Eve

"So Evelyn. When do you think this all started for you?"

She eyeballs him, considering. The metal chair is persistent under her ass, and she shifts, crossing her legs. Re-crossing them. Thinking back. Thinking back further.

"Early. Really early."

The words slide out of her too easily. She feels as though it should be difficult. Her throat should close around these sounds and turn them into high-pitched squeaks. But it doesn't. Her voice is liquid and rich. Powered by the constant fire raging in her internal furnace.

"How early?"

"Early. Like... twelve." Her lips are dry but not chapped, parched—she sucks them in to wet first the top and then the bottom.

The words may be easy. She may be easy. But the heat is not. It's voracious in its burn, exhausting the body and mind with its constant depleting need for more. More. More. The fire flickers in the way she sees the world, the way she moves, the way she stands. It draws the heat-seekers to her like a bonfire.

"That's… really early, Evelyn."

Evelyn wonders if she's the only one to hear the thread of interest under the recrimination in Gary's suburban do-gooder tone.

"Tell us about it?"

He shifts in his own metal chair; his poly-blend shirt strained at the belt and buttoned right up to his pudgy throat.

Is it his wife, or his mom, who presses that collar into pale blue crispness, nary a ring?

He looks uncomfortable, like an overstuffed, simpering sausage.

He probably does it himself.

She sips her coffee to hide her small smile, but Gary sees it anyway, his own lips turned down at the corners. The Styrofoam is soft against her lips as they move. "It was at my uncle's house. There was this... this hamper in the bathroom."

Murmurs of understanding simmer up from the group. People nod, encouraging her to go on even though they already know what she's going to say. Most of them had their own conversion somewhere. Some snake's temptation, the transition from pure and good, straight into carnal knowledge. The radioactive spider bite that turned the body magical, wakened it, roused it for the first time; the demon's lusty grip that never lets go.

That first fucking high. So incredible. So intoxicating. Fuck nouveau.

The spark that kindled the forest fire.

"I don't remember what I was looking for. Maybe nothing. I mean, I might have sort of … known… the hamper was off-limits. I wanted to know why. I found them under piles of laundry. The magazines."

The pages had been so vivid – still were – the glossy images etched into her mind. Every photo surged with the ripest, fruitiest colors she had ever seen. Very pink, very red.

Very, very wrong.

She'd turned the pages in a trance, unable to peel her eyes from the black dots splattered all over the pages. Impenetrable black censorship, blocking every point of contact, every place where flesh met flesh.

Where man met woman. Those black dots, she'd wanted to scratch them away. Thinking that in so doing, in looking underneath, she could relieve the foreign feeling slithering up and down her spine.

"It made me feel weird. Like I needed something, something like what the photos held. I didn't understand that what I needed was..."

She pauses, eyes darting around the room, confronting false sympathy and loosely veiled over-interest. "You know. What I needed was something I didn't understand yet. I needed an adult body; I needed hair where they had it. I needed to be touched. Later, I would understand that need. I didn't know what it was then."

Her hands go up, palms out as if to ward off an advance. "I'm sorry. This is really difficult."

Actually, it's not that difficult. She just feels she should say that it is. Because it isn't okay for a woman to be too comfortable with her sex. She feels society's pressure to pretend, to play coy, as a female should be. The demand not to be the Eve of the Garden, but a modest Evelyn, proper and non-threatening. False, in other words.

And it's what Gary wants. His smug, holier-than-thou, I'm-touching-my-pecker-through-my-pocket smile says more than words. It's what he's there for after all, to train her out of her instincts, to subdue her by telling her it's wrong.

"There's no judgment here, Evelyn. Everyone here understands."

No judgment, my ass.

She gives Gary a skeptical look consisting of a single eyebrow arch before going on. Speaking directly to him, she can feel the shape of the words as they come slowly out of her, all her intent making them round and heavy. "I've spent twenty years chasing that thing, not just sex. Depravity-I think, is the best word."

Her stare is pointed, the pause fecund, and Gary shifts, placing his folded hands atop his clipboard, ensuring it stays put in his lap. Eve frees him from her gaze, scanning the group but seeing just one man. His face-not the bullshit mask worn by everyone else. There's hard accusation in his eyes, his jaw clenching, unclenching.

"Go on." Gary's voice is very far away, reaching her through a long tunnel.

