Hooked

by Gina Messina

  “Being in therapy with Dr. Harrison is a lot like being in labor without an epidural. The contractions just keep getting worse only there isn’t a push gift to dull the memory of the pain when it’s mercifully over,” she told an incredulous Marco.

  “Oh dear lord, Charlie! You paint such a vivid picture. All I can say is thank God I’m not equipped to push an eight pounder from any hole in my body!”

  “Well, at least there are drugs for that kind of pain. But how the hell do I deal with my pain-in-the ass therapist!”

  “I don’t know. How can you take it?” he asked sympathetically. “All those personal questions! It must be like standing stark naked in the middle of Time Square with nothing to show for it. You’re so exposed.”

  Looking down at her body, Charlie thought, Naked in Time Square would be out of the question. But, not much worse than dealing with Dr. Harrison.

  “It’s all that incessant talking and personal questions. She’s always probing for answers. It’s more violating than a strip search at the airport! When she drones on and on I try to think of other things to pass the time-things that make me happy. Mostly I think about shoes!”

  Marco laughed on cue and held it longer than he should have, maybe because he was certain his next commission check was going to be substantial. Charlie laughed from the giddiness of being surrounded by shoes, a euphoric feeling that no amount of therapy sessions could ever give her. She was going to buy lots of shoes and Sean was going to pay for every one of them. He always did. Either to mask his guilt or to get what he wanted. Either one worked for her.

  Charlie immediately put her hand to her neck and fingered the two-carat solitaire diamond ‘push gift’ that Sean had given her the morning after Layla was born.

  “What’s this for?” she’d asked when she tugged on the ribbon of the pale blue Tiffany box.

  “A push gift for you,” he said smiling. “You did a great job!” he then added. He made her feel like a kindergartener who was being awarded a gold star for a finger-painting project.

  When a nurse entered the room beaming brightly at the charming domestic scene that was playing out before her., she looked over at Charlie as if she were the luckiest woman alive. “Congratulations!” she sang out a little too peppy for Charlie’s taste. After all, she’d just pushed the hell out of a baby for over two hours. She was sure she’d burst every capillary on her face from the exertion.

  “My name is Candy.”

  Of course it is, Charlie thought as she turned her head tod look out the window. The last thing she wanted to do was encourage idle chit-chat with one of the help.

  “I just need to get the spelling of your beautiful daughter’s name for the birth certificate before we can discharge you,” Candy stated in her annoyingly bubbly voice. Her eyes travelled to Sean and the Tiffany box that was lying on the breakfast tray and then her smile widened as if he were a gift from God. “Is it with a ‘t’, or a ‘d’ at the end?” she questioned, bringing her attention back to Charlie.

  “With a ‘t’,” Sean quickly replied. Charlie whipped her head around faster than Regan in the Exorcist and gaped up at him, utterly confused. If she had eaten the spinach omelet on her breakfast tray that morning, she would have projectile vomited all over Candy’s pink scrubs, too.

  “So Bridget with a ‘t’ then?” she confirmed before she told them that her cousin in Ohio was named Bridget. Charlie didn’t give a flying fuck about Candy’s cousin in Ohio and wondered if the painkillers were finally kicking in because she thought for sure that she was hallucinating.

  What the hell are they talking about? she thought while blurting out, “I thought we agreed on Layla.”

  Sean gave her a patronizing look that went unnoticed by the nurse. “I was thinking we would name her after my great grandmother from Donegal. Bridget Erin Murphy has such a beautiful ring to it. And besides, I promised my mother.”

  “Are you fucking mad?” Charlie screamed. Candy jumped back, visibly startled. No doubt she thought Charlie was being a royal bitch, treating her doting and generous husband so ungratefully. She didn’t care though and burst into tears, “I carried this child in my womb for nine months! I have fucking stretch marks all over my belly and my boobs are sagging practically down to my navel, for God’s sake! There’s no way that’s going to happen!”

