Seeds of Fear

HUNGER Kathryn Ptacek

Sex is power.

Or is it the reverse: Power is sex?

Whichever is true, I ought to be — by that definition — a powerful woman. I've had a lot of commerce, shall we say, with the opposite sex. A lot.

And wanting too much of some thing, we're told by heads thought much wiser than ourselves, points to a little something called addiction.

There are many varieties of addictions, those guys with the string of fancy degrees inform us. And I guess they're right. I don't have much education — I finished high school with average grades and no particular distinction, took a few courses at a local community college, but I know about some things that just aren't learned from textbooks. There's addiction to nicotine and your thirty-one flavors of mind-bending chemicals and exercise and sugar and mental abuse and alcohol and power and sleep and food and danger and flattery and —

Sex, too.

No kidding.

It's a real addiction. Believe me.

Do you know what it's like to be hooked on sex?

I didn't think so.

It pierces and stings, throbs and aches.

Among other things.

You know that old-time song by Peggy Lee? "Fever?" That's pretty damned close to an accurate description of what I go through. It's a fever that has to be reduced, a hunger that has to be fed, a thirst that has to be quenched.

Sometimes I'm just sitting in my office, staring at boring grocery accounts, my mind filled with numbers that need sorting, and suddenly that one particular sensation comes over me. It's halfway between a cramp and an itch, and it's more than a little painful, and it's all inside where I can't reach. I can't scratch; I can't relieve it except one way. And I sure can't ignore it.

Usually I have to wait until my lunch hour, sitting there at my desk with my legs squeezed together, trying not to gasp aloud. I squirm, try to concentrate, fail. My face is flushed, my breath rapid, and ripples of pain and pleasure roll through me as the gnawing inside increases. I watch the sweep hand on the huge white face of the clock, watch it going around and around all too slowly, the minute and hour hands inching upward. Finally, when the hands get straight up, I grab my purse and leave the office. I half run, half walk down the street to a bar I pass every morning on my way to work.

It's not a great lounge; that is, you probably won't find many yuppies hanging out there with their white wine-drinking pals, but it suits me fine. You can get a tolerable sandwich or two, some draft, and something more than that. A lot of guys hang out there. A lot of guys who are just as hot as I am.

I've been here before. They know me, I suppose, but I don't care.

I stroll into the cool darkness; my heart still seems to be fluttering inside my rib cage, and I wonder if any of the men seated along the bar can hear that or see my flushed skin. Apparently not. I lick my dry lips and nod casually to the bartender, a fellow some years older than myself and fairly stocky; he has a nose that looks like it was broken a long time ago, over and over. I find a booth toward the back of the room. I look down at the scarred wooden surface of the plank table, at the wet rings left by someone's glass. I'm wet, too.

I have an old-fashioned figure — large breasts, nipped-in waist, and curving hips — and blond hair halfway down my back and a face that, while not glamorous, is attractive. They've served me well.

I wait.

Not long, though.

Someone slides into the booth across from me.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey."

I look up.

He's got hairy forearms, not like an ape's, but nice; the type you could run your fingers through. The sleeves of his blue work shirt are rolled up to mid- biceps, and those are fairly large. So he must work with his arms, his hands; I like that. His shirt is open a little, and I can see the chest hair, dark with one or two strands of silver. Not a kid. That's okay too. They're usually too anxious; they tend to pop before I get filled. Then I've gotta have two or three of them to make it worth my while.

His face is slightly scarred, maybe from acne when he was a teenager. It's a pleasant face, though it won't win any awards. His hairline is receding slightly. I put him in his mid to late thirties.

He smiles. His teeth are white, fairly even. At least it's not all fake enamel, I realize.

I put my leg out under the table and massage his calf with my bare foot.

I see him jerk slightly. He wasn't prepared for that. It amuses me that they never are, no matter how strong they come on to me.

"Want another beer?"

"Sure." I have barely touched the one in front of me, have barely nibbled the sandwich on the paper plate. It's not what I want to eat.

He waves to the bartender, who nods and within a few minutes comes by with our new drinks. He takes away my half-filled glass and uneaten sandwich.

"What's your name?" I ask after a moment.

"Barry. You?"

"Eleanor."

"Nice name."

A prim name, I think, for someone who definitely isn't. "Thanks."

Now, I didn't claim that I was some kind of brilliant conversationalist. Oscar Wilde I'm not, I know that. On the other hand, that's not the reason I came to the bar, remember.

I find out within minutes that Barry works on a road crew and is hoping to get promoted to the office. He is close to having a bachelor's degree and wants to go someplace other than the outside with unbearable heat in the summer and unbearable cold in the winter. I always like ambition in my bed partner.

I tell him I work in Accounts Payable at a grocery wholesale warehouse.

"Not precisely exciting, but it pays some of the bills," I remark.

