by Amy Brent
“I’m sorry,” he said, now. “That was uncalled for.”
“I know I can’t get off with you,” she said, finally.
That took him back. “What—what do you mean?” he asked. “We’re great together, aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” she agreed, “but the way you go about touching me—it just gives me the creeps—”
“I’m not the one stripping you naked in front of a crowd—”
“I’d let you if it meant you could make me feel—like that,” she said, remembering how powerful, serene, and beautiful she felt, especially when she’d caught the eyes of the women that had been there. “I need to feel like a woman, Calvin, not like a sex toy.”
That stunned him into silence, and she could see the tears welling up in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” she began, but he wiped his eyes quickly with the back of his hand and said, “No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry that I never understood what you needed. Please, just give me a chance to learn what to do, and I swear, I’ll make you the happiest woman alive.”
She’d never expected to hear that from him. Some begging, sure—all of her previous boyfriends had begged her not to break it off, and some of them had even asked for a last chance. But Calvin was so sincere about it—and she’d be lying to deny that she wasn’t touched by it.
Damn it, she thought, because she could feel her own eyes welling with tears and her vision go blurry as she realized that it she owed him one more chance. Because they did fit well together—that was indisputable. And Calvin genuinely loved her—she could see it in his eyes, now, and the look brought her back to the times when they’d danced together, so perfectly in sync, his touch real and passionate. He could make her happy—and she owed him the chance to prove it.
“All right,” she said, finally. “But we’ve got to see someone,” she added.
He drew away from her. “Really?” he asked.
“Look, you’ve had six months—if you haven’t figured it out by now you’re not going to, and damn it, I want you to figure it out,” she said.
He bit his lip and nodded. “All right, fair enough,” he said. “But I get to pick. Since I’m the one with the issues about doing it in front of people.”
She had to smile at his squeamishness—he couldn’t even say “sex” without blushing. “All right,” she said, kissing him. Her oven timer went off, a little bell that pulled her out of the drama that she was wrapped in. “Stella’s late,” she said. “Want to stay for dinner?”
A week passed, a week where Stella came over to help her pick out a vibrator and show her how to use it. She lay in her bed after the sessions. Stella would insist that she be naked, and while Alisha was sure it was entirely for her own gratification, the feel of Stella’s hands on her breasts how gently her fingers parted the folds between her legs were so gentle and loving she didn’t mind being used. And when she felt the vibrator slide inside her and her body close around it as she flipped it on she was sent back to that night in the club, feeling the hungry eyes of the crowd on her as they eyed her body and licked her lips, men and women alike. There had been a feeling of intimacy, as if she was sharing her pleasure with those men and only those men—as she felt the pressure build inside her she remembered the way Calvin touched her when they danced, how certain he could be. And when her body gave in—when the fireworks in her head exploded and all she could see was stars and her body felt like one big puddle of pleasure as it clenched around the vibrator again—it was with a longing for that passion to be made real.
“I’ve got an appointment,” Calvin had told her. “Saturday. With a licensed sex therapist.”
“There is a such a thing?” she’d asked.
He’d shrugged. “You can find out a lot if you just ask around.”
So now she was waiting outside her apartment for Calvin to come pick her up. He had a car—or rather, his parents had given him their old one—and she was looking for the old green Chrysler, acutely aware that, even though she was modestly dressed in a floral, knee-length dress with a cardigan and ballet flats, she was getting stares from drivers wondering if she was a hooker. It would be just her luck if a cop pulled up and asked her if she was waiting for someone. They probably heard, “I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” all the time.
Luckily, Calvin pulled up before a cop did. She got in quickly, before she attracted any more stairs. “So where are we going?” she asked.
Calvin said, “Somewhere in Harris.”
“Harris?” Harris was the richest county in the area, the kind of place where shopping at Whole Foods was the norm and everybody drove a BMW. “Jesus, how much are you paying this guy?”