  Sean seemed to recoil at the graphic picture she’d just painted for him. He’d always been a breast man. Ever since he was nine-years-old and his twelve-year old cousin, Linda, had lured him into the hall closet and lifted up her shirt, he’d been infatuated by tits. He loved telling Charlie that story, not realizing how disturbing it truly was. But the bottom line was that his dear cousin Linda had turned him onto tits. It didn’t matter if they were big or small; they just had to be perky and firm.

  The cute nurse stopped dead in her tracks and gave Sean a sympathetic glance. He shrugged his shoulders at her and sheepishly mouthed ‘hormones.’

  That was all it took to drive Charlie off the deep-end. “Mind your own business and just do your fucking job,” she scowled while thinking that she could never be a nurse if she had to wear those horrid white institutional wedges. She was sure Candy was deliberating as to whether or not she was actually stable enough to be discharged. To Candy, it must have seemed like Charlie was acting irrationally when in reality, it was the first time she’d ever stood up to Sean.

  And it felt good.

  When they left the hospital with little Layla Rae Murphy swathed in her pink cashmere blanket and the two carat diamond solitaire hanging from Charlie’s neck, she was still seething about Sean’s attempts to manipulate her like he always tried to do. Only this time it hadn’t worked. Maybe Sean was right. Maybe it was her raging hormones. But if it was her hormones, she hoped they continued to rage on. She could handle the mood swings, the weight gains and all that came with it. She vowed to learn something from that experience. Maybe if I put my foot down more often, things will get better?

  Marco took one sad look at Charlie and sympathetically shook his head back and forth. Even Marco gets it. Why didn’t fucking Candy? she questioned.

  “Girlfriend, forget your therapist and that husband of yours,” he suggested then leaned in to say, “But not his money!” He giggled at his own joke before wrapping his arm protectively around her shoulders and promising, “We’re going to get you all fixed up now,” then whisked her off to the private staff elevator while ordering Anna to fetch them two lattes with extra foam, pronto! Anna scowled and shuffled off, muttering something about feeling more like a personal slave instead of a personal assistant.

  “Sounds like she needs to find another job,” Charlie quipped.

  “What Anna needs is a really stiff prick,” he snorted back then cagily stood with his hands on his narrow hips and waited for Charlie to press the up button.

  “Don’t we all,” she responded. Marco threw his head back in a fit of laughter.

  When they reached the elusive ‘back’ room, Charlie wondered if she’d just died and gone to heaven, or at least her version of spiritual enlightenment. She ogled the newest must have shoes of the season, freshly arrived and still hidden away from the masses who would greedily devour them like small tablets of Ecstasy the very day they were put out on display.

  “Ohhhh,” she reverently said when Marco held up each pair of shoes for her to admire. “Wow,” she murmured in awe, with her eyes as wide open as Lizbeth’s pussy was on the memorable night that she’d found her shackled to her kitchen appliance. “Your shoes are spectacular,” she lustily told him.

  Marco grinned proudly and Charlie’s eyes slowly misted with tears. She began to point like a greedy child at every pair that she wanted. “If you don’t love it, don’t buy it,” she could hear her mother saying through the door of the dressing room when she would take her school shopping in September each year. Charlie quickly convinced herself that she loved them all. Marco did a pretty good job of convincing her, too.

  It was a
ll so satisfying. Almost wickedly so.

  Apparently money can buy happiness, she convinced herself while picking up every pair of shoes and prudently inspecting the height of each heel as if she were a diamond dealer carefully grading the cut, carat and quality of a stone.

  Marco excused himself, disappearing into the stock room for a few minutes. Charlie was too absorbed to notice him gone, that was, until he came back. He emerged wearing a wide grin on his face and holding a pair of light green Prada pumps in his left hand. He held them up high over his head as if he were anointing the lion king.

