“Hmmm, well if you talk to him like you do to me I can see why he’d say that.”
Her cheeks blush. “I guess you’re right.”
For a second I wonder if all of this sexy talk has been an act with her, but then she opens her mouth again.
“So if you’d screwed me when you had a chance, things really would’ve been so much simpler.”
“You and your pretty mouth.”
“Well I wouldn’t have to go see if this guy’s a creep or not.”
“True . . . but there’s nothing simple about me, Elle. And if I’d screwed you, you’d know that.”
“You love to taunt me don’t you?”
I stand up. “Just a little bit.
I want to do so much more than taunt her. It’s taking everything I have not to reconsider her offer. It’s not just the sex, there’s something about her that makes me want to know the sides of her she hasn’t shown me yet.
“This has been enlightening, but my number one woman is expecting me.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“Definitely. My mom is awesome.”
She pushes me in the shoulder. “Get outta here.”
Two days later I’m on my knees in her yard again. The grass is still damp, but warm and it has that freshly cut smell. I appreciate her Studio City neighborhood with the understated ranch homes with good-sized yards. It’s certainly different than some of the lame postage stamp-sized quasi yards on the other side of the hill due to the overbuilding epidemic. Crazy L.A. real estate.
Elle’s stretched out on the nearby chaise lounge sunbathing just to taunt me. If she hadn’t pushed her skirt up high and stretched out those long, shapely legs I’d probably be getting this job done more quickly.
She glances up from her magazine. “So you really don’t have a girlfriend?”
“Nope.”
“And you don’t do hook-ups?
“Not anymore.”
She lowers her sunglasses and gives me a skeptical look. “And you don’t miss sex?”
“Of course I miss it. Some days it’s all I think about, but I’m committed to this program.”
She pats the chaise lounge next to her. “Time for you to take a break. I want to hear all about this program.”
I drop the shovel, and lift up, brushing the dirt off my knees. She gazes at my body as I approach her. I can tell she’s checking out my junk again. There’s nothing subtle about this woman. I grab the iced tea she left out for me and down half of it before I sit on the chaise and stretch out.
“So this program? Are you going to be a priest? Is that it?”
I scoff. “Hardly.”
She throws her hands up in the air. “I give up! What then?”
“I’m doing this program my dad talked me into joining. It’s called AUL, short for Abstinence Until Love.”
“Seriously? And why did your dad think you needed to be a part of something so insane?”
I rub my hands hard over my face. She isn’t going to let this go. I’m not sure how to tell the story without sounding like a complete asshole.
“He walked in on me.”
“Screwing a girl? What’s the big deal about that?”
I fold my arms over my chest and keep my eyes focused forward. “He walked in on me with three women in my bed.”
“That you were fucking?”
“Well, generally speaking. I was only fucking one at the time but there was other stuff going on. We’d been at it all night.”
Her mouth falls open and she leans over and slaps me on the arm.
“You stud! You beast!”
“It’s not as impressive as it sounds. I practically gave Dad a heart attack and I was drunk out of my mind at eight in the morning. I didn’t even know the girls’ names.”
“Oh . . .”
“And the reason he came into my apartment is I was late meeting him on an important job.”
“Ooo, you really screwed up.”
“Big time. He threw out the girls and then made me take a cold shower. And the first thing he told me was that he was going to tell my mother, Millie, all about it.”
“The mom you mentioned adoring . . . your number one girl?”
“The very one. He knew it was the worst thing he could say to me. I’m her favorite and the apple of her eye. I can bear almost anything but disappointing her.”
I look at Elle and she actually looks distraught.
“Oh that’s awful.”
“So he gave me a choice. I guess he’d been hearing stories about my antics for a while. He said he knew I had a problem—that sex had become an obsession and my constant need to scratch the itch was ruining my life. Doing research he’d learned about this program through the church he wanted me to check out. If I was willing to commit to it for four months, he wouldn’t tell Mom.”
“Abstinence Until Love? That sounds like something a church would come up with.”
“I do it in conjunction with Sexaholics Anonymous, which isn’t run by the church. Although they let them use their community room for the meetings.”
She gives me the side eyes. “Are you kidding me?”
“It was a joke to me at first, but once I stopped rolling my eyes at the meetings, it started making sense.”
She licks her lips. “You were a sex addict?”
“I still am . . . always will be. It’s all about managing the disease.”
“Oh, the irony! You are a reformed sex addict and I am sex starved. What a cruel world this is.”
I give her a big grin. “It is ironic.”
She pushes her sunglasses back up and hikes her legs up so her entire thigh is exposed. “Well at least we have one thing in common.”
I look over at her.
“We both think about sex all the time.”
Elle’s in the house when I finish the repair and run a test to make sure that it works as it should. As I finish up I think about the part of my addiction story I didn’t share with Elle. I’ve never told anyone about the call I got from the health office two months after my wild foursome, that I needed to come in for testing. I never heard the STD’s the caller mentioned, since my mind went black and my body into shock when he mentioned AIDs testing. AIDs? Had I become so cocky with my lifestyle that I forgot I was playing with fire?
That was a week I’ll never forget, starting with punching a hole in my living room wall after the call disconnected and messing up my drafting hand. I ended up on my knees in church that night knowing full well that if I had one or all of the things the caller mentioned, my prayers won’t do me a damn bit of good.
That night I made a promise to God and myself that if I came out of this clean the next woman I took to bed would be the one I’d fallen in love with. Little did I know that love was a language I had to learn to speak, and after all this time I still haven’t found the girl who could inspire me to learn.
The humiliation of going for testing was profound and as I waited my turn surrounded by people I would have previously looked down upon, I realized that I was now one of them. As the minutes ticked by I promised myself I would never end up in this fucked-up situation again.
So no one knowing this would be surprised that I’ve stuck to my program religiously and have not missed a meeting. I knew the grace of God was with me when my results came back clean, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to test Him again.
I knock on the back door to let Elle know I’m leaving. When she swings open the door she’s got lipstick on and those sexy high-heeled sandals.
I swallow hard and try to look away as I point to the backyard. “You’re all set. I tested it and everything’s working as it should.”
“So no more lawn orgasms?”
I grin. “Nope.” I turn back to the yard. “Sorry, lawn.”
“Well, I suppose that’s good. Thanks for taking care of it.”
“No worries. Hey, you look nice.”
Too nice. I’m imaging her naked with just the heels on, my hands running up her inner thighs as I part them. I take a deep breath. I need to get out of here before I lose it completely.
She smiles. “I’m meeting that Tinder guy, Scott.”