Free A Wicked Choice by Calinda B Page A

night. Court-ordered to participate, most of the men were manipulative and full of grandiosity, spending their time figuring out how to work the system, rather than change. Cam hated that. He often perceived himself to be a babysitter for grown men with the minds of childish bullies.
    His office had flickering fluorescent lights overhead which drove him mad with their insistent flicker and hum. He’d asked to get it fixed on several occasions to no avail. Sometimes he wanted to take a hammer to it and be done with it. The walls were cluttered with posters about HIV, teenage pregnancy, and the escalating drug use in the greater Seattle area. A couple of miserable teens peered out at him from the poster, needles and pills at their side. In another, a beautiful young woman with bright smiling eyes was framed in a picture next to a snapshot of her current self: an old-looking, washed up 26-year-old woman with missing teeth who was hooked on meth. It was a sad poster.
    He was dressed in a pair of light brown cargo pants, a green plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of Keen’s hiking shoes. His desk was, as usual, cluttered with papers, articles he had brought in, and books. If anyone tried to straighten up his desk, he got pissed, way pissed.  He knew where everything was in this landslide. He leaned back in his chair, a squeaky, clunky wooden chair from another era, and stretched. Man, what a long day. He looked up at the old circular school clock that hung on the wall. It was nearly 8:30 pm. He should finish up and head for home. Chérie would probably be there when he got home.
    Chérie... he rubbed his hands over his jaw, lined with a day’s stubble, and thought of her. How he cared about her. He remembered the day he first saw her at U-Dub. She was virtually bouncing along, golden reddish lights shimmering from her short, glossy hair. Her slender body was vibrating with energy. Damn, he loved that body…all taut muscles and smooth, sensuous skin. And her face – it was fine boned with golden Lynx-like eyes that made his heart melt. He was hooked right from the start. At first glance, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and kiss her long and thoroughly. He had wanted to claim her, like some territorial beast. You, Jane... Me, Tarzan. Where the fuck did THAT come from? Jesus Christ, he got hard just thinking about her. And SO fucking sweet. She was probably the sweetest woman he had ever met. But goddamn it all to hell, he wished she’d stick up for herself. She let people run all over her, use her. He couldn’t stand that.
    He’d been raised by one son-of-a-bitch father who slapped his mom around a lot. His father would constantly berate her and, when drunk, use his fists to drive home his angry points, whatever the hell they were. “You’re not doing this right, not doing that right.” Cam had hated it as a child, and he hated it still. At 17, he’d finally stood up for his mother, belted his father in the jaw, and got the hell out of there, moving in with his Grandma Guinevere. He had never looked back, never hit another person…he’d also never seen his mom again. He’d had enough of living with violence. That’s partly why he did these groups for men in recovery, if you could call it that. If he could make a difference in one man’s life, he felt he’d atone for his father’s failures.
    Tonight he had had the WORST suck-ass group. Those foul mouth lugs that he was supposed to be guiding on their way to non-violence were too much to take sometimes. He knew he wasn’t making a difference in anyone’s life in there. He got so tired of the stonewalling, the silence, and the refusal to take ownership of their behavior.  It was just like being in his childhood home.
    But he had a couple more months to finish his internship. He was finishing up a degree in counseling, and this gig at High Road Recovery was an important one. The only thing was, now that he was nearly finished, he wished