Addiction & Salvation

I lay there feeling sorry for myself. I felt a calming wind brush over me as I momentarily closed my eyes and thought about how beautiful the night was. It was an odd thought and I seemed to be having many of them. As everything became numbing it was as if every detail had become precious. Beautiful even. It took me away from the pain briefly but it all came flooding back to me again, and I winced.

The night was quiet. You couldn’t have asked for a more peaceful night. The leaves swirled harmoniously in the gentle breeze around me, as the trees made their own symphony of calming music. Back and forth... Back and forth... Whooshing and groaning as the old wood moved together with each gentle break.

As I frayed within and out of consciousness, the pain began to dull and suddenly I could no longer feel it. Although I was not paying enough attention to realize, my body lulled and I gave out that sterile blank stare. The type that comes over you sometimes when you go blank and find you’re gazing onto something intently, and coming towards the end of it you wonder if anyone had seen you turn into a zombie momentarily. It was like that. In the dimming of my mental light that was coming to a pinhole something else happened and like a flash of lightning my mind soared...



  “Tell me about your relationship with your mother”...

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I asked slightly frustrated, furrowing my eyebrows. I had that look about me that came on sometimes like a storm, and instantly I had turned from calm and inviting water to get the hell out of there Perfect Storm style.

I let out a brief smile so I could not see and began writing on the notepad in front of me. In capital letters I wrote the word ‘MOTHER’ and underlined it.

Lying back on the soft leather reclined chair, I calmed down. I was still slightly annoyed but as I relaxed I took a deep breath.

Through a pair of expensive Prada glasses I looked at myself. Biting the end of my pencil and with my leg comfortably wrapped over the other, moving it back and forth as I thought for a second.

  “That is interesting to me” I said making a few more notes on my note pad, “I noticed that you looked briefly to your upper right and then back down to your lower right... Which invites the argument that you just accessed memories and visually constructed them... I am assuming about your mother, and then accessed the part of your mind reacted to feelings; associated a bad feeling with your visual construction and became suddenly angry... Would you like to talk about that for a second?”

  “I am familiar with the work of Richard Bandler... Spare me the Psychology bull dust”

  “I know you are” I said smiling. I looked up from the plush expensive leather chair that I was laid back in and locked eyes with the one who was assessing me. That smile. That thin stretched out grin, as if I knew something that I did not.

The room spun slightly. I felt my head getting dizzy. I turned to my left and right as if fighting something. My hands drew out from my body in mirrors of a hundred, trailing after them in a ghostly blur. I did not know whether I was leaning from the lounge or the arm chair...

  “Maybe... You should tell me about the woman you are seeing”

Voices were clear and I knew where I was. I was looking from the lounge, staring at a picture of a pretty girl framed high over a desk. She had a sweet smile. Deep brunette hair, tied up in a neat pony tail. She was holding something. Something that she had won or an achievement of some sort. Whatever it was did not matter. Her eyes and face were most memorable. Not really the details and features that make her as an individual, but her face as a whole. Through it I saw her innocence, her desire for achievement, and her sense of purpose. Everything about her was common though and as I looked away I forgot her face but remembered the type of girl she was.

  “Where do I begin?” I said solemnly. “Well, I am seeing about three girls at the moment”.

  “A whole three?” I said feigning surprise. “Why three? Why not just one?”

  “I was seeing one once” I said. My eyes narrowed and I seemed lost in thought.

  “Why did you stop seeing her” I said prompting myself. 

  “We just grew apart...”

  I paused for a moment, “Honestly I guess when the problems started to appear I panicked. She would draw away and I would feel something dreadful...”

BANG!

The room shook. Bookcases rattled. Vases chimed. The picture on the wall shuddered against the wall. I didn’t notice.

  “It was horrible...” I spoke louder now. I was detested. I spat my words like venom on the tip of my tongue, “I never wanted...”

My voice trailed off as another loud bang echoed inside the room. This time the vase smashed against the floor, books from the bookcase toppled from their shelves, and the picture of the sweet girl fell from its hooks and smashed as it hit the ground.

I did not notice though. I continued to write down things on my notepad. Important things. Things of great concern and worry. Answers in a clear and concise manner.

I do not know why, but I longed to see what was written. I sat up from my lounge and a desperate looked crossed my face as I stared from myself and the notepad.

