Vicious Cycle

              As the elevator door closed in front of him, John felt a wave of feuding emotions overcome him.  He felt completely relaxed, as his old stresses had been stripped away.  He felt completely on edge, as new stresses were quick to take the place of their brethren.  He felt an adrenaline rush like no other at the conquest he had made, the notch he just added to his proverbial head-board.  He felt his integrity hit a new low when he thought of those he had just betrayed.  He felt dirty when he thought of all those who had made use of this girl before him, and clean because the dark cloud that had been dragging his entire being into a dark world of sex and lies had vanished into thin air the moment he gave in to these desires.
         This was nothing new.  It wasn’t the first time he let the darkness overtake him, and if the circle repeated itself again, this would not be the last time.  These rendezvous’ were becoming more frequent, and they were becoming more expensive.  Surely he could not hide his credit card balance from his wife forever, but he didn’t really know what else to do.  He tried ignoring the urges as they grew stronger and stronger within him, ripping away at what little inner peace he had left, but he found he could only hold out for so long before it became too much to bear.  Giving in was much easier.  Humans will almost always take the path of least resistance, and he was certainly human.
         He stepped out of the elevator into the lobby and made for the door.  As he exited the hotel, he noticed a man walking towards him who gave him a nervous glance and a half smile, and then hurried through the entrance.  John turned around in time to watch the man completely bypass the front desk on his way to the elevator, and knew immediately why the man had appeared so shady.  “That must have been the way I looked about an hour ago”, was all he could think.  He dissolved the smile on his face as soon as he realized it was there.  He needed to hurry back to work before anyone realized how long he’d been gone.  He was a good worker on the verge of a very big promotion, and if he was caught in what he was doing, his marriage wasn’t all that would suffer.
         The next week was like a constant hangover for John.  He had fun that night, that was certain, and he’d used protection, so there wasn’t any fear of bringing home some exotic disease to share with his wife, but he still knew he had betrayed the one he loved the most.  The entire week was spent going through the motions of marriage, and doing the same at work, while every thought he had was concentrated on making that evening disappear from his memory.  He had learned long ago, through books, movies, and life itself, that the only way to truly get away with telling a lie, especially a big one, was to first convince yourself of that lie.  After all, you can’t be lying if you yourself believe your words.  And if he truly believed that he hadn’t just cheated on his wife, then it was not lying when he looked her in the eyes and spoke those words, if it ever came to that.
         The second week was spent with a newfound love of life and everything in it.  He went back to loving his wife as she deserved to be loved, spending quality time, actual quality time, with his daughter, and getting back into the groove of making things happen at work.  The evening he spent with the call girl two weeks ago became a distant dream, the dark cloud completely vanquished, and his spirit completely restored.
         At work, John was the go-to guy, the man everyone came to when they needed a favor, or when they had a job that needed to go off perfectly.  John was dependable.  He had spent a number of years, five to be exact, building that reputation and becoming that guy.  When something needed done, John was there to do it, but he was also careful not to turn into a yes-man.  He became adept at appearing too busy, every now and again, to do a particular favor until just after it was requested being done.  It was in this manner that he gained respect and admiration by his peers, and why his managers were looking for an opening to allow him to begin his ascent up that corporate ladder he had heard so much about.
         Lying awake in bed one night, John found his mind wondering to its usual locations.  Money worries were the thing that kept him awake the most.  Sure he made enough to pay the bills and put food on the table, all this while allowing his wife to stay at home and take care of their child, but the debt they had tried so hard not to accumulate was now a constant anchor that was weighing down his mind.  They didn’t have much; a couple thousand in car loans, about four thousand in credit cards, and of course a mortgage.  He was sure this was quite a bit less than your typical American couple, but it was just enough to keep any extra money he might receive just out of reach.
         John’s wife was not making anything easier.  He loved her with all his heart, and she loved him in the same manner, maybe more, but ever since Courtney was born, hell, since about two months before she was born, his wife had turned into an unpredictable mess.  Some days he came home to find her face aglow and lust in her eyes, and sometimes he came home to a woman who had the fire of Hell raging through her entire being.  He never knew which Amy was going to greet him at the door, and the nervousness and tension this brought on twisted his insides on the way home from work and kept him from relaxing, from releasing the troubles of the day.  Sure, she was hormonal from going through pregnancy and then the actual birth, and he understood that she was at home all day long taking care of a completely helpless, completely needy human life, but damn it, his days were hard, too.  He worked his ass off all day, every day, and sometimes after a long day at work, a long day of solving everyone else’s problems, he just wanted to come home and relax.  Maybe sit on the couch, watch SportsCenter and drink a beer before solving all her problems, too.
