Use

by CD Reiss

  “Tell me why!” His eyes are wider, his teeth flashing as if he wants to rip out my throat. “Why?”

  “I need it!” The words come out before I think, and they’re poison to him.

  Before I expect it, he grabs my jaw, and I feel pain where his fingers press. He looks into me, cutting through me with his eyes, and I want to curl up into a blackened char of desiccation.

  He lets me go, and I fall to the floor.

  ***

  I almost missed Deacon come out of the building. The valet handed him his keys, and he took them without moving his face from the window. He looked concerned. I didn’t know if he could see me since I’d leaned back in the chair, thinking about the last time we’d been naked together.

  He stood still, looking up at me. He wouldn’t move out of the driveway until I acknowledged him. It was all over his face and posture. I leaned forward and put my finger to the glass. Seeing me, he smiled and put up a finger.

  He needed me.

  CHAPTER 18.

  ELLIOT

  I used to be happy at Alondra.

  Maybe I was freakish to think of it that way. It was impossible to explain how working with such troubled people made me content, but the small victories looked so large. Then I went to Westonwood, and wound up feeling as though the small victories were the same no matter who the patients were. I felt as if the world was full of too much pain to soothe.

  After I left Westonwood then went back, I didn’t want to be anywhere, and I wanted to be everywhere. My discontent flourished in a garden of anguish and brokenness.

  I’d left my chaplaincy at Alondra and put away the collar. I put off ordination over God’s sadistic torture of his only son, and subsequent torture of millions of people, because what was the point of salvation if you still existed at the whims of God and man? What was the point of faith if you were still subject to suffering? I understood all the theologies, but I didn’t see why I had to align myself with it. I understood the idea of God as compassionate observer, healer, and strength. Those were all nice ideas. But why choose to stand by them as partner? Why become a mouthpiece?

  My mentor, and old horse who never wrote down a sermon in his life, told me I was scared to wear the collar, and though he said it kindly, as if it was totally normal, I’d stormed out of the office.

  He was right of course. A step away from becoming a man of God, a commitment I’d always wanted to make, and I ran like a coward. I had no excuse besides fear and an unwillingness to conquer it.

  I dried myself after my shower, putting my day together in my mind. Therapy, then a session at Alondra, paperwork, and a quick meeting at Westonwood to discuss scheduling. I couldn’t do this for long. I couldn’t hold down two jobs. The commute was deadening. Alondra had to go and Westonwood had to go, but I needed them. Everything I was doing, I was doing for the wrong reasons. I was proving to Jana I could do what I wanted by being at Alondra, and I was sating some indefinite hunger by being at Westonwood. I still didn’t know what I wanted.

  Jana came into the bathroom, her long hair tangled from sleep, her nipples poking through her cloud-and-kitten pajamas. “You done?”

  “Just about.”

  “You going to that place today?”

  “That place? Yes.” I hung my towel and stood naked in front of her.

  “My father is worried about the gangs again, since you’re back at Alondra.” She turned toward the mirror. “He wants to get us an alarm system.”

  “No.” I moved her hair from her neck.

  “He’ll pay for it.”

  “I’m not living in a cage.” I kissed the back of her neck.

  She shrugged me off. “It’s not a cage.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “The triggers are so small. You can get one so the alarm just notifies the police. It doesn’t even make a sound here.”

  Her wrist looked so delicate peeking from her pajama sleeves, so vulnerable, with a little gold chain around it. Nothing was more feminine than the wrist. Between her exposed throat and the bracelet, I was fully erect.

  From behind her, I wrapped my fingers around her wrist and pulled her arm down. I whispered, “I don’t want an alarm system.”

  I pushed my dick against her and pressed her wrist to her lower back. She tried to pull away, but I held firm. Her resistance sent a wave of pressure between my legs, and something else came to mind. Something that shouldn’t have been there while I was trying to seduce Jana.

  “I want it,” she said.

