by Leddy Harper
I wasn’t expecting that. Most people liked sex. The ones that came to me didn’t really have that issue. Their problems were more from anxiety or severe lack of social skills. Low self-esteem—that kind of thing. I couldn’t recall one person coming to me and saying they didn’t enjoy the actual act of sex. I mean, if they were coming to me, then that meant they liked sex but had trouble preforming.
“What don’t you like about it?”
“The looking. The touching.” Again with the looking and touching. I needed something more.
“Do you not like being touched at all?” I waited for her to answer, and when she didn’t, I reached my hand out and covered hers. She looked down at our joined hands but didn’t move away. “You seem okay with this. So it’s not so much touching that you don’t like. Is it safe to say you strictly don’t like the intimate kind of touching?”
She nodded while continuing to stare at our hands in silence.
“Can I ask you a personal question? Were you ever taken advantage of in any way as a child?”
Her hand jerked away from mine quickly when I asked that. It answered my question. What really surprised me was what she said next. I wasn’t expecting to hear the answer she gave. Most people hint around at it, but they never really say it aloud, so I wasn’t anticipating her to speak.
“No. I wasn’t,” she said firmly.
“Not at all? It’s okay to tell me. I can’t help you if I don’t know what has happened.”
“I’m telling you the truth. I was never molested,” she answered in a raised voice.
I decided to concede, even though I didn’t believe her answer. “It’s okay. Listen, we can work through this. Would you like to set up a session with me? We can start with one and go from there. We can discuss a plan that you feel comfortable with, or we can take it day by day. It’s completely up to you. But I honestly feel that we can work through this. I have done this for a long time and have helped thousands of people overcome their fears and concerns.”
“I still don’t know what it is you do. I mean…” she stammered. “I mean, I know what you do, that’s why I came. I just don’t know what I should expect to get out of this. Will you be touching me? Will we have sex? What should I prepare for?” In her nervousness, she began wringing her hands in her lap without taking one glance up at me.
“Every client is different, Ivy. Everyone comes to me for different reasons. I have practiced psychology before, and that allows me to serve you better. But the difference between the therapist you’re currently seeing and me is I don’t have to follow all of their rules. I am allowed to have relations with my patients… if it pertains to their recovery. Yes, I have touched and had sex with previous clients, but I’ve also treated people without ever having to go there. I work with your current therapist to make sure you’re getting the best treatment customized for you. She doesn’t divulge the things you two discuss during your therapy, and I only inform her of your progress and things I pick up during our sessions. Does that make sense to you? Does that help you have a better understanding of what it is you’ll be doing with me?”
She nodded but didn’t respond verbally. She seemed to be a woman of few words.
“How about tomorrow? Does that work for you?”
Again, she nodded but didn’t speak. It was starting to irritate me.
I guess I would have to do everything. My patience was wearing thin with her lack of response or acknowledgement. I felt like I was having a one-sided conversation and wondered if all of our sessions would be this way. I understood that it was her first visit with me, and that could be scary and intimidating, especially when it came to someone with severe emotional problems. But I needed something from her to go on. So far, she hadn’t given me much. Who was I kidding? She hadn’t given me anything. I could take the miniscule things she had given me and form my own conclusions, which I sometimes did, but I didn’t prefer to do things that way. Things needed to be give and take. I couldn’t give her what she needed, nor could she take anything away from our sessions without her giving me something in return. She needed to participate or we would continue this ridiculous face-off.
I went to my desk and opened my calendar. I found an empty time slot at seven. It was either that or wait another day. I weighed my options and knew if I waited any longer, she would back out. I could tell that she was skittish about procuring help. She probably needed more than just my help, but I knew she needed something. I wouldn’t fail her. “Tomorrow night at seven, meet me here,” I told her, not asking her.
Her eyes moved from mine to the wall and then back to mine, over and over again. We sat in silence for nearly a minute while she did that. I was waiting for her to respond and, as usual, I was getting nothing.
“Is that a problem, Ivy?”
“No. I think I can move some stuff around. It should be fine,” she responded in an even tone. Her tone didn’t offer me a glimpse into her mind one bit. I wondered what she was thinking about when her gaze was constantly darting from me to the inanimate objects that filled my office.
“Okay then, I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
I watched as she stood up and made her way to the door. Not a word escaped her mouth, nor did her eyes ever meet mine again. Even if they had, I doubted that they would hold anything conclusive. There was something about her that I couldn’t figure out. She seemed depressed maybe, definitely stuck within her own head. I was sure once I figured it out, I would be able to help her. I hoped so at least.
Once the door was closed behind her, I turned back to my desk. I busied myself with putting files away and shutting down my computer. Leaving too soon after a patient had proven to be a bad idea. It can sometimes be difficult for women to separate my work from emotions. I’d have to say that was the hardest part of my job, when they’d become convinced they were in love with me. If only they knew I was incapable of love, they’d never even try to pursue me in that arena to begin with.
