“Where were you all night?” asked Avie, as I bounded into the kitchen. She was already cooking scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. “Want some? You hungry?”

“No thanks,” I said. “I just gave Gene a knob-job.”

“Ew, please! Not before I’ve eaten!” said Avie, making a sour expression and grabbing her midsection while still stirring the eggs. “Not on an empty stomach.”

“I was just kidding,” I said. “Although I did just get a ride home from Gene. And I did give him a knob job. I was kissing him goodbye, because I haven’t seen him since forever, and I just went down on him … and he did his usual, ‘You know, you don’t have to do this,’ and I said, ‘You said that before,’ because he had said that, almost exactly that, on other occasions. And I said, ‘Did it ever occur to you I like doing it for me?’ So then I did it.”

“You’re a sex addict, Clarissa,” she said, still stirring the eggs. “Every guy you meet, you feel like it’s your duty to prop up his self-esteem, while abasing yours …”

“Gee, I had no idea you had such a delicate constitution, Avie,” I said. “My little sister, who started on birth control at the tender age of fifteen.”

I dropped my book bag and went to the refrigerator.

“I was just trying to be funny,” I said. “Nobody gets my non-sequitur sense of humor any more—I can’t even get a laugh by being inappropriately crude. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’ ‘No thanks, I just had my protein for the day.’ Since when are you so sensitive to tasteless humor, anyway, Avie? Although, come to think of it, I do need to wash the taste out of my mouth.” I took a swig of orange juice.

“Ew, gross,” said Avie. “Tell me you don’t always do that. Use a cup. Please.”

I capped the orange juice and put it back in the fridge. “Excuse me. Now the James sisters are all germophobes.” I sat down at the small kitchen table to butter the toast.

“Wash your hands first.”

I glared at her, put down the butter knife, and went into the bathroom next to the kitchen and washed up. I leaned against the door jam as I toweled off. “Don’t you even want to hear what we were doing last night?”

“Not before breakfast, I told you.”

“Not that,” I said. “We didn’t have sex all night. I was walking up Second Avenue after visiting with my friends, and Gene and Allan swung around the corner in their white –this was just after you guys captured your nightly haul of muggers.” I was referring to the West Forest Knight Rangers—Avie in her Wondrous Warhound persona along with Alice2, the Mod Puma, as well as Bryan Williams, the Vagrant Vagabond and Rosemary Segal, the Harrowing Harlequin. “They were taking the guys you pinched to the Criminality Clinic, and asked me if I’d like to come along for the ride. So, I went, and I got to see it.”

“Oh, really?” asked Avie, her eyes brightening. “The Criminality Clinic! What was that like?”

“I thought you’d be interested,” I said. “It was all secret and cloak-and-dagger, driving through tunnels and sneaking into Canada, and driving to some remote secret hideout. Only I don’t remember where it was because I fell asleep along the way. In any case, I don’t think you’d approve; I don’t think you’d approve at all, Avie, since it violates the Bill of Rights in more ways than there are Articles. It’s unconstitutional, I tell you. The American Civil Liberties Union would have lawyers all over the place, were it not for the fact that it’s in Canada.”

I told her about the drive to London, Ontario, meeting Trish Londres—if that was even her real name—and how technicians strapped their clients into machines that showed them how good their lives could be in another reality. “Somehow, by means of this process, the perps are scared straight—they suddenly lose all desire to commit crimes. Although it takes more than one session, so it’s not all that sudden. Then, they work in a factory stacking boxes for a few weeks. Sounds nutty, if you ask me.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Avie. “Sounds like the way rehabilitation is supposed to work. Everything in Canada works better than in the United States.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s all pretty spooky and clandestine, if you ask me. And completely unregulated. Trish said they have experts come down from Toronto with the latest psychosocial theories, to maintain ethics, I suppose. But I could see how the system could easily be abused, and abused plenty. After all, if you had some white militia kidnapping people off of suburban streets, and brainwashing them to become racists or whatever, and then putting them back, waiting for a signal to rise up and take over the country …”

“I think that’s already happened in America,” said Avie. “But the Criminality Clinic isn’t doing anything so sinister. They’re just cleaning up the streets you and I walk on at night, so that they’re safe.”

“You’ve gone from leftist anarchist to authoritarian,” I said. I had sat down again and was buttering a stack of toast. “You haven’t been reading all those Lyndon LaRouche newspapers they hand out on campus along with The Fifth Wheel by any chance, have you?”

I decided to change the subject.

“By the way,” I said, “before that, last evening, I went out with Chase and Peggy and Marge and a few of their friends and saw that arty movie you recommended, My Dinner with André.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Avie. “How’d you like it?” She turned off the heat under the skillet.

“It was so-so. But that’s not the point. Do you know, Marge is in love with Peggy?”

