Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous

Liz had trepidation but she hoped there would be free decent coffee. As she drove to the church she talked to herself to calm her nerves.

"A meeting for sex and love addicts seems kind of pointless. In the back of our minds we're always hoping to find The Next Big Thing. Soul Mate #13. Who knows? The Next Big Thing, Soul Mate #13, could be at the Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous meeting! Alcoholics are catered to at their meetings. There's always coffee and donuts. No alcohol. They should have their meetings in bars, the pussies. In my case the whole goddamn world is a bar. I go to the grocery store. Will we bump carts? I go to the hiking trail. Will a mysterious voice call out,'I dig your Nikes!'? I go to art school. Will I fall for the 2D professor or an unassuming nineteen-year-old? Basically I'm fucked. Even when I'm not fucking. Especially when I'm not fucking."

There was no coffee. No donuts. Two unattractive men and three gorgeous Latinas were sitting at a table. Liz spied the box of Kleenex right away. She sat down at the chair closest to the Kleenex.

"We go easy on first timers but feel free to tell us a bit about yourself and why you're here," one of the unattractive men said.
"I'm Liz. I'm a love addict. Sex is okay when it works but it rarely works for me. Only two different men, my two ex-husbands, were ever able to bring me to orgasm. They had to use their tongues. I have a vibrator but that's not the problem. The problem is I have three exes from last year alone. I don't feel anything for two of the men but am still obsessed with the most recent ex. I'm always studying his natal chart, looking for clues. Anyway, I told him not to contact me and he hasn't but I dream of him almost every night. It's gross. Valentine's Day is always a motherfucker. I feel like killing myself but won't. I'd leave the country if I had a reasonable plan."

The laughter was nervous and subdued and confirmed Liz's conviction that she wasn't the right fit for such a meeting. No coffee. No donuts. Nervous, subdued laughter.

"Get me the fuck out of here, already. Oops. I said that aloud. I'm sorry. I feel ambivalent about this whole thing. Shit. My life is shit," Liz said. The tears started flowing. She reached for the cheerful yellow and spring green box.

"You're very brave for coming here. The first meeting is always the hardest. You're a lot braver than I am. It took me months to open up like that," the gorgeous Latina to Liz's left said.

After the meeting finally ended Liz headed for a bar, any bar that wasn't a chain or an obvious yuppie watering hole. It was hard to find such a bar in the Stone Oak section of San Antonio. Liz drove much further south, parked outside Eddie's. Sleazy crowd. Jukebox that played a lot of Foreigner and Tom Petty. Aural vomit but Liz was in an aural vomit kind of mood.

"Give me a Shiner Bock. No glass," Liz told the bartender.
"Alcoholics are such pussies," Liz told a drunk Latino who was leering at her in his Spurs t-shirt.
"Baby, I couldn't agree more," he slurred.

There was nothing but shit on the suspended televisions. Liz drank her beer and watched.