Calvin cocked his head at her and said, “Actually, they said they’d do it for free.”
She laughed nervously. “You’ve got to be kidding. I know you’re charming and all but you can’t be that good.”
“Hell if I can figure out why,” he said. “At first I thought that maybe they’d want a video of our session but he assured me they don’t do video unless it’s a turn-on for both partners.”
“Is it a turn-on for you?” she asked, teasing him now.
He blushed and ducked his head in that cute and charming way he had, and for a moment she was able to forget the frustration of the last six months, the needs that had gone unsated, the desires that she’d only recently been able to figure out how to quell, but she couldn’t quench them, not entirely. She wanted to be touched by him—she wanted him to make her feel the way Stella did.
The house they drove up to was at the top of a hill, on a long and winding driveway. A valet met them at the door and took the keys to Calvin’s car and drove it to a long garage at the bottom of the hill. The garage had six doors—one of them was open, and he parked it there. Alisha was still trying to get used to the idea that some people had six cars when the front door opened and her stepbrother opened it.
“Mars?” she gasped. “What are you—”
“Alisha, Calvin,” he said, bowing. “Welcome to Paradise.”
***
Mars Tracy was a tall, imposing man, athletic and muscular, and he towered over Alisha and Calvin as they stepped inside, suddenly aware of how tacky and mean their worn clothes and scuffed shoes seemed next to Mars’ pressed linen suit and shined blue leather shoes. He’d lost the beard and gained a tan, which made him look leaner and hungrier than she’d last seen him. He wore his dark hair slicked back into a neat ponytail.
Inside the massive carved wooden doors was a massive foyer with a sweeping spiral staircase white with an intricate cast-iron railing. The rooms of the house were closed off by doors, but there was enough art on the walls and the rugs were fancy enough for them to get the general impression of a latter-day Downton Abbey. There was a slim black side table with a small silver tray on it, and Mars, smiling gestured at it. If you please. It took a moment for Calvin to realize that he was supposed to put his keys and wallet there. Alisha followed suit and set her purse down, a little uncertain about what was going to happen now.
“Follow me,” said Mars, opening a door and leading the way down a hallway.
“So, uh you know each other?” Calvin asked nervously.
“You could say that,” Mars said. “She used to date my brother.”
Calvin’s look of discomfort would have been hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that she was feeling the same way. “So what happened?” Calvin asked, as they were shown into a library.
“Well, she took him home to meet her father, and—”
“He invited us to a family barbecue, and then my dad met their mother,” Alisha finished.
“But your last names—”
“We were old enough to be emancipated, so we kept our last names after Mr. Reyes married our mother,” Mars said, smoothly gesturing to the chairs. Alisha and Calvin sat down obediently. She began to understand why Mars had been chosen for this task—if someone wanted to back out now they’d be subjected to his imposing figure in front of them.
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“Hi Ally,” Altaire said, entering from the other door. He grinned sheepishly at her. “Never thought I’d see you here.” He was tall, like Mars, but slimmer. If Mars was a brick of solid muscle, then Altaire was reedy, sinewy, but strong. His hair was the same color and Mars’, but he kept it short and neat—he looked like any other banker and even now she was uncomfortably aware that if she hadn’t known that he was Mars’ brother she wouldn’t have known his name. He looked pale, as if it’d been years since he’d stepped into the sun.
Calvin was starting to look even more panicked than he had been. “So you’re the one she was dating?” he asked, his voice cracking.
“No,” Altaire said, smiling. “Though I wish she had—Sol was never good enough for you, you know?”
Two and two came together like a thunderclap in her head: so this was what Sol had been up to for the past three years. She knew he was a therapist, but she’d always assumed that meant he had a couch in an office, the same as any other shrink. But a sex therapist—
Oh God, he’s going to be watching me have sex with Calvin—and if that didn’t set her weird-o-meter off then the fact that Sol would be telling Calvin how to please her certainly added an element of twisted incest into it.