“No!” said Avie, serving the scrambled eggs onto some plates she’d already laid out for the two of us. “Are they a couple?”

“No, Heaven forbid. Peggy has no idea. She’s still straight as an arrow. In fact, she was on a platonic date with Chase, who, you know, was dying of blue-balls syndrome and just eating his heart out the whole time. And the gay waiter friends who went with us were teasing him something awful—it was a scream. I tell ya, it’s a regular love triangle down there on East Willis: Chase is in love with Peggy, Marge is in love with Peggy, and Peggy just wants to find a nice doctor or lawyer and move into a mansion in Grosse Pointe, as is her birthright.”

“I didn’t know Marge even liked girls at all,” said Avie, setting the frying pan back down on the stove and sitting down. “But then, I don’t know her all that well. Why doesn’t she and Chase get together? I think they would make a good couple.”

“A good, unhappy, middle-class couple,” I said. I was dousing my eggs with pepper and hot sauce. “So, why do you have to be so critical of my sex life, Avie?”

“I go on dates,” she said, pulling up her chair. “I have friendships that develop, I get to know someone first. I have boyfriends. I have relationships. Sure, I’ve had some one-nighters. But all you do is go at it. You deserve to be with someone for a while.”

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“I’m too busy,” I said. “I’ve got homework, teaching, grading papers—Oh, Christ! I just remembered, I have to grade those pop quizzes …”

“That’s no excuse,” said Avie. “It’s like you’re just snacking on junk food, because you just don’t want to take the time to have a real meal. You should learn how to cook, let things simmer for a while. You’ll enjoy it more.”

***

I graded my quizzes and got through my Friday recitations, and for the rest of the weekend I holed up in the Warren Woodward Library working on my seminar paper comparing Plato’s Republic with Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of American Cities, arguing how each in their own way represented an unobtainable Utopia. I hardly saw Avie at all; she was working the lights for one show at the Second Rate Student Theater and stage managing another at the Downstairs Attic Studio, both spaces somehow connected to Warren Woodward University theater program, but neither the main stage with the really big productions. I didn’t see much of her on Monday, either.

But her words kind of stung—sex addict. This from a girl to whom it never occurred not to swallow. What is she talking about? I thought. Avie had done more moping around and pining for lovers that would never be—mostly because they were her sexually confused actor friends—than a Grosset & Dunlap nurse story for adolescents.

Still, she had a point. I certainly didn’t want to the demands of a relationship. There was some deep-seated insecurity, some fear that if I didn’t finish school, that I would get tied down with a loveless marriage, kids, like my poor Mama. Although it wasn’t her marriage that had been loveless; it just died on her after her daughters went off to college …

Tuesday morning I stopped into the campus counseling center and found myself filling out some paperwork on a clipboard on one of the chairs in a big, empty waiting room. I was handing in it to the girl at the desk just as a tall, black woman with an Afro came out of one of the offices. She took the clipboard from the girl and noted my name.

“Good morning, Clarissa,” she said. “Did you have an appointment?”

“No, I was just about to make one.”

“Well, we’re not exactly busy yet, and I have a free moment. I’m Frances Avery, one of the social workers here.” She extended her hand. “Why don’t you come in and we’ll get you started?”

I sat down in her office in one of two chairs facing each other, and Frances sat in the other. There was also a desk and a filing cabinet, a sofa and a floor lamp. There was a nice, soothing pastel abstract, tastefully framed, on the wall. The window looked out onto the main mall of the WWU campus that once upon a time had been Second Avenue.

Frances explained that they usually do a pre-interview to determine what services could be provided, and whether a weekly visit with a dedicated social worker would be helpful. She informed me that it was all free since I was a student, which I already knew. She looked over my paperwork briefly. “Urban policy and social planning, I see. Grad student, teaching assistant. That must keep you very busy. So, what brings you here today? What would you like to talk about?”

“Well, I … my sister … you see, we’re roommates,” I hemmed and hawed. “Usually, I’m used to her criticism. But she said … she told me …”

“Go on.”

“She called me a ‘sex addict’ this morning, and it bothered me.”

“I see.” Frances wrote something on her notepad. “I’m not sure we have a clinical definition for that, yet. What does that term mean to you?”

“I guess it would be somebody who impulsively sleeps with everyone they find remotely attractive,” I said.

“And does that describe your behavior?”

“No,” I said with horror. “Sometimes, for long periods, I don’t have any sex life at all. I just do homework and read, like last summer. And all I told her was that I blew some guy. Only, it wasn’t just some guy; it was a guy I liked a lot and had been with before, and hadn’t seen for a long time because he’s busy and hasn’t called. But we went on a low-key adventure last night, and he was dropping me off, and, well, I didn’t know how to say goodbye and tell him I missed him and wanted to see him again. So I just blew him.”

