by C. L. Parker
“Shaw!”
“What?” I asked, defensively, and then turned the tables on our therapist. “I thought those questionnaires were supposed to be confidential. Don’t you have some sort of hypocritical oath you have to uphold or something?”
“It’s a Hippocratic Oath, Shaw—”
I knew that.
“—and this is couple’s therapy. Which means I won’t disclose details about our sessions to anyone outside this office, but the two of you count as one client, and there will be no secrets held in this room. The contract you signed detailed that information.”
It did? That would’ve been useful information to have before filling out that form.
“You didn’t even read the contract, did you?” Cassidy asked me. Again, not sure why she was shocked.
“Yes, I read the agreement….Okay, I didn’t,” I admitted when she opened her mouth to call bullshit. Damned if I could ever lie to her.
“Would you like to take a moment to look over it now before we continue?” Dr. Sparling handed a copy toward me. “I don’t want to move forward until you know exactly what you can expect of me and what I expect of you in return.”
“Fine.” Reaching across the way, I took the sheet of paper from him with a huff, while secretly hoping he’d gotten a paper cut when I ripped it from his hand.
Scanning through the document, I realized it hadn’t been as basic as I’d thought it would be. Dr. Sparling’s expectations were pretty specific. By signing the document, I’d agreed to take our sessions seriously and follow the advice he gave regarding the future of my relationship with Cassidy. No matter. It wasn’t like he could dictate what we ultimately decided to do. On the other hand, what Cassidy ultimately decided, based on his recommendation, would be another story.
“Got it.” I handed the agreement back to him.
“And you still agree?”
One glance at Cassidy, at the pleading in every detail of her expression, and I knew the answer. “I do.” I shuddered when I realized how much that had sounded like a wedding vow.
“Excellent! Moving on,” he said, all Mr. Rogers–like. And then finally, he turned the spotlight off me and onto Cassidy. “Cassidy, since it seems you were earnest with your questionnaire, let’s start with you.”
Oh, I couldn’t wait to hear what she’d put on her form….
Cassidy
Jeremy seemed like an okay guy. Sort of like he was having an identity crisis that he should maybe seek counseling for himself, but okay, nonetheless. Maybe his outward appearance was simply an attempt to set his clients at ease with the illusion that he had something in common with just about anyone from any walk of life. I liked that about him.
I also liked the way he effortlessly put Shaw in his place. Reminded me a lot of myself, or at least the way I used to be with him. Over time, I’d lost my spunk, my sass, my competitive edge.
Filling out the questionnaire had been a “come to Jesus” moment for me, so to speak. Maybe I’d been in defensive mode while studying it, looking for all the ways my answers might make me look like a villain. In the end, though, I’d answered honestly, viewing this as an opportunity to tell the story of Shaw and me. If there were issues, they weren’t mine alone. They weren’t even Shaw’s alone. They were ours. And if Jeremy could offer advice on how I might approach our relationship differently, I was all ears. Unlike Shaw, I had no chip on my shoulder. I knew I wasn’t perfect.
“It says here that the two of you met at work.”
Feeling like I’d just taken the witness stand, I squared my shoulders, prepared to defend my actions. “That’s right.”
“Workplace romances can be quite complicated.”
I snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Then by all means, fill me in.” He smiled and sat back, making a show of getting comfortable.
Shaw sighed his agitation, but I didn’t spare him a glance.
Crossing my legs, I entwined my fingers and hooked my hands around my knee. Bracing, maybe? “Shaw and I worked for the same company, but there was no love lost between the two of us right from the beginning. I thought he was a pompous ass who expected everything to be handed to him—”
“And I thought she was the biggest bitch I’d ever met,” Shaw tacked on, making me narrow my eyes at him.
“You didn’t at first,” I taunted him with a knowing smirk.
“Nope,” he admitted. “I thought you were sexy as hell until you opened that smart-ass mouth of yours.”
