by Leddy Harper
The more I thought about all of the things I would probably never get to experience with Ivy, even if I were able to help her get over her issues, the more focus I lost for the one that was actually sitting on my face. I should have been enjoying what was in front of me, not overthinking something I couldn’t control at the moment.
Alyssa must have noticed my withdrawal and mood change because she stilled and then moved down my body. She straddled my sternum and then looked me straight in the eyes. It should have brought me back to the moment, but it didn’t. Instead, I looked into her light blue eyes and vividly pictured the grey and red mixture of Ivy’s. Imagining the turmoil that swirled in those colors. The things they bared witness to. The torment they had endured.
“I guess it was too much to ask that you give up control,” she said as she continued down my body until her hand was pushed beneath the waistband of my shorts, taking hold of my flaccid dick. Her soft hands began to stroke it, enticing it to come to life while her eyes begged mine. “What’s going on, Cade?”
I could only shake my head and hold her wrist to still her hand.
“I guess I’m just not in the mood anymore. My mind is elsewhere.”
She pulled her hand away but didn’t move from my body. “Wanna talk?”
“Not to you,” I said and then saw her face fall.
She immediately began to fumble her way off me, not looking back into my eyes. I grabbed her by her shoulders, stopping her imminent escape and making her look at me. The rejection that filled her eyes, along with tears as she fought me to get away, tore at my core and I eventually relented.
“Alyssa, listen to me. I can’t talk to you about it because it has to do with a patient. You know I can’t discuss that with anyone.” We were both on our knees, facing one another in what looked like a standoff. “I don’t know what happened. But I promised you that I wouldn’t go through with things if my mind wasn’t in the moment with you. And right now, it’s not. I can’t explain it. I honestly don’t know what happened. I’m only fulfilling a promise I have made to you.”
She lowered her head and wiped the few stray tears from her have. “I know. Thank you. But I still don’t know why you can’t explain it. I mean, I know you have rules about your clients and what they tell you, but you were eating me out one minute and then gone the next. Something had to have happened.”
I finally sat back, giving her some space between our bodies and took a deep breath. I understood her desire to know what caused my lack of attention after we were already in the moment. But I struggled with explaining it to her without betraying Ivy or my job, and without making it sound like I was thinking of another woman while tongue-fucking her.
“There’s this woman who has lived through some of the worst emotional and mental child abuse I’ve ever seen. I’m starting to believe that I haven’t even heard it all. One of the fears she still has after all of this time is having someone—or even herself—look at her vagina. I opened my eyes and looked at yours. It just made me sick all over again, thinking about what she has been through in her life. I swear, it wasn’t anything you did.”
Her eyes never left mine, but her mouth opened and closed, trying to make words but failing.
“Alyssa,” I started, moving closer to her again and taking her by her shoulders. “This wasn’t a personal thing and I know that’s how you’re taking it. But I swear to you, it’s not. It’s not about you or what you were doing. We’ve fucked enough times for you to know that and believe me.”
I was not a groveler, never one to get on my hands and knees in front of any woman. But Alyssa was different. She understood me and at the time, I felt as if she and I were cut from the same cloth. Even though I was concerned about her feelings and how she was interpreting what I was telling her, my actions were very selfish. I didn’t want to find another woman that could satisfy my needs the way Alyssa could, or one that viewed relationships the same way I did. Women like Alyssa were like a needle in a haystack. And I didn’t have nor want to spend the time trying to find a new one. The only thing I needed to do was get Ivy out of my head. It was toxic the way I thought about her.
“I just don’t understand why you were thinking of that while you were doing…”
“I don’t know, either. The only thing I can say is that I was with her tonight—”
“Cade!” She backed away from me, pushing me off her. “We agreed that you would not come to me after leaving another woman. You know that I don’t mind you sleeping with other people, but my God! Have some fucking class and respect for me!” she lashed out.
“No, Alyssa, I wasn’t with her like that. I met up with her as a patient; that was it. Nothing sexual happened.”
She calmed and began to dress. “Call me when you have your head in the right place.”
Her voice was calmer but she seemed withdrawn and hurt by my actions. I didn’t have time to pacify her. It wasn’t in me to do that with Alyssa or any other woman outside of my office. That was my job, and as such, not something I cared to do in my off time, at home with a woman.
“Just stay,” I relented with a sigh. I don’t know where it came from, but something in me felt as though it was changing. I had never invited Alyssa or anyone else to stay and not have sex. Call it guilt over what I had put Alyssa through over the last few days; call it loneliness—whatever the fuck it was, I hated it. It wasn’t me. I couldn’t help but think Ivy Jaymes had something to do with it. She had clearly gotten under my skin, inside my head, and seemed to be able to take over everything with her horrific past and tortured eyes.
“And do what?” she asked in a soft voice.
“We’ll watch a movie,” I suggested and moved to the couch.
She stood where she was, not moving and only staring at me with a questioning gaze.
“What?” I asked without patience. “Are you staying or not?”
“Why do you want me to stay?” Her tone was demanding. She wasn’t asking a question, she was demanding an answer, one I wasn’t sure I could give her. But she didn’t let up with the intense stare as she stood before me with her hands perched on her hips.
