Higher

Mike warned me. He growled it to me, early on our second date, “I’m addictive.” Over the next couple weeks, he kept telling me that. Like so many others as they careen into dependency, I didn’t listen. I was too full of myself, and too exhilarated by our sparring to notice any change. He was nothing I couldn’t control. Larger than most men, more confident, but a man like any other, looking to see what he could get from me, and how quickly. Mike’s aggressiveness was at first off-putting, but like so many vices he was both an acquired taste and an instant charge. Tasting him was like feeling alive for the first time, like the crack of thunder that rips you from your sleep.

The first kisses, those were free. Those cost me nothing. Those I could back away from. “Not here. I’m not into making out in public.” We sat back in our chairs and laughed and clashed some more. He ordered me another amaretto sour. I played with the cherry stem, but did not tie it into a knot.

In the parking lot though, Mike pressed me against the side of his truck. His whole body was against mine. I looked up at him, and was a little surprised at how powerful his body felt. I liked it. And he liked how he felt, pressing against me. So he warned me again, “Little girl, I’m addictive.” He may not have called me little girl that time, but in the early days, before it was too late, Mike made it clear he thought I’d caught a tiger by the tail. Neither of us wanted to answer the question, whether it would be better to let the tiger go or keep holding on.

We moved from making out against his truck to lying next to each other on the sofa at his house. Mike and I watched television, and even though he could skip the commercials, he liked my suggestion for what those intervals could be used for instead. Mike went straight to my head. His presence crackled of masculine things: pine, leather, smoke, and raw testosterone. I soaked myself in this man.

At first, he always called me. I could on him to call, like clockwork, the instant he thought I would be off of work. I started thinking about Mike when I wasn’t with him. I started thinking about being with Mike when I wasn’t with him. When I was out with friends, I would think about Mike: I would be having more fun if Mike were with me. I started calling him first.

An addict once described to me what heroin feels like, that it is like finding God, it is like a warm hug. Just the thought of Mike, when we are apart, is like being embraced. Through Mike, I know serenity. Through him, I am untouchable. Through him, I have found God.

Cold Turkey

I do laundry the day Mike dies. I have no clothes that smell of him. Nothing of him to hold or breathe in. I am surprised that the shock doesn’t send me after him.  I convulse with the physical pain of losing my husband. My lungs do not take in air. My body recoils before food. My heart lurches onward, its frantic pace keeps me from sleep. My skin itches from where he no longer touches me.

Friends come over to offer cold comfort. In some dim corner of my brain, I am angry at friends who come in twos. I know that they will go home together, and draw each other closer for my being alone. I cheat, and let the men hug me longer than the women. Even Chuck’s frail leukemia-riddled frame gives me the tiniest contact high. When we break apart, the release vanishes.

I find a shirt I didn’t wash. The dog found it first. She likes to chew things that smell strongly of us. It’s a dark gray T-shirt. I hold the shirt to my face and breathe in. I fill my lungs with Mike’s discarded musk. I cannot consciously identify the smell as Mike; nonetheless, relief shoots through my lungs and veins all the way to the tips of fingers. For two seconds, I feel whole. The pangs return as soon as I set down the shirt. I know that. I even know that they will be that much fiercer for having been blocked for two seconds.

I ration the shirt, as if its power is divided into so many breaths. I watch it from across the room. I don’t hold it for long. I don’t want it picking up my smell. When I’m not holding it to my face, I think of what it would be like, to breathe it in again. I close my eyes and imagine that short-lived relief. I realize that only when I inhale that shirt does my ribcage relax enough for me to fill my lungs. Only the air filtered through his shirt feels right.