by Kelly Fox
It is agony to not be able to touch him, to make him feel better. I really thought he was ready, but now I’m not sure, and I don’t know if he’ll ever truly feel comfortable around me.
Jake
I promised Jean-Pierre that I didn’t freak out over what we did together, that it was the sensation of being woken up and held in place that caused the freeze. It didn’t last long, but it hurt him. I wish I hadn’t reacted that way, but there is something about the encounter that felt dangerous.
Not Jean-Pierre, mind you. Never him. He feels like home.
It’s the vulnerability of home, even though it was so beautifully managed, that has my anxiety ratcheted up to an eleven. I can’t turn my thoughts off, I can’t stop scoping for danger around every corner, and it’s driving me a little batty, and frankly, probably a little grumpy. And not the cute grumpy. No, this is full-on, I’ll-scratch-your-eyeballs-out, perma-scowl grumpy.
I don’t want him to see me this way, so I’ve been internalizing it. Which is as bad an idea as it sounds and makes the fact that my therapist retired a particularly painful nut punch.
The suck about needing therapy is that you’re expected to make a good decision while your brain is playing merry hob with your life. Who the hell knows if the next therapist I’ll have will be any good at all? I mean, I go to that website that’s like Facebook for therapists, but they all have that same simpering, empathetic smile, and I almost can’t stand it. Seriously, I don’t need your soft empathy. I need you to help me reach into my head and pull this shit out so that I can get on with my day.
Unfortunately, I’m told the therapy doesn’t work like that. Neither does alcohol, in case you were curious.
Sighing most dramatically, I sit on my couch and open up my laptop, navigating to the stupid Facebook-for-shrinks web page. I check out the filters and make a couple of selections, deciding to go with a female therapist so that I don’t have to go through the will-he-or-won’t-he-trigger-me dance with a new male therapist.
My mouse sounds like zip ties as I scroll through the pages. Spin, stop… grandmother. Spin, stop… she looks constipated. Spin, stop… Woah, pretty sure the therapist shouldn’t have crazy eyes, right? So many of the women look like aunties in tastefully patterned sweaters. This is not necessarily bad, it’s just not what I’m going for.
I scroll for a few more minutes and land on a stunning woman with piercing blue eyes and long, wavy silver and white hair who is wearing all black, and more importantly, crimson lipstick and dark purple nail polish.
Yes, get on my level.
I scroll through her qualifications—trauma, check, PTSD, check, night terrors, check, kink-positive… record scratch.
Kink-positive?
I wonder if she’d consider what Jean-Pierre and I just did an actual kink, or if we are too informal for all of that.
Hmm.
Wouldn’t hurt to check her out, right?
Right.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jean-Pierre
My heart speeds up when I see the number come across my cell phone. It’s been nearly a day and a half since I’ve talked to Jake, and I’m excited to see him reach out to me. “My raven, how are you today?”
His laugh is unlike his prickly exterior, and I love to hear it. “I’m doing well, my angel. I wanted to see if we could… maybe see each other again sometime soon?”
“You’re still interested?” I hate the sound of insecurity in my voice, but I am crazy for this guy, even though (or hell, maybe because) there’s a part of him that feels dangerous, like a cornered animal.
“You goose, of course I am. I just… I needed to find a new therapist, and I’d like to talk about that with you. I should have been more open about what I was doing, but I wasn’t trying to ignore you, specifically, if you can believe that.”
Relief floods my body. Perhaps we are not as hopeless a case as I’d feared. “I’m willing to go on faith.”
“And I’m glad to hear it,” he says softly. “There’s a lot I want to talk to you about, to tell you about me and who I am. And I hope you’ll still like me after it.”
“Jake, I don’t think I could like you less if I tried. Where do you want to meet?”
“Let’s go somewhere closer to where you live. I haven’t been downtown for a while. What’s good down there now?”
