the prequel novella, THE START OF US, releasing in early December 2013.

Check out my other contemporary romance novels!

Caught Up In Us, a New York Times and USA Today Bestseller! (Kat and Bryan’s romance!)

Pretending He’s Mine, a Barnes & Noble and iBooks Bestseller! (Reeve & Sutton’s romance)

Trophy Husband, a New York Times and USA Today Bestseller! (Chris & McKenna’s romance)

Playing With Her Heart, a USA Today Bestseller! (Davis and Jill’s romance)

Far Too Tempting, an Amazon romance bestseller! (Matthew and Jane’s romance)

Acknowledgements

Nobody tells you that the acknowledgements is the most terrifying part of writing a novel. I am praying I don’t leave anyone out because I have so very many people to thank. But my first thank you as always, forever and ever, goes to my amazing readers. I have said it before, and I will never grow tired of saying it – I love you all. You are the reason I write. I love hearing from you, I love your notes, emails, tweets, posts, reviews and sweet comments. They fill my heart with so much happiness, and you make me want to write more. You are passionate and vocal and I adore you all. Thank you.

Next in line is the inimitable Monica Murphy. She is my cheerleader, my pimp, my friend, my sounding board, my shoulder to lean on and, most of all, she is the reason this book exists. The idea was on the back burner for many years until she told me I had to write The Thrill of It. So, really, she made me do it. And I love her for it!

My publicist and friend Kelly at Inkslinger PR didn’t balk when I told her I wanted to write a call girl/love & sex addiction book next. She was ready in seconds to strategize, and she has been terrific, nimble and passionate at every step of the journey.

A massive thank you to Sawyer Bennett for beta reading and to my amazing wonderful Zoe for her keen eye and vital feedback. Kim Bias was my line of defense, thoughtfully providing important input for my final edits, and jumping in whenever I needed her.

And then there is my friend Hetty. Without Hetty, I would not have this beautiful cover that I love. Like a treasure hunter, she found the photo on her own when I simply told her the concept for the story. A cover is a team project, and I am lucky to have the immensely talented Sarah Hansen in my corner. She knocked this one out of the park with her gorgeous design and her skill at tracking down the photographer. Credit for the beautiful cover photo goes to Anthony Langlois at Glimpse Photography. I am so glad to be in business with you, Anthony. You are an artist and a gentleman, and your models are my characters. No questions asked.

Big thanks as well to my indie besties—Violet Duke, Lexi Ryan, Kendall Ryan, Sawyer Bennett, Monica Murphy and Melody Grace. Thank you to Christina Lee for the amazing blurb. Tara Simone is a fabulous brainstorm partner, friend and business advisor. (Her book Vacationista is hilarious!)

I have come to rely on the friendship and support of a core group of passionate readers - Hetty, Kim, Cara and Kristy - you are my fab four. Kim, thank you so much for all that you do to keep the ship running smoothly.

Becky, your encouragement during the writing kept me motivated. Helen at All Booked Out rocks the graphics. Much love to these ladies.