  Was she talking about the stupid alarm system? I didn’t care. I had a head full of pink ass cheeks and paddles, of bound wrists and begging.

  “You’ll get it.” I bent her over the vanity.

  “Elliot, really…”

  I held her wrist with one hand and yanked her pajama pants down with the other. Her ass—unblemished, round, perfectly soft in my hand—creased as I grabbed the flesh.

  “Ouch. I have to go to work. What are you doing?”

  She wriggled under me, and I held her down. “Something different. Tell me how you feel about it.” I slapped her ass. “Later.”

  “Elliot!”

  I slapped her ass again. The sound and the sight of pink finger-shaped marks on soft skin swelled my cock against her.

  “I’m at Westonwood. You should be happy.” I slapped her again.

  She squealed. “What are you—?”

  Slap.

  “I’m getting ready to fuck you.”

  She looked around at me, as if checking to see if I was the man she lived with. I couldn’t do this much longer or I would come all over her back. I put my dick against her. She was wet. Very wet. And she hadn’t told me to stop.

  I pushed inside her, and I twisted her arm behind her back, pressing her to the vanity, when I felt her shudder. Her mouth opened a little. Her cheeks flushed when I moved inside her. God, she’d never felt so tight. When I slapped her ass again, she clenched around me.

  I leaned over her, letting her wrist go as I curved my body to hers. “You get tight when I spank you. Did you know that?”

  I pulled her a little away from the sink and put my fingers on her clit. I’d never handled her so roughly, and I wanted more. I wanted to bite her shoulder. I wanted to pull out, pull her onto the bed, and drive her crazy for an hour. I wanted to tie her up and call in sick. I wanted control over her body as I’ve never wanted anything before.

  But she wouldn’t. Not this girl. No time. Got to get to work. Got to argue. Got to talk about fear.

  I teased her clit. She stopped pulling away.

  “I’m not getting an alarm system, and I’ll work wherever I want,” I said. “The next time you suggest anything, I’m tying you to the bed with your legs in the air, and I’m going to spank you and tease you with my tongue until you learn who’s in control here. Do you understand?”

  “No, I don’t.” The truth was in her moan, not her words.

  “Let me be clear then.” I buried myself in her, pulled out, and slammed back in.

  She clenched and grunted, coming with a gasp and a long vowel, stiffening under me. I lost control of my own imagination which, for some reason, had fixated on Fiona in the afternoon light, moving her finger against my desk blotter. The sexless cut of her shirt made the knobs of her nipples even more prominent, lips over her teeth in a half smile.

  I let myself want those nipples. I let myself want to fuck her mouth. I let myself picture her under me, her red hair splayed on the pillow and wrists tied above her.

  I came so hard, I thought my body had expanded to the size of the room, pulsing against the walls, the towel rack, the ass pressed against me. I collapsed against Jana, my girlfriend of two years, and kissed the soft skin of her neck.

  When she spoke, she did it softly. Not hurt or upset, just matter-of-fact. “Get off me.”

  ***

  Jana showered immediately after. She stayed in long enough to make it impossible for me to see her before I left.

  So I drove.
/>   When I was ten, I’d woken from a nightmare and tiptoed into my parents’ room. We’d just moved to Menlo Park from Fresno, and I was scared of everything. My mother, who seemed more and more withdrawn. My sister, who was growing breasts and curves, changing in ways that made me feel the loss of a friend and the fear of a new creature that I didn’t understand. My father, however, was the same. Bigger than life, never arguing or raising his voice, he was a lion whose power was in his gait and mien. I looked just like him in the end, but I knew that power he had wasn’t mine to wield.

  On the night I dreamed of toilet bowls overflowing with reams of shit, I’d run to Mommy and Daddy’s room. I saw them. Mother and Father on top of the sheets, him taking her from behind like an animal. The noises. God, the adult in me had to laugh. I’d been through that memory a hundred times, how he had his hands on her throat. The way he hit her bottom. My mother, groaning.

