I said “Okay” but I still felt uncertain when I hung up the phone with her.

I hope she does the right thing, I told myself. I clicked over the line and caught a call from Florida just in time. It was Judi calling me.

She said, “I haven’t talked to you in a minute. What have you been up to?”

I asked her, “Are you still celibate?”

“Yes, I am,” she told me.

“Well, that might not be a bad idea after all,” I stated.

“Why, what did you do?”

Judi was the right person for me to talk to at the right time.

I said, “What didn’t I do? This last past week has been…Damn, where do I start?”

I had been tempted out of this world after Judi had preached celibacy to me only a short while back. I had gone in the opposite direction.

“Mmm-hmm,” she grunted. “The beast can catch you out there. So what did you do? I won’t pass judgment. I’ve been through plenty myself.”

I asked her, “Just by chance, have you ever been out to Marcus Vissel’s mansion in California?”

“Yes I have,” she told me, “and if you’re asking me that, then I guess I don’t have to say much more about it.”

I paused and thought about it. “Is that why you had a change of heart about sex?”

“It’s one of the reasons, yes. It was all part of the process of me reevaluating who I am, what my worth is, and what more I could be doing to reach my maximum potential instead of selling my mind, soul, and body so cheaply.”

“Tell me about it,” I told her. “I even had a guy try to physically assault me thinking that I would be willing to fuck him. And you know I’m not going anywhere near that shit as much as I love women,” I stated.

“You mean as much as you lust for women,” Judi corrected me. “But I’ve seen it all, Terrance. That’s why I’m no longer moved by it. You can’t get to where you’re trying to go on your back.”

But do I give up sex entirely? I pondered.

I asked her, “So, what do you do when you have that itch?”

She joked and said, “I go to a doctor. But no, seriously, you just have to pray through it. Ask for strength, and then you go find something else to do.”

Her weeks of abstinence had turned into months and still counting. I guess she was succeeding. I still didn’t know if I could do it, but after the incident with Corey Sanders and the freaky week I had, I was definitely in need of reevaluation. What were my own priorities?

Judi asked me that question right on cue. “Terrance, what do you really want out of life? Have you ever asked yourself that question, or recently?”

“My life is pretty good. I don’t think about wanting too many things,” I told her.