“I thought my smart mouth turned you on?” What I didn’t add was the rather intimate story Shaw had recounted to me about a certain shower where he’d masturbated to visions of shutting me up with his fat cock in my mouth. The thought heated my skin and made me wish for all the world that he’d do it for real. God, I missed that part of Shaw so much.
“It did. Still wanted to wring your neck, though.”
And now I was thinking about a little flirtation with danger, about what it would be like to have Shaw’s fingers around my neck while plunging deep inside me, his eyes daring me to make a sound.
“Oh, my…” Jeremy pulled at his collar. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he’d been reading my mind. Clearly, his reaction was aimed at Shaw’s statement, though the teasing grin on his lips meant he hadn’t taken it literally to mean we had an abusive relationship. A little sick and twisted in the beginning with a whole lot of physicality, maybe, but not in the abusive sense.
“Anyway,” I said, continuing, “we were both agents going after the same client to win a partnership. Neither of us played fair. In fact, we used everything at our disposal to gain the upper hand. And I do mean everything.”
“Such as?” Jeremy was going to make me spell it out.
“Sex,” I said in a matter-of-fact way.
“Really? So you were rivals who didn’t much like each other, but you still had sex?”
“Oh, yeah,” Shaw said, egotistical smirk in place. It was sexy as hell. “And lots of it.”
“It’s interesting that you were able to disconnect yourselves from your feelings about each other to engage in something so intimate.”
“Tactics,” Shaw said simply. “Fuck or be fucked.”
“Shaw!” I gasped. “There’s no need to be so crude.”
“Did you feel the same way, Cassidy?”
As much as I didn’t want to look to be less of a lady, honesty was in the driver’s seat.
I shrugged. “Yes.” But then I realized a stronger truth. “Though I suppose that wasn’t my only reason. You see, even when I hated Shaw, I still wanted him. It was a very physical, carnal attraction for me.”
Shaw’s brows drew together. “Wait…You hated me?”
“Oh, get off it, Shaw. We hated each other. We loved to hate each other, in fact.”
“Well, they do say there’s a very thin line between love and hate.” Jeremy chuckled. “Was it the same for you, Shaw? Did you hate Cassidy, as well?”
I could tell he struggled to admit the truth, but with a single nod, he did. “It was a turn-on.”
“And then your relationship grew into something more?”
“Yes.”
“So is it fair to say that sex was the foundation of your relationship?”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“Great! That’s our starting point, then. Sometimes, to figure out how to move forward, we have to go back to the beginning.” Jeremy kicked off his shoes and tucked his feet under him, crisscross applesauce–style. It was quite odd, but I had a feeling not a lot about our relationship coach was normal.
Eyes widening, he leaned forward in the chair, engrossed and apparently excited by this revelation. It was like he’d just found a pivotal puzzle piece. “I’m not saying your sexual attraction is the foundation of your entire relationship, but it certainly is a very large component. Desire plus provocation is the elemental compound driving the formula of your base chemistry. Again, not the entire formula, as I’m s
ure you care for each other on many different levels, which is likely the reason you’re here in my office today.
“But let’s change gears for a moment. Sexual attraction usually begins with a physical attraction. A person’s physical appearance can change over time, so I have to ask the hard question.” Jeremy turned his attention to me. “Are you still physically attracted to Shaw, Cassidy?”
I faced Shaw, almost scrutinizing everything about his appearance, though I hadn’t needed to. I already knew the answer. “Without a doubt.”
“And you, Shaw?”
Shaw gave me the same once-over, the corner of his mouth turning up into that gorgeous half grin/half smirk of his I could never resist. “She’s just as sexy now as she was that night we got it on like a couple of teenagers in a seedy alley during the pouring rain.”
The memory of that night caused a stir in my nether region. I had to fight the urge to scissor my thighs for friction. Shaw had given me a reverse shoulder ride in the rain, right before he’d fucked me while I was forced to keep quiet or else the lady standing on the balcony directly above would have busted us in all our naughtiness.
