“Are you sure?”
She nods and slides the sleeve of her dress of her shoulder. I turn away to let her undress and climb into the bathtub.
“You can turn around now,” she says.
She wipes her face, sinking down into the soapy water, and finally makes eye contact with me as I sit on the small bench near the tub.
“I don’t like people to see me cry,” she says.
“Why?”
“It’s a sign of weakness, and I hate showing that I’m hurt.”
“I hurt you?”
“No, but I’m exposed. Bared. You broke me down until I had nothing left, and I’m not used to that. You somehow know what I think and what I want, and it’s unnerving for me. I didn’t want you to win and you did.”
“Win?”
“I wasn’t going to break. I was gonna endure that until the sun came up.”
“It’s impossible, even for the strongest person, which you clearly are.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, I mean it. I’ve never seen anyone go through that like you did.”
“How often have you done it?”
“I’ve personally conducted it only once before, but in my training, I witnessed it dozens of times. Most people break after one hour.”
“How long did I make it?”
Two and half.”
She nods. “I don’t understand how it doesn’t affect you. What are you made of?”
I chuckle. “I’m a man, just like the rest of them. It doesn’t affect me because I don’t let it. I’m here to help you, not seduce you. I said the things I did to push you to give up.”
“It worked.”
“Do you understand why you had to go through this tonight?”
“I do. I’m definitely not touching anything below my waist. You know how to make a point, don’t you?”
“I do.” I exhale as she sinks farther down into the water. “Are you angry with me?”
“No,” she says, shifting her eyes to me. “I deserved it. You gave me a very clear rule and I broke it. I accept the consequence.”
I study her face, realizing that she’s serious. I’m glad she gets it. That she accepts it.
“I’ll leave you to your bath now and change your bedding.” I stand. “If you’re hungry, I’ll bring you a snack.”
“I would like that. And lots of water please.”
“You got it.”
I walk out and take a deep breath. If she took to that so well, she will likely take well to the rest of our sessions. I have great hopes for Kaia London’s recovery.
AS I SOAK IN THE WATER, I think back to what I just went through. I hate crying, but I couldn’t hold it back. He knew exactly what to do to break me. I won’t even be able to walk tomorrow.
After soaking for a while, I climb out and look at my body in the mirror. I’m so swollen between my legs. Geez. I wrap my robe around me and walk back into the main room, surprised to see him sitting quietly at the dining room table.
“You’re back,” I say.
“I am. I brought you some crackers with cheese and cookies and milk. You earned a sweet treat tonight.”
I smile. “Thank you.” I sit down and wince. “You called me by my first name tonight.”
“You were crying. It wasn’t the time for formality.”
“Thank you for holding me. I don’t remember the last time someone has.”
He looks right at me, but I can’t read his expression. “Again, it wasn’t the time for formality.”
I place a piece of cheese on a cracker and eat it, watching him watch me. I’m dying to know what he’s thinking, but I know there’s no way he’ll tell me.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asks.
“I’m fine. A little sore, but that’s to be expected.”
“But,” he pauses. “Emotionally. You’re good?”
“Yeah.” I sip my milk. “I learned a couple of things tonight that I won’t forget.”
“I’d like to hear about that.”
“I really understand the meaning behind the term too much of a good thing.” I smile. “You, sir, are an excellent teacher.”
“That’s my job. What else?”
“I need to take this seriously. All of it. Every rule. It’s meant to help me.”
He stands and holds my gaze. “Please rest. I’ve left some salve for you on the nightstand.”
I look back at it then at him. “But I’m not allowed to touch myself.”
He smiles. “You can, just not for pleasure. Use it to provide some relief. I’ll see you in my office tomorrow at ten. The car will be waiting for you downstairs.”
“Okay.” He starts to walk away, but I stop him. “Dr. Scott?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For?”
“All of it.”
“Goodnight, Miss London.”
“Goodnight.”
I watch him walk out and then I sigh. I’ve honestly never wanted to make anyone happy before. I’ve never cared what anyone thought of me, even my own family. For the first time in my life, I crave someone’s approval. I want him to be proud of me.
APPLYING THE SALVE to my bruised flesh, I flinch, remembering last night’s sweet torture. I’ve never slept so well in my life though and surprisingly, for the first time in as long as I can recall, I don’t have a desire to go dick hunting. It’s a strange feeling not to want to fuck somebody. Anybody. The idea of it makes me cringe, knowing it would hurt even more than it did the first time.
I finish getting dressed, choosing cotton panties for comfort and a loose fitting dress. I brush my hair and decide to forgo makeup. I don’t need it for a therapy session, and I kind of like not spending so much time putting it on. The doctor isn’t impressed by makeup anyway.
I call for Lina to come release me from my room. She does and smiles when she sees me.
“You look well this morning, Miss Kaia. Did you sleep well?”
“Very well, thank you, Lina.”
“I will have lunch for you when you get back. Dr. Scott insists that you don’t skip any more meals.”
“I understand. The car’s ready for me?”