  I’d run back to my room, as if the terror outside it was greater than the terror inside, and curled up, trying to pretend my erection didn’t exist. Hadn’t I sought God for the same reason I shut my eyes that night? To bathe my mind and soul in light and goodness?

  Right in my bathroom, I’d just replayed the whole scene, lick for lick. Why? Because of Fiona Drazen and her coyly baited nuggets of dirty talk. I wanted to be angry at her for it, but I couldn’t. I knew better. It wasn’t her; it was me.

  I wasn’t sure I could continue to be Fiona’s therapist, and I was positive I couldn’t stop. She had abandonment issues, and my leaving the first time had sent her into a tailspin. Leaving again would only reinforce her idea that she was worthless.

  Yet my sexual fantasies about her were affecting my life, and seeing her only reminded me that I wanted her. I kept thinking just once and maybe after she gets out, neither of which would help her.

  I kept imagining her body twined with mine, her pink ass, her willing submission, her tiny breasts under my palms. I wanted to taste her. I thought about it whenever I got into my car. Whenever I stepped into the shower. She was like a ghost hanging over me.

  “Countertransference isn’t about the patient,” Lee said.

  “I can read a textbook any time.”

  “You’re being hostile. You know as well as I do that you have to look at your own life and decide what needs aren’t being addressed that you’re imagining she can fill.”

  “I met her partner. He’s an interesting guy. Grew up in South Africa. I think I’ve been out of the United States twice.”

  “You talk about him like he’s competition. She’s not a conquest. She’s a patient.”

  My sessions with Lee had gone from chiding, pleasant, and slightly annoying to highly uncomfortable. I wanted to run away, but like any good therapist, I stood astride my discomfort and observed it.

  “I want to just feel something without turning it over constantly,” I said.

  “That’s not your job,” she said. “I have to tell you, I’m getting concerned about you. This is dangerous territory. Wanting to explore feelings like this without scrutiny? Come on. What’s going on with Jana?”

  I didn’t want to describe our post-shower fuck. It was too wrapped up in feelings and fantasies Lee would want to spend the next twenty minutes uncoiling. And it didn’t matter. What mattered was why I was having those feelings and fantasies. What mattered was the situation before Fiona Drazen ever walked into my office.

  “I think the worst thing I ever did was cave to what she wanted and work at Westonwood. I’m carrying around a ton of resentment. And the pressure hasn’t stopped; she’s just moved it to something else. I mean, you’d think we were compatible. I worry. I cope by being organized. She worries. She copes by being organized. But it’s deadening. I find I’m the one who’s trying to be unsystematic, and I’m not good at chaos.”

  “Then your problem is with your own life. Please, I’m begging you, don’t jeopardize your career by confusing that with redirected feelings for a patient.”

  CHAPTER 19.

  FIONA

  “Y ou seem different,” I said.

  Elliot smirked from behind his desk. He did seem different. He sat a little straighter maybe, or was nervous, or more relaxed. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  “I’m the same,” he said. “Maybe you’ve changed.”

  I shrugged. “Sure, I guess that’s why I’m here.”

  “You saw Deacon come in yesterday, I presume?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well?” He smiled. “You know what I’m going to ask.”

  “How I feel about it? Fine. Great. When can I see him?”

  “First I want to talk about your injuries. Your tooth and wrist.”

  “I don’t think that memory was real,” I blurted. “You said that I could create false memories under hypnosis, and I think I did. You said that the made-up stuff always favors the person remembering, and I think that however I got hurt, I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to do. Like, something really bad. So I made the other thing up.”

  “That just points to you being afraid of him.”

  I sank a little deeper into my chair. I was afraid of Deacon, in a way. I was terrified he’d leave me and I’d go crazy without him. And how did that jibe with my growing pipedream of being normal? I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to even think about it, much less talk about it.