  “We’re the only store on the East Coast with these stunners in stock,” he excitedly told her. “They’re named ‘how high can you go,” which made perfect sense since they sported a seven-inch stiletto heel. Charlie loved the way all of the top designers had recently started naming their shoes. It seemed to give them a life of their own. “They come in willow green and mellow yellow. These Prada’s are like shoe porn!” The way he said the word porn, with his lips curled into a sexy pout, made it sound irresistible and utterly delicious.

  Charlie reached up and took the pair from his outstretched hands, cradling them gingerly like she would a newborn baby. When she leaned over and slipped them onto her feet, she almost orgasmed.

  “So, what do you think?” Marco asked from behind. “Do you want to buy them?”

  She stood in front of the full length mirror, turning from side to side, admiring the way they made her calves look so slender. “Of course I want to buy them,” she automatically responded. “I’ll take them in both colors!”

  Now it was Marco’s turn to have an orgasm.

  Charlie’s mood instantaneously lifted. “Christ all mighty, I just love shoe therapy!” she announced to Anna when she finally returned three hours later with two cold lattes in her hand. The extra foam had definitely seen better days. What the fuck has she been doing all this time? she asked herself, feeling a tiny eruption of fury. Clearly, Anna had time management issues. Normally, Charlie would have thrown a hissy fit and made Marco send his assistant back for another cup of hot coffee. But Charlie was on such a high, Anna could have given her a cup filled with dried coffee beans for all she cared. She loved her new shoes and more importantly, they loved her!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “If your hair is done properly and you’re wearing good shoes,

  you can get away with anything.”

  Iris Apfel

  Charlie felt like she was in a nightmare set to play on continual loop when she heard Dr. Harrison ask, “So, Charlie, you’ve been married to a narcissist for over seven years now. When you were dating, you must have known-on a subconscious level, at the very least, what you were getting yourself into, no?” This was the same exact question she had asked at their last session, right before Charlie blew up and stormed out to go shopping.

  What the fuck does she think I’m here for? she wondered; just to blow Sean’s paycheck while he’s busy getting blown by his latest diversion?

  “Of course I fucking knew!” she zealously yelled. “Jesus! It was as obvious as the nose on my face. Everyone knew!”

  “There was no one who didn’t know?” her therapist questioned in disbelief.

  She must think I’m delusional.

  “My parents all but begged me to reconsider marrying him.” Charlie had committed to memory the countless bribes that they so blatantly offered her to call off her engagement to Sean. Every week, as the date loomed nearer, a new incentive was dangled in front of her eyes. A trip across Europe, a new fancy sports car; hell, they even offered to buy her a studio co-op in SoHo. Charlie never contemplated any of the delicious carrots they dangled in front of her. She graciously declined every last tasty one of them. Looking back on it now, she realized that if only her parents had offered her shoes, her life might be have taken a different turn.

  “I love Sean,” she remembered saying to her mother and father. “He makes me happy!”

  That wasn’t entirely true. Charlie had had her doubts but she’d overlooked them all. She was too focused (laser focused) on the payoff she imagined she would have when she became Sean’s wife. She ignored the huge white elephant in the room, the question of whether Sean was capable of being faithful. Whether he’d keep his cock in his pants. She never paid any serious attention to the way he had devoured Stacey’s breasts with his eyes at Nobu; or the sly way he had flirted with the cute little red headed waitress at Angelo’s; or the nights he would call and say he wouldn’t be reachable by phone for the next several hours. She didn’t think about any of that. She only thought about all the stuff that would soon fill her up. All of the shoes that would find a home in her humungous custom walk in closet.

  Charlie conjured up the uncomfortable details of the night she had rang her father to tell him that Sean had popped the question. He had been at an utter loss for words except to repeat, “You’re engaged to Sean?” over and over again. She could hear the click-clack of her mother’s shoes on the hardwood floor of their brownstone as she nervously paced in the background and could even make out the distant sound of her voice when she recited to herself, “How could this happen? How did this happen? Oh my God, why did this happen?”