But for some reason, if you tell a woman that, they feel the need to fix you. I guess I could somewhat understand their logic. After all, they come to me with intimacy issues and the first thing I want to do is fix them. But I can’t be helped. It’s what makes me so good at what I do. I can teach intimate behavior, I can correct their longstanding fears of sex, and can make them overcome anxiety issues all while staying completely devoid of romantic emotions.
I finished packing up my work, setting myself up for the next day, and headed out of the office. All I wanted to do was go home and grab a beer. No. Not a beer. I needed something stronger after the day I had survived. I simply needed to clear my head. It didn’t happen often, but there were times when clients would open up about their pasts and it somehow brought up my own. I reserved the hard liquor for those days. And Ivy had done that to me, made it one of those days.
It was strange because she hadn’t shared much, yet she had managed to accomplish setting my thoughts in motion. Thoughts that were buried deep within my cavernous mind, the dangerous thoughts that held the power to haunt me.
As I made it to the front door of the office building, I could see the sheet of rain through the glass. Well, that’s just fucking great, I thought to myself. I must have been so in my own head that I hadn’t heard it from my office. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it with it coming down as hard as it was, pelting the glass like tiny bullets. I guess that only shows how deep within my own thoughts I had been. It was definitely a hard liquor kind of night. Maybe I’d call Alyssa, too. Yeah, liquor and a blowjob would make it go away.
I opened the door, preparing myself to run to my parked car, when I noticed a woman sitting on the curb. It only took a moment to see it was Ivy. Shit. She was waiting for me. I didn’t have the patience for that, but something inside of me made me go to her. Humanity. I may have been a bastard when it came to women, but I did have some compassion when it came to my patients.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, yelling over the pouring rain around us.
She looked up at me, letting the water fall into her eyes. She didn’t even try to shield her sight from the torrential downpour. I noticed her golden hair was now much darker as it soaked in the rain and clung to her body. It was long and thin. When it was dry, it hung limply against her tiny frame, not bouncy like some of the women I had seen. It looked shiny and well taken care of. It also looked as if it were strong enough and meant to be pulled. I silently cursed myself. I had to stop thinking about that with her. My client—my new and clearly disturbed client—was sitting alone in the pouring rain. I needed to focus on that, not her hair.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were leaving,” she answered, but I barely heard her over the water assailing the pavement. She immediately stood and began walking away without another glance in my direction. What the fuck was that all about?
I had two choices—go after her, or get in my car to head home. It should have been an easy choice. She clearly needed help; sitting alone and getting drenched in the pouring rain was enough proof of that. But I had been down this road before. I knew when women walked away from you like that it only meant one thing. They wanted you to follow. They wanted to be chased. I’d had my fair share of women come to me, seeking help, yet the help they were after could have been fulfilled by calling a male escort service. Ivy had already mentioned prostitution and had asked me if I would be having sex with her. Decision made… I walked back to my car.
I threw my bag in the back seat and opened my door, but something made me look back. Something inside of me that left me on edge made me turn back and watch her. If she wanted me to chase her, she would have been looking back at me. She would have been walking slower, much slower, but she wasn’t. I paused for a moment, waiting to see if she’d look over her shoulder, but she didn’t. Maybe she was simply a troubled individual that only sought me out for help.
I got in my car and started the engine. The rain lowered my body temperature to freezing, and the cold leather beneath me didn’t help. But I couldn’t think about that. I wiped the excess water away from my face as I threw the car in reverse and backed out, pulling up next to Ivy as she walked with her head down.
“Get in,” I called to her through the cracked window. Even though the crack was slight, the rain found its way inside and began to soak my car.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You’re going to get sick. Let me take you home. Come on. Get in.”
She looked over at me and stopped, causing me to press harder on the brake pedal than I had anticipated. Her fingers held on to the edge of the glass as she pulled her face to the opening. “No, really, I’m fine.” And again, she started walking.
Without thinking, I slammed the gearshift into park and got out. Stopping in front of her, I held on to her shoulders and moved closer to her ear. “I cannot consciously let you walk in the rain. It’s almost dark and you shouldn’t be out here alone. Let me take you home.”
“I’ll get your seat wet,” she argued.
“It’ll survive. I’ve already gotten mine wet. Get in.”
I didn’t let go of her until I could physically feel her concede. Then, I waited to get into the car until she was opening the passenger door and getting in herself. Once we were both inside, I noticed her small, delicate body shivering. It was as if she were convulsing from the coldness inside the car.
Without thinking, I instantly cranked the heat up. The pinpricks of the heat hit my face and I had to fight the images and sounds it brought to the forefront of my mind. If it were up to me, I’d rather suffer from hypothermia than feel the heat on my skin, but I couldn’t do that to Ivy. Her lips had begun to turn a bluish color as they tried to muffle the chattering of her teeth.
“Where to?” I asked, not taking my eyes off her.
“Head down this street. I’m about three blocks up.” Her eyes stared straight ahead, not once looking my way as I sat next to her. She made it clear that my assumption of her was wrong. She wasn’t seeing me to fulfill some sexual fantasy; she really did have a problem. For the first time in years, I felt consumed by the need to find out what it was.