         A lyric by Paul Simon popped into his head, “I am a rock, I am an island”.  Sometimes John felt that the mood of the entire world hinged upon his reactions, his stability, and his ability to cope with the unexpected.  It was probably a selfish thing to think about, but while he was strong, calm and collected, everyone around him was at ease, no matter what kind of catastrophe had just arisen, whether it be a huge mistake at work that made its way to corporate, or a glass of spilled grape juice on the carpet at home.  But as soon as John let the stress get to him, and let that stress show, it seemed the world would crumble around him, like he was the energy source feeding those closest to him.  If he was sending out good energy, the world was at peace no matter what, if he was sending out negative energy, the most innocent of transgressions was magnified and exploited to a degree he did not realize was possible.  He was a rock, and he was an island.
         Things had gone relatively well for a couple of months.  Progress was being made on all fronts at home and away from it, but the gnawing sensation that he was the glue holding together his little piece of the world would not shake.  He and Amy had been fighting a lot, and frankly he lost the ability to care any more.  It did not matter if he came home in a good mood or a bad mood, or if he tried to be caring and supportive or not, her moods were, at least to him, completely unpredictable and completely unwarranted.  It never occurred to him that maybe she was just as frustrated as he was, and looking for a break herself.  He never thought that maybe she was tired of taking care of a baby by herself, and maybe she would like a little help around the house.  All he thought about was that working all day was no easy task, and a little less nagging would certainly be appreciated.
         It was then that he started noticing the black cloud reforming above him.  He could see it in the distance and a little piece of him already knew what that meant.  Somewhere deep inside, where even he was afraid to look sometimes, somewhere hidden back in the shadows, a little piece of him rejoiced.  It was this little piece of him that always welcomed the dark cloud whenever it first started rolling in, and maybe it was this piece of him that would not allow that cloud to stay gone for good.  Was this who he truly was?  Was this little piece of him that he tried so hard to keep hidden away his actual self, whom he had spent so much time covering up behind different public masks and disguises?  Or was this the piece of him that is present in all addicts, whether it be drugs, booze, or in his case, sex?  It was hard to tell.  He had never been addicted to anything serious before.  There was caffeine and nicotine, which he had kicked at the first realization of addiction for fear of allowing his life to be run by a foreign substance, but he was unsure exactly what hard addiction felt like.  If this was truly him, then there was no choice but to keep it buried, society would not allow a monster like that to walk amongst normal folk for long, and if this was an addiction just like all others, well then, he was royally f*cked wasn’t he?  He couldn’t exactly tell his wife, or his boss, or his family or friends that he was addicted to extramarital sex and needed help kicking the habit.
         He had always like variety.  Change was something he craved, and the brand-new feeling that came with change was something he had always basked in.  The Godfather was his favorite book, and the constant change that came with the life of crime was always something he secretly admired.  He had always liked stories of pirates, and he had always rooted for the bad guys in the movies.  He empathized with them.  He knew they always got what they deserved, and he knew if they ever got away then life as we know it would be turned upside down.  But it would be change, it would be different, it would be refreshing.  It was this view on life that allowed the little dark creature to hold on to the back recesses of the mind, and what allowed him to convince himself every time he gave in to that creature, to that darkness, that it hadn’t really happened.  That wasn’t him.  And if it wasn’t him, then there were no problems, were there?
         He started to find himself searching the internet for pornography at work.  He knew he would be fired if caught, and every time the phone rang he just knew it was his boss calling to inform him that they had noticed his drop-off in production, did some research, and found out why.  He had already prepared his “there must be some mistake” story.  Even though he knew it was wrong to do this on company time, while they were paying him to work, he just couldn’t resist the allure of seeing a strange woman, a different woman, enjoying the thrusts of pleasure being provided to her.  It was the same video every time; of course the characters were always different, but they were always involved in the same act, and there were only so many positions, and so many camera angles you could see before it became the same old game with a new set players.  Still, he couldn’t avert his eyes.  He could not bring himself to steer away, and it wasn’t long before he found himself carrying paper towels from the bathroom to his desk for cleanup.