“Yes. See you later.”
I nod and make my way down to the lobby, getting into the car when I approach. A few minutes later, we arrive at the office, and I take a deep breath before going in. I wonder what our interaction will be like today.
After stepping off the elevator, I walk into Dr. Scott’s office.
“He’s waiting for you,” Karen says. “You can go back.”
“Thank you.” I walk to his office and tap softly on the door, entering when I hear him call out. “Good morning, Doctor.”
“Morning, Miss London.” I smile. I see we’ve returned to formalities. “Please sit,” he says, motioning to the seating area.
I do, setting down my handbag and folding my hands in my lap.
“How do you feel?” he asks, after joining me.
“Wonderful. I slept so well.”
“And the rest of you?” I notice how his jaw twitches as he waits for my answer.
“Raw, like my emotions last night.” I smile. “The salve helped a great deal though.”
“Good.”
“I enjoyed the entire experience. Even the aftermath.”
He shifts in his seat. “Let’s talk about that. Why did you like it?”
I search my mind. Why did I like it? I shouldn’t have. I gaze down at my hands.
“Miss London?”
I clear my throat. “I don’t know why. Maybe because it was new and kind of kinky, and I like kink.”
“I think it’s deeper than that. Think about it some more.”
I take a deep breath and reflect and then a smile spreads over my lips as the answer comes to me. I look up at the intense man in front of me.
“I’m always in control,” I begin. “Always. I hunt and when I find my prey I seize it. I always walk away satisfied. I choose
when it happens and with whom.” He nods. “Your rules took that control away and I fought it. I was defiant.” I gaze into his green eyes as he watches me. “I get it now.”
“What?”
“Last night was about a lot more than punishment. It was about breaking me down. You wanted that so I would have to feel something different than lust, different than sexual pleasure. You wanted to see the true me. That’s why you stay in the room.”
His lips twitch, fighting back his smile of satisfaction. “Very good, Miss London. I sensed you were you a quick learner.”
I nod. “I am.”
“So how do you feel now knowing that?”
“I feel the same, only, maybe a little better even. There was a deeper motive beyond the obvious. You knew I wouldn’t show myself willingly to you so you pushed me there.”
“I had to.”
“I know.”
“It’s okay to feel vulnerable. To cry. To let someone you trust know that you’re hurt. I sense that you’ve never had that in your life.”
I shake my head. “Never,” I whisper.
“Tell me what your parents were like before they learned about your molestation.”
“Do we have to talk about this?”
“Yes, we do. Why don’t you want to?”
I sigh, feeling a tickle in my nose when tears are threatening to fall. I clear my throat. “Because it sucks.”
Dr. Scott smiles just slightly. “It all sucks, but it must be dealt with.”
“Okay.” My eyes shift down for a moment trying to recall. “I don’t know how they were. I guess it was normal.”
“You’re an only child?”
“Right. I had a brother before I was born, but he died.”
“Oh? What happened?”
I shrug. “I don’t know much, but I guess he was born too early and only lived a few days.”
“Do your parents talk about him?”
“My parents don’t talk about anything.”
“I see. Did they show you love and affection?”
“No.”
“Not even your mother?”
“My mother is…” I pause. How do I describe her? “I think she loves me, but—”
“You think she loves you?”
“Yeah. She doesn’t say it, but she tries to run interference between me and Dad. He’s never liked me.”
Dr. Scott stands and walks over to the fridge, bringing back a cup of water for me. “We need to talk through this today. Do you understand that?”
I nod. “Is it related? You know, to my problem.”
“Everything’s related, Miss London.”
“Oh.”
“Just remember, there is no judgment here.”
I WATCH HER SIP THE WATER, wishing I could hold her in my arms. She so obviously needs someone to hold her. For now, I need to know more about her family life.
“We talked about how your Dad handled the news. How did your mother react?”
“She cried. It was her idea that he babysit me. They fought a lot after that, my mom and Dad. I think he blamed her.” Her eyes glass over, and I know the memories are painful, but she won’t let herself cry again. “She took me to the doctor, a gynecologist¸ and he examined me. I remember wondering why it was okay for a doctor to touch me there, but not Jim.”
“Did you ever come to that answer?”
She shakes her head. “Not at first. I mean, with age, obviously things become more clear. The doctor was doing his job and took no pleasure in it. Jim did.”
“Exactly. There was also an abuse of power with Jim.”
“Yeah, that’s what the therapist told me.”
“Did your mother ever talk to you one-on-one about what happened?”
“No. She wanted to avoid it. Once she knew I wasn’t pregnant, it never came up again. It was Dad’s idea to send me to therapy, but that only started when I wasn’t doing well in school anymore. I think he was worried the public would find out what happened to me.”
“I see.”
“One day, after I started therapy,” she pauses, taking a deep breath.
“It’s okay.”
