by MJ Knight
“Bus or cab?”
“I think cab. It’s late and the busses... you know.”
“Here, I’ll wait with you until you get a cab.” He walked with her to the curb and stood so that he was a kind of buffer against any foot traffic. When a cab pulled up he opened the door for her. “It’s been nice meeting you, Julianne. I look forward to seeing you again.”
He thought she was going to climb into the cab and be gone, but she turned slightly to speak, and as she did, she laid her hand on his. Just for a moment. A soft, tentative gesture.
“I look forward to that as well,” she whispered, and slipped into the cab.
He watched until the cab disappeared around a corner, then took a deep breath and began to walk in the opposite direction.
Chapter Five
His touch. Julianne couldn’t stop thinking about the thrill that had shot through her, first when her hand accidentally touched Adrian’s, and then later when she had laid her hand atop his, because not knowing was worse than any imagined harm her mind could dredge up. She had never felt that sort of electric thrill before. The monster told her it was her imagination, but she knew better. It was real and it was powerful, and she had to know if it would transcend her fears.
Her touch phobia had come on her after being molested but not immediately. It began several years after her uncle went to prison and had grown year-by-year until it interfered with daily life. She knew her response was unbalanced. Some residual fear was understandable, but the kind of panic she had once felt at even the thought of being touched by a man was an unreasonable response. It was why she turned back to therapy. She’d had several years of it after the abuse, but had stopped when she entered high school. She hadn’t felt it was doing her any more good, it made her feel more cut off from her schoolmates not less so.
On her own she made mistakes. There had been a brief and dismal affair in high school, when Julianne tried forcing herself to be a “normal girl” after which the fear of touch became unbearable. As a result she’d spent much of her time hiding in her room, crying, unable to shake off the memories of abuse that rushed back at her not only during the day, when she ventured out into the world, but at night when dreams of her uncle touching her made her wake in helpless tears. She was so frightened. And the monster loved her fear.
By the time she was contemplating college she had cut herself off from the world as much as she could. She worked from home, took classes via computer, spoke to no one but her family. She knew it was time to go back into therapy when she found herself avoiding having to take the garbage out.
“You can’t force yourself to cope, Julianne,” Dr. Lange had told her during their first session “This isn’t about how you face the world, it’s about why you face it the way you do. And the abuse is only the foundation of the problem.”
“What do I fear?” she began to ask herself. “What is it that I think will happen?” Little-by-little, she dug down into the mess of emotion and began to pull up each individual fear. She faced them squarely and learned that no single one of them was based on reality.
Crowds, she’d realized, didn’t give a damn about her. They were all concerned with their own lives, their own worries, fears, hopes, they moved around her the way water moves around a stone. If one of them touched her by accident, the worst that would happen was a dirty look. Mostly people would mutter an apology as they moved on.
There was no threat with women. She could bear the touch of women, though she neither invited it nor enjoyed it. But men, in the end, this was the thing she feared, that a single touch from a man could send her tumbling down into the muck of self-loathing and guilt, the whirlpool of terror that she’d lived in for so long. Men could destroy her, but only if she let them. And she realized that was exactly what she’d been doing all this time, giving them the power to hurt her. She turned the anger she should have felt for her uncle against herself, and gave it the face of all men.
And then she grew angry. Julianne spent six months raging, blaming everyone else for the state her life was in until one day she realized that while people had hurt and failed her, she wasn’t a child any longer and the answer lay within herself.
On day she’d come to her session and said, “I’m going to beat this.” She and Lange had talked about her plans. Lange told her that exposure therapy worked for some but not for others. “Don’t force it,” she counseled. “Start small, then come and talk about what you’re doing. I’m here to help. Let me help.”
Once she’d begun to map out a plan of action, though, Julianne didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to be told that she should slow down or not attempt something. With the exception of her ill-advised affair several years earlier, she’d coddled herself for far too long. The monster had whispered about how safe it was to shut herself off. He enjoyed her misery too. He ate it like candy.
She found a tiny apartment she could afford and forced herself to rely only on herself. She had to earn money, she had to eat, she had to keep the place clean and garbage free. Every day had been a challenge but she had come to the point where she was comfortable. She could step out of her apartment and do normal things like a normal person.
Her work had brought her to this, the ability to reach out and touch a strange man, and draw pleasure from that touch. It excited her because the touch wasn’t simply about attraction, it was about transcendence, rising above something that had held her down for most of her life.
She stared at her hand, the hand that had touched his. It didn’t look wrong or soiled, it didn’t look any different than it ever had. Slowly she brought it to her face and touched her own cheek, eyes closed, imagining how Adrian might touch her. She caressed her other cheek, then ran her fingers across her lips. The soft tickling made her smile against her fingertips.
She imagined Adrian’s face, his velvety dark eyes and thick black lashes, his spiky dark brown hair, long, narrow nose and a mouth that always looked a little mocking. But oddly she found that endearing, not off-putting. She already could tell that it was a pose, a face he showed to the world.