It’s funny to have a local ask me, a newcomer, what’s good in downtown Austin. Downtown has become so inaccessible for locals, many of them forego it in place of bars and clubs and music venues that are closer to their neighborhoods.
“I like the great outdoors,” I say, rubbing my chin. “We could have a little bit of a picnic and then maybe do a walk around Lady Bird if you’d like.”
“Man, it’s been forever since I’ve walked around Town Lake. Yeah, I can get with that.”
“Do you like Brazilian food?”
“Definitely. Count me in.”
“It’s a deal.”
I’m sitting on one of the benches that dot the walking bridge that connects downtown Austin to South Austin across Lady Bird Lake, or Town Lake to the original Austinites. The views are lovely, green trees against blue sky, and the weather is cool, but not overly cold. The people-watching is spectacular, and I’m pretty sure that the all right, all right, all right guy just jogged past me.
Jake is five minutes late, and I shift the boxes around me, feeling a little silly for having the lady who owns the stall make me essentially one of everything she had.
I’m surrounded by people who are biking and walking and generally enjoying the sunshine, and just as I begin to wonder if I’ve been stood up, a man with the beginnings of a beard, wearing all black with dark nail polish, a dark wool coat, several black leather bracelets, and black combat boots is walking in my general direction. I like to think of him as petite because he’s several inches shorter than I am, but, when I see Jake interacting with the real world, it’s obvious that he’s actually quite tall as well. He’s got the dark and mysterious thing going on, and more than one person gives him a lingering glance.
I love his aesthetic. It’s not just the things in his closet, it’s the way he puts things together. Every outfit is unique even though he’s wearing the same color day after day. It’s a dark kind of magic that I am inexplicably, inextricably drawn to.
“Jake,” I say with a big grin on my face. “It’s nice to see you here.”
The broody and mysterious look on his face is broken by a small smile in my direction, and that makes me feel better than all of the sunshine in the world. I pat the bench next to me, inviting him to sit. I pull open the various boxes of food that I purchased from the Brazilian stall, and his face brightens with every new revelation.
“So, you’re a foodie, too?” I ask, hoping to warm up the conversation.
“I don’t know if you’d call me a foodie,” he says, picking up a box of garlicky beef, inhaling the smell, “but I do like seeing all of the new restaurants in Austin. I like that you could go to almost a new restaurant every week and never run out of places to go to.”
“Me too. This place is not in a brick-and-mortar restaurant, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time. Their food is so good, I hope that they do well in the future.”
Jake picks up one of the fried bits of appetizer and bites into it, and I try very hard not to watch his lips as he eats. “Oh my god, this is fucking delicious.”
I beam, happy that he is satisfied with the choices I made. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
While we’re eating, I notice that Jake still hasn’t dropped the anxious rise of his shoulders. He is enjoying his lunch, but he’s also definitely doing a regular sweep of everything around him. Occasionally he’ll seemingly jump and then settle back into regular conversation. It’s strange and makes me feel like I’m not doing my part to calm him.
“Do you ever fully relax? You look like you’re waiting for someone to attack you,” I laugh.
Shit. I can’t believe I
said that. The dark expression on his face confirms that I’ve said the wrong words. “Jake, I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.”
He shrugs, trying to pull off unaffected. “I’m doing my best.”
I nod, hoping I didn’t totally fuck up this delicate thing between us. “I know, and I’m so sorry. Can you talk to me? Do you feel comfortable enough with me to tell me what is making you feel anxious right now?”
Jake shakes his head. “You’ll think I’m paranoid.”
I gesture to myself. “I’m not here to judge you, mon amour. Maybe I can help.”
His eyes remain diverted, and he continues. “I was taken from a park in Paris. At the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, near the little bridge and the tower. This is nothing like that bridge, but it… it’s putting me on edge.”
I start to gather our lunch. “We can move if you’d like.”
Jake chuckles to himself as he helps me gather the boxes.
“What’s so funny, mon corbeau?” I ask, stopping to ruffle his hair.