Normally, I would have looked at those hips and felt the need to feel them writhing beneath my fingertips, but not now. All I could do was shake my head, run my fingers through my hair, and ask myself why I had offered for her to stay.
“Do you want to talk? Because I already told you, Cade, I’m here to listen to you if you do.”
“No, I don’t want to talk,” I barked out, clearly irritated. At whom, I wasn’t sure. One thing was for sure. I didn’t want to fucking talk.
“Then what is it?”
“I just don’t want to be alone, all right? Is that okay with you? Is that a decent enough of an answer to satisfy you?” I had lost it. My hands were so tightly wound in my hair that I could literally feel the roots being ripped from my scalp. The scowl was so hard on my face that my face muscles began to hurt.
Alyssa let her arms drop to her sides and then she slowly approached me. She straddled my lap, cupping my face in her hands as she made me look her directly in the eyes. This wasn’t the kind of affection I was used to. It had never happened to me before and I didn’t know how to handle it. She didn’t say anything to me, just sat on my thighs and stared at me, waiting for me to speak.
“I just don’t get it,” I finally said. I continued before I lost the nerve to get it all out. I knew that if I allowed even a moment of hesitation, I would end up burying those emotions deep down, hiding them inside until they burned me from the inside out, along with every other emotion I had ever kept hidden. “I have always liked to be alone. It has never bothered me before. It’s what I’ve wanted for myself. But her… she doesn’t want to be alone.”
I knew I wasn’t making any sense, and I could tell Alyssa agreed by the confusion written all over her face. She didn’t need to verbally ask me for clarification, her eyes asked for her. And for whatever unknown reason, I felt the need to explain i
t to her.
“She’s spent her whole life blocking everyone out. She lives in her head and through the books she reads. She’s so out of touch with reality it’s ridiculous. But for some reason, when I look at her, I understand her. I see myself in her. The difference is, she doesn’t want that. She wants to live in the real world, she just doesn’t know how. Whereas, I know how, I just don’t want to. She’s lonely—I want to be alone. So why is she changing me? Why is she making me question everything I’ve ever felt before?”
I finally stopped once I heard everything I had said. I never expected to say all of that. I’m sure Alyssa never expected to hear all of it, either. But now I had thrown it out there and I couldn’t take it back. Deeply concealed feelings and thoughts had resurfaced and I didn’t know how to handle it. I tried to look away from her sympathetic eyes, but she wouldn’t let me.
“So why are you alone?” she questioned.
“Because I want to be.”
“Obviously you don’t.”
“Obviously you didn’t hear me. I do… I just don’t want to end up like her.”
My harsh tone made her flinch, but she didn’t back down. Her hands never left my face and her penetrating gaze never left my eyes. “Like her how? Alone and in need of human interaction? So desperate that you’d pay someone to listen to you? Are you saying you don’t want to reach the point when you find yourself so alone you’d call the only person that will talk to you for free just come over and give you some attention?”
My anger was increasing with every word she spoke. I could feel my grip on her thighs tightening, and I knew it was about to go very badly if she didn’t stop her rant.
“Because the way I see it, Cade, is that you’re already there. You pay a psychologist to listen to your problems. You play basketball with a group of guys that don’t even know your last name, let alone what you do for a living. They know nothing about you. You sit and listen to other people’s problems all day but not once do anything real to address your own. And then there’s me. You get so lonely that you call me up so that I can come over and fuck you. That’s desperation, Cade.”
“You know nothing about me,” I argued as I fought back the urge to remove her from my lap and my house.
Her expression softened and she suddenly looked sad. I didn’t understand the change. “I do, though, Cade. I do know you. You’re the one that doesn’t.”
She left a long, emotional kiss on my forehead and pulled herself from my lap. I was left alone, and that’s when it hit me. The darkness grew omnipresent, and the need to fill the deep hole with something worthwhile grew larger. Why was Ivy the way she was, and why did she want to change? I didn’t know the answer to that, but I was going to find out.
*****
It was Friday and my work was done. I always scheduled my Fridays to end early. That gave me time to clean up my notes for the week and send them out. In order for me to work with someone, they had to be currently seeing another therapist, a traditional therapist as I liked to call them. Not only that, but I had to be referred by such a professional. We had to keep in contact regarding the progress of their time with me. So I needed to send weekly evaluations on any progress or setbacks that occurred during their time with me. It was the part I hated the most. I also took care of my own billing, so I usually sent out weekly invoices at the same time.
Once I was done with that, I headed to the grocery store. My kitchen was bare since I had spent so much of the week either entertaining Alyssa or spending time with Ivy. I was in the produce section and staring at the fresh zucchini. I don’t know why I was there or why I was staring at it. But I was. That was when a thought entered my mind, completely taking over all other thoughts and leaving me paralyzed to do anything to stop it.
I gathered everything I needed and then rushed out of the store, hurrying to my destination without even thinking about it.