  Elliot leaned forward. “Here’s my problem. It’s my job to make sure you’re safe for as long as you’re here. It’s very difficult for me to let you see him if I believe he’s hurt you, or that he will again. If I think he has some sort of unhealthy control over you, and if I think that’ll affect your treatment, I can’t allow it.”

  “What do I have to promise?”

  “I’ll take your firstborn.”

  A wisecrack was the last thing I’d expected, but it was exactly what I needed. I put my forehead to my knees and groaned. “Take it. I don’t want kids anyway.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said.

  My head shot up with surprise.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh my God,” I said, “can I kiss you?”

  “No.” He stood.

  I stood as well and looked down at my pale blue psycho suit. “Fuck.”

  “What?”

  “Does he have to see me like this? I mean, it’s bad enough I’m here, but I look like a janitor.”

  He looked at me, toes to crown, as if I was a real woman with curves under my clothes and a choice about what I wore, then took his eyes from me and looked at his hand on the doorknob. I pretended I’d imagined the sex in his gaze.

  “All right,” he said as he opened the door. “I’ll see if we can arrange some normal clothes for you.”

  CHAPTER 20.

  ELLIOT

  My belief that Deacon wouldn’t hurt Fiona wasn’t based on any kind of data, but on instinct. He might have an unhealthy control over her, but I didn’t think he was an immediate threat. I feared that if I didn’t allow him to see her, I was preventing it because I wanted her for myself. After my session with Lee, I could at least think the words.

  I wanted her.

  I couldn’t do a damn thing about it, but I would call it what it was. I would look it in the face and say “no” with conscious intention. I would want her until she stopped being my patient, then I would forget her and deal with Jana as if I’d never met the beautiful, vibrant, decadent heiress.

  “Hello?” Jana’s voice came over the phone, crisp and taut.

  It was dark as I pulled onto the freeway, making my choice to call her even more stupid. Maybe I felt a little suicidal. “I’m going to be late.”

  “How late?”

  “I have to run an errand.”

  “Thanks for telling me. Um, can you come in tomorrow to meet Mary? They really need to hire someone.”

  The school counselor position. I’d never given her a new resume, but Jana must have smoothed it over.

  “I’m working at Westonwood in the morning,” I said.


  “You aren’t at Alondra until two. Maybe you could squeeze it in? Think how great it would be to work together. We could have lunch together every day in the break room. It would be like a vacation.”

  I changed lanes, giving myself a second to think, but I had no way around it. The school was the third option that solved everything. “Sure. Noon should work. Thanks.”

  “Okay, see you in a bit.”

  “Okay.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you too.” I hung up.

  ***

  There was only one Maundy Street in all of Los Angeles. It was a block long, at the crown of hills above Beechwood Canyon. I twisted up the treacherous slope, back and around, only seeing the headlights of oncoming traffic a second before the car got close enough to hit. To my right, the landscape got longer and longer, the city stretching beneath in a plaid of lights.

  Maundy had three houses on it, all behind an iron gate. I stopped the car in front of the gate, my headlights illuminating the houses and trees. All were on the left, facing the view. The house closest was the smallest, and the lights were off. Number three. The house in the center had a few lights on. The back house had huge double doors and hooks in the front facade.

  An intercom and keypad were set into the gate, but my lights had alerted the occupants of the middle house to my presence. A slim Asian woman in a mandarin collar walked down the hill. As she got closer, I realized she was barely a woman at all, just at the beginning stages of adulthood.

  “Hi,” I said. “You must be Debbie.”

  “Yes, Doctor Chapman?” She shifted the bag to her forearm and pushed numbers on her side of the gate. I heard a clack, and she slid the gate open.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  “How is she? Are you allowed to say?” Debbie asked.

  “Better. Thanks for the clothes.”

  Smiling, Debbie handed me the bag. “I packed her something comfortable. If she doesn’t like the shoes, she can complain later.”

  I was tempted to open the bag and see what shoes she was talking about, but I didn’t want to walk away just yet. “Do you have a minute?”