I do not remember the rest but I remember my facial expression. It gnawed at me like a dog on a meaty bone. There I was staring normally, but I was different. I knew the answers sitting with that notepad. I had all the answers.  With a beginning and a full stop and nothing in between. What I would have given to have read that notebook. What I would have given to be that person looking solemnly and confident having all those answers on the neat lines of my notepad...



I remember...



It was getting late. The moon was shining ominously through my driver’s side window. Enough to light up my features and that of the passenger who sat watching me with doting eyes. She held my arm, and shuffled as close as she could to side of her seat. Crooning and stroking my arm.

I stared straight on, uncomfortably trying to look confident and in control.

My hair sat messy with a handful of gel to keep it styled, but it looked more like a half hacked attempt to be cool when I knew nothing about the meaning. I was wearing my good going out T-shirt. It was black with thin strips running vertical. I always got compliments with this shirt. It was slimming and I knew it. From a kid growing up fat, it was good to give the illusion of being a normal weight. It had been months since I was at my heaviest though and I was still getting used to the idea of being a normal weight.

  The bass from my car system tuned in nicely with the atmosphere. I could tell she was into it; she looked as though she had a feeling of comfort about her, and it pleased me. She was pretty; blonde with blue eyes. Good fashion sense and the softest and plumpest lips you had ever seen. They sat perfectly against her feminine features and smooth pale skin. She wore those fake stick on nails, and had just the right amount of makeup on with an emphasis on her eyes. It made me think of her getting her nails done with her best friend that I see her with sometimes. It made me think of her smiling, ignorant of her social status as she chirped and giggled with her friends. Suddenly I felt more uncomfortable. Maybe she might see through me? What would she think if she knew that I never really had those friends and the luxury of that ignorance? I envied her.

I didn’t really know what to say, but I didn’t have to say anything. I think she could pick up of my vibe of not making any suggestions for the night and turned the other way pretending to be asleep. We were in that period of awkwardness where you have had a night out with someone and you end up driving around not sure whether to take the girl home or continue on with whatever comes next. Girls do the funniest things if you don’t make a move when they have been giving off obvious signals for the last few hours, but I didn’t realize at the time. I was still posing with my best ‘I’m cool look’. Which more accurately made me look a clueless dork with badly gelled hair and a wide eyes expression.   

I drove a big longer. She made a few turns and twists, all feminine and purposeful.

  “Should I take you home?” I asked coyly. Even at 17 I wasn’t stupid. I was good at reading people and I thought what she was doing was kind of funny, even though I was petrified of making any sort of move. I knew the games, I was just afraid to play.

She grunted softly, as if to say ‘I am way too tired to even speak right now’.

  I paused and then replied, “Maybe I should take you to my house just around the block, would that be better?”

She still made not audible response but nodded.

When we got into bed the lights were off and we lay facing each other. She touched my hand and it was like nothing I had ever felt before. Who knew human touch could be so sensual, so surreal. It embedded feeling in me of pure serenity and ecstasy.  I had never really ‘felt’ before. I disliked even a hug from a family member, as rare as that may have been, but this was different. This was beautiful...

We stayed up most of the night. An inch from each other’s lips, so close I could smell her strawberry lip gloss.

I wanted more than anything to do something more, but I couldn’t. How could I, the simple touch of her hand was a new world to me.



It felt like an eternity before I woke in another time and place...

I was in my bedroom. A naked beauty lay beside me and I pushed myself up against her to share my body warmth with hers. With each breathe she took, I in turn breathed. Slowly and gently, like the calming of swaying trees. I traced my finger down her naked arm, watching gently as it moved up and over her collar bone and ever so slowly moving up her neck. She moved in response and her breathing pattern changed. She was happy though I could feel it. Almost as if she was smiling from her position facing the wall.

  “I like that” She said in a half sleepy tone.

I continued to run my hands down her naked back, watching my finger tips indent softly on her silk like skin. My hands moved with passion. Like the sweeping of an artist’s brush I traced the delicate hidden nervous system of her body where I knew I could build pleasure, and right before she crooned and shuttered I kissed the indent of her neck closest to her back and could literally feel her body shake as she moaned. Then I retreated. I sat aside casually letting her compose herself and watched her almost instantly turn round hungry for more. I smiled. 