She trailed her hand down her throat and felt the beat of her heart, a little fast, but it was more from the excitement of the moment than from anxiety. She tried to imagine what his body would be like. He was tall and slender with broad shoulders and narrow hips. She smiled to remember the sight of his rear as he bent to pick up something another customer had dropped. It was round and solid-looking. She found herself wanting to wrap her hands around it.
She had spoken to Dr. Lange about having sexual feelings, about acting on them in private, touching herself when hers was the only touch she trusted. Her brief fling in high school hadn’t helped her reclaim her body, rather it made her feel more separate from it. She knew instinctively, though, that there had to be a way back to herself. The feelings were there, the needs. She had to find the right path to them.
She went into her bedroom and began to undress. There had been a time when being naked even when she was alone in her own apartment had made her profoundly uneasy. But now, she loved the feel of the air on her skin, the sense that she not only owned herself, she owned this space in which she moved. She sometimes stood in the middle of the floor and caressed her naked body.
That night, though, she lay down on the bed and began to touch herself in the way she wanted Adrian to touch her. She cupped her small breasts in both hands, feeling the tickle of the nipple on her palm. She squeezed them, pinched her nipples until they stiffened in her hands.
She stroked down both arms, down her chest and belly to her thighs. She turned slightly and let her fingers circle slowly on her backside, then up to her hip and down to the inside of one thigh.
Her groin was warm and moist. She ran her fingers through her silky pubic hair and with both hands opened herself to the air, feeling it rush against the hot, sensitive flesh. She fingered the nub of her clitoris and gasped at the shock of desire that flowed through her. She gasped softly, surprised at the intensity of the fe
elings.
A few more strokes and she climaxed, rising up off the bed with a sharp cry of pleasure. She shook with the power of it. If she could find that place again with someone, with Adrian she hoped, she knew she would finally have silenced the monster.
Chapter Six
Adrian left a message for Olivia saying that he was working late and then turned off his phone. There were several shows he’d recorded, and wanted to get through them that evening if he could, so he brought his dinner to the couch and made himself comfortable. Unfortunately his attention was divided between a documentary about the theft of art by the Nazis, and his memory of an afternoon—one of the nicest he could recall—spent in the company of Julianne.
She was so beautiful, she was smart, she was funny, she liked all the same things he did. She was his Perfect Woman. Except she was touch phobic, which pretty much put paid to the idea of sex.
He sighed and turned off the TV, unable to concentrate on the program.
The whole sex thing was problematic anyway. Given his relationship with Olivia, it would be unfair of him to get involved with anyone else, at least until he could disengage from Olivia. He was in therapy to try to understand why he couldn’t break it off, but so far all he’d done was confront the miserable memories of his mother, and think about Carolyn who had meant the world to him until he ruined the relationship.
Why Olivia? That was a question he’d asked himself from the day they’d met. It was true that she looked a bit like Carolyn, voluptuous with blonde hair and green eyes, but he hoped that he was neither so stupid nor so shallow as to cling to her because of a vague resemblance. In truth, they were nothing alike. Where Carolyn had been reserved, even cool, Olivia was emotional and sexually voracious. On hearing that, Dr. Lange had asked if it bothered Adrian. He felt he understood what she was really asking.
“I have no history of sexual abuse.”
“That’s not what I asked,” she reminded him.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have jumped the gun like that but I assumed you were heading in that direction and I thought I’d save you the trip. No, it doesn’t bother me. I enjoy it. The sex is terrific.”
It was, too. It was wild and intense and immensely satisfying. There was nothing about it he didn’t enjoy except that it was with Olivia. He hadn’t liked her from the start, and nothing about her had improved. They were like a couple in a porno film, nothing connected them except flesh.
He wanted to end it, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t her threats. He’d already told her that if she wanted to kill herself it was her business and nothing to do with him, and that if she wanted to tell his employer about the affair, that was fine too. There was something deeper, something in Adrian that clung to this empty affair as if it was his emotional life raft.
Meeting Julianne had shaken up all of his assumptions about his life. She was young and clearly fragile, not the sort of woman he was normally attracted to. But they seemed to share so much, points of connection Adrian didn’t often find in other people. They made each other laugh, they shared a great many mutual passions even beyond their career choices. Talking to her had been easy right from the start, something that was unusual for Adrian who took time to warm up to people.
And she was beautiful with her thick dark hair, pale blue eyes, and a mouth that not only looked kissable, but was quick to quirk up into a smile. Adrian hadn’t had much experience with good natured people either and he found her attractive for that as well as for her personality and beauty.
The touch phobia though, that was rough. The more he tried not to think about Julianne in a sexual way, the more he imagined what it would be like to kiss those sweet lips, to touch her soft skin, to fondle her lovely curves. In spite of himself he imagined himself entwined in her long legs, deep inside her...
He unfastened his trousers and slipped his hand inside, touching his stiffening cock as he imagined Julianne begging him to fuck her, imagined bringing her to orgasm after orgasm. He could nearly feel her body against his, could smell the light cologne she wore. And then conscious thought stopped and he rode the sensations to climax.