He laughs, just as if I'd said something witty. Barry's not here for my conversation, either.

We polish off another beer. Talk about the weather, which is hotter than usual and more than a little humid. The long hot summers of the Northeast. Sweltering. Simmering. Moist.

I'm very humid as I sit across from him. My other shoe is off now and both feet are rubbing his legs. I breathe faster. His hand has crept up under cover of the table, and he's brushed his fingertips against the inside of my lower thigh. I almost wet myself.

"Kind of warm in here," he says.

I nod, hardly trusting myself to speak.

"Want to go someplace?"

Never thought he'd ask. "Sure." I smile and lean forward, and he looks down my front at the shadow between my breasts.

I get up, pay for the drinks — I always make it a point of doing that, even though it's generally the guy who makes the first move — and he follows me out side.

We find a somewhat seedy-looking motel on the outskirts of town. I've been there before. The desk clerk, a pale, nervous-looking boy of nineteen or twenty, knows me; we've done it a few times as well; he hasn't been quite the same since. I rent a room — my usual, a small corner facing the back — and Barry and I go in. I kick the door closed. As many times as I've been here, I still don't think I could say what color the walls are.

Barry's arms snake around me almost instantly. I am pressed solidly against him and I can feel his hardness. I want his hardness. I want to eat him alive. Figuratively speaking, of course.

While I kiss him, forcing my tongue into his mouth, I start to unbutton his shirt, unzip his pants. He tumbles out of his jeans, and boy, is he ever ready. I pull my clothes off quickly; lots of practice — maximum effect with minimum effort; I don't wear underwear any longer. His lips are burning, delicious, sucking at mine, and he fondles and pinches my full breasts. The nipples are erect.

When I cup him in my hand, he throbs. I squeeze, and he moans.

We fall back on the queen-sized bed, and fuck like frenzied ferrets.

It's very good with Barry. Very, very good. Not the best, perhaps, but closer than the last few times. I savor every last mouthful of him.

When I leave the motel room, Barry is asleep.

He'll sleep for a long time now.

A long time.

And I bet he'll want that transfer to the office even sooner than before.

I wave to the clerk, give him a thumbs-up signal. He appears a little paler than before, and I know his palms are sweating. As I drive, I whistle; and I return to the thrilling world of lost cases of Vienna sausages, shipping and handling, and freight charges.

Even as I'm sitting down behind my desk and sorting through the papers in the wire basket, I can feel that hunger consuming me all over. And I know I've got to do it again. Soon.

I wasn't always like this.

Like everyone else, I started out a virgin. Only, from an early age I realized something was wrong.. that I was a little different from my girlfriends. Certainly they were interested in boys just about the same time I was, but I realized my fascination was a bit more serious than theirs.

They just wanted to date and hold hands; I wanted to fuck.

I managed to hang on until I was fourteen; then I just had to do it.

I had to have it.

It was either that or explode. Better to relieve the pressure first, I thought. I didn't know what would happen if I didn't, and I suspected it wouldn't be good for me. No sir.

Now, we run into a problem with the language here. A guy would boast that he had his first pussy. I can't say that; I mean I'm not a guy, and that's not what I got. I guess, then, I had my first cock.

I liked cock a lot.

I did it with another kid — my next-door neighbor's son; he was fifteen — on a Monday, then the next day, and the day after that. I devoured him. It was incredibly fun — after all, it was uncharted territory for us. The ultimate adventure, I thought. Finally on the fourth day he burst into tears and begged me to leave him alone or he'd tell his parents.

I was surprised. I thought he enjoyed the sex just as much as I did. He'd made just as much noise as I had, thrashed around like he was having a good time. I guessed I was wrong. I guessed he'd just chewed off more than he could swallow.

After that, he took the long way around to school so that he wouldn't have to pass our house, and whenever he was outside and I came out of the house, he'd go back inside. I laughed. What a wimp. But I shrugged. Didn't bother me. There were more cocks out there.

I waited, biding my time.

The next occasion, only two weeks later, was with the guy delivering my parents' dry cleaning. He came in with these suits and dresses all in their plastic wraps. My parents weren't home, so I said I would take them. I took him by the hand — he was about ten years older than me, with a ragged haircut and green eyes — closed the door, and pushed him down onto the pink and beige plaid couch. My mother never suspected. This time made me think of that old well-thumbed paperback I found in my mother's lingerie drawer. Candy, it was called. Pretty weird. This girl makes it with a hunchback one time. I don't know about that sort of thing; I mean she humps his hump, if you can believe that. I read the book in snatches, while my folks were at work or at the store. Pretty tame by today's standards. Trust me.

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.

These crystals are pretty potent, making my eyes water, and I have to glance away and take a deep breath.

It's all set up now. I sit down on the toilet, spread my legs, and reach for the filled bag.

Nothing like douching with Drano. A little dab'll do you.