         His sex life at home was not bad, but it was the same act with the same old cast every single time.  There was no variety there, Amy would never allow it for fear of angering her dead Catholic mother, and after he found himself spending a good portion of his days gazing at variety, staring it right in the breasts, he began to crave that variety, and he began to dread where these cravings would lead him.  But deep inside himself, in a dark shadowy corner where only he could go, and even he didn’t go often, the creature within him rejoiced at these cravings, and this creature was becoming more and more active as it began to see the effect it was having on its carrier.
         John began signing up for online “adult” dating services.  He had done this before to no avail, but it could not hurt to see if this dark cloud could be rid of him for free, minus the membership costs of the dating sites, of course.  He checked his credit card balance and found it to be about the same as the last time he started to feel the darkness overtaking him.  If he had done it before and gotten away with it, surely he could hide his spendings again.
         Amy seemed to notice John becoming more and more distant, and John noticed Amy noticing.  He tried to go out of his way to make her feel special, but nothing he did seemed to close the gap that was forming between them.  This gap was nothing new, either.  It always appeared about two to three weeks after the dark cloud started forming.  They had their good days, and he tried to remain a good father to Courtney through it all.  This was the first time he had experienced this darkness since she had been born.  Prior to her birth he swore to himself he was just going to have one last romp as a childless man, and after the baby was born he would give it up for good.  Apparently, that was going to work just as well as the “one last romp before getting married” bit.
         It didn’t take long for John to realize that the “dating” services were leading nowhere.  He met plenty of women online this way, but no one seemed interested in more than casual flirting, which only led to stronger desires.  “Alright, then”, he thought to himself, “it’s off to the escort sites”.  He was amazed at the quality of escorts that were available in his area.  They were pretty much the same ones he had sorted through just a few months ago, but he had forgotten their beauty, their allure, and most of all, their availability.  He had always thought prostitution should be legal; after all, if a woman enjoys sex and a man is willing to pay her for it, what’s the problem?  But it was times like this that reinforced his viewpoint.  Here were so many beautiful women, with perfect curves and inviting smiles, who were just trying to make a living.  Who was he to hold them back?  Hell, he would even pitch in a little.
         He was in complete turmoil a week later as he left work on his lunch break.  The rational part of him could not stop thinking about his wife and daughter, and what would happen to their world if ever they were to find out daddies little secret.  Amy was insecure about herself anyway, and always had been.  Finding out about this part of his life would tear her to pieces.  Courtney would not understand yet, but eventually she would be asked, and have to give answer to, the questions about where here father was.  This same rational part of him was thinking of his job.  What would he say if one of his co-workers found his vehicle parked in front of a hotel at lunch?  How would he explain his visits to websites dealing with escort services to his employers?
         The little creature, or darkness, or his true self, however you wanted to view it, that lived in the dark corners in the recesses of his mind, was starting to make its way out into the open.  As it came to the forefront, it began dispersing these thoughts so full of reason and forcing them back into the dark corners from which it had just emerged.  His fear was dissipating with each block he traveled, and in its place came a sudden rush of adrenaline that produced butterflies in the pit of his stomach.  He was becoming a different person, and this person he was becoming was so full of anticipation and longing that he could hardly think clearly enough to find his way across town.
         As the elevator door opened in front of him, John felt a feuding wave of emotions overtake him.  He felt anticipation for the conquest ahead.  He felt excitement for the opportunity that awaited him.  But deep within him, a tiny little creature, hidden in the shadows in the recesses of his mind, let out a barely audible cry of protest.  “What about your family?” it asked.  “What about your job?”
         “They will never know”, said the new John, the darker John that was now in control.  “No one will ever know, because after this is over, even you will become convinced of its non-existence.”
         John walked up to the door leading into room 408 and knocked three times.  His request was immediately received, and when the door opened away from him, he saw one of the most beautiful women he had ever laid eyes on.  She had curly blonde hair cut to just above her neck, long silky legs highlighted by sexy black stilettos, and was showing him everything she had to offer, which was quite a lot, behind a sheer black nighty.  She embraced him in a warm hug and immediately indulged him in a deep, slow French kiss before pushing slightly back from him.  “Do you have my tip ready?  I need the money up front.”
         This was not the first time he had heard this line, and if the vicious cycle repeated itself yet again, it would not be the last.  He reached in his back pocket and pulled out an envelope stuffed with twenties.  He was already completely relaxed, and thoughts of how to convince himself that this never happened were the last thing on his mind.  But he would convince himself of that.  He would make himself believe that story, because if he believed it, then so would everyone else.  Only his credit card statement would know the truth.