“It’s not as if we’re blood relations,” said Altaire, coming up behind Calvin and placing his hands on Calvin’s shoulders. He began to rub Calvin’s shoulders. “There,” he said. “Just relax. It’s not illegal—”
“But it is sure as fuck embarrassing,” said Calvin, as a little sigh of relief escaped him.
“That’s a matter of perspective,” said Altaire. “We all love Alisha, we want to see her happy. You make her happy, except in this one regard—so we make her happy. You see how this works?”
Much to Alisha’s surprise Calvin nodded. She vaguely remembered that Altaire had studied yoga and was a massage therapist as well. No wonder Calvin basically melted into a puddle.
“Yes,” said a new voice—Sol came in through the main door and closed it behind them. She gasped in shock when she first saw him—he’d bleached his hair to a luminous platinum blond, and it floated down to his shoulders like a curtain of white lightning. He was built somewhere between Altaire and Max, and he seemed to glide over the ground more than walk on it. Unlike Altaire and Mars, he was wearing a Nehru jacket, the high collar unbuttoned at the throat. He was dressed entirely in black, and now as he sat down across from Alisha and Calvin she suddenly recalled the suave patter that had charmed her into his arms. At that point, though, she had been just starting out with her career, and the relentless practice schedule and the exhaustion that she was left with took their tolls on their relationship almost before it’d begun.
Still, seeing his familiar features—the aquiline nose, the sharp, green eyes that the other two also shared—brought back a wave of good memories. She’d met his brothers at that barbecue where she’d introduced her father to their mother—they’d all had a good time talking with each other and they treated her like the little sister they’d always wanted to have. Mars had taught her a bit of street fighting, “just in case,” he said. She’d actually used it once—it’d worked, and the guy whose nose she’d broke had ended up with a hospital bill.
They’d just been starting out back then; when their parents married they’d just started their practice, but she’d been under the impression that it was just a regular shrink’s practice where Altaire could teach yoga and Mars could do physical therapy in conjunction with Sol’s therapy. Sex therapy wasn’t something she was even aware of until three days ago—that her step brothers had gone into.
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen,” Sol said, as Mars set down a tray of tea (when had he made the tea?) with little chocolates. “I’m going to ask you two some questions, and you need to answer them as honestly as you possibly can. There’s no point in being dishonest—I can tell if you’re lying and if you are going to lie Mars will kick you two out the way David Beckham kicks soccer balls.”
Alisha nodded. Calvin gulped, and then he nodded.
“Once we ascertain where we stand and what we need to do, we’ll take you upstairs to one of the therapy rooms—”
“Therapy rooms?” Calvin’s voice cracked when he asked the question.
“Rooms where we get to try out different things and practice what I’ve told you, in a safe space,” he said.
“How kinky do you think we’re going to get?” Alisha sputtered. “I’m a virgin—I’ve never had sex with a man.”
“You’d be surprised and how many clients discover fetishes they never knew they had,” Sol said, “or else they were too afraid to embrace them. Keep in mind, most people don’t like to talk about their needs—they’re told that such things are awful, and despite all the openness about gay sex and the recent uptick in interest about bondage, these aren’t the videos getting the views on porn sites.”
Alisha fell silent. Calvin stared at his feet. He was probably wishing that they were anywhere but here—but he’d picked the place, now he had to live with it.
“All right,” said Sol, smiling and looking back and forth at them. “Let’s begin, shall we? Alisha, what is it that you want most out of sex with Calvin?”
She gulped. “I want to feel like a woman,” she said, in a small voice. Next to her, she could feel Calvin turning red. “I mean, I want to feel—to feel like he knows me and wants to please me.”
“Why do you think he’s not pleasing you?” asked Sol.
