Trouble Starts Here Pt. 01

I see a lot of drunks. I probably have been an AA sponsor to two, three hundred guys. A sponsor is an older AA who takes a newly sober drunk under his wing and shows them how to live without booze. There are about as many different flavors of sponsorship as there alcoholics, which is to say a million.

Though there are no hard and fast rules in AA, one that most of us stick with is men sponsor men and women sponsor women. Period, end of report. The reasons for this should be obvious. When an alcoholic stops drinking, they are about as vulnerable as they can be. Raw nerves, jitters, periods of alternating elation and depression. Add sex to this mixture and you have a flammable cocktail that can bring down both parties, no questions asked.

For the most part, I stuck with this unmentioned rule. For the most part. There was one exception. Tawny.

Let me preface this story by telling you that I am straight as a two by four. Never been attracted to a man in any way. But for some reason, a muscular strong woman has always been an incredible turn-on for me. I see one in public I'll be late for whatever engagement I got just to follow her down the street and watch the way her muscles move under her clothes. A woman with veins on her biceps will give me a solid railroad spike in my pants in two seconds flat. Everybody has something, I have found over the years. Some like bondage, some secretly lust after fatties. With me, it's a muscular woman.

When I met Tawny, I'd been sober for a couple years and was seriously working my program. I got that whole AA thing, had thrown over all my old haunts and friends for a new set, all in the rooms of AA. I was sponsoring four or five guys and was pretty busy. I hit a lot of meetings and always spoke from my heart. I got a gift like that, I hear, a knack for saying what needs to be said at the right time. People often come up to me after meetings to talk, which is why I sponsor so many. It's not ego saying that—just a gift I have, like being able to throw a ball or play guitar.

One Wednesday, I shared my experience at a meeting so crowded that only about half the people there got a chance to talk. When that happens, they just go around and everybody introduces themselves. In AA we have what's called the "meeting after the meeting," when people can talk one on one. I got to talking with a couple old guys I know when I notice a woman standing near, listening to our gab. I stood back a little to open the circle to let her come in, and she did.

When she was standing next to me, I became instantly aware of her. I'm about five-eleven, and she must have topped me by a good four inches. She was pale and heavy, black hair and a wide face. That's not to say she wasn't pretty—she had a long neck despite the extra pounds, a wide, soft body hidden beneath an unattractive sweat suit but excellent posture, dimples when she smiled and beautiful teeth. He voice was a low and furry buzz, and I could tell she was whip-smart though she didn't say much. She told me how much she liked my approach and asked if I might sponsor her. She was forthright about asking me, which I appreciated. I started to give the patter about men not sponsoring women, but she reached her hand and grabbed my forearm.

"Please," she said, her eyes desperate. "I've tried so many times to stop. I know you can help me."

So I said yes. We arranged to meet. As I drove away, it occurred to me that her hand was so big it almost encircled my arm. I put that out of my mind.

Over the next several months we would meet once or twice a week to read through the Big Book and follow along in the process of what exactly you need to do to recover from alcoholism. I won't share any of that except to say that if you can't stop drinking and you want to, go to an AA meeting and keep going until you meet somebody who says they are recovered. Those people can help you.

When I met Tawny, it was late September. We had a long winter, and usually we met in the evenings at my place or the Alano Club downtown. Often we'd get coffee after. We mostly talked about AA, but Tawny told me a little about her life. She said she was always a natural athlete, the best on whatever team she'd been on. When she drank, she could drink all the football players under the table. She told me she'd been in jail a few times, but that's common enough in AA. Winter hung on that year, week after week of ice and chill winds.

I noticed that she was looking after me differently, and I was starting to do the same. Lingering glances. We started to see each other more often, dinner and sometimes a movie. She was doing great in her program, told me she was starting to work out and get back in shape. I tried to put that out of my mind. The first year of sobriety is delicate, and I felt it would be wrong for me to let my fetish run away with me. Besides, I never had seen her wearing anything but sweats and a jacket.

Then the day came that every AA dreads and most have experienced. Tawny didn't show up to meet me, didn't come to any of our regular meetings, didn't answer her phone. When this happens, we are instructed to let the person di what they gotta do. Sometimes you're just not done. I really cared about this one, but principles are principles.

I was awakened a few nights later at three o'clock in the morning by a pounding on my door. I got up, groggy and half-asleep. Tawny was outside on my porch. She was crying, torn jacket and a hell of a bruise on her cheek. I opened the door and let her in. She smelled like a burning distillery, the wave of booze and smoke preceding her like a song.

She was crying, staggered toward me, arms open.

"Oh Joe," she said, slurring. "Oh Joe. I did a bad thing. I am a horrible person." She grabbed me and hugged me hard. Her arms felt like a machine, hard as stone as she lifted me clear off the ground, squeezed the air out of me. I tried to wriggle free, but she didn't seem to notice that I was there as she continued to sob. Finally I was able to gasp out her name, begged her to put me down before I passed out.

"Oh my God, Joe! I'm so sorry," she said as she set me down. She was a mess. I saw that her large knuckles were skinned bloody. She looked down at the shoulder of her coat, almost torn off. "Jesus. My coat. I just bought this." She started to cry again.

"Sit down, Tawny. I'll make coffee. There's an unopened bottle of water there. Drink it all while I'm in the kitchen. We'll get this sorted out."

As I made the coffee, I felt my knees go rubbery. She had lifted me high off the ground as easily as if I was a stuffed animal. I had felt enormous muscles in her arms, a tremendous—almost freakish—strength in her. My hand shook. In all out time together, I had never touched her body. She had mentioned weightlifting and sports, but only in the context of the trouble she'd been in. I leaned against the counter and said a short prayer: God give me the strength to get through this.

When I returned with the coffee, I almost dropped the cups. She had removed the coat and I saw her torso for the first time. Her shoulders were enormous, wide and round, the muscles of her deltoids rippling and jutting beneath the skin. Her biceps when unflexed looked like flattened footballs with a pencil-thick vein running down the center, but when she bent her arms the muscle bunched and tightened, a web of smaller veins popping out. What I had thought were small boobs were actually enormous pectorals, a deeply striated cleavage similarly vascular beneath her sleeveless scoop shirt. She saw me standing there and got to her feet. I noticed her shirt had been torn across the midriff, a red weal across a set of abdominals like a chimney. I was so used to seeing muscles in the pictures it had not occurred to me that they moved like that. As she reached for the coffee, I saw the shelf of her obliques push the thing skin of her flank into geometric shapes.

My heart pounded, my cock was instantly as hard as its ever been and I could not help but stare. Her eyes went past the cup to my cock and up to my face. She gave me a drunken smile.

"Well, now," she said.

I knew I was in trouble.

(to be continued)