“I dunno. This feels oddly… healthy? Like, maybe you won’t be an asshole about the weird shit that bothers me? Or, you know, not put out cigars in my armpits?”
The world shifts in an ugly way, and everything feels filtered and woolly. I’d felt his scars and guessed that they were part of what he endured in Paris… but to hear him casually toss that in there, layered with furtive looks and snarky commentary as it was… was slightly horrifying, and also somehow shameful for me.
“Jean-Pierre?”
I snap my attention back to him, his face out of focus for a moment. Oh, there they are. Those storm-soaked eyes lit by the sun, surrounded by pale skin and dark hair, black clothing. The walking bridge. The hard bench under my ass, the soft touch of his hand on my arm, the breeze against my skin, the pounding in my head. His voice saying my name, the sound of wheels on concrete as bikers and people with strollers pass by, horns blowing in the distance. Jake’s clean cologne, bat guano. Pennies on my tongue.
Cinq, quatre, trois, deux, un, I mutter to myself.
“Jake. Have you had enough to eat? Would you like to go for that walk now?”
“Um, sure. Can I ask what just happened?”
“Small trigger. Walked through it. Going to get up and move my body now,” I say, standing on wobbly knees. “But sometimes people recognize me, and I need enough…”
“… of your wits about you to make it through this next bit. I’ve got you.”
He did not mean to do that to me, and I am grateful that he understands.
“Should I get you home?”
“No. Kugenda ni byiza. Nkeneye kwimuka,” I say, the Kinyarwanda words tumbling from my lips. Walking is better. I need to move.
Jake nods sharply and stands with me, ignoring the fact that I started speaking in a language he’s never heard me use. A language I’ve kept silent on my tongue for decades.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jake
I think it’s important for this next part that you know that I am pretty much a therapy expert. I’ve been in dozens of therapists’ offices. I’ve been in the once-a-week therapy office, I’ve been in the thirty-day rehab therapy office, I’ve been even in the Austin State Hospital therapy office. Never, and I mean never, have I been in a therapy office that is next door to what can only be described as a sex club.
Kink therapy. It’s a brave new world.
I’m waiting for my turn in the nicely appointed waiting room, thinking about what happened last week with Jean-Pierre. I’m pretty sure that he was off his game for the rest of our date, plus he didn’t invite me back to his place, and never returned to the words he’d said that I didn’t understand.
I know that we’ll circle back around to it eventually, but I’m glad that I have a chance to talk it over with a therapist first. Even as I’m noticing that the sex club is accessible from a side door in this office.
“Jacob Koenig?” The therapist from the Facebook-for-therapists page is even more intriguing in person. Aside from her blue eyes and her striking silver and white hair down her back, she’s adorned her trim frame with an easy, sleeveless silk sapphire dress overlaid with a black leather underbust harness and simple kitten heels.
“Um. Yes. Jake, please,” I respond, shaking out the name I wish would die.
“Riley Sparrow. Nice to meet you.” She holds out her hand, which I feel compelled to shake. Firm, but cool. Like her. “I’ll note that you prefer Jake for future visits. Come this way.”
“Thank you,” I say as she leads me down a hall adorned with shibari art drawn in charcoal. We are definitely through the looking glass now, I mutter to myself.
“It’s okay, Alice. I know the way,” Riley responds, smiling. “Why don’t you step into my office?”
At least it looks like a therapy office, even if it’s rather cluttered. There’s a chair, there’s a desk, there’s a love seat, there’s even like one of those fainting couches. All of this seems normal. The art on the wall is a more colorful extension of what was in the hallway, but she needs someone to help her organize her desk, on top of which are stacks of paper and books that threaten to topple over. I square up the stack of books as I pass by, wanting to avoid the sharp sound of heavy books dropping to the floor.
Riley notes the move with a small smile.
We settle in across from each other, she in her office chair, me on the forest-green chenille love seat, which is immediately familiar and comforting.
“Some of my patients like to take off their shoes and lay out on the couch, and you are welcome to do the same.”
