Best Romantic Trend

Knock knock. Wake up. And we bolt upright, cursing, with a white light hammering behind our eyes. Someone took a 9-iron to our head. Damn that Seroquel shit! Gingerly lie down again and adjust bed to the full La-Z-Boy supine on back fetal position. Zzzz. There's a blood pressure cuff suckling our bicep and nurses are muttering. At least we got her pressure down. Way down. Let her sleep. She was pretty agitated when she got here last night and she had the vitals of a fat man. Meanwhile, the elderly drunk lady in the next bed is farting eloquently with the nurse panic button clenched in her yellow fist.

Day two: Knock knock. We're hollering as our eyes peel open. Get the fuck out of this room! Before we can fall down again, an amused man is sitting on the edge of our bed. Curly hair, earring, jeans, glasses, buttondown open to reveal some chest. "Tough Love Counselor" might as well be stamped on his forehead. Do you have our cigarettes? we ask, and squint at the laminated ID dangling from his belt. Tom? We could really use a smoke.

You missed morning butt break, he says. But if you get up and eat something, you might make the next one.

Where did you learn to be so McAffable, we say quietly to his retreating back.

I heard that, he replies, and leaves our door wide open.

Breakfast. A tray of steamed prunes and gelatinous cream of wheat steams up at us. A woman with no top teeth, soiled bunny slippers and a shrimp-like open abscess on her scalp scampers over to our table, giggles and holds aloft two bags of contraband: real coffee. They left the utility room open, she lisps, and jerks her head in the direction of the tiny community kitchen across the hall. I just made a pot. Gimme those, a walnut-colored, gym-ratty guy gripes, and snatches the bags away. He has thick, ringlety hair cascading down to the middle of his back. A metalhead? He looks to be about our age. Huh. He stuffs the coffee down his shorts and disappears.

Afternoon, or something like it. We fall over again in the cigarette room, having forgotten that the Clonidine patches leeched onto our back?this detox's only balm for severe opiate withdrawal?had given us a corpse-like blood pressure. Dinner's at 5. Stare at the bolus of lasagna and then we wolf it down, unable to remember our last meal. Weigh ourselves immediately: three pounds! March to the lavatory next to the dining room and vomit most of it up, figuring we'll hold back some for nutritional value. Open the door, still teary-eyed, and collide with walnut-colored guy. He fixes us with a dazzlingly simian grin. I'm next, he purrs knowingly. Wonder if I can chuck it as fast as you, kiddo. The timbre of his voice?a local accent marred by something faraway worldly?sucker-punches us right in the sweet pea.

At evening group we are asked to share why we're here. We lost something, we blurt. We lost something important and we don't remember what it is but we want it back. Plus our dealer cut us off. Plus we came up here to visit our grandparents and they tossed us in detox after spying our fresh track marks. Then we blush and shut up. Everyone claps. Walnut man is in the corner of the room, staring and listening. For the remainder of group, our attention keeps trailing back to him like he's a sore tooth. The man sitting with him looks like a winded Mr. Clean, and after a moment we realize he's our old roommate's husband. Mr. Clean recognizes us at the same time and whispers something to Walnut, who looks directly into our eyes and nods sagely. Our heart kicks hard into our ribs. Walnut has a perfectly chiseled Italian face, big amber eyes. Full mouth. Hel-lo, libido. Will you be rejoining us today? In bed that night, for the first time in months, we beat off like an adolescent witch.

Morning, in the wee grimy kitchen. A whole group of us is jammed in there by 6 a.m., smearing jelly on scorched Wonder, swilling brown crayola fake coffee and giggling like idiots. We're reaching up into the cabinets to topple over a fresh magnum of Sprite, wracked with mirth, when someone makes a hot, wet glottal sound into the nape of our neck. We turn around and he's there, almost touching us. Make that sound again, we implore. He complies. We're the only ones left in the kitchen, and he spanks the seat of our velour pants. We catch a whiff of his clean, nonsmoking athlete scent and pop another little boner. In morning group, Walnut?or Patrick, as the others call him?shares that he's "going to stay local for a little while." We're staring at his perfect, tanned feet. He's wearing Tevas. His unfortunate choice of footwear doesn't cause him to lose any points with us, which is amazing. After group, Patrick and Mr. Clean approach. Mr. Clean grabs our shoulders and shakes us. You're not leaving this county, he roars. This is home now. You're not returning to Long Island.

He's right. Later, warm with guilt, we call Rory from the payphone in the hall, and he asks if we're over our heroin problem yet. Says he can't wait for us to come back home to him. Love you, we say distractedly.

You sorry drunk old fool, we think to ourselves, after hanging up.

Six nights into our stay, we're sitting with Patrick in the hallway, right under one of the cameras that feed live into the nurses' station. He's regaling us with stories about copping dope with our mother's ex-boyfriend and how he would regularly throw coffee mugs brimming with feces on the baby-raping inmates during his two-year bid at the local jail. We dissect the minutiae of our favorite hair metal bands. When we realize he's not being ironic about his love for Ratt, we become mute with lust and completely drunk on the tension between us. Then the conversation inevitably swerves toward the bouts of ecstasy and light sadomasochism he endured at Limelight. Fucking his girlfriend, now dead, who danced at the Dollhouse in Ft. Lauderdale. Fucking his girlfriend's girlfriends. He earnestly describes his "Bon Jovi" phase.

That does it. We scrape our fingers through our hair and sigh long and low, draw our knees in under our chin. What, he asks. Right on cue.

We're horny, we say into our hands. Me too, he says immediately. You get out of here two days after me on a Friday, right? Because if you want to partake, I'd like that very much.

And so began our moveable feast. In the final mornings on the unit, as we studied the mini-Good Humor cups stacked in the fridge, Patrick would finger fuck us, after many reassurances that there were no cameras trained on the kitchen. No rehab romances, the counselors would scold us weakly, as we sat in the hallway and made plans sotto voce. On our last night in detox, we told the third-shift nurses that our Kate Spade bag is really just a $20 knockoff from Canal St., and that we didn't mean any disrespect that first night. Sure, honey, one of them says, without looking up. Just don't come back here again.

Observe us now, one hour out of rehab, rutting like pigs in the rec room at his parents' house. Ignore the fact that we're both in our mid-30s, jobless and live with our mothers. We barely have 30 days clean between the two of us, and all of this is something to ejaculate over. After a few days and nights of the best, most embarrassing sex we've ever remembered having, we're splayed on his vast blanket at a beach in New Hampshire, both of us crazy tan, gorgeous and dazed. The other sunbathers stare at us, hurt, as we rub oil on each other, swish our hair and talk about metal. Witness the high Baroque eat/fuck/drive phase of our summer rehab romance with Patrick, and we will hang onto the illusion for as long as we dare.