Fuck, I can’t believe I’m talking to my stepbrother about this, she thought. “I—I don’t know—”
“I want something more,” Calvin said, suddenly. “I want to take her and feel her body change underneath me, to feel like she’s becoming something more than me—like—like she’s the goddess I want to worship.”
She gasped. She’d never known that Calvin had wanted that. “I love her,” he said, now, to Sol. “I love her and I want to please her—but I don’t know how to give her what she wants in a way that makes me feel worthy of her love.”
“Happily,” said Sol, “that’s what you’re here for.”
It was just as well that Sol was there to listen. By the end of the hour Alisha was beginning to understand what the point of therapy was—there were so many questions that she hadn’t even thought to ask Calvin that rolled off Neil’s tongue as easily as if he’d been discussing the Patriots’ last play. And she had learned so much about what made Calvin happy that she had a few ideas of what she was willing to try, so that she could make him happy and so that he could make her feel like that.
“Well,” Sol said, “I think there’s a lot we can do to make things better between you two. Please give me a moment to confer with Mars and Altaire.”
The three of them left the room, and Calvin leaned back in his chair, deflated. “Shit,” he breathed. “I don’t think I can do anything more after a conversation like that.”
“Me neither,” she said. “I had no idea you felt that way,” she added.
“It’s not something I usually get into with the girls I date,” he said. “You were right—we needed to see someone. Still not sure how I feel about them being your stepbrothers, though.”
“They’re a recent addition to my family,” she said. “It’s not like we grew up together or anything.”
“Still, it’s just weird.”
She nodded. For the first hour it’d been possible to treat it like any other couple’s therapy session, in as much as she knew what they were supposed to be like. Sol had been quietly professional in the questions he asked, prefacing the truly personal ones with, “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but don’t lie to me.” Now they were rapidly approaching the time for the therapy rooms—and she wondered what they would look like: the dungeon from Fifty Shades of Gray? Or some elaborate nineteenth-century boudoir? And what would they do? Would Sol be touching her? She didn’t mind Stella, but Sol was her stepbrother—there was some kind of line, wasn�
�t there?
Altaire came in, carrying two stacks of towels and robes. “For this part of the therapy session we’re going to ask you to bathe each other. This is a typical aspect of foreplay that you might do with each other, even in the absence of a luxurious house. You might choose to get a room in a hotel, for example.” He handed one to each of them and began heading down the hall, up the sweeping spiral stairs, and down another hall. “Calvin, you, for instance, might take a few minutes each day to prepare for the weekend—get your candles and scents on Monday, for example, set aside your fluffiest towels on Tuesday, clean the bedroom on Wednesday—you get the picture. And you, Alisha, might start stoking the flames of desire a little: send him pictures showing a little cleavage, arrange his lunch in a suggestive manner when you meet for lunch, tell him about a particular fantasy, that sort of thing.”
“Do you have the Cliff notes?” asked Calvin.
“That’s why we have you do this,” said Mars, who stepped out of a room and held open the door for them. They stepped inside, into an enormous, almost palatial bathroom, compared to the cramped showers that were six inches from the toilet that were in their respective apartments. The room was white, except for the curtains and the candles, which were the boldest, most-brilliant aquamarine blue, and a side table, which was starkly black. The room was scented with the crisp, clean scent, one that she couldn’t quite place, but for some reason it reminded her of the ocean.
“It’s not exactly rocket science,” said Altaire. “Please,” he gestured to the table. Alisha and Calvin laid their towels and robes down on it.
There was an awkward moment where they stood waiting for the brothers to leave, until Altaire said, “Oh, I see. You think we’re going to leave you—no.”
Mars picked up Calvin’s wrists. “Relax,” he intoned, as he lifted Calvin’s arms. Calvin dropped his shoulders automatically, and let Mars guide his hands over to Alisha. “Undress her,” he said.
“I’m not wearing—” Alisha began, but Altaire put his finger over her lips. “Your job is to experience this,” he said, turning her so that her back was to Calvin.