  “You would have thought I was a sixteen-year-old who’d gotten knocked up by the way my parents talked about my engagement,” she remarked in a sarcastic tone. “But I didn’t care what they thought,” she admitted to Dr. Harrison. “I was determined. So was Sean. Immediately we started planning our wedding day. We visited venues, florists, bakers and stationary stores. Every Sunday morning, we scoured the internet and real estate section of the paper looking for a larger apartment. We both wanted a home we could start a family in,” she said with a pained smile.

  It had all been planned in such a frenzy. As if they couldn’t get to the alter fast enough; as if Charlie was, indeed, knocked up. She couldn’t possibly forget the night that Sean came home from work with news about a possible venue. And not just any venue, but the venue. One of his clients had offered to sponsor them at the exclusive Metropolitan Club. There was a date available due to a sudden cancellation; for late October, which was only four months away! That didn’t leave them much time so they scrambled as fast as they could to get out their hand engraved invitations and spent an entire weekend registering at Tiffany’s. It had been the best part of the planning. Charlie walked around the store with the scanner gun in her hand, aiming it at items like an experienced sharp shooter. She liked the idea of shopping for free-especially when it involved gifts for herself.

  When they were picking out china and silver patterns, she’d even asked Sean if he thought it would be inappropriate if she included a pair of one carat diamond stud earrings to the registry list. He suppressed a laugh then answered with a worried grin, “You’re so amusing, Charlotte.” She hadn’t been certain if that was a yes or a no, so she just added them to the registry anyway.

  They booked a string quartet and a harpist for the church ceremony and planned a delectable four-course menu which included the same rack of lamb she had enjoyed with David. The guest list was made and checked, then checked again. Sean threw a suitcase full of bribe money to the Catholic Church to ensure that they would let them have a religious ceremony, despite the fact that she’d never been Confirmed. Religion was never her family’s thing. But Sean had insisted they have a church wedding even though she’d never seen him step foot in a church, not even on Easter Sunday. To her husband-to-be, it was all about appearances: the perfect registry, the perfect church, and the perfect bride.

  Charlie tried on hundreds of wedding dresses until she found a stunning Shantung silk gown at Vera Wang. It had three layers of antique lace and fell flawlessly across her narrow hips in a flattering A-line cut. She looked amazing in it. But, even more amazing than the dress, were the exquisite shoes, which made her feel like Cinderella after she found her prince. The heck with the prince. In fact, it hadn’t mattered who she was marrying. She would have worn those shoes e
ven if she was marrying herself. They were simple ivory mules in raw Chinese silk by Valentino, with a touch of Irish lace (Sean had also insisted that she’d wear something Irish, even though she was 100% Italian. Again, it was all about appearances). Of course, they seamlessly matched the antique lace on her gown. From the moment she had tried them on, she knew they were the perfect choice-even more perfect that the man she was marrying.

  “Actually, it was the happiest time of my life,” she told Dr. Harrison in a very matter-of-fact tone.

  And it had been. The attention, the adoration, the shopping and the shoes. Whoever said that happiness couldn’t be bought had clearly been wrong. She lived by the motto that if you threw enough money at something it was bound to make the most miserable of souls blissfully happy. In actuality, Charlie knew that most of the grief in her life hadn’t cost one single dime. At least not financially.

  Dr. Harrison lifted her brows. “The happiest time, Charlie? Are you being completely honest with yourself?”

  Charlie almost laughed. What was honesty, after all? There were various levels of honesty. It all depended on how one asked the question. Dr. Harrison knew damn well that Charlie was miserable in her marriage with Sean. And, it had started on a downward spiral on the night of that damn near perfect wedding!

  “Well, the happiest time of my life…until it all went to shit,” she confessed, feeling the anger rise up from the pit of her stomach.

  “How did you feel about having your reception at the Metropolitan Club?” Dr. Harrison asked, peering down at Charlie’s shoes, which oddly enough, happened to inauspiciously be Louboutin’s.