Then there are the bloggers who are the foundation of the indie world. I love you all. A huge thanks to Totally Booked for sharing the first chapter, to My Fictional Book Boyfriend & Book Whore for the teaser opportunity, to Rock Stars of Romance for the early support, and to Heather from The REAL Housewives of Romance Book Blog, Hetty at BestSellers & BestStellars, and Helen at All Booked Out for the amazing teaser pics. But that’s only the beginning! Thank you to Book Whores Obsession, Reviews by Tammy and Kim, Kristy at Book Addict Mumma, Two Crazy Girls with a Passion for Books, Shh…Mom’s Reading, Romance Addict, Little Black Book Blog, Flirty and Dirty Book Blog, Britt Blabs Books, HEA Shelf Blogger, Angie’s Dreamy Reads, Becky at Reality Bites! Let’s Get Lost, Kelly at KellyVision, The Book Enthusiast, True Story Book Blog, Chapter Break, LoveNBooks, Just Booked and many more. Special shout-outs to Laura at Bookish Treasures, Tracey K., my lovely Retta Rusaw, Karen – The Danish Bookaholic, Stacey at Reading Rainblog, Lexi at Book Reviews by Lexi, Sandra Shipman, Yvette at Nose Stuck in a Book, Tanya at After the Final Chapters, Shey Houston at Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews, Jennifer Reyes from Jen’s Book Reviews, Tanya The Book Obsessed Momma, Wendy at The Geekery Book Review, Kat and Ava from Book Nerds Anonymous, Jaime Britten Collins from For The Love of Books by Jaime, Julie Solorio with Love Between the Sheets, the absolutely fantastic and amazing Bette Hansen, Kim Brown at Chapter Break, MJ Fryer, Betsy Gehring from Book Drunk Blog, my fave girl Kenna N, the awesome Carolyn Isherwood, Jennifer from Jennifer’s Reading and Jennifer’s Taking a Break, Jassie, the amazing Dianne of Oops I Read A Book Again, Sue F, Melissa, Diane from Naughty Book Eden, Chelsea at Starbucks & Books Obsession, Teresa Gomez from Sinful Reviews, Jessica at Lovin’ Los Libros, Jennifer, Tabatha at Insightful Minds Reviews, Louisse from The Soul Sisters, Marianna at A Lust for Reading, Kelly at Smut Book Junkie Book Reviews, Amy at Schmexy Girl Book Blog and Lauren Turkel.

Finally, thank you to my friends and family. My husband and children are so wonderful and their love and support keep me going. That, and the cookies, chocolate and green tea they bring me. So much love to these amazing people.

Last but not least are my dogs. They are with me for nearly every word and I love them.

And I suppose, in some strange way, I need to thank Harley and Trey. This might be the cheesiest, corniest thing I’ve ever said, but I’m so glad they trusted me with their story.

Exclusive Exerpt for Quintessentially Q.

The sequel to the bestseller, Tears of Tess,

by Pepper Winters.

“All my life, I battled with the knowledge I was twisted… fucked up to want something so deliciously dark—wrong on so many levels. But then slave fifty-eight entered my world. Hissing, fighting, with a core of iron, she showed me an existence where two wrongs make a right.”

* * *

Tess is Q’s completely. Q is Tess’s irrevocably. But now, they must learn the boundaries of their unconventional relationship, while Tess seeks vengeance on the men who sold her. Q made a blood-oath to deliver their corpses at Tess’s feet, and that’s just what he’ll do.

He may be a monster, but he’s Tess’s monster.

Prologue

-Q-

I thought I would be her nightmare—her terror and darkness. I wanted to be. I needed her more than food or sunlight. Only when she came into my life did I start to live—intoxicated by her taste, screams, and joy.

But our fucked up fairytale didn’t exactly have a happy ending.

Tess.

My Tess.

My esclave—so strong and fierce and sexually feral—wasn’t strong enough for what happened.

Her cage wasn’t me anymore.

It was them.

Chapter One

-Q-

All I could think was—she’s dead. She had to be. All that blood, so bright with a coppery tang, almost sweet.

Her snowy skin was extra frosty, grey-blue eyes closed to me.

Rage and terror strangled as I fell to my knees in the warm puddle of crimson. The whip in my hands was slippery with sweat, and I hurled it away in disgust. I did this. I let myself go and showed my true self. The monster inside ruined the only brightness in my life.

“Tess?” I pulled her into my arms, dragging her cold, lifeless form closer. Blood smeared over us. Her red-welted body oozed with damnation.

“Wake up, esclave,” I growled, hoping an order would force those dove-blue eyes open. No response.

I bent, pressing my cheek against her mouth, waiting endlessly for a small puff of breath, a signal I hadn’t gone too far.

Nothing.

Fear stopped my heart, and all I wanted to do was rewind time. Rewind to a simpler place where I lived with needs and urges, but never let myself believe I could be free. Rewind to the day when Tess arrived, and I promptly sent her back to her silly boyfriend Brax. At least if I did, she would be safe and my life wouldn’t have ended.

