“IT’S BEEN A good day. Two good days, actually.” I speak into my cell while sitting cross-legged on my pink bed, my laptop open before me.
“Tell me about them.”
I hope he’s naked. I hope Dr. Derek is sitting at his desk, a big fat cock in his hand, and he is stroking it while talking to me. I spent twenty minutes two hours ago talking to an attorney who dispensed legal advice on the phone while watching me, his orgasm barely slowing the flow of intelligent prose. The image sticks with me, popping up when I hear Dr. Derek breathe, hear a soft sigh as he shifts in his seat. These are the kinds of thoughts I need to avoid, especially if I want to continue down the path of trying to right my axis and fix my brain. But it is hard to spend a whole day engaged in sexual activity and then pick up the phone, hear that smooth, sexy voice, and not image the cock attached to his body.
“Deanna?”
“Hmm?” I answer absentmindedly, posting a camming screenshot to Twitter.
“Tell me about your good days.”
“Oh.” I close the laptop screen and focus on his voice, pushing aside the image of thick meat surrounded by strong hands. “No urges, no Hannibal Lecter fantasies all day yesterday, last night, and so far today. And I was up late last night, till almost one.”
“What’d you eat for dinner?”
I roll my eyes. Derek has a ridiculous obsession with my dietary choices, as if the magical solution to my problem might lie in a Lean Cuisine Herb Roasted Chicken entrée.
“Pot roast. Jenny Craig.”
“Have you had that before?”
I snort. “About fifty times. Maybe more.” Derek once had me cut out all meat from my diet, with a hypothesis that my animal instincts were triggered by the protein from meat. When you reduce a diet company’s selection to strictly vegetarian items, you are left with about four choices, all of which suck ass. I made it through about six days before I told him I would personally leave this apartment and fly to California just to murder him. We then decided the vegetarian plan wasn’t helping matters. “So, anyway, I was thinking, to celebrate, I might order Chinese tonight.” I hold my breath, waiting on his response. The truth of the matter is, I’m ordering Chinese no damn matter what his response is. I’ve been thinking about it since seven a.m. this morning, beef and broccoli taking over and dominating my mind since then, my single-minded obsession probably helping to keep the crazy thoughts at bay. But I like to complete this little exercise in asking permission anyway. If he does approve, and the Chinese deliveryman ends up dying, then I can always point the bloodstained finger at him. It is his fault. He thought I could handle honey chicken and shrimp fried rice.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Damn. I huff into the phone. “Seriously? Didn’t you hear me? No urges in twenty-four hours. Plus, I don’t even open the door! They leave it in the hall.”
“I don’t care. The more people who approach your door, the more risk you put yourself in. They will knock. You might not be strong enough not to answer.”
I grind my teeth. “I’ll be strong enough.” If it was up to Derek, I wouldn’t even get Jeremy deliveries. He’d expect me to somehow live, without supplies or food, holed up in this shithole and starving to death. Never mind the basic necessities I need to survive. No, those weren’t important. What was important was that no one knock on my door. Knocking equals death. Can’t be too careful, Derek’s liability insurance might go up.
“Better to be safe than sorry.”
Wow. Those six words…they could describe my whole existence. I left that land mine alone, looking at my watch. “Time’s up, Doc.”
“Don’t order Chinese, Deanna. Stick to the food you have in the apartment.”
“Got it. Thanks for the wisdom.” I hang up before he gives me another pearl of knowledge, then scroll down my phone list and press the button for Hong Kong Chinese.
Forty-five minutes later, I don’t kill the little Chinese man who scurries to my door, knocks, looks around, and knocks again.
“Just leave it on the floor,” I call out irritably. They should know this. I’ve only been ordering from them once a month for at least two years. The place seems to have higher turnover than McDonald’s, a new face bringing the same plastic bag every time.
The guy finally leaves, squishing the bag against the door and looking at it for a long time before walking away.
That’s right, buddy. Keep walking. Walk away before I open up this door and kill you for taking so fucking long. I wait, listening, not budging until I hear the elevator take him back downstairs. Then I open my door and lunge for the bag.
I wish that I liked pizza. If I did, then maybe I wouldn’t gorge myself on MSG-loaded fare. But I don’t. I can’t stand the doughy, grease-laden heart attack covered in nine layers of cheese. So Chinese is my only indulgence. I limit my ordering, recognizing the wisdom in Dr. Derek’s thinking, restricting myself to a once-a-month habit, and allow myself to order only if I have something to celebrate, like today.
I ordered the usual: an extra-large Dr Pepper, an order of beef and broccoli, an order of chicken with vegetables, a large egg drop soup, and five egg rolls. I put the soup, three egg rolls, and the chicken into the fridge. The rest, I sit down to savor. The Dr Pepper is watered down, the ice having melted during the delivery, all carbonation evaporated during transport; but it is soda, and I moan as I suck down the first flat, sugary sip. Then I move on, opening containers and allowing myself full, unadulterated pleasure, all in the name of MSG fun.