Love Addiction ©
“She could feel his hot body against hers. Her wetness matched his wetness. Fresh from her bath scented with Crabtree & Evelyn’s Rosewater Gel, she tasted sweet and delicious and ripe.
Eagerly his mouth met hers. His tongue searched for hers as he drank in her juices, hungry for every drop her mouth would release.
She closed her eyes. In her mind, she could still see this Greek god before her, his black hair, the hint of a devilish grin, his dark, dancing eyes, his broad shoulders, strong body and tight, muscular stomach pressed against her soft belly.
He moved against her, around her, rhythmically, not entering her now but delighting, instead, in teasing and hearing her low moans, her warmth, her desire for him.
She knew that self-satisfaction permeated his inner fibre. She was his and he knew it. Despite her marriage to Kevin.”
Carolyn stopped typing on her computer and lit her Virginia Slims cigarette. She reread what she just wrote. Funny, she thought, how she felt horny whenever she wrote a sex scene. She laughed at her silliness but couldn’t deny that tingling twinge in her loins.
Two months ago she had moved here for isolation, leaving behind the man she loved because he was married. Determined to free herself from the bondage of being emotionally dependent on someone else, she decided to return to writing romance novels. They supported her well.
The trouble was, she sighed as she sauntered into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of Starbucks coffee in the To My Sweetheart mug he had brought her from one of his out-of-town trips, she still couldn’t suppress her sexual longing for him. Face it, Carolyn, she said aloud, you miss the sex.
Not only the sex, she answered herself honestly. “I miss…him.”
She vacillated between hating and loving him. She hated his control over her. But she loved the little endearments that made him human. Like his touch, his habit of snapping bills when he was paying a restaurant bill, the way he rolled his eyes skyward when she tried to tell a joke, the smell of his body after he’d dug in the soil of her small backyard garden, the ‘dirty’ talk he whispered in her ear while he was making slow deliberate love to her, his passionate plea, “I’m coming….I’m coming….come with me” as he reached his frenzied climax.
Carolyn picked up her To My Sweetheart mug of steaming Starbucks with its double cream, one sugar, and moved slowly into the living room. She sat by the large bay window and stared at the house across the street.
It was an interesting house. That is to say, its occupants were interesting.
The house itself was boring. The standard red brick, two-storey, centre door plan. She could picture the living and dining ‘L’ with its mandatory fireplace on the right, the panelled family room on the left, and in the centre, just as you enter, the stairs leading to the second floor and the three bedrooms plus a den and two-and-a-half baths. The master bedroom was in front. Carolyn knew this because when she wrote late into the night she saw the blue glow from the television in their room.
She did not know the couple but she had seen them and wondered what kind of relationship they shared. They appeared close. The woman was attractive with short, auburn hair and he was slightly on the paunchy side. Both in their mid-forties she guessed. The woman seemed friendly and fun. He looked serious but steady.
Every morning he left for work, wherever that was, at 7:35 a.m. At 8:30 a.m. the two children, a boy and girl, waited outside for the school bus. And at 9:30 a.m., almost every weekday, a blue Honda Civic would park somewhere along the busy street. A short, dark man would get out and disappear behind the house across the street. At precisely 11:30 a.m. he left, walking briskly from the house, sometimes glancing back. Carolyn often caught sight of the auburn-haired woman standing in the den window, waving to the short, dark man. As the blue Honda Civic slowly turned around and he drove back in front of the two-storey house, he always honked. Not once but four times. As if it was a code between them.
Carolyn was intrigued by this regular routine of the short, dark visitor to her neighbour. She was certain the auburn-haired woman was having an affair. She grimaced as the thought. She was once in that position. Deceived and deceitful.
She glanced at her watch. It was almost 9:30. The short, dark man should be along any minute. She sipped her coffee. She stubbed out her Virginia Slims. She waited.
That’s when she spied her auburn-haired neighbour in the window, looking anxious and depressed. My God, it suddenly hit Carolyn, she looks like I used to. Waiting. Hoping. Waiting…
The blue Honda Civic passed the two-storey house.
Carolyn’s eyes shifted to her auburn-haired neighbour in the window. She watched her follow the car’s movement, watched as the short, dark man got out of the car, looked around warily, locked the car door, and casually strolled towards the two-storey house.
Quickly Carolyn glanced at the window. For one moment her eyes locked eyes with the auburn-haired woman who was watching Carolyn watching the short, dark man.
Ashamed and embarrassed, Carolyn retreated into the shadows of her home, angrily cursing her carelessness. During the time she been aware of this drama across the street she felt like a silent partner, but safe and secure and smug in her hiding place.