It wasn’t until I was sitting in her parking lot, staring at the bags of food on the other seat, when I realized what I had done. Why was I there? What purpose did I have to be there? There was no way what I was doing could have been viewed as productive. In fact, it was counterproductive. Not only to me, but to Ivy as well. I was crossing all sorts of boundaries and borderline stalking her.
Practical thoughts of backing out of the parking lot and driving home entered my mind. I allowed myself to give it a quick thought, and then turned the car off. I grabbed all of the bags and headed up to her door. Again, I stood there and scolded myself for what I was doing. The words unethical and unproductive were being screamed at me by my conscience. I was a man that typically listened to those voices of reason, but not that night. That night, I ignored them and pushed them back as I knocked on Ivy’s door.
She opened it up a few seconds later wearing short cotton shorts, a long and loose tee shirt, and an unbuttoned sweater that hung barely below the hem of her shorts. Her hair was in a thin ponytail that hung down her back and her eyes were wide in shock. There was nothing more beautiful on the face of the earth.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, standing in the doorway and blocking my entrance.
I held the plastic bags up enthusiastically. “I brought dinner.”
“Why?”
“To eat?” I said as if the answer was obvious. After she still didn’t move, I shifted the bags in my hand and said, “These are kind of heavy, Ivy. If you don’t mind letting me in…”
She shook her head as if she were shaking herself from a daze and backed away, leaving enough room in the small space between her and the door for me to pass through. I set the bags on the tiny counter space in the kitchen and turned to look at her.
She was breathtaking. Completely and utterly beautiful and sexy without even trying. How was that even possible? How could someone that had gone through all that she had have the ability to hold herself in that way? She was insecure and thought very low of herself, I knew that from the moment I met her, but seeing her in her own element, dressed for staying in, and holding a tablet that I was sure she had been reading from… she looked like something I could come home to every day. And that fucked with my head more than anything else did because I never wanted to come home to anyone, especially every day.
I needed to shake that thought from my head. But no matter how hard I shook my head, I knew that thought wouldn’t be erased. It felt too good to think of the possibilities of it. I knew firsthand the worst way relationships could end, and that’s why I had never felt the desire to be in one. Never. And I didn’t need to start now. There was no point in it. I wasn’t capable of trusting someone to that extent. Not to mention, she was legally in my care. I couldn’t entertain the idea of a relationship with her. That was unethical in every sense of the word. All I needed from her were answers, reasons as to why she was the way she was. I needed to fix her and then walk away. That’s why I was there.
“I don’t understand why you’re here,” she said without moving.
I was silent while I thought of an answer. “I don’t know, either. But I’m here.”
She shifted on her feet but didn’t move. I could tell she was uncomfortable with me standing in her kitchen after inviting myself into her home. Hell, I was uncomfortable standing there. But if was anything at all, I was committed. And because of that, I had no plans to leave, no matter how awkward it was.
I quickly turned to the counter where I had placed my bags. I didn’t want to show any vulnerability. I wasn’t used to feeling it, and I certainly didn’t want anyone to see it, especially Ivy. I was her therapist. I had to be strong, confident; I couldn’t show weakness or confusion in my actions. She was trusting me and I needed to show her that she wasn’t wrong by doing so. But why then did I feel as if I were doing something wrong?
“I got stuff for alfredo. Is that okay with you? Do you like alfredo, I mean?” I mentally cursed myself for my sudden inability to speak properly. Something had come over me and I needed it to disappear quickly. I couldn’t afford to have he
r think less of me. I didn’t want her to lose her confidence in me. But how was that possible when I was losing confidence in myself?
“Yes, it’s fine,” she said from behind me. There was a softness to her voice that made me turn around to see her again. She was a walking contradiction. She read erotic books yet couldn’t even make eye contact, let alone engage in sexual activity. She had little to no self-esteem yet she looked like she could grace the covers of magazines. She was defiant at times yet she stood in front of me looking like a scared child about to be scolded for coloring on the walls.
I quickly cleared a space on the counter and slapped it with my palm. “Here, hop up. I’ll cook while you keep me company.” I waited for her to move, but she never did. Finally, I went to her, wrapping my hands around her small hips and dragging her to the counter. “Come on, you can at least talk to me while I make you dinner.”
“Why?” she asked meekly.
“Because it’s boring to cook alone.”
She shook her head. “No, why are you making me dinner?”
Why the hell was I having such a hard time finding an answer to her question? It wasn’t that difficult. It was dinnertime and we both needed to eat. I worried about her eating habits and wanted to make sure she had a decent meal. There were still things we needed to discuss about her progress plan. I could have picked any of those excuses, yet the one that came out of my mouth was, “Because I wanted to see you.”
Her eyes grew wide on her face.
“Not like that,” I quickly recovered, silently kicking myself for my admission. “We have a lot to discuss. You’re way more closed off than my other clients and I feel like we are having a hard time moving forward. I just need to know more before I can feel confident in the work we are doing together.” What the fuck was wrong with me? I was a professional. I knew better than to do what I was doing.
She finally relented and climbed onto the counter.
“That’s good because I wanted to see you, too,” she admitted, gaining more of my attention than she already had.