The man leans forward, elbows to knees, eyes like augers, drilling through her. His mouth a cynical line slashing the bones of his face, the pop of his knuckles filling the pause.

Crack.

Expectant silence.

Crack.

Now she speaks to him.

"Where I grew up, the house I grew up in had this alcove. I could sneak out of my bedroom. If I was really quiet, I could look down on the living room. I could watch whatever my parents were watching. They thought I was asleep. And this one night... I found that feeling again when... I don't remember what the movie was. I remember it was set in the south. That's about all I remember. Except there was this scene where the woman in the movie, she pissed her husband off somehow. To punish her, he bent her over his desk, lifted her skirt, and fucked her with a Coke bottle. It wasn't graphic, and it wasn't pleasant. But the way she … "

Eve falls quiet, fighting to find the words to explain. An Anais Nin quote rings in her own head, in her own voice, about living dark and rich and being dominated by a man while preserving her own feminism.

She opens her mouth to try to explain but doesn't get the chance.

"The way she walked afterwards." It's him, the knuckle-cracker, his voice a gravel path to hell.

"Ike," Gary says quietly. "Let Evelyn tell it."

"No. That's exactly it. The way she walked afterwards. That's what I wanted."

His face doesn't change, but Eve has the impression Ike's smirking at her. She gives him a sharp nod and a question. "Ike—is that short for something?"

There's no denying that he's smirking now. "Isaiah."

"Isaiah," she repeats, wondering why Gary calls her Evelyn but uses Isaiah's nickname. He probably thinks hers is too much encouragement.

"How old were you then?" Gary interrupts from his corner. Reffing.

"Fifteen maybe?"

"And do you want to tell us. How old were you when you first …?"

It's funny how she's expected to sit in front of all these people and discuss her sexual history, her most private impulses. While Gary, their guidance, their lead, he can't get the words out.

Fucking wanker.

"Sixteen."

"Young. Has it – your quest for the carnal, shall we say—" he giggles a bit, finding himself clever, clearing his throat and re-adopting his disinterested concern. "Has it caused a lot of problems for you?"

Eve smiles. Ever so slightly. Only on one side, the corner of her mouth ticking upward as she returns to her monologue, face pointed upwards as if thinking. But she's not. She's remembering.

"I got expelled when I was seventeen." She presses a palm to the metal under her thigh, shifting in her seat, looking up to see the man, Ike, do the same. Slouching back, just slightly.

"Go on."

"There was this... this guy. He transferred to our school from out of state. There was something about him. Something. Something I recognized. We got caught fuckingin the janitor's closet."

"Language, Evelyn."

She closes her eyes just in time to hide their upward flick of annoyance.

"So you got caught. By another student?"

"By the janitor. I got suspended for three days. My parents thought it was for ditching school."

"I thought you said you got expelled," Gary's eyebrows slant down, confused.

"I did. The second time. The dean caught me and Christy in one of the empty Quonset huts– "

"I'm sorry, Evelyn-Christy? Were you with a girl? Is that why you were expelled?"

"No, no. Christy was the guy. And I think it was my attitude that got me expelled. More than my actions."

"How so?"

She tilts her head to the side, still savoring that small smile. "I asked him for thirty more seconds. With my mouth full. He was not amused."

"Nor would I be." Gary's stiff collar seems to get tighter, pinching his voice up higher. She looks away, curling her lips in to hide her smile. It wasn't funny at the time; the Dean hollering at her to get up while she ignored him, but it's funny now. "So - did you graduate?"

"Of course I did. And I got my degree." Her tone implying that being a sex-addict does not make her a slacker.

"Mmmmhmmm. And the incident that brought you here?"

She shrugs, one shoulder perking up a couple of inches.

"The charges were drunk and disorderly conduct, indecent exposure. I was … in a parked car. Having sex in a parked car."

"If you hadn't gotten caught, Evelyn, would you be here? Please answer honestly."

The 'honestly' bothers her. A lot.

"Honestly, Gary? I don't think so. I don't really think I did anything all that wrong. The shame I feel is external. What I mean is, it's being forced to talk to you people about it, like I'm a molester or a thief. I didn't hurt anybody."

"So you're okay with yourself. With your sexual addiction problem?"

Wanker, she thinks again.

"I'm not the one who called it a problem. I'm not an addict. No offense to the group. I just like sex. But I know how to prioritize. Usually."

Gary sighs softly, holding his hands out, a Christ-like gesture. Eve looks away.

