Seeds of Fear

The third occasion was with another boy from school, a guy I'd known all my life. We were good friends, had never dated, but we also had a healthy interest. So we met every day after school at his house; his parents worked and weren't due home until well after six. We would sit down in the living room for an hour or so and dutifully do our homework, and then after a while the tension would get so great that I would put my hand on his crotch, and he'd slip his hand into my sweater, up under my bra — I still wore underwear then — and I would squeeze, and then he would squeeze, and next thing you know, we'd fall right onto the floor, on his bed, on the kitchen table — I saw it once in this film called The Postman Always Rings Twice — or on his parents' bed. We even tried it standing up in the shower. We were too slick and giggled, and he kept slipping out, until finally we gave up and I just went down on him. That was nice, although not as nice as when he went down on me. It was like he swallowed every bit of me.

Our arrangement worked well until his mom arrived home early a few months later and found us fucking our brains out on her fine and fancy Oriental carpet with its knotted-by-hand threads. Sometimes I think where we were upset her far more than what we were actually doing. Anyway, that was the last I saw of him. My parents screamed at me, lectured me about being irresponsible — I wasn't; I'd taken the proper precautions; I wasn't about to get pregnant at my tender age — shouted that I was incorrigible, that I was a hellion and a tramp and a number of other adjectives, that I was headed for the D-home. Mostly my father yelled, while my mother cried and wrung her hands, and kept wondering aloud what they had done wrong. This from a woman who was pregnant at her wedding. I was what you would call an eight- pound preemie. Right.

I worked very diligently for the rest of the school year to be a pleasing, docile, oh-so-obedient daughter, someone my parents could trust.

Of course, I didn't stop screwing around. I just took more care, that's all.

The doctors lecture about guys having wet dreams. Women have them, too, only they're slightly different. My wet dreams started right after my first encounter. I would wake up just drenched in sweat, my breath rapid, my heart fluttering, my body tingling, and the sheets very moist under me. I knew what was happening. Inside would be that gnawing hunger, that appetite that I had to satisfy. I would get up, no matter the time of night, dress, and go run two or three miles out on the high school track. Then I'd let myself back into the house — all without waking my folks, who would probably have slept through the Resurrection — take a cold shower, and still none of that would relieve that fiery craving.

Nothing would until the next time.

I went through a lot of boys in high school.

Now, men sharing the same desires that I have are called satyrs after those Greek half-horse, half-human things that pranced around in olden times and fucked, plucked, and sucked anything that moved. Woodland deities, the dictionary says. Right. Deities, my foot.

Women like me are labeled nymphomaniacs. A rather cold and impersonal term, if you ask me, and one that has more than a little disapproval attached to it. I tell you, we got screwed with the terms, too. How come it's not satyrmania? Anyway, most of the time that long term for the women gets shortened to nymphs, which doesn't sound too bad when coupled with satyrs, as it were. Of course, sometimes guys think women who want it more than once a year are nymphs. I'm afraid quite a few females get tarred unfairly with that brush.

Still, both conditions, as my onetime therapist explained, are characterized by an excessive desire for sex. A frenzy for coitus. What a way to put it.

Takes some of the pleasure out of it, don't you think?

If you have to do something, it's no fun, right? It's a duty, God forbid. A burden. A chore.

And where's the adventure in that? Where's the enjoyment?

My pattern, after a number of years of fine-tuning, is fairly predictable.

I work, I leave at lunch, I find some guy to fuck. We screw our brains out. I leave him sleeping.

I go back to work. I get that feeling again. After work, I cruise by another bar, see what's being offered, get a good lay or two in. Go home and fix myself something to eat that's not human.

I get that urge again by bedtime. Sometimes I try to ignore it. Mostly I'm unsuccessful. Mostly I have to go back out one more time.

There's always room for one more, right?

I don't get much sleep, but hey, I don't seem to need it much anymore. I think my partners sleep enough for me. I like to lie next to them as they doze, snoring most times, and just watch them. I like to watch the rise and fall of their chests, like to trace the sweat across the mat of chest hair, like to lick the saltiness on their skin. Like to listen to them moan from some dream. I like to feast on them, sexually and visually.

I like it all, and I don't take weekends or holidays off.

I've slept with tall guys, little guys, skinny ones, chubby ones, bookish ones, and muscle men; even tried it with a woman once. Drew the line at a German shepherd, though. Just joking. About contemplating it with a dog, that is. I'm not that screwed up, believe me. The names, the bodies, the methods, have blurred after all this time. All I remember is the sex and the wonderful relief that it brought for me, even for such a short time.

Honey, I've tried it so many damned ways — I could probably add a page or two to the Kama Sutra. It's a wonder I don't walk bow-legged.

So what did I get out of all these hot and cold fucks, you wonder?

A lot of good sex. A lot of so-so sex. And a helluva lot of bad lays. But I think I had more first-rate times than bad. At least I remember the good more often than not. Selective memory, maybe, huh?

Maybe that was my hobby, after all. Finding the ultimate lay, the primo prick. The creme de la cream. Maybe.

After a while, after the years went by, after a decade or two passed, I decided that wasn't enough. I had to have the sex more frequently, with more partners, in many more variations.

I have to confess that, by then, my rather unbridled sex drive was frankly driving me up the wall. I wasn't having fun any longer. I didn't do anything but fuck. I was having a hard time paying my bills, going to work, even getting up in the morning and doing simple chores like brushing my teeth or getting dressed. My thoughts all centered on one activity. Sex, sex, sex. Too much of a good thing, as they say, sucks.

Something had to be done.

So I went into therapy.

What a mistake. Got nothing out of that except some exorbitant bills, and a clear understanding that those guys with the elaborate diplomas can pitch a first-class theoretical argument but don't know shit when it comes to real life. Plus they're not so hot in bed. Trust me on that.

So all the doctors I've ever visited have claimed this addiction, this craving, exists solely in my head. Not precisely. I know what they're saying, or rather what they're trying to express. It's fine for them to suggest one mode of therapy or another, it's fine for them, because they're not the one who experiences this hunger. I am. And believe me, it's inside me — not my head — and nothing they've ever recommended has helped.

Some termed it a fugue, but it's not that because I recall my acts afterward. Boy, do I ever. And some suggest a mania. 'Excessive enthusiasm,' says my dictionary about that word. Maybe that's the closest definition, because I am very enthusiastic.

The problem is, though, it's only gotten worse over the years. It's all I think about during the day. All I dream about at night. The only thing I crave.

I don't eat food much now, don't sleep much. Don't have any hobbies, or go out, except to pick up men. All I do is fuck.

I'm real tired — tired of fucking and being fucked.

Who's being devoured now?

I've given it a great deal of thought, and I think I know what I have to do to help myself, help get rid of that itching hunger inside.

I've made my preparations carefully, decided I've got to do something; can't wait any longer. I've gone to the store and bought what was necessary. I had the plastic bottle already, left over from one of the kits I bought some time ago. And I've mixed the proper amount — had to guess here, though, what with no recipe — of vinegar and water with the crystals.