“How many times have you thought about it, baby?” he asked while trailing his fingertip down the center of my bare chest and causing me to shiver.
How many minutes are there in a day?
“I don’t know. A few.”
“So, you liked it?” he asked, eyes glinting.
“It was all right.” I looked away so he wouldn’t see the bald craving in my eyes.
Seth wrapped one arm possessively around my waist. “How about this? You stick by my side all night, and when people ask who you are, you tell them you’re my boyfriend. And you mean it. Then we’ll go get high.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, sensing this was a trap. “What does that mean, your boyfriend?”
“It means you’re mine, Hiroku, and only mine.” I opened my mouth to protest, and he placed his forefinger against my lips in a shushing motion. He traced the shape of my mouth with his fingertip and said, “In exchange, I will blow your mind whenever you want. We’ll do this thing together. You and me, all the way.”
“But you’ll still fuck around?” I asked, knowing this offer came with contingencies.
“I can fuck around without any emotional attachment. You can’t.”
“You don’t know that.” I hated it when he made assumptions about me. I especially hated it when I suspected he might be right.
He stared at me like he was trying to tunnel his way right into my soul, like a wood-boring beetle. “I have your name tattooed on my chest, Hiroku. I spend all of my time with you. I made you sign a contract with the band. You have more of your stuff at my apartment than you have at your own house. I asked you to marry me, which you blew off. What more of a commitment do you want from me?”
“I want you to be faithful,” I said stubbornly. It didn’t seem like a lot to ask, but it made me feel so weak and needy to say it out loud.
“You are the only person I’ve ever loved, Hiroku, and I will never leave you. You know in your heart that’s true. We have a cosmic connection.”
That was Seth’s way of demurring, but he wasn’t wrong.
“So, you’re saying that if I only have sex with you, you’ll get me high whenever I want?” Maybe if I said it out loud, Seth would realize how messed up it was.
He gave me a reproachful look. “No, I said that if youcommitto me, I promise to take care of all of your needs—emotional, mental, sexual, and metaphysical. And you know I’ll do a good job of it.”
He reached down into my pants, squeezed me hard enough to bring me to the edge of pain.
“No one knows you like I do,” Seth said and kissed my neck, then scraped his teeth against the tender skin of my throat like a gothic vampire stripper. “Please say yes to me, baby. Just this once. I only want to make you feel good. Pretty please?”
I felt myself slipping into my old ways, falling under his spell, but what was I gaining by holding out? I could walk away from this arrangement at any time, and if another man caught my eye, I’d deal with Seth’s jealousy then. Besides, I doubted anyone else could give me what Seth provided, so specifically curated to my needs and magicked from the heady mist between us. He’d created me, after all.
I sighed into Seth’s shoulder. I couldn’t bring myself to say yes.
But I also didn’t say no.
NOW
The word “addiction” has Latin roots. It meansto enslave. The Latin translationproclivitasliterally meansa steep descent.
I think the most shocking thing to me now, looking back, is how quickly my addiction took hold. And how all-consuming it became. How the things I once cared about became less important. My thoughts were never without that background buzz of need, which grew louder and more insistent the closer I thought I was getting to my fix. Choices that would have once given me great existential grief, or at the very least, made me pause to reconsider, I began to make somewhat effortlessly if it meant getting me closer to getting high.
I suppose that’s where the shame comes in too. Because as my addiction grew, my personhood diminished so that at times I’d look in the mirror and see nothing of my former self, only the shell of my insatiable craving. A mask I wore for my parents or my schoolmates in order to live this dual existence, knowing I could only keep it up for so long before the whole charade fell apart.
All that time I’d been struggling against Seth for a sense of self, but my addiction claimed that almost immediately. I was a slave to it, and the descent was indeed steep and swift.
THEN
My curfew had always been a limiting factor in my relationship with Seth. I never viewed it as a reasonable boundary given to teenagers by parents who gave a shit. It was an obstacle to be overcome, and perhaps if I was more available, Seth wouldn’t feel the need to seek sexual gratification from others. I’d been systematically testing the fence and trying to get around my curfew ever since Seth turned his lusting gaze my way.
To be able to fit getting high into my schedule meant several things had to fall away. Seth insisted I drop jiu-jitsu almost immediately. He didn’t come out and say it, though. Instead, he rearranged his schedule so that the only time he was available to provide me with drugs was during the times I’d normally be taking the class. After missing a couple of weeks, it wasn’t so hard to give it up altogether.