I unzip my moto boots and tuck my feet under me. She nods in approval.
“So, Jake. Tell me why you are here today.”
“Someone went and let Dr. D’Angelo retire.”
She smiles as she makes a note. “Rude.”
“Super rude,” I reply, wary.
“I’d still like an answer to the question.” Her face is friendly as she asks, but there’s a bite to her tone.
I raise a shoulder, uncaring, and go into my treatment spiel. “Gay. Alcoholic. Waterboarding assholes who like to play with cigars.”
Her eyebrow raises as she continues to take notes. Without looking up, she asks, “Nice radio ad, Jake. Do you do that often?”
“Not sure what you mean,” I respond, wide-eyed, knowing exactly what she means.
She hums, focusing her startling eyes in my direction. “Wanna try again?”
“I think I covered the bases well enough.”
A quarter of a smile freezes on her face, and she blinks at me a few times before leaning forward across her desk. “You can bullshit me all you want, Jake. I get paid the same either way. Do. You. Want. To. Try. Again?”
Not particularly, thanks.
I take a breath and prepare to field inane questions and regurgitate my shit. You know, the usual.
I see from your file that you were held against your will and tortured, how does that make you feel?
Stupendous, asshole. It’s super fun. And hey, you left off the best part. They weren’t even very good at it. Like, someone sent amateur torturers to bring me down, and, spoiler alert, it was effective. Fuck, it is such a joy to drag up my painful history with every fucking new therapist I have. I wish everybody could feel this way. Kind of like a bug under a microscope, if that bug had been nearly drowned with a wet towel and a large measuring cup full of water, and then asked to somehow pull his life back together with his own bare hands and a team of therapists.
Riley squints one eye at me, and I wonder how much of that internal soliloquy made it to oxygen. Or maybe I just have a shit poker face. She taps her pen against her notepad and considers me for a few more seconds. “I can see that you are perhaps not feeling this therapy session, Jake. Talk to me about that.”
I meet Riley’s eyes and cross mine. Then roll them for good measure. Then start speaking with my hands. “This is like one of those things like brunch, where they come up with some
thing ‘brand-new,’ like putting champagne and orange juice in an enormous mug and calling it a manmosa. But it’s just a fucking mimosa for alcoholics. There’s nothing special about it—it’s the same damn orange juice, it’s the same damn champagne. It’s just in a huge mug.
“This is therapy. In a therapy office, and the only element that’s interesting about it is that it’s next to a kink club. Honestly, how is this different from any other therapy I’ve received?”
Riley pauses, squinting her eyes at me. “Well, in this session, for instance, I usually have to tell people that even though I’m a Domme, it’s inappropriate to call me Mistress Riley.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t ever going to call you Mistress Riley.”
“That’s because you likely belong to someone, Jake. Aside from the fact that I’m your therapist, I would never ask someone else’s sub to call me Mistress.”
“Oh, so we’re going there?” I touch my throat, aware of what I am missing.
“I am a kink-positive counselor, Jake,” she says, lifting her eyebrow at me while putting on a very fashionable pair of overly large reading glasses. “Going there is my actual job.” I don’t know that I’ve ever had a therapist keep up with my snark like this, and I’m not sure how I like it.
“Fine. Last year I came out to my family, who still don’t know what happened to me in Paris—that’s my one brief interlude with torture, by the way. Side note—did you know that you could be bad at torture?” I ask as I hold up my pinky finger with its misshapen fingernail. “One of them, the tall one, threw up after partially ripping this off. They had to fucking regroup.”
I figured that would be good for a laugh, but Mistress Riley is still taking notes and gestures for me to continue. Fine. “Anyways, that’s the reason why I came back addicted to booze. Plus, they don’t know know what I do—or did—professionally, because it’s classified. And they’re so sweet for giving me a job, but I hate it because it keeps me away from the art, which I love. And I don’t have any hope of quitting because recovery and mental health care are fucking expensive.