"What are you going to get out of this, then?"

She can't stop herself. She looks to Ike across the room, leaning forward again, the heel of his boot neurotically tapping against the floor. "Probably nothing."

Ike quirks a brow. Wordless but saying everything. A gesture like the flick of a hand on a switch, cavalier and cool, but acting as pitch into the flame. That feeling she chases, that provocative, naughty feeling, blooms in her guts. With an effort she slides her eyes away, looking back at Gary. "It's court-ordered, so …"

"You know, Evelyn... you do a huge disservice to those who are here by choice, to deal with their problem—"

"Who's here by choice?" Ike's voice cuts through Gary's, deep, a wisp of smoke signaling fire. "Show of hands."

A few go up, tentative things, like rabbits peeking out of a ground-hole.

Gary's countenance is self-satisfied, his palm up, laid flat in a gesture of see.

"Your choice. Not your wife's, not your buddy's. Yours." A voice to match the rest of him. Restless and powerful. Intense.

The hands are tucked away, and Ike sits back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. A blatant gesture of Fuck you, Wanker.

Eve can almost hear the insult hovering in the air.

Gary stammers, "Now look here, you guys. When someone you love tries to tell you that you have a problem—"

"The truth is, that they have a problem with you. With your lifestyle. They don't like it." Ike's face is a storm waiting to break.

Gary turns to him, "Okay, Ike. Why are you here? Tell us." He can't hide the accusatory tone tainting his inquiry.

How the hell did he get this job?

He's jealous of the man. Or maybe, jealous of his vitality, his power, the lean impatience and ferocious scowl.

"'Cause I married a frigid, fucking bitch."

Gary's sigh is audible throughout the hall. "Language." He sighs again, short and sharp. "So you're here to save your marriage?"

"It's too late for that." Ike looks at the wall, then back at the group. "No, not my marriage. But I'd like to see my kids, and my ex-wife"–he raises his hands, making quotation gestures with his index and middle fingers – "doesn't trust my priorities."

Gary looks sublimely interested. "Why do you suppose that is?"

Eve watches the two men interact, recognizing Gary's attempt to find any small way in which he betters him. This balding, pot-bellied, fifty-something, vagina-mouth masturbator trying to find an edge over Ike's cold steel, perfect disdain, thunderous presence.

Several people speak at once, answering Gary's question.

"People condemn what they don't understand…"

"Jealousy."

"Ike hit the nail on the head…"

"Being hyper-sexual is not the same as addiction…"

Ike, not fighting to be heard, pops another knuckle; his expression a secretive smirk aimed at her.

The room's broken into several small conversations as people turn to each other, saying things like, "Right?" and nodding. Asking, "So how did you-"

Evelyn doesn't speak. Neither does Ike.

They stare at each other. Through the din around them, despite people on either side of them clamoring for attention, despite Gary trying to regain control by talking over the group, "Now, now guys. Let's dial it back down now."

Nobody listens.

It's the scrape of metal against the old wooden floorboards that finally quiets the room. The hush descends, quickly and completely, as heads pivot on necks, faces pointing towards Eve. She's on her feet, pulling her bag over her head, and repositioning the chair she vacated back in line with the circle.

"Evelyn, where are you going? We still have thirty-five minutes," Gary says to his watch.

"Bathroom." Her unblinking gaze not moving from Ike, who sits back in his chair watching her leave. First with his eyes, then with his face.

"Hurry back. Now—let's hear from Danny." Gary sounds like he doesn't particularly want to hear from Danny.

Eve lets the double doors leading out into the hallway fall closed, barely hearing Danny as he stammers out that he doesn't know how to start.

That's okay, Danny, Gary will prompt you.

The old corridor of United Methodist is chilly, and she tightens her jacket around her as she heads for the stairwell that leads up to the bathrooms. The church is old, at least a hundred years since it was new; the ladies room is a small closet on the main floor, next to the church kitchen.

The fluorescent bulb stutters on, illuminating the blue tile and grey grout in sickly pale light. Two stalls stand open, the slight scent of lingering ammonia not strong enough to cover the miasma of old mop and ancient dank bathroom.

She drops her bag to the floor, opening the spigot and splashing her face with cool water. Just over her reflection's shoulder, the door opens.

His face is puckered with amusement as he leans against the closed door; their eyes meeting via the mirror, making them seem much farther apart than they actually are.

She can make out the familiar color of his eyes, but only just.