I could hear the sadness in my own voice as I ducked my head and said, “We don’t have sex like that anymore.”
“We don’t have time to have sex like that anymore,” Shaw said, again defensive. Then he gave me another reminder. “Plus there’s Abe.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” I didn’t need to look at him to see his reaction.
Jeremy perked up at that. “The will is gone?”
Before Shaw could answer with what I was sure he thought our coach wanted to hear, I did it for him. “For both of us.”
“Well then.” Jeremy sighed. “It would seem you’ve simply lost your passion for each other. Does that seem like a fair assessment?”
Why did that hit me like a ton of bricks? Our relationship coach’s diagnosis screamed all kinds of right answer. Even our arguments had become tame compared to the ones we’d had before Abe had come along. It stood to reason that if heated arguments had turned into scorching sex in the past, tame arguments would turn into lame sex now.
“Yes, that’s fair,” I answered. “I just don’t feel like he wants me the same as he used to.”
Shaw looked taken aback by my statement. “What are you talking about? Of course I want you.”
“I can’t tell,” I told him. “It’s like you’re just going through the motions.”
Jeremy resumed control of the conversation, steering us in a different direction. “How often do you have sex?”
I snorted. “Ha! After arguments and whenever Shaw wants it, which is rare.”
Shaw rose to his own defense. “That’s not true! We have sex. Pretty regularly, I might add.”
He wasn’t even being honest with himself, let alone our therapist. And was he really trying to tell me how often we had sex? If I were a participant in said sex, wouldn’t I be aware of how often it was? Or maybe it was just that Shaw had been that oblivious to the decline in our sex life.
Fine, it was up to me to inform him. If I must, I must. “No, you have sex. My only purpose during it is to serve as your own personal pocket pussy.”
Jeremy nearly choked on his startled gasp. I wasn’t usually so blunt, but what did I have to lose? Besides, we were in a couples therapist’s office, so I’d say there wasn’t much he hadn’t heard.
Shaw didn’t fare much better from the outburst that surprised even me. He shifted on the couch with his hands fisted at his sides, gone white at the knuckles even as his teeth clenched. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
With an indignant lift of my chin, I spelled it out for him. “It means you work very well toward your endgame without a single thought of mine. It must be nice to be able to release all the tension and stress you claim to have.”
“All the tension and stress I claim to have?” He raked his fingers through his hair in a way that seemed almost painful. It was nothing short of an attempt to regain some semblance of control over his emotions. And the first time I’d seen him do it in a very long time. “You get off, too. So I don’t know where all of this is coming from.”
I’d had it. Simply had it. While I was already dishing out the cold, hard truth, I decided now was as good a time as any to reveal another. One that would send us past the point of no return on the subject at hand. “I fake it.”
The veins in Shaw’s forehead and neck threatened to break the skin. “You do not fake it! I would know!”
Calmly lifting a brow in challenge, I faced off with him. “Would you?”
“Yes! Jesus, where is all of this coming from?”
There was only one way to prove my point, and having embraced my newfound bluntness, I went with it once again. Grabbing onto the armrest at my side and the couch cushion on the other, I dropped my head back and closed my eyes as I allowed my body, coiled tight with unrelieved tension, to relax. “Oh, Shaw…Oh, Shaw…Right there. Yes, right…there!” I moaned, giving him and the good doctor a sampling of my incredible acting skills.
Shaw gaped. Jeremy resituated himself in his chair, glasses practically fogging.
Point. Proven. I was tempted to take a bow but decided to save it for the end of my acceptance speech when I won an Emmy.
Since the room had grown deathly quiet, enough so that I could practically hear the echoing of my performance, I decided to punctuate it with a conversation ender. “Once upon a time, you would’ve known I was faking it. All you had to do was listen and observe, but you haven’t done that in a very long time, which should tell you just how long I’ve gone without an orgasm for myself. At least from you.”