At least then, Tess would be alive.

My demons killed her.

I killed her.

I threw my head back and howled.

* * *

“Q. Q!”

Something sharp bit my shoulder and I flinched. Rolling away, I tried to ignore the call. I deserved to stay in this endless hell. The hell I created for killing the one woman who stole my life and showed me an emotion I never dared dream for: connection.

My cheek smarted as if someone slapped me, blazing through the darkness with a bite of pain.

Eyes snapped open to a wild-eyed, blonde goddess on top of me. The debilitating terror wouldn’t leave, even though she was alive and glaring with passion I grew to know so well.

“What the hell, Q. That’s the third time this week. You going to tell me what you’re dreaming about to warrant howling like a werewolf?” Tess pinned my shoulders to the mattress and I couldn’t stop muscles from tensing. I liked her on top, but I didn’t like her holding me as if she was in control. It wasn’t how I worked.

“None of your business.” I rolled, grabbing her hips to pin her beneath me. I risked a small smile. With her under me, my world righted again. I ran hands over her waist, up her throat, to her lips. Her breath fluttered, coming faster and the rest of my panic receded.

She was still breathing.

I hadn’t killed her.

Yet.

Tess ran her hand softly over my cheek, tickling. “You should tell me what you’re afraid of. Brax used to—”

I froze, grinding my teeth. “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t finish that sentence.” Goddammit, why did she have to bring the ghost of her goody-too-shoes boyfriend who treated her like a fragile princess into our bed?

Tess squeezed her eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to… it’s just—I’m concerned. If you’re having bad dreams because of me, give me the opportunity to make them go away.”

It was too early in the morning to suffer an inquisition. Four days since Tess appeared on my doorstep and gave me no choice to accept her. Accept her fire, spirit, and sharp tenacity. I may be a controlling bastard but the moment Tess stalked into my life I lost my balls to her.

I hoped she didn’t know just how much she affected me, because I was shit terrified of what the future meant for us.

The promises she made of being strong enough for me; the blood oath that linked us together for as long as that blood pumped in our veins.

Four days since my life changed forever and I’d been in constant, excruciating pain ever since.

“Leave it alone,” I grumbled. This woman was an icy glacier to my unmovable mountain of a vow. My solemn vow that I’d never accept the fucking darkness or be a sadistic asshole like my father. But the glacier was winning, millimeter by millimeter, centimeter by centimeter. Her ice slithered in between the hairline fractures of my will, making them larger, making the cracks harder to ignore.

For four days, I’d successfully ignored her advances for sex. Memories of taking her over the bar in the gaming room were still too raw. Tess still couldn’t sit without wincing. I knew she hurt—not that she ever complained. I watched her every movement like a vulture reading the weakness of his prey.

She lied to me, of course, saying I hadn’t hurt her with my belt. But I had. And the constant war of delicious satisfaction at hurting her and the horror at hurting someone as perfect as Tess kept me up at night.

I fucking shouldn’t want to beat the ever-living daylights out of her, but I did. Oh, shit how I did.

“Q. You can’t keep all your thoughts locked up now you’ve let me into your life. I see the torment in your eyes. You promised me you’d talk and let me in.” Her voice held pain, but also annoyance. We’d both made promises and so far, neither of us had lived up to them. Not that it mattered—I had every intention of breaking my end of the bargain. She wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t strong enough.

Early days, idiot. Just relax.

Relax? How could I ever relax? I never knew if I’d be able to fight the urge to be such a maniac bastard if I didn’t keep a tight rein at all times.

“I’m exhausted,” I murmured. Did she hear the ulterior confession? That it hadn’t even been a week of accepting this relationship—if it could even be called that—and I was already fucking frayed. I needn’t have asked—of course Tess saw the truth. She saw too damn much.

“Stop fighting then. You haven’t touched me since I came back to you. You hardly look at me apart from when I flinch if I sit on a sore spot on my ass. You’re even more remote than when I was sold to you.”