“Did he request that? Or force you to?”

“No, nothing like that. Although he did say, ‘You don’t have to do that, Clarissa,’ which he says all the time. But he didn’t protest that much. It’s kind of a physiological reaction. He let me do it.”

“Is this man the same age as you?”

“No,” I said. “Maybe ten years older. Twelve, fifteen.”

“I see,” said Frances. She jotted down another note. “How would you describe your behavior? Not just that time, but in general. What frequency would you say you have sex? Do you have long-term relationships, serial monogamy as it were, or …”

I described my sexual history, which to my mind wasn’t too much to speak of lately. I had been involved with Chase for a few weeks, but that was over; at the beginning of the semester, I’d seen Michele a few times. It wasn’t like I was keeping detailed records. Over the summer, hardly anything at all, even in New York. I told Frances about Trent and Samson and Gene, and also Nancy and Dana. I explained what I perceived as the curious politics of bisexuality, which I felt led to more ostracization and less sex, because sometimes it weirded out partners of both genders when they found out.

“You’re describing a period of couple of years, right? Sounds to me like you’re not overdoing it. A healthy woman of your age, with all you have going on—you seem to be having a rather average, normal amount of sex. The question is how do you feel about it? How does it leave you feeling afterward? Do you feel like you’re engaging in sex that you really don’t want? That you’re being coerced, demeaned or degraded by the experience? Or, do you feel as though you don’t have control over your impulses? That you can’t say no, even to yourself?”

“No, not as far as I’m concerned,” I said. “I have a few kinks—everybody does, don’t they? I just don’t feel I can talk about everything I’d like to with all my friends; it makes them uncomfortable.”

“Maybe the answer is to keep certain things private,” said Frances.

“But Avie’s been telling me shit for years,” I said. “She goes into detail that would make you blush. And all I do is mention one thing that happened on the way home …”

“Sisters are sisters,” said Frances, smiling. “I have three myself. God put them on this Earth to give us a hard time. My question for you to think about is: Do you feel that during these times that you are sexually active, that you are going on a binge—maybe overdoing it, then withdrawing?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, maybe. I guess you could say my libido runs hot and cold.”

“Hmm,” said Frances. “That still doesn’t sound like anything to be greatly concerned about. Why do you think what your sister said bothered you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think she’s being something of a hypocrite, as usual. She always has one standard for herself, and another for everyone else.” I related what I knew of Avie’s romantic history.

“Do you think what she said has some validity?” asked Frances. “Are you afraid that she does have more loving relationships than you, rather than purely sexual?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Maybe she does take her time and get to know her lovers first; I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either. But from what you’ve told me, I’m wondering … maybe the reason she struck a nerve is because you feel there is something missing from your love life. Could that be?”

I felt myself getting defensive; I had folded my arms in defiance. “I don’t know. I have friends. And then I sleep with people. I don’t see that it’s such a big deal. I mean, just ‘cause I go down on a guy I haven’t seen in a blue moon … I had been sleeping on his shoulder for four hours—doesn’t that constitute foreplay? Or at least intimacy? I don’t know.” I took a deep breath. “Maybe Avie has a point.”

Frances looked at her watch. “Well, I’m expecting another appointment shortly,” she said. “Clarissa, we don’t have anyone on staff at the moment who specializes in addictions, or especially sexual behaviors—unless it was rape or molestation, which don’t apply in your case. Besides, I’m not convinced that a sexual addiction is really your problem—maybe more of an oversharing problem. I think it’s a matter of determining for yourself what it is you want from your intimate relationships.” She looked at another clipboard on her desk. “If you think it would help, I can schedule you with John for next week. There are also groups that meet around campus …”

“Can I think about that?”

“Sure. You can call our office any time,” said Frances. “Let me give you our card.”

***

I was back out on the mall, instinctively heading toward the library before I knew it. It was a crisp day, with autumn having turned to fall, with winter just around the corner. Frances was right, I did have to determine what it was I wanted from these sometimes meaningless hookups. I hadn’t even told her what a gorgeous cock Gene has, and how I simply missed its look and feel and taste; but I didn’t want to get graphic. Nor did I mention those lost days and nights, when I’d first become Ms. Megaton Man, and the near constant orgy that ensued, since I considered that a one-off. Or my embarrassing shack-up with Bing. I’d long since forgiven myself for those youthful indiscretions, chalked it up to being a pent-up late-bloomer.

Now I was a grown up, I felt, and needed to figure out what I wanted going forward. That was true not only in my love life but in my academic career and my Civilian-Megahero life, as well.

Why didn’t people love me for who I was? And was I just as bad as those people who pushed people away when they got too close?