He looked like he was still trying to process this new information, like he was trying to find fault in my claim.
“Think about it, Shaw. Since when have I ever made that much noise while coming?”
Jesus, I’d have thought he’d gone into shock if not for the churning turbulence in his eyes. Something there had changed, an emotional mix of confusion and clarity, and then back to confusion again that one might attribute to a madman. Ah, he’d found the truth in my words and was venturing into that space of denial.
Jeremy cleared his throat, but it did nothing to clear the tension in the room. “I don’t often do this, but I believe you two to be a special case. I’d like to refer you to a colleague of mine, Dr. Katya Minkov. She happens to be in town for a bit, and I can see if she’s available.”
“Another therapist? In addition to you?” Shaw asked, already gearing up to shoot the idea down. “I don’t have the time or the patience—”
“Need I remind you that you said you’d do anything to keep Abe and me here?”
Shaw stopped talking, which, judging by the way he tensed, was a hard thing for him to do.
“Just tell me if I need to book a flight, Shaw,” I told him with a shake of my head. “That’s all I want to know.”
“No,” he grated between clenched teeth.
Turning to Jeremy, I waved for him to continue. “You were saying?”
But he wasn’t really answering me so much as he was reassuring Shaw. “What I’m proposing is something I think you’ll find…interesting, Shaw. I almost wish I had a reason to book a session or two with Katya.”
“Is that so? Would you like to switch places?”
Jeremy looked at me, blushing for some unknown reason, and then pulled at his collar. “I, um—I don’t think so. That would be quite unethical since, as I said, Dr. Minkov is a colleague. Though I’m not sure if she can really be called a therapist. Of sorts, maybe,” he concluded with a sideways bob of his head.
“What does that mean?”
With a professional smile in place, he eased into the explanation. “Nothing about what Katya does is clinical. She’s very hands-on, unorthodox in her methods, and extremely effective with her techniques.”
“I’m still not following, Doc. What makes her better than you?”
The chuckle that came from Jeremy when he pulled at his collar was downright mischievous. “Not better. We simply have a different field of study. Katya’s expertise, you see, is in sex. The kind of sex that, um,” he shifted in his seat, “let’s just say it’s an adventure you’ll want to embark upon time and time again.”
Shaw perked up at that, his back and shoulders a little straighter. “Really?”
My question, exactly. Really, Shaw? I crossed my arms over my chest and eyeballed him. He noticed and visibly swallowed, but I could tell my disapproval hadn’t done much to subdue his curiosity.
“Indeed,” Jeremy said, reaching for his notepad and beginning to jot something down. “I must warn you that should you agree to see her, and she you, it will be an experience like none you’ve ever had before. To say Katya is unconventional would be an understatement. She’s a professional, of course, but she’s also the most…” He shook his head with a very deep breath and long exhalation. Were his glasses fogging up again? “Let’s just say you’ll thank me for this.”
Ripping off a sheet of paper, Jeremy passed it over to us. He hadn’t been writing notes. He’d been scribbling Dr. Minkov’s contact information.
“Is this really necessary?” I asked, not entirely sure how we’d gotten to this place. A sex therapist who isn’t really a therapist at all? I had some serious research to do on this Dr. Katya Minkov.
Jeremy’s eyebrows lifted. “I can’t see how it could possibly hurt. Think of it as an adventure of sorts. After all, sex was the foundation of your relationship. You said so yourself. So let’s fix the cracks in that foundation before we look at the rest of your house.”
Though I was apprehensive about making an even bigger deal out of our issues, I supposed he did have a point. Besides, I could use a little adventure. Peering over at Shaw, I knew we both could. Maybe he’d make more time for his family if we could find our passion for each other again.
“Of course,” Jeremy added, “confidentiality runs both ways with Dr. Minkov. The agreement you signed with me safeguards the contact information I just gave you for Katya as well. Whether you choose to use her or not, you must not share it with anyone.”