I growled deep in my chest at the sold remark. I hated the bastards who’d stolen and sold her. Every time I thought about what might’ve happened to Tess if she hadn’t have been given to me, I wanted to turn feral. Strip my falseness of businessman and paint my walls with their blood. Screw having civilized business meetings with criminals. I was done with that shit.

My hands curled and I trembled with pent up rage. I’m kidding myself. I sighed deeply. “I can’t be tender with you. And I hate that I got carried away with hitting you.” There? Was she fucking satisfied? I opened up to her about things I wished I could vomit out of me. Hurl this darkness from deep inside, purge my heart so I could be sweet and kind and the perfect man for her. Not the savage, sex-hungry beast.

Her breath caught and a soft finger trailed along my forearm. “Thank you. You don’t know what a relief it is for you to talk to me. Explain your brooding silences. Can you tell me about your nightmare now?”

I glared at her and sat upright. Pushy woman. She’d successfully freaked me out and pissed me off with her questions.

Rolling to the side of the ginourmous bed, I perched on the edge with my head in my hands. I didn’t want to be a coward and run, but this was all too new. My tower room with its ridiculously large fireplace and ocean-sized white carpet still looked the same, nothing outward had changed, but Tess was wreaking havoc on my soul. I didn’t know if I’d be able to survive letting her dig deeper into my world.

The nightmare roared back to full colour. All that blood, so bright with a coppery tang, almost sweet. Her snowy skin extra frosty, grey-blue eyes closed to me.

No. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t strong enough and somehow the evilness of my father would make me do the one thing I’d run from my entire life. I lived my life with rules, shackles. I wasn’t prepared to let a delicate, fragile little bird taunt me to untwine myself and chase her. I’d win. And I’d lose when I killed her.

You sound like a fucking girl, Mercer.

I flinched as Tess scampered across the bedspread and draped herself over my naked back. Her soft fingertips traced my tattoo of fluttering sparrows and barbwire. I clenched my jaw as her touch whispered lower and lower, down my abs, heading to my cock.

I meant to stop her. I really did, but she grasped me hard through my boxer shorts and I groaned. One touch was all I needed to make me achingly hard and drowning in dark desire.

Tess coaxed me to rigidness, all while nibbling on my ear. “If you’re frightened of hurting me, Q… you won’t. I trust you.”

I bit out. “I don’t trust you yet. I don’t want to break you.” I don’t trust myself to stop.

She stopped stroking me and pulled back. Her warmth left me with a shiver. “I gave you my word to fight you. I’ve slept in your bed for four nights and the most you’ve done is peck my cheek goodnight. You haven’t used your belt or chains or any of those toys I glimpsed in that mirrored chest of yours.”

Her eyes flittered to the end of the bed where the chest lay. Locked. No way did I want her going in there. It held all my sins and things that weren’t classified as sex toys.

I groaned, gripping my head. What monster wanted to capture the blood of the woman he’d given his life to? I was right to keep myself so aloof, so obsessed with work. By staying overworked, I had no time for other needs.

I hadn’t been to work in four days as the thought of being away from Tess turned my stomach into a rock, but it was a mistake to think I could give up my way of life and not suffer consequences.

I had to find a way to cure myself. I had to stop this before Tess successfully goaded me into doing something I regretted.

Tess grumbled something and swung her legs off the bed. Her ass still held purple shadows from my belt. How many lashes did I give her that night? I counted thirty, but that was after the ones I already struck. My heart squeezed at the thought of how easy it was to lose myself around her, but a millisecond later it was overshadowed by the overwhelming urge to create more raw, angry bruises on her perfect skin. I wanted her over my knee. I wanted to have those perfect crystal tears splashing my thigh as I hit her.

Goddammit, she said I scared her soul… would she let me scar her skin?

Tess stood in front of me. Her toned legs splayed, hands on her hips. So proud and regal in her own skin. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. My mouth went dry as the beast inside prowled and hurled itself against the cage, trying so hard to get at her. To rip her. Ravage her.

