Page 361 of Bad for Me

“Once upon a time, I was a normal man, just like you’re a normal woman.”

A soft smile spread across her face, sadness hiding at the edges of it.“Normalis a matter of opinion, I think.”

7

JUDAS

The weekly counselingsessions started as a way for us both to cope with our issue–her on the outside, me in secret. And not a single one of our sessions left me feeling like I’d conquered the demons rising inside me. After about a month of seeing her every Monday for a two-hour stint of wash, rinse, repeat mantras and coping mechanisms, I was falling further into the clutches of this sickness in my mind, not climbing out of the pit, and it was beginning to frustrate me.

I took myself in hand damn near every night now, and each time I saw Scarlett for her ‘counseling’, the urges got worse. Last week, I’d had to excuse myself from the middle of the session to ‘relieve myself’, but not in the way she might’ve assumed.

Ashamed though I was to admit it, I had snuck off to my bathroom to rub one out.

It wasn’t her fault–I didn’t blame a single second of this lust-fueled haze on her. No, she simply existed, and I was weak–too weak to get a grip on reality and control these urges rising in me.

It all came to a head this week when she’d worn that pretty little skirt that rode up her thighs whenever she crossed her legs, shifted, or breathed. And her shirt–fuck, it was so white, had she been wearing a darker bra, I’d have seen right through it to her underthings.

I was a goner, and there was no stopping this train of thought once it’d left the station.

So, on Tuesday, I decided that if I couldn’t control myself and my thoughts, I’d have to recommend that she see someone else for her spiritual guidance.

It made me feel stupid, like I was a failure, but I could do nothing about it. I had to take the best course of action to keep us both on the path of righteousness, of holiness, and if that meant admitting I was not strong enough to handle this, then so be it.

But a sick part of me inside urged me on. I wanted to taste her, to give in to these sinful thoughts and take her into my arms. Feel her warm body against mine.

It hadn’t been that long ago. I knew what it felt to have someone lying next to you at night, not a strip of clothing or an inch of air between us. I might’ve agreed to give that up for the church, but it didn’t mean, as a man, I simply stopped yearning for it.

We always want what we cannot have. It’s the biggest fallacy in human beings.

And I was nothing if not human.

With a heavy heart, I had just settled into my fireside armchair with a bowl of popcorn and an old classic movie, when a knock on the door roused me and dragged my mind away from the alluring, lingering thoughts of Scarlett McKeen and into the present.

I answered the door to find my front porch empty. The absence of anyone there confused me more than anything else, but I shrugged it off and sat back down, only belatedly noticing the gusting wind outside. Managing to get halfway through the movie was easy, and I forgot the strange knocking until it happened again.

This time, though, I recognized it when I opened the door and spotted a tree in the front yard bent halfway over, slamming persistently against the side of my house. If the hazy horizon was to be believed, a storm was blowing in, bringing gale-force winds and a sheet of rain.

My mind darted to the saplings on the riverbank.They’re not secure enough. The wind will rip them from the ground.

Of singular mind and purpose, I strode to the hall closet and yanked out the closest thing to a raincoat I owned–a windbreaker. It would provide me little to no protection from the storm, but it was better than nothing. After stopping to procure extra-long stakes, a hammer, and some rope from the shed, I grabbed my bike and huffed my way to the riverbank, where the saplings struggled their hardest against the wind.

By that time, the rain was coming down so hard that I could barely see ten feet in front of me, but I could certainly hear the soft swearing of a familiar voice, fighting with one hand around a fallen sapling’s trunk and the other tugging on the loose ties.

Of course Scarlett would have come out here to save her fucking trees.

My phone was emitting a hurricane warning, and here she was, clad in nothing but a pair of blue jean shorts, a cutoff white tee, and her tennis shoes. That long mane of vibrant red hair was tied up in a high ponytail at the top of her head, and as she turned her head to find the hammer lying on the ground beside her, it swished merrily along, blowing in the wind, oblivious to the storm raging around her.

Fucking Christ on a wheat thin cracker, this woman was insane.

“Hey! What are you doing out here?” I shouted, jogging to catch up as she worked tirelessly to save the tree.

She spared me barely a glance as she tugged the new anchors into place with a huff. “Haven’t you heard? There’s a hurricane blowing in. I had to make sure the saplings could stand the wind!”

I understood and appreciated the hard work she’d done here more than most people might, but for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t worth risking your life out here–

And then I stopped just as I opened my mouth, realizing that she’d infected my mind so much that my first thought had also been the same one she’d likely had.

Save the fucking trees.

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