Trying to decide which direction to take my life wasn’t easy, but I had finally reached a point where it was necessary. Three stints in jail for driving under the influence of alcohol, losing my license for almost a decade, and dealing drugs to pay my legal fees weren’t the best decisions I ever made, but they were part of who I was, regardless. In being honest, they were all the proof I needed to convince myself I had a problem that needed to be addressed, but addressing it was still difficult.

Finally, an intervention of sorts convinced me.

More like a revelation. 

Or an awakening.

Whatever it was, the cab fare associated with it was expensive, and I viewed the event, in its entirety, as the last straw.

I had somehow ended up in a bathtub in someone’s home I didn’t know. I had no recollection of going there, or even considering it, but nonetheless, I was there, naked, and confused. I came out of my unconscious state of being blacked out - something I normally did after a few dozen drinks - and looked around the bathroom. Covered in soap suds and as naked as the day I was born, I was shocked, scared, and for some reason, sexually aroused beyond compare.

As I sat in the warm tub with a raging hard on, trying to figure out how I got there and what I was doing, an unfamiliar voice from the other room caused me to wonder even more. I should have been relieved that I was in a stranger’s tub and a woman was involved, but I wasn’t. 

After all, matters could have been much worse.

She walked into the bathroom carrying two flutes of champagne, humming an unfamiliar and rather annoying off-key tune. I glanced over the edge of the tub and around the bathroom, hoping to catch a glimpse of where I had dropped my clothes, but the room was void of any of my attire.

Frustrated with myself, disgusted with her, and ready to leave, I stood from the tub and grabbed one of the flutes of champagne. After downing it in one gulp, I proudly walked past her, placed the empty glass on the vanity, and stepped into the adjoining room.

Nothing.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

I gazed out the window and into the driveway.

My bike wasn’t anywhere to be found, and the neighborhood didn’t look at all familiar.

With no clothes, no cellphone, no bike, and no recollection of where I had been prior to arriving in the tub, I sat naked on her couch and searched my mind for even the vaguest of answers.

And I drew a blank.

“Where am I?” I asked as she walked into the room.

I was barely thirty. She appeared to be in her mid-sixties.

And she was still naked.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I must have blacked out. What happened? Where am I?” I asked as I looked around the room.

“Well, you left the bar with me, we came here, and we ended up in the tub. After a while I decided to get us some champagne. You said it sounded like a good idea. You don’t remember any of it?” she asked.

I shook my head. I didn’t even want to know why my cock was hard or what transpired between our having arrived in the tub and “after a while.” Completely disgusted with her, my drunken behavior, and the fact I still had no idea of what city I was in, I took inventory of the room one more time in hopes of seeing my jeans, phone, wallet, or shoes.

“Are we in Wichita?” I asked after my search produced nothing.

“Hutchinson. You really don’t remember?”

Hutchison was sixty miles from my home, and not a place I had ever been short of one drunken trip to the state fair to see lobster boy and the man with snake scales for skin.

I shook my head. “Where are my clothes?”

“In my bedroom? You don’t remember that either?”

“I don’t remember anything. Can you point me in that direction?” I asked.

After getting dressed, finding my wallet, phone, and shoes, I called a cab. I told the cab driver after paying a $300 fare that I was never going to take another drink.

And I had yet to break my promise.

“Hi, my name’s Blake, and I’m addicted to everything,” I said.

“Hi Blake,” a handful of people said in response.

“What is sobriety? Was that it? The topic?” I asked.

Several people nodded their heads.

I nodded mine in confirmation and began speaking.

“Well, I think it’s much more than abstaining from taking the first drink. It’s a state of mind as well. Sobriety, at least to me, is the art of being sober, not the act. I think it comes over the course of time, roughly at the time when we become comfortable that what it is we’re doing is exactly what we should be doing when we should be doing it. In the beginning I was abstaining, and as a matter of definition I suppose I was sober, but I wasn’t living a life of sobriety. I was a drunken idiot without a bottle in my hand. ”

I paused and thought for a moment.

“Now, I really think I am sober. But, to be honest, I’m a sober idiot. You know, I hoped sobering up would cause me to make more intelligent decisions, but it didn’t. Now, I’m sober, but I’m still a fucking idiot. Blake the sober idiot since September 11^th. Tell me that isn’t fucking ironic, huh? A sobriety date of nine-eleven. Well, at least I’ll never forget it. And, like I said, I’m addicted to everything, so I’m struggling with trying not to bone this gorgeous chick that came in for a tattoo the other day. For right now, I’m pretty sure I’ll keep away from my first drink, but I’m not making any promises about staying out of her pants. That’s all I’ve got,” I said.

“Thanks Blake, glad you’re here,” a woman from across the table said.

I nodded my head in her direction.

She stared.

I glanced away from her, stood, and walked to the coffee bar. As I turned away from the pot, I almost ran into her.

“Oh shit. Sorry, I didn’t even see you,” I said.

“I was sneaking up on you,” she said.

“Well, you did a good job,” I said as I attempted to step around her.

“So, want to get a cup of coffee after the meeting?” she asked as she stepped to the side.

She was in her early forties and attractive in her own way, but not someone I would ever be interested in. Although she was probably someone I needed to be hanging out with, and also a person I could spend plenty of time with without trying to fuck her, I shook my head.

“Sorry, I’ve got to get back to work,” I responded.

“Well, anytime you want to, just say the word,” she said.

“Bet on it,” I said as I stepped past her.

Truth be known, I’d sign up for a keg stand contest before I’d have a cup of coffee with her.

If I was going to be talking to anyone, it was going to be Riley, and for some damned reason getting her off of my mind was proving to be impossible. I’d only done one tattoo on her, and in the grand scheme of things, it was nothing. I’d done three times as many on hundreds of women without thinking about them after they had walked out of the shop.

Riley seemed to be searching for something, but I had my doubts she even knew what it was she was trying to find. I glanced at my watch. Less than twenty-four hours and I’d see her again.

If Tyler wasn’t going to tell me anything about her, I intended to press her hard for answers during her next session. Not fucking her was the key to maintaining my peace of mind, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t get to know her.

I sat in my seat and sipped my cup of coffee while some old timer explained what sobriety meant to him. As I listened to him talk, but make absolutely no sense whatsoever, I wished I could live a normal life.

But anyone who survived what I had survived would never live a normal life.

I simply needed to find a way to accept my parent’s death as being something completely out of reach for me to resolve.

Doing so, however, was a different story.