Indeed, Carolyn admitted she deliberately used the scenario in her romance novel, filling in the blanks with her imagination and personal experiences. She had not wanted to be exposed as a spy.
Reluctantly she returned to her writing.
But at 11:15, her curiosity piqued again. This time she stealthily approached the window and stood silently behind the curtains. She carefully studied the house, her eyes darting to each window, searching for movement. She could detect nothing.
Yet promptly at 11:30 a.m., the short dark man emerged from the back of the house walking quickly, furtively, toward the blue Honda Civic.
Carolyn watched for her auburn-haired neighbour. She did not appear at the door. She did not appear at the windows. The blue Honda Civic blasted by the house. One. Two. Three. Four honks. The lovers’ code.
Carolyn stared at the two-storey house. There was still no visible movement. She was certain now her neighbour was frightened, guilty, perhaps, because she suspected Carolyn had figured out her illicit ‘other’ life.
As the weeks passed, Carolyn continued to write and watch the unfolding drama across the street. On weekends she studied the auburn-haired woman and her husband as they worked together in the yard. Their body language showed true affection. Sometimes he playfully patted her ass and she’d turn and laugh, a private moment between them.
What was this woman up to, wondered Carolyn? Did she love two men? Or was she just playing with the short, dark man? Or was he her lover because she craved excitement in her life? Was he married? Or was she caught in a tangled web of betrayal beyond her control? Often now, when Carolyn caught sight of the auburn-haired woman at the window, she sensed a change in mood. She detected a desolate air. Her neighbour looked pained, distraught. And in the past two weeks, the short, dark man in the blue Honda Civic had been late by almost an hour.
Carolyn empathized with this woman across the street she did not know and was tempted to befriend her. She understood the agony of being madly, totally, in love---addicted is a better word---to someone you could not have. Her own experience brought back the misery and loneliness of not sharing weekends, birthdays, holidays, with someone on whom you were emotionally and physically dependent.
She remembered, in particular, that birthday dinner at The Golden Palm she was looking forward to, one of the few times they dared to venture out in public together. He could hardly wait, he said. Then came that crushing morning, when she was so deliriously happy, and had danced into work only to find a box of Laura Secord chocolates on her desk with a note. “Dear Carolyn. I love you and always will. I hate to disappoint you but I must. I cannot have dinner with you tonight. I know Sandra and I are incompatible and she knows it, too. But she is honest and I want to be honest with her. I don’t want to be asked where I’m going tonight. I hope you understand.”
Understand? Honesty? What was he talking about….he who had promised her the earth, the moon and the stars for so long? The raw ache that swept through and settled inside her after she read his note was the first time Carolyn realized how futile her relationship was with this man. He had constantly hurt her, forever apologizing, and she, accepting. She had to get out, to save her own sanity, to gain back her self-esteem, to survive. Each time they made love and he went back to his wife, he ripped away another shred of her self-respect.
And so she understood, like a sister, what was happening across the street. She understood the pain this auburn-haired woman was enduring. How could she allow herself to sink to this level and lack of control? Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. For what? The mind can tell you the relationship is sick but the physical and emotional dependency is as powerful as any drug.
Thank God, she bit her lip, she finally found the strength to move to this side of the city. She left no forwarding address. Her telephone number was unlisted. She quit her job to write. She did not want to see him again---ever. She did not trust her reaction. She might, she shuddered, fall back into the old cycle because deep in the recesses of her mind she knew the addiction was still there, dormant but alive.
Across the street Carolyn sensed the seed of discontent. At the window, waiting for her lover, her neighbour looked wan, melancholy. Only when the blue Honda Civic appeared did she relax and smile with relief.
One morning, as Carolyn sat by the window with her To My Sweetheart mug of Starbucks with double cream and one sugar and her Virginia Slims, watching her neighbour’s house, the phone rang. Instinctively she picked up the receiver.
For one moment her heart stopped beating. After all this time, after all this hurt, it was him.
He had to see her, he said. He had gotten her number from one of her friends. He could never understand why she just disappeared like that. There was too much between them to end it like this. And then the fatal words, “I love you”, whispered tantalizingly, longingly.
The joy at the sound of his voice, the promise of his touch, the lingering spark in her loins, the overwhelming desire for the consummation of his love within her, the taste of his sex, seduced and overpowered her.
The next morning Carolyn watched the auburn-haired neighbour across the street watching her. Their eyes met. This time, though, it was Carolyn at the window. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting…..