Addicted

“Relax, Zoe. Let’s try this a different way.” She took another puff of her cigarette and then picked up the pen, preparing to take notes. “When you mentioned earlier that nicotine was one addiction you no longer had to battle, it gave me the impression you’re addicted to something else. Are you?”

The tears started flowing. It took every ounce of selfcontrol I could muster not to start wailing like a banshee. “Yes! I’m addicted!”

“Drugs?” I shook my head. “Alcohol?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Then what are you addicted to, Zoe?”

I looked at her finally through tear-drenched eyes and vocalized the word before my guilt forced me to suppress it. “Sex!”

The look of astonishment on her face revealed her surprise. She was probably used to dealing with people addicted to cocaine, amphetamines, booze, food, but I got the distinct impression sexual addiction was a whole new ballpark for her.

“Marcella, I don’t know where to begin. I have plenty of excuses for this, but no real reasons. I’m so scared my addiction to sex will destroy everything I have; my marriage, my relationship with my children, everything.” I darted my eyes away from hers and concentrated on the smoke rising from the cigarette, now burned down almost to the filter.

She pulled a tissue out of the quilted dispenser on her desk and reached across the desk, handing it to me. I gladly took it and dabbed my gradually swelling eyes with it. “Well, Zoe, the best place to start is always at the beginning, so why don’t we commence there and work our way to the present.”

I retreated into the bulky wing chair, letting my shoulders sink deep into the cushions, and crumpled the damp tissue in my hand. “The beginning . . .”

chapter

one

The first time I ever laid eyes on Jason, I thought he was a junior-mack-daddy-wannabe that probably sat around on a Commodore 64 computer drinking grape Kool-Aid out of a peanut butter jar while watching Good Times. I couldn’t stand his ass.

The feeling was mutual, though, because our first physical interaction was when he gave me the finger and then spit on my saddle shoes. We were in the fifth grade, and from the day my parents and I drove up in our Ford station wagon, I knew he was trouble.

/> The movers got there about an hour after we did. I was sitting on the curb playing jacks when the big truck came flying around the corner, practically tilted on one side. I figured the driver was going to lose control of the truck for sure, and every valuable possession we owned would end up strewn all over the street.

Being the wonderful and unselfish little girl I was, my main concern was that my black Barbie didn’t lose a limb or anything in the process. Table lamps, my father’s eight-track tape player, and my mother’s dishes were all replaceable, but the hell if I was going to be able to replace my Barbie. She was my pride and joy. I had even painted her fingernails with glittered polish and made her a sexy dress out of the red bandannas my mother made me wear to bed so my pressed hair wouldn’t frizz up. Other than that, I was worried about my Snoopy Snow Cone Machine, and that was about it.

Jason and his parents lived directly across the street. He was outside that day trying to get some mail-order rocket to soar into the heavens. What a rip-off! The whole time I was watching him, the stupid thing never made it a yard off the ground. It was after about the hundredth try, when the movers had half the truck unloaded, that I noticed his ass rolling his beady eyes at me. I was using a piece of pink chalk to draw a makeshift hopscotch diagram on the street in front of my house when he approached me. His Kangol hat and leather bomber jacket made him look like a pint-size pimp. All he needed was a couple of gold teeth.

“Girl, you better quit! I’m gonna tell my momma on you!” I glared at him, smacking on a wad of Bubblicious like a cow.

“Little man, you better go play with your cheap broken-rocket and leave me the heck alone!”

He got all the way up in my face then. “Girl, don’t you be ordering me around! I’ll stomp your skinny behind into the concrete!”

“Oooooooh, I am sooooooo scared!” I rolled my eyes, chastising him.

Then, the miniature version of Shaft flipped me the finger, made a disgusting noise while he gathered saliva in his mouth, and then spit on my brand-new black-and-white saddle shoes. I beat his little ass too. We were the same age, but I had him by a good three inches in height. Milk wasn’t due to start doing his body good for a couple more years.

Two of the moving men broke the fight up. I accidentally scratched one of the men on the nose because I was not about to stop fighting until the fat lady sang. That’s when both our mothers came dashing out of our respective houses yelling, “Oh, my poor baby!” and things like that. It was mad funny. They took over, throwing our heads into their heavy breasts and feeling all over us to make sure there was no permanent damage. Jason and I just glared at each other like two sumo wrestlers ready for round two.

My mother helped me inside like I was handicapped. In actuality, I had never felt better in my life. I was the victorious one. Jason retreated to his house as well, and that was the end of it. My parents and I did just enough unpacking that night to get by, threw some sleeping bags on the living room floor, and munched down on some KFC. My Dad hooked up his eight-track, and I fell asleep listening to the harmonized singing of Earth, Wind and Fire. It was a Saturday.

I started school the following Monday and was anxious to get there to meet all the new kids. I rushed through a bowl of corn flakes and caught about ten minutes of The Flintstones before grabbing my tin lunch pail and running out the door to get to the bus stop on time.

The bus was about to pull off, and I was panting by the time I caught up to it in time to bang on the door, signaling the driver to stop. After I got on the bus, he asked me who I was. I explained I was a new student who had just moved. He snarled at me, his au naturel breath almost knocking me backward down the steps and back off the bus, “Well, you make sure your teacher gets your name put on my roster A-S-A-P ’cause I’m not supposed to be picking up no knuckleheads I don’t know! Now, find a seat, sit down, and shaddup!”

I searched for an empty seat and couldn’t find one in the front of the bus, so I started walking toward the back. All of the kids were checking me out, and some were even snickering. I noticed most of the seats were occupied, either by two girls or two boys, with the exception of the one in the far rear. A boy and a girl, obviously suffering from a severe case of puppy love, were seated there. He had his arm around her shoulder, and she was blushing from ear to ear.

I was ready to ask the driver if I could sit on the steps when I realized the only available seat was next to the horror film creature himself, Jason. He stopped playing with his GI Joe with the kung fu grip just long enough to smirk at me. I turned around and headed toward the front to beg the driver to ask someone to trade places with me, but he yelled at me again. “You taking too long! School starts in fifteen minutes! Now, sit your be-hind in a seat and shaddup!”

I scurried my ass back to the seat and noticed Jason had placed his knapsack on the vinyl seat beside him. “Could you move that, please?”

He didn’t respond, nor did he look at me, so I took the bag, threw it on his lap, and sat down. He was about to be a smart aleck, but I stopped him dead in his tracks. I rolled my eyes and gave him a head-from-side-to-side-with-afinger-snap combination. “Don’t say nothing to me, or I’ll give you an even bigger beatdown than I did Saturday.”