Sprawled on the couch, spent, he thought how long it had been since he’d jerked off that way, and realized how much of his sexuality had been damped down, focused as he was on Olivia.
It felt... it felt like a moment of rebellion. He closed his eyes and smiled.
Chapter Seven
“I have a confession to make,” Adrian admitted.
Dr. Lange raised a meticulously groomed eyebrow. “And that would be?”
“I’ve met someone new.”
“Yes? Are we speaking of a love interest?”
He hesitated, trying to choose the right words. “That’s hard to say. I believe she is to me. I have no idea if I am to her, or if it’s even possible.” He laughed. “I realize you probably have a lot of questions. Where do you want to begin?”
“This is your hour, let’s begin with you. You feel you’ve met a woman who, what? Attracts you physically? Someone you could love?”
“Yes and yes.”
“I see,” she said. Always so professionally neutral. Sometimes it made Adrian want to scream that everything in the office was so neutral, so inoffensive. The walls, the carpeting, Dr. Lange’s clothing, even her attitude was beige.
He bit back a sigh and continued. “The first is definite, the second is a guess. We have a great deal in common, I enjoy her company, or have up to this point.”
“Has there been any intimate contact?”
“No. We’ve really only just met and this is a woman who doesn’t rush into the sack.”
“Do you believe there will be intimate contact?”
“I can’t say.”
“I see. Let’s put this in the context of the women we’ve been discussing.”
“Please, not my mother,” he joked, but it was kidding on the square. The last thing he wanted was to conflate his feelings for Julianne with what he felt for his mother.
“All right we won’t discuss her right now. But Olivia certainly. How does this new woman fit into your life at this moment, while you’re still involved with Olivia?”
How indeed, the thought. It was a fair question. More than fair if he considered the ethical problems. “I would like to say that I’m gentleman enough not to overlap the two, but I’m not sure I am. Yes, that makes me something of a cad, but let me say this in my defense, I am getting regular, satisfying sex with Olivia whom I cannot ever love. You know that, I’ve told you as much on several occasions. And then this new woman comes along and I feel myself connecting with her on so many important levels. Not since Carolyn and I were working together in my last couple of years at school, not since then have I known such a sense of meeting a kindred spirit. If there’s no sexual involvement, can it be wrong?”
“That’s not for me to say, or even to suggest the possibility to you. If you feel comfortable with the situation as you’ve described it, then you feel comfortable with it. You and these two women are the only ones who have any right to say if this is a good or bad situation.”
Adrian gave it some thought. “I don’t think I do feel comfortable. I think I really, really need to end this thing with Olivia.”
Dr. Lange sat forward a little and pushed a lock of fair hair back from her face. “Let me ask you this, Adrian. You have said in the past that you think your sexual relationship with Olivia is the thing that holds you to her. Now you tell me that this new woman, with whom you’re not sure you’ll ever have a sexual relationship, makes it imperative to break with Olivia. In essence you feel you must end the single most satisfying sexual relationship of your life for... what? Is it possible that you’ll find yourself embracing celibacy again?”
He put his hands over his eyes. “I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t want to.”
“You do realize that this situation has the potential to make you more unhappy rather than less so?”
Frustrated, Adrian said, “Look, I came h
ere to figure out why I can’t break it off with Olivia, not to worry about what might happen if my conduit of convenient, responsibility-free sex dries up.”
“Adrian, that’s not what I meant. I’m trying—”
“Yes you are, you are trying my patience. What time is it?”
“We have fifteen minutes. What is it you don’t want to say?”
“That it’s Julianne Taylor I’m interested in.”
Lange blinked. “What?”
“This new woman. Julianne Taylor.”
He’d startled her, upset her even. She sat back in her chair and stared at him. “You’re seeing Julianne Taylor, my patient?”
“Yes. And you can’t tell her I told you.” He was already regretting his impulse. He should never have mentioned Julie’s name.
“I—I’m speechless. You’ve rendered me speechless Adrian. I have to give this some thought before I can say anything to you about it. I’ll see you next week.”
“All right.” He got up and left the office, stopping only to tell Julianne that he’d wait for her in the café. She nodded.
Dr. Lange’s Diary
Adrian C. has thrown me for a loop and I don’t know what to do about it. He is contemplating a relationship with Julianne T. Nothing has happened according to what he has told me, but what I’m hearing from him suggests that he is now beginning to link his break with Olivia to what he feels is a possible future relationship with Julianne. By telling me in confidence, he’s made it impossible for me to discuss the situation even in the most general sense with either of them because to do so would break the confidentiality I have with them both. He has, in essence, tied my hands on a point which could make an enormous difference to both of them.
So now I’m faced with the prospect of firing another patient, and I am very unhappy about it. While Adrian is often difficult, even obstructive and argumentative, I feel that we’re just beginning to see the basis of his fixation on Olivia, a puzzle we must solve if he is ever to make a successful break with her, and avoid similar situations in the future.