Santa Claus: The addict

CH 3

MEET-UP AT MOOSE CAFÉ

After hanging up with Kris, I set out for the all night diner. The weather was horrible. It was snowing, and roads were nearly impassable. But in spite of my poor winter driving skills, I made it through, heedless of the wind and weather. I got there well before him. Kris took almost half an hour longer than he'd said he would. Not surprising. The North Pole is something like 1000 miles from Anchorage. Maybe he couldn't find Rudolph that night, so it was harder to make it through the storm. But whatever it was, just when I was starting to worry he wouldn't show up, I saw him walk nervously through the door. He stomped the snow off his big brown boots and hung his huge green winter coat next to the door. I'd half expected him to be wearing his Santa suit, but he was going incognito of course. He was wearing a big hand-knitted red and green sweater and a green knit cap with a big white ball of yarn on top. He looked absolutely adorable.

He saw me sitting in the last booth along the window and smiled a pale, sad smile. He sat down across from me and was happy to see I'd already ordered him a great big steaming mug of cocoa. I would have ordered cookies too, but they didn't have any.

There was a faraway look in his eyes. "Thanks for... helping me. It's been a crazy couple of days," he said with his deep velvety voice.

I reached out to pat the back of his big hand. "I've been there." His skin was amazingly soft.

"Yeah?" he said. "That surprises me. You look so... I don't know... innocent."

"Sometimes I feel like I am innocent. Down deep. But of course, I'm not. I'm a sex addict, same as you. I've done so many naughty things... stupid, reckless things... you have no idea."

He nodded and sipped his cocoa. We sat in silence for a while. I didn't know what to say. I'd never been a sponsor before. I wasn't sure where to start. After a while he asked, "So... you didn't speak at the meeting. What's your sob story? No, don't answer... I shouldn't pry."

I was relieved he'd started the ball rolling, so I smiled and said, "Oh, don't worry about it. My sob story is that I'm just your average, ordinary, everyday sex addict. I've been celibate for almost a year, but I spent the year before that hitchhiking around the continent, having unprotected sex with total strangers. You know, same ol' story."

His feathery white eyebrows went up with interest. "Really? Were there a lot of them?"

I shrugged, "I never bothered to count at the time. But Sam told me to come up with an estimate. I'm sure it was more than a hundred. Maybe one twenty five? I don't know. It was a bit of a blur..." My cheeks were red with embarrassment.

He smiled a wicked little smile. His eyes were really twinkling now. He leaned closer to me over the table, "Details, please."

This is exactly the sort of thing that sex addicts aren't supposed to do. You know, turn each other on with their lurid tales. But I wanted Kris to trust me. He needed my help. So I had to open up to him... at least a little. I decided to tell him my story, sort of. I left out the stuff I did in New York, because that all involved men in Santa suits and if I talked about those guys, eventually I would say too much, and he'd know my secret. If he knew I had a thing for guys with white beards, well, I wasn't sure what would happen, but I wasn't ready to drop that bomb just yet.

"Well..." I said, "let's see. Every sex addict is chasing something. For me it was a particular man. A fantasy figure, if you will, who I was trying to find..."

"Mr. Right?" he prompted. Oh, Kris understood me so well!

"Yes, that's right! I was looking for my Mr. Right. I had this fixed idea in my mind of what he looked like, what he acted like, how he smelled... and I knew that I'd know him as soon as I met him. But every time I met a man who resembled this idea I had in my head... well, I was overcome with the urge to kiss him, and that usually led to more. But it seemed like the minute it was over I'd figure out he wasn't Mr. Right after all, and I'd go out in search of him all over again. It was an obsession. I lost my job as a result. Eventually, I couldn't afford to live in New York anymore so I put my treasures in storage and hit the road in a rickety old car. I drove randomly from town to town, city to city, looking for Mr. Right."