The silence was deafening, only broken up by the sweeping sounds of the windshield wipers. I hated silence. The still air that surrounded it often pulled me into dark places, dark places I never wanted to go to again. Instead of waiting for the pull into my memories, I asked her a question, hoping she would engage in some kind of conversation.
“Have you lived here long?”
She nodded.
I needed a question that would make her voice her answer. “How long?” I implored her to answer with my eyes, even though she still refused to meet them.
“Since I was eleven.”
“Why were you sitting in the rain?” I shouldn’t have asked that. I wanted to stick to the normal conversations that two people who just meet ask. But I couldn’t. I yearned to know why she was sitting on the curb outside of my office in the pouring rain. Usually, I was better at leading into questions, finding answers to some by nothing more than observation, but Ivy had me losing my patience and suffering from a desperate need to know everything immediately.
“I like the rain,” was all she said. It irritated the fuck out of me because it wasn’t a real answer and nothing bothered me more than deference.
“Why?” I prodded in a harsher voice, hoping it would illicit a real answer from her.
“It drowns out the noises. It makes me not feel so alone. I don’t know; I just like it.” She looked down at her shaking hands and nowhere else.
What in the hell was wrong with this girl? I needed to know. More so than normal. I didn’t only want to fix her sexual issues; I wanted to know what went on in that head of hers. I needed to know what she meant by noises and feeling alone. I could only explain that need by relating. I found myself connecting to her and I wanted to know why. I, too, hated silence and it seemed to haunt me. I hated the thoughts and sounds that ran though my head when things were too quiet. Did she experience the same things I had? Or was it worse? Whatever it was, it made her who she is, and I had an unnerving need to explore what it was.
“Are you often alone? Don’t you have friends?” Like I was one to talk. Aside from the contacts in my phone, which I only used when I had a need to get laid or see my own therapist, I didn’t talk to anyone, either. But I wouldn’t say I felt lonely. I wanted it that way. After all, I chose to be that way. I didn’t think Ivy chose to be the way she was.
“I have friends. In fact, one of my best friends is Ben. We met in high school.”
“Tell me about him.” I felt ecstatic at her small offering of information. Then, the need I had for her to help fill the silence that was threatening to suffocate me trumped that small victory.
“We were sitting at a table outside in the courtyard during lunch. It was him and his friends, and me and mine. But our friends were mutual friends, which is why we were at the same table. Anyway, he was sorting M&Ms, pulling out all of the red ones. I had never spoken to him before, but decided to ask why he did that. He said the red ones tasted different. I argued with him that they all tasted the same. So he pulled out a brown one and I ate it. Then he gave me a red one; I just knew I was about to prove him wrong. But as soon as the red candy coating began to melt on my tongue, he knew he won. We became instant friends after that.”
“That’s a good story,” I said, knowing she had more to say and hoped she would continue. She had barely spoken since she walked into my office, and suddenly, it was as if she could talk for hours. It made me wonder who this Ben guy was and what had happened to him.
“We ended up going to a party together at my friend’s house. We spent the whole night talking and realized we had so many things in common. Like… our dads both cheated on our moms, we both loved pickles, and we hated Halloween. Neither one of us liked to wear shoes and our favorite kind of foods to eat were spicy foods. We were best friends from then on out.”
“And it never turned into
anything else?”
“Well, he was the one that took my virginity. We flipped a coin for it. Sounds lame now, but at the time, I was ready to see what it was like. He was the only one I trusted to give it to. So we let fate handle it and flipped a coin.”
It seemed like an odd story. One that didn’t really match the kind of person I had met. It started to make me even more curious about her past and what she had been through. I was convinced that she had been abused at one point in her life, but I couldn’t even begin to guess when or how. Maybe she wasn’t molested as a small child like I had initially thought. Maybe it was something that happened to her in her late teens. It was certainly possible.
We got to her apartment and she got out of the car, saying she’d see me the next day.
“Ivy,” I said, stopping her from closing the door all the way. “Do you drive?”
“No. I don’t have a car.”
“Then let me pick you up tomorrow for our session. It’s a late time slot and I would feel much better if you’d let me drive you. I don’t feel comfortable with you walking.”
“Nah, that’s okay. Thanks, though.”
“Ivy,” I called out again, but in a stern tone to make her halt her movements. “I’ll be here at six forty-five. Really, I insist.”
Her eyes were downcast again and the barely-there smile was now absent from her face. It was as if she had turned into a different person when she spoke of Ben, but the mentioning our session brought her back to reality. Without saying another word, she nodded her head and closed the door.
Who the fuck was this girl?
The moment I walked into my laundry room from my garage, I stripped my soaking wet clothes from my body. As soon as Ivy was out of the car, I turned the heat back off. I couldn’t take the feeling of the hot air on my skin any longer and immediately welcomed the icy relief. I also cranked up the music. Nothing spun me out of control like the mixture of silence and heat.