We made love as the sun crept through the veneer curtains, wrapped in my 1200 cotton count Egyptian cotton sheets. Nothing felt better than to be naked in them; especially with a woman by your side. I was gentle in my actions; dominate when I needed to be, but all with a graceful presence of purpose and confidence. I aimed to please. I had learnt early on that in the pleasure of others you gain 10 fold back in return, but I don’t think I was even interested in myself. I made no knowledge of it. My purpose was for her only, and the greatest satisfaction I could receive was her pleasure, and the greatest gift in return was her desire and love for me...



  “Do you have a different girl over every night? I bet you do?”

I wasn’t shocked by this question, but grinned at the reputation you gain when you speak nothing of your private life. Without bragging people have always sensed something about me, and create their own stories along with it. Arrogantly mistaking it as a well hidden promiscuity, but usually emphasising you three times higher than you could ever do by bragging.

I was tall, broad shouldered with an air of power and success, and a cheeky grin that would make you wonder what I was really thinking. I had grown tall, dark and handsome, but that was not what made me attractive and I knew it.

  “I don’t kiss and tell” I said placing a finger to my lips and continued to go back to work.

I don’t want them to assume that I am some kind of man whore though that is ridiculous. Nobody really understands. I have never had a one night stand in my life, and I am not looking for sex. I am a great seducer. One that never has a girl regret meeting you, or sharing your bed. I am the opposite. They wake up with a doted smile on their face and those ever familiar endorphins and adrenaline coursing through their body. That feeling of blossoming love. Of laced passion and that feeling of warm butterflies tickling at the pit of your stomach. Someone to confide in, to feel safe with, who will be faithful. The illusion is plastered in their mind...



A great wind howled around. Whipping at my face and arms as I tried to take deep breathes of air in. Tears rippled from the side of my face and disappeared in the wind. I opened my arms at the appearance of the sea. Something I feared and respected greatly. Who could not marvel at such an untameable force of such magnitude? What was the most terrifying, it was pitch black dark. You had no idea what was underneath, neither an idea at the possibilities below the surface. How scary... Not knowing, not being able to predict. It was terrifying.

  I held myself high regardless. I was not afraid. I would not cower to the unknown. I showed myself time and time again that fear is nothing to me. That I can accomplish anything. Years of positive thinking and reading a tirade of books. It was all crammed inside my head. Auto suggestion had kept it alive, and I was living proof that we had a choice. That we could make a decision that controlled our future.

This was nothing. Just another step. Just another goal to tackle, another obstacle to overcome.

I held myself as I cried. They were all gone. All the girls. Gone.

My driving force over the last years. They were my salvation, and my addiction. I had to let them go. What man would I be if I could not first love myself, and be comfortable alone?

  ‘No! Human beings are social animals... We need love... We need touch’.

I fought with myself constantly.

  ‘An addiction is still an addiction’...

I shook and cried, and gazed at the open ocean. I needed to feel overwhelmed. I craved it. Sometimes you need to know the feeling of the worst of the worst to realize that ‘wow I really can survive this’. To smile and move on...



Bang!

I was back in the lounge staring at the chaos around me. The world was closing in on me and the room was falling apart. I took a deep breath, and my body instantly felt calm. I watched as the roof flew off and the never ending sky became brilliant in my spectrum of vision. The walls where shattering and the floor were falling away in large pieces revealing a never ending blue sky all about me. My mind tried to coincide with chaos around me, telling me there was no way to understand, that this was too much for it. I wanted to be safe. I wanted to be in someone’s arms, but I could not.

I took another deep breath, and my mind subsided in its desperate attempt to form some sort of stability and logic out of what was happening.

  “We all die alone” I said tapping my pen against the notepad, looking at myself wisely, “You cannot control the outcome... There is no need try and understand everything that goes on around you”

  I fought with myself like so many times before, “but I am scared...”

  “Of what my friend?” I interrupted.

BANG!

Just as the last pieces of my earth fell away from me and a searing light erupted over me I awoke. Where I do not know, but wherever I was I felt peace. Not because I knew anything more than I did before, but because I was completely at a loss to where I was and the new sensations and place I was in. I smiled at the thought of my previous life. I was afraid yes, but I stepped forward regardless.