I shut my eyes, pulling myself together.

Tess folded to her knees between my legs, and pressed her lips against my boxer clad cock.

I flinched and gasped. The heat of her breath, the delicateness of her lips drove me insane.

“If you won’t tell me, I’ll just taunt you until you can’t help it. You have me. I’m your slave while we’re in the bedroom and I want to be used. I crave it. Why don’t you get that yet?”

She wanted to taunt me? Fine. I lashed out and grabbed a thick handful of messy blonde curls. Leaning down to her eye level, I stared right into the depths of her being, allowing her to see the turmoil in mine. The need, the anguish, the fine line of hatred and love for her for forcing me to accept this part of myself.

Tess sucked in a breath, shrinking beneath the weight of my stare. I shook her, loving the small blaze of pain in her eyes. Shit, would I ever become repulsed by hurting her rather than turned on?

“I understand you want me to show you what my fantasies are, but you have to give me time, esclave.” My heart raced at the word. For four days, I refused to call her by anything but Tess. She wasn’t my slave. She wasn’t my possession. Never had been and never would be. I hated how even though I knew she was there on her own accord—for her crazy infatuation with me—that I still wanted ultimate ownership. It was wrong of me to call her my slave when she was my equal. She was Tess. My Tess.

Her eyelids slammed closed and she swayed into me, her lips parting. “Say it again, maître. Remind me of my place.”

Shit, this fucking woman. She wasn’t curing me, she was making it worse. How could I expect to keep her alive and not let my dreams come true when she forced me down this path?

Something unlocked inside, some darkness billowed, blocking out the light I’d been fighting so hard to keep bright.

Tess noticed. Her body tensed, her fingers digging into my thighs.

I bent closer, glowering, “You’re disobeying me, esclave. I think I may have to punish you.”

She shuddered under my grip, eyes flaring wide with a sexy glint. The same glint that told me she was about to rebel and cause me to snap. Shit, I didn’t have the strength to stop myself again. My energy was depleted. The monster was in full control.

Tess stroked my thigh once, before whispering harshly, “You aren’t allowed to punish me. I’ll run again. Don’t dare touch me.”

Fuck.

In one swoop, I hauled her to her feet. Her hands flew to mine clutched in her silky curls. Her blue-grey eyes smoldered to smoke, her perfect pink lips trembled.

“You really shouldn’t push me. I asked for time.” I shook her hard, pissed at her for making me lose control. “I’m done fighting. You happy now?”

Her mouth parted and she sucked in a shaky breath. A flicker of indecision filled her eyes before being swallowed by heavy, heated lust. “Yes.”

I pulled her forward, licking my lips at the thought of kissing her like she deserved to be kissed. Hard. Ruthless. Her breath caught, and her eyes fluttered closed as I whispered my mouth against hers.

She sighed as I licked her lower lip in one quick swipe.

I pulled away, releasing her hair to capture her wrist. “You should know by now I don’t do things that you want me to do, esclave. Your permission isn’t what gets me off.”

She frowned as I dragged her across the thick white carpet and forced her to kneel again in front of the mirrored chest. Breathing hard, I stalked to where I left my trousers on the floor last night and withdrew the key.

“Open it.” I passed the key to her, my hand steady but heart beating wildly.

She glared before taking the metal and slipping it obediently into the lock. I stood with my back rigid and every muscle on high alert. Tess thought I had a soul. A heart. What she would find in the chest would prove all her stupid sweet fantasies weren’t real.

There was no doubt I wanted Tess. There was no question she’d made me feel something I’d never felt before… but there was also no doubt that it wasn’t enough. I was too damaged from too young an age to be able to change. And if she hoped she could save me, change me, mold me… whatever we had wouldn’t last long.

Releasing 15th December 2013.

Content

The Thrill of It
No Regrets - 1
by
Lauren Blakely

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Acknowledgements

Exclusive Exerpt for Quintessentially Q. The sequel to the bestseller, Tears of Tess, by Pepper Winters.

Prologue

Chapter One