“I wanted to see Jim,” she continues, staring at her hands. “I wanted to ask him why he touched little kids. I wanted to ask him if he was getting help like I was.” She looks up and it’s almost startling to see the pain in her eyes. “I asked my parents if I could see him and my father…” She stops and squeezes her eyes shut. “He said…” She shakes her head.
“You can tell me.”
She opens her eyes and looks up at me. “He asked me if I wanted more. If I wanted him to touch me again. He said he knew I liked it, and that Jim made me a whore.”
I pull my head back in disgust. What the fuck? How does a father say those things?
“Mom yelled at him for it,” she continues, “But the words stuck.” She looks at her hands and then up at me again. “Oh my God,” she whispers.
“What?”
“He thought I was a whore so I became one. I never saw it before now.”
I nod. How else would she react?
“It was during that argument mom blurted out that Jim was dead.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Angry. He took the easy way out. He didn’t have to face what he did. Not legally and not morally. He left seven kids to bear this pain.” Tears stream down her face and I’m glad she’s not hiding them anymore. “It isn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t.”
She wipes her tears away. “After they told me that, I refused to talk about it anymore. I refused to sit in those therapy sessions retelling exactly how and what he said to me when he was touching me. I didn’t see why it mattered. It happened. It was done, and he was dead. I buried it and vowed that no man would ever take from me what I didn’t want to give.”
“So you decided that you would become the hunter.”
“Right. Not only did I always consent, but I instigated it. I was the easy girl at school. Then I was the girl that asked the guy out. Then I was the girl that prowled the clubs.” She looks at me, shaking her head. “I never realized that I was hurting. I didn’t know that I was acting out. I thought I wanted to be like this.”
“And now you don’t? What’s changed?”
“Right now, I feel disgusting, Doctor. I feel dirty. I’ve done so many bad things.” She looks out the window for a moment, before looking back at me. “Jim took away my innocence. He showed me how good sex could feel, and I didn’t know how to feel good except in that way. He was the first person who ever cuddled me. He was so happy when he saw me. He told me how good I made him feel.” She buries her face in her hands. I want to go to her, but I stay seated.
“That’s what these people do, Kaia.” She looks up at me as I continue. “While I will never condone or excuse what a molester does, I do know that they are wounded people. Someone hurt them too, and they don’t know what to do with that except to seek inappropriate comfort. I am positive from your description that Jim didn’t want to hurt you. That doesn’t mean he didn’t. It doesn’t mean it was okay. It’s just how he handled his pain.”
She nods. “I understand that.”
“Have you ever admitted that you were hurt?”
She shakes her head as her expression crumbles into sadness. “I felt bad for liking it,” she tells me softly. “I felt like I must be the bad person my father thinks I am or I would’ve told someone. I would’ve told Jim to stop.” She finally lets it all out, crying like she did last night. “Why didn’t I, Doctor? Why did I let him do it?”
I watch the woman on my couch sobbing in pain. I realize at that moment she’s never processed it until right this moment. I’m so used to the attention seeking antics of celebrities, and now I have someone who’s deeply, truly hurting. I stand and walk to her, kneeling down and pulling her into my arms. We sit on the floor, and I rock her, letting her cry.
“Just cry, Kaia. Cry until you don’t want to anymore. Keep going
until the pain subsides. I’ll be here. I’ll hold you and I won’t let you go.”
She curls her tiny frame onto my lap and buries her face in my chest, like she did last night, and sobs. Her entire body is wracked with tears, and my heart aches for her. She’s not what I thought of her. She’s not a heartless badass at all. I wanted her to understand the motive behind her actions, but now I know that she never understood the source of the pain. She didn’t even know she was in pain.
I never touch my clients like this. Never use their first names, never encourage breaking the professionalism between us, even when I must punish them, but something about Kaia’s different. She needs me to be different. She needs someone to show that they care. And I do care about her. I’ll sit like this as long as she needs me to.
As I rock her, I think back on how I got to this place myself. Why I decided that helping people with this kind of pain was good for me. In this moment, I know I made the right choice. Kaia needs me and in some way I can’t define yet, I need her too.
Her sobbing slows as she lies in my arms, and I run my fingers through her silky hair as her breathing calms. She looks up at me, her eyes rimmed red, her nose pink, her cheeks flushed. She’s incredibly beautiful and even with so much pain inside, her green eyes still shimmer like emeralds in the sun.
“Are you okay?” I ask, softly.
She nods. “I think so.”
“Ready to get up?”
“Yeah.”
I help her to her feet then rise on my own. She looks so small, deflated. All her bravado washed away by her tears.
“I guess I needed that,” she says, bringing a slight smile to her lips. “Thank you for being there for me.”
“It’s the least I could do.”
“Is there more today?”
“I think you’ve had enough. In fact, I think you need a few days alone. We’ll resume our sessions on Monday. You’ve had a few very eventful days.”
“To say the least.”
“Go home and rest. Swim, eat, cry if you need to.”
“Will I see you?”
“Do you want to?”
She nods, gazing into my eyes.
“Then you will.”
She smiles. “Now that you pulled the scab off, what’s going to happen to me?”
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