Sex on the Dark Side of the Moon
Doug St. Ives
Author Bio
Doug St. Ives is the author of fiction books that often depict the link between addiction and the physical, physiological, and financial abuse of elders. St. Ives’ works also expose changing attitudes toward sex, family values, and ethnic diversity that occurred during the 1980s. He is a native Los Angeles resident who works to raise awareness about elder abuse and its prevention at both the local and national levels. St. Ives co-sponsors a help and support group for the sole purpose of providing assistance to those victimized by elder abuse. He is an alumnus of Los Angeles Pierce College and Long Beach State University. He is a third-generation Californian and currently resides in the San Fernando Valley, just north of Hollywood.
Description
Set against the backdrop of an opulent and ethnically diverse 1980s Los Angeles, the novel “Sex on the Dark Side of the Moon” brings to light the often ignored symptoms and consequences of sex addiction. The plot depicts how unintentional parental misguidance at a very young age influences the life of fictional sex addict Derek Freeman. He develops a relentless addiction to pleasures of the flesh that mushrooms into a full-blown and out-of-control addiction. In addition to mistreating the women he pursues for sex, Derek financially abuses his aging parents in order to fund that vice. All throughout, he blames family dysfunction for his dilemma and uses it to justify decimating the lives of nearly everyone he encounters.
Book excerpt
After faking a smile at Mom’s face at the assisted living facility for weeks, I’d finally reached the limits of my frustration with her faltering mental condition. My ritualistic morning visits to see that monster—no longer the person I once knew—had become a boring necessity of life. Honestly, I was no longer interested in providing comfort to a serpent that’d done nothing but curse me for as long as I could recall.
However, this visit to the Navidad Home for dementia patients took a magnificent turn, when in a dazzling exhibit of rare lucidity, Mom suddenly asked, “You have done so much for me Derek. Is there something can do for you, my wonderful little boy?
I looked straight into the eyes, and heart of the lady who dedicated her life to me, and silently shouted, “Just die! Please just die!”
Betty Freeman, or really just Mom, as I always called her, did not drop dead on the spot. Revolted by my silent outburst, I looked down at the floor and said, “No, Mom. You can relax. I’ll take care of everything.”
“What in the world would I do without you?” she continued.
“I know, Mom, I know.”
Although this morning was different, mom had developed a rather foul disdain for my company over the past few weeks, and it was certainly well deserved. I was a bad son over the years, and routinely used her as an ATM machine—just someone to help fund my vices. However, dementia caused all that to be forgotten, for convenience sake. Some folks would have considered my behavior elder abuse, but I concluded that milking her finances was fair restitution for tolerating her old age problems.
When I looked at her shockingly thin body spontaneously shaking on the bed, I suddenly remembered the tragic chain of events that brought us together in this dungeon of death in the first place. And it took every ounce of my self-control to keep from jumping up and firing a pistol point-blank at her head to end the misery.
Thankfully, a knock on her room door interrupted that sadistic train of thought and a woman’s harsh voice called out, “Rapido! Mrs. Freeman, you need to get you up now. I’m very busy, so don’t give me any trouble today.”
I jumped up to open the door and directed my self-loathing at that wacko with the bad attitude, “Could you possibly be any more obnoxious?” I belted out.
“I didn’t know you were there, stupido,” the woman said defensively.
Mom’s caretaker, Serena, had arrived to bring Mom to the mess hall for breakfast, and I was there to make sure that the Navidad Home’s exquisite cuisine actually made it into her withering body. Serena barged her way to Mom’s bed and barked at me, “Don’t just stand there like a useless gabacho. Give me a hand. Sit her up.”
“Whatever,” I sighed, exhausted.
With a little guilt over my earlier thought patterns, and high hopes that I might catch a glimpse of Serena’s cleavage, I roused myself to the task of lifting Mom to the edge of the bed. But my admiration for her wonderful full-figure was shattered when she said, “Smells like she hasn’t showered for a week. Did you ever think about hosing her off?”
“You’ve got wonderful bedside manners, Serena,” I said, helping her get Mom to her feet. “Isn’t showering a patient one of the many services this illustrious facility provides?”
“Yeah, right, but that’ll cost extra dinero,” she said under her breath.
Both of us silently walked Mom through a maze of long, narrow hallways lined with dilapidated classic movie posters, until we reached the institution’s mess hall. We sat Mom in her dinette chair, and she immediately began trying to use her bony, wrinkled fingers as knitting needles to knit non-existent yarn into an imaginary sweater. During her home bound, dementia-stricken years, prior to being institutionalized, Mom used habitual knitting to pass the time. Consequently, this exercise in futility didn’t surprise me all that much.
As I pulled up a chair and joined her at the dinette, it was impossible not to notice the long looks and sneers from the other inmates who constantly stared at us from their tables for god knows what reasons. After a while, I realized that most of these zombies weren’t really staring at us at, but rather, straight through into empty space. They were actually the fortunate ones who weren’t unaware of their tasteless surroundings that included many dilapidated dining hall decorations probably obtained from local restaurants long since gone bust.
Then, a skinny mess hall server with attractive breasts walked over to our table with a breakfast plate in hand, and said, “Buenos dias. How is the most beautiful woman in Navidad doing today?”
Mom ignored the server until she dropped a tray of glorified dog food on the table. Then she yelled, “Get that crap away from me! I’m not hungry!”
“Por favor Madre. You need to eat,” the server replied, lifting the food tray to Mom’s nose in an attempt to stimulate her appetite.
“Go away, and leave me alone!” Mom yelled again.
Mom had been here long enough for all the staff to know that eating was her least favorite activity. They knew that teasing Mom by waving food under her nose would just rile her up. So in the name of humility, I simply watched her their charades for moment or two, before suddenly jumping into action and physically forcing one spoonful of puréed chow into her mouth after another, until she nearly aspirated.
Every chance she got, Mom screeched, “Help! Help! Get this idiot away from me! I’ll tell your dad about this! Get him away from me!”
The institution’s staff dismissed Mom’s pleas as if they were uttered from a crazed heretic, and I continued to stuff her mouth as though I were force-feeding an injured animal. Although sadistic in methodology, I knew every spoonful of food that made it into her stomach, no matter how it got there, was probably a blessing from the Lord in the heavens.
As if feeding Mom weren’t torturous enough, the stainless-steel medicine cart suddenly arrived, reminding me that I’d also need to coerce her into swallowing a handful of pills, supposedly for her own good. The burly drug-dealing nurse who pushed this pharmacy on wheels plopped a plethora of pills on the table—enough medicine for every ailment known to humankind, and said to me, “Here you go, homey. Do you wanna force them down her throat, or should I?”
I suspected that most of this dope was either a placebo or completely unnecessary, but I looked up and said, “Whatever, whatever.”
After the cart pulled away to service the next victim, I carefully hid the pills inside a spoonful of the puréed slop I’d been feeding her. But mom was well-versed in my chicanery, and as soon as I looked away, she immediately spit out every one of my tiny Trojan horses onto the floor below.