Silverman - Love sick: one womans journey through sexual addiction

A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU to my agent, Wendy Weil, for her belief in this book and her wise counsel.

I am honored to have Carol Houck Smith as my editor at W. W. Norton. Her unerring editorial vision and wisdom guided this book to its completion.

Michele Orwin is my valuable first reader and lifelong friend.

Malcolm Call, editor of my first book, is an important friend. I value him for all the ways he continues to support me.

Christopher Nol, with insight, perception, and humor, greatly assisted this manuscripts evolution.

I am forever touched by the generosity of David Bradley.

My amazing therapist taught me what I know about sobriety and safety. He never gave up on me, even when I gave up on myself. In these ways, he helped with the creation not only of this book but also of me.

I feel blessed that Ellen Jagolinzer and Mona Oppenheim have always been there for meand blessed that Bryna Livingston, my role model, taught me so much about being an adult woman.

A permanent thank you to the Associated Writing Programs for all it does for me and so many other writers.

I WANT TO THANK the people who shared their stories and their lives with me during my journey through treatment. I must honor their right to privacy by changing their names and identities. In some instances, events have been reshaped and composite characters created in order to protect these and other individuals.

E VERY THURSDAY AT NOON I have sex with Rick in room #213 of the Rainbow Motel. Today, even though I promised my therapist I wouldnt come here again, I pull into the lot and park beside Ricks black Ford Bronco. I cut the engine and air conditioner and listen to stillness, to nothing, to heat. Sunrays splinter the windshield. Heat from the pavement rises, stifling, around the car, around me. No insects flutter in the brittle grass next to the lot. Trees dont rustle with bird wings. A neon rainbow, mute and colorless by day, arcs over a sign switched to VACANCY . Only the little girl from India, daughter of the motel owner, invigorates the stasis. Holding a string tied to a green balloon, she races down the diving board and leaps into the swimming pool. With the windows closed, I cant hear the splash. If she laughs, I cant hear this, either. For a moment she disappears. The balloon gaily sways above the water. The girl pops to the surface. She begins the game again.

The girls energy exhausts meas much as the stagnation of neon, air, time. I close my eyes. Still, I sense no darkness, no cool shadows, no relief from the scorching Georgia heat. Rather, a harsh light, white as a sheet, penetrates my lids as if I am caught in an unforgiving glare.

I worry the girl by the pool will see me. Shes too young to know what I do here in the Rainbow Motel.

I should leave. I should leave here now. I should drive home and rinse pink gloss from my lips, wipe mascara from my lashes, change out of my too-short skirt and too-tight black lace blouse. I should cook a nourishing dinner for my husband. I should grasp the balloon and let it waft me across the sky, far from my implacable need for men. Dangerous men. Not physically dangerous. Emotionally dangerous. These men see me just as an object, a body. They are men incapable of loveeven though I endlessly, addictively, try to convince myself that sex at noon for an hour with a married man has to be the real thing, must be love.

So I cant leave here. I need Rick. One last time. One last high. One last fix.

I should drive to the rehab unit and find my therapist right now.

Pausing outside the door of room #213, I hear the television: a car crash, urgent voices. I turn the knob and lock it behind me. Rick lies on the sheet smoking a cigarette, the remote beside him. He inhales. Exhales. Smoke swirls. I watch it disperse. An ash drifts onto the pillowcase. He doesnt notice. He hasnt stopped watching me since I entered.

He leans over and stubs out the cigarette. He clicks off the television and beckons me closer. A gold necklace nestles in his blond hair, a rich glitter of gold on gold as if chain mail emblazons his chest. Lying beside him, I curl short strands of his hair around my finger as if, in all this incandescence, we radiate love. His Eau Sauvage cologne is the only scent in the world I will ever need or want. I close my eyes, drenched in it. In him. I must feel Ricks touch, a drug surging through veins, trancing me as I urgently swallow oblivion and ether. Sex, a sweet amnesiac. The elixir drains through my body, thin as a flame. I crave this, need himor You, Man, whoever You areuntil Im blissfully satiated.

Is this bliss?

I open my eyes. Hes leaning over me, his palm on the pillow beside my head. I can hear the second hand of his watch ticking beside my ear. His breath numbs the hollow at the base of my neck. Sweat gathers on his temples. The necklace taps my chin as he fucks me. A gift from his wife? I wonder. He kisses me. Strokes me. But this is just a repetition of all the other times with Rick. Nothing unusual. Just the basics. Routine sex. He doesnt even bother to try to impress me with fancy positions like Crushing Spices. Flower in Bloom. Dear to Cupid. Just the missionary position. Sometimes sixty-ninebut all Rick wants is to get the job done. Quickly.

Not that I mind. I dont do this for pleasure. I do this for love .

Except I feel a damp chill between my shoulder bladesthinking of all the times my spine has creased this mattressso many mattresses. The second hand ticks. He pushes up on his elbows, his head above mine. He glances down, focusing more on my torso than on me. I hug him tighter. Feel me . See me . I touch his throat with the tip of my tongue. His skin tastes like salt water and indigo. My limbs feel weighted with leaden male gravity. Smothered. I feel as if I sink below water, far beneath a night sea.

Cant I understand that this, what we do here, has only, ever, been numbed emotions of familiar strangers, fucking? Why cant I accept the difference between this and love? How can love be two bodies wrapped in a sheet thats singed by careless cigarettes, here, in a room with plastic curtains, tin ashtrays, base metal, stained carpet, bad alchemy, artificial air, and a television promoting the same pornographic movies every hour on the hour? Here in a room when, by one oclock, Rick looks depleted, the blue of his eyes seeming to have bled beneath the skin.