Lauren Blakely: The Thrill of It

Nobody has ever heard me for real. Nobody but Trey.

I don’t hang with Ainsley much either, but she’s new and started a few weeks ago. Teachers are her vice. She lost her virginity to her high school music teacher, then proceeded to work her way through the rest of the arts departments before she started college.

I don’t say much to them at the meetings. They’re doing better than me, they’re further along. I’m too ashamed to tell them I miss the man who sold me, I’m dying for a boy in the group next door, and my own mother wants to set me up on dates. But I don’t have to talk today since we have a guest speaker.

Joanne puts her knitting down and introduces a woman named Danielle, keeping it first names only, as always. “She’s twenty-five. She’s a total rock star because she’s been on the wagon for —” Joanne turns to Danielle as the two women sit down, “—how long?”

“Four years,” Danielle says. She’s thin, with pointy elbows and sharp cheekbones. I wonder if she has an eating disorder, if she’s anorexic and just channeled one addiction into another.

Maybe Danielle will tell a tale that will remind me of me, that will help me move on, that will let me heal. But I don’t even know what I’m healing from, except myself. My own bad choices. My own horrid decisions that brought me here. But yet, how can they be so awful if I miss them? If I desperately long for those moments. When I walked into a job, I savored the power, the control, the dominance. When my heels clicked, and my hair swished, and my lips shone, I thrilled to be in charge.

As Danielle talks, my mind starts to drift, to return to that heady rush of a call from Cam, a booking from Cam, reporting back to Cam. The money was irrelevant. It was never about the money. It was about the way all my senses tripped into supersonic speed when his name appeared on my phone, when he delivered the details, the things to say, do, and not say or do.

Wear the red satin dress from Bloomingdale’s when you have dinner at Le Cirque with David. Ask him about business and be fascinated with everything he tells you about computer chips.

Handcuff Saul and run your nails down his back.

Scold Carter sharply when you “catch” him masturbating in the hotel bathroom.

Walk up to Robert and ask him to dance with you when Prince starts playing at the nightclub in Soho.

John wants you to bathe him in a bubble bath. Quietly. Say nothing.

Everything was clear. Everything was decided in advance.

I flash back to the jobs, hearing bits and pieces of Danielle’s requisite story — how she desperately wanted men to think her pretty. She was told she was never attractive as a child because she was fat. “Good thing you have brains, girl,” her mom told her.

That snaps me out of my daydreaming.

My jaw tightens because who would say that? My mom would never do that. My mom would never tell me I was ugly. She would never put me down in that way.

“But I was a smartypants and I figured out pretty quickly that I could be skinny if I threw up,” Danielle says. Yup, she’s a cross-addict, went from food to men. “And it became a game to me in a way. It was all about control. And then I thought maybe there are other things I can control too . You all know where this is going of course. But I’ll tell you anyway. I thought I could control men and sex. Getting the boys to notice me, the fat girl who was now skinny, became my new project. And if a boy didn’t notice me, I’d amp it up. Wear shorter skirts, tighter shirts, flirt more. And boys became like the ideal weight on the scale — this thing I wanted and had to have. I didn’t sleep with any of them. I was a virgin when I graduated from high school.”

I look away, feeling a strange twisting in my belly. I don’t want to hear her story anymore.

“And I justified my behavior. Because I didn’t do much with any of these guys. Made out, kissed, a little more. But by the time I was graduating, I’d made out with a couple dozen guys in my school alone. Even though I never did more than kiss.”

Never did more than kiss. Those words echo, then circle me, threaten to ensnare me.

I push my chair back and mutter “Excuse me.”

I leave the room and walk down the hall to the bathroom, clutching my stomach on the way. I feel like I’m going to throw up. My stomach churns and twists. I push open the door to the church bathroom and it’s freezing in here. It’s May so how can it be so cold? But it’s like they’re pumping ice into this bathroom. I jam my hand against the door of a stall, pushing so hard the metal smacks the inside wall. I shut the door and kneel down on the floor, pulling my hair back into a makeshift ponytail to protect it.

But nothing happens. Nothing ever happens. I never barf. I never wretch. I don’t even dry heave. I just feel sick to my stomach, so I come here, and I kneel, and I wait, as my gut tightens, like two hands are grabbing my insides, gripping them. I stay like this for a few minutes. Then I flush, flushing nothing. I stand up, leave the stall, go to the sink and wash my hands.

It’s quiet in here, so quiet. No one is talking, no one is telling stories, and I find the silence a relief. I think of Cam, of how being his made me forget the noise that had surrounded me. With every gig, I was erasing all those sounds I grew up overhearing, erasing the part I played at all those dinner parties, all those dates she set me up on.

So one note to Cam won’t hurt. It won’t set me back. I take out my phone and send off a note to Cam before I can even think about what I’m doing, before I can even contemplate.

Hi. Missing…

I stop typing the message. What am I missing? Him?

I return to the keys. I know what I’m missing. I know what I want. I want Trey.

Badly.

But I can’t have him.

Last night when he wrapped his arms around me by the subway entrance, when I ran my nose along his neck and inhaled him, when his hand brushed my back and I sighed like I wanted him again – that only reminds me now of how vulnerable I felt the one time with him so many months ago. We’re not together, and we can’t be, so how can I live with being vulnerable, with wanting, with feeling?

I don’t know how.

I don’t have a clue.

Love isn’t a quilt. Love isn’t patient, love isn’t kind. Love is a game, a chase, a thrill. Love is wild and war-like, and every man and woman must fight for themselves.

I can play the game.

I can control love.

I need to feel in control. I need to hold the world in the palm of my hands, my world, my life, and be the one who sets it in motion. The only one. I’m not controlled. I control.

I finish the message to Cam.

Hi. Missing things...

I hit send and return to the room. Joanne gives me a faint sympathetic smile. I don’t look at Danielle the rest of the meeting. I spend the time contemplating my fingernails and considering how to finish the next chapter for Miranda.

When the meeting ends, Joanne asks me to hang for a minute. I pour a cup of coffee from the coffee pot on the table as I wait. It tastes bitter and sludgy, but I drink it quickly while Joanne makes small talk with Danielle and Ainsley.

Then they’re gone and she turns to me.

“Hey, Layla. Everything okay?”

I nod several times. “Just peachy.”

Just peachy? Who says that? What is wrong with me? But I have to act like I mean it. Like I’m peppy and healthy. Otherwise she’ll know what I was up to. Sneaking off. Texting my drug.

She raises her eyebrow, noticing my weird word choice. “Danielle really bugged you, huh?”

“No. Not at all. Not one bit,” I say. If I lied to mother, to my flesh and blood, to the woman who raised me, I can lie to this lady.