Diary of a s*x Addict

December 8-2

My mirror is pretty, eight feet tall and five feet wide with an espresso wood frame. My friend Michael, a trust-fund brat who’s a really talented painter, took me to Ikea to buy it. I hauled it myself up the four flights to my studio. Michael told me it would totally open up my kitchenette which it does. I knew I’d use it to study every inch of my frantically gym-tightened body and also to watch myself and nameless men have intercourse on the floor. I didn’t tell Michael this. He has body issues and hates to talk about s*x. This month, he’s refusing to leave his house because he’s supposedly gained a ton of weight. We stay in touch through texts.

The big leaning mirror also serves as a dividing line between my stove, sink, mini-fridge and a Crate & Barrel industrial, gun metal counter with two stools that I use for both desk and eating space. Beyond the counter, I’ve hung a floor to ceiling sheer white curtain, further separating the kitchenette from my studio’s main room. This main room is dapper and elegant, decorated with an antique desk and bookcase, a leather sofa, side tables, expensive lamps and full-length drapes. The wall above the sofa features a cluster of framed artwork, a mix of oil paintings and vulgar nudes. I like to call this area my s*x salon.

I’m nude now, in front of my Ikea mirror, my skin damp and glistening with the soapy remnants of Mr. Bubble. I start every day here, in this exact spot, taking pictures of my reflection to post on internet s*x sites. The shots are from a distance because I look so damn lean and cut-up from far off. I do this at 7 A.M., because I am happiest at this time. The day seems possible. The subsequent hours are really just a slow motion tumbling back toward the black hole. I think Sartre said something like “Life begins on the other side of despair.” He was a f*****g genius, probably a s*x addict.

I look at myself very closely, clinically, in my Ikea mirror. I am five foot seven. My eyes are my best natural feature because they are a peculiar shade of blue. They are pale and bright and sort of zesty. At 38, my hair is still thick and I keep it short. I can pass for 32. The super-selling point for s*x hook-ups, though, are my man t**s.

The day I moved to Manhattan from Fayetteville, Arkansas I joined a gym. I studied a big Arnold Schwarzenegger book filled with pictures of Arnie’s smooth muscular body in a Speedo. He had a glimmer in his eye that said “I’m European and hot” though not, at that time “I’m going to be Governor of California.”

I worked fiercely at free weights and moved onto studying those titillating men’s fitness magazine pull-out exercise calendars where the ‘straight’ models grit their white teeth and flex their luscious hairless bodies while wearing really skimpy shorts. I became obsessed as my scrawny chest took shape. My biceps got that arm-curl hump and my ass hardened. That’s when the s*x really took off. I could put myself out there as an object—‘Mr. Hot t**s’—and look for guys with equally nice pecs and asses and flat tummies. These are the guys without names and loads of energy who get turned on by the same faux porn model work-out magazines that I do.

And now, from a safe distance in my Ikea mirror, my protein-shake enhanced t**s are still a perky turn on. My crotch is adequately manicured. I feel hot. Ready. Primed. Empty.

It’s time to snare some big c**k, and keep that depressing black hole at bay.