by Dyanne Davis
When they were done, he walked with Mia, giving her a personal introduction to some of his favorite animals, yelling for her to duck when one of the more aggressive monkeys decided to throw his droppings at them.
“You like it here, don’t you?” Mia asked, moving out of firing range of another volley of droppings.
“Yeah, I do.”
“More than singing?”
“No, but equally. I’ve been toying around with the idea of going back to school, becoming a vet.”
“You’re going to stop working at the club?”
“School will take years. Besides, singing is the fulfillment of a dream. I won’t give it up but something more solid will be a good investment in our future.”
“I like the sound of that, our future.”
“You’re okay with it?”
“I’m okay with anything that makes you happy, just as long as I’m in the picture.”
“You are the picture,” Damien said, taking her in his arms, forgetting about his dirty clothes or the monkey taking his aim.
Chapter Seventeen
“Mia, you’re positively glowing. What happened? Did you finally stop repressing and tell that brand new husband of yours what was going on in your head?”
Mia laughed. “You’ll never believe what happened. It was Damien who really initiated the conversation. We started talking and it was all a big misunderstanding. Even the gift.”
“What gift?” Dr. Grey asked.
Mia could feel her face getting red and was grateful that her skin tone was not as light as Damien’s. She’d be forever blushing and then having to feel embarrassed about it.
“Damien gave me a tape, a porn tape. He left it on the nightstand on our wedding night.”
“The tape upset you?”
“Of course it did. I was expecting something a bit more romantic.”
“Did you tell him that.”
“I didn’t then but I did once we talked.”
“Good.”
Mia smiled and began licking her top lip with the tip of her tongue.
“What’s up, Mia,” Dr. Grey asked.
“Why do you think something is up?”
“You’re licking your lip. For you that’s a dead give-away, so go ahead and tell me what’s on your mind.”
“You didn’t comment on the tape Damien gave me. Wouldn’t it upset you if your husband had given you one?”
“No. And my husband has given me a bunch of porn tapes. So what? I’ve given him all kinds of kinky stuff, but, Mia, that’s me. I was never repressed sexually.”
“What are you talking about? I wasn’t repressed, not sexually.”
“Mia, come off it. Your brother had you so afraid of turning out to be like your mother that he put the fear of himself, God, sex and everything into your head and you were the good little girl. You played along.”
Mia was getting angry. She always did when Dr. Grey ventured into the area of her brother. “I think you keep forgetting my brother was a kid. He had no business being saddled with me. He should have had someone taking care of him, not the other way around.”
“I know that, Mia, and I’m not criticizing your brother. I’m merely saying that because of the way you were raised, you learned to survive by suppressing your emotions.”
“Nothing I did was Keefe’s fault. What I did was my fault alone.”
“Who raised you, Mia? You said yourself your mother didn’t.”
“Would you get over trying to blame my brother? We were talking about my husband, not Keefe.”
Mia stormed out of the room and went into the small vending area to blow off steam. She heard the click of heels and knew her therapist had followed her.
She stood glaring at Dr. Grey as she fed quarters into a machine. “Why are you following me?” Mia blurted.
“I’m not. I wanted something cold to drink.” Dr. Grey retrieved her drink, then peered at Mia. “I’ve been reviewing your session tapes. You’re doing an excellent job with the patients. They all love you.”
Mia chewed on her lips. “Thanks. I guess it’s myself I have to work on.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I ran out like that.”
“No problem. I still run out of my own therapy sessions when it gets too personal.”
Mia laughed and moved in closer to Dr. Grey. “Tell me something. Why is it that all therapists are in therapy? It’s seems a bit ironic don’t you think?”
Dr. Grey laughed too. “When you think about it, it is. But, Mia, think about this. We’re only human. And in our line of work we’re like a human garbage dump. What do you think would happen if we never had a chance to get rid of all our refuse? No, I don’t think I’d trust a therapist who wasn’t seeing someone. First, getting therapy puts the therapist at the same level as their patients and they’re better able to empathize.” She took a long drink. “Ready to go back?”
Mia shrugged her shoulders. “Are we talking about Keefe or Damien?”
“I don’t see how we can talk about one without the other. But I promise for today we’ll concentrate on you and your marriage. That is what you want to work on, isn’t it?”
Once Mia had settled comfortably in her chair she gazed around the room at the hot pink and blue colors that appeared to bleed into each other. Mia thought it was an ugly room and knew she wouldn’t choose those colors for her own office. No, she’d choose pale greens and yellows, soothing colors, something more dignified.
“What are you thinking about, Mia?”
“Nothing.” Mia turned toward Dr. Grey.
“Suppressing again, are we?”
“We’re not, since you’re asking. You’re not in my body or my mind and if you really want to know what I was thinking… I was wondering why you painted your room such God-awful colors?”
Dr. Grey started laughing and Mia laughed too. “Okay, I suppress,” Mia admitted. “But please don’t ever refer to what I do as ‘we.’ I hate it.”
“Good. Breakthrough!”
For a long moment the two women smiled at each other, each feeling genuine affection for the other.
“Why do you think you have to hold everything in, Mia? It’s okay to say what you really think.”
“I know that.”
“I know you know that, but you don’t practice it, even about something as silly as this damn paint.”
“I don’t like conflict.”
“No one does.”
“That’s not true,” Mia said, a half smile pulling at her lips. “My mother thrives on conflict and also, so it seems, my father-in-law.”
“Touché. I meant most sane people.”
“I’m in here seeing you. You call that sane?”
“Do you think all the patients that come to see you are insane?”
“Of course not. I was kidding.”
“I think there might be some truth in what you’re saying. You think it makes you weak to need help, yet you chose a profession where you will be forced to work with people you feel are weak.”
Mia cringed, and twisted her lips.
“You may as well say it or I will,” Dr. Grey smiled.
Mia refused to speak.
“Okay, then I’ll say it. You think your patients are nuts, wacko, looney. Hell, Mia, I thought the same thing myself when I started twenty years ago.”
Mia’s eyes opened wide and she was perched on the edge of her chair, ready to bolt.
“Sit back down, Mia. That was a long time ago, before I discovered that all humans are flawed, including me, and that it didn’t make a person weak to engage in therapy, but that it made them strong. Their desire to get better made them strong. And that’s always what you wanted to be. I know that, Mia, you’ve always wanted to be strong. No names, but you were taught to be strong and to do that you started suppressing your emotions.”
“Listen,” Mia said softly. “You’ve got it all wrong. I keep telling you that and you keep insisting on putting labels on me.”
“I’m not putting a l
abel on you. If I am, I’m sorry. Why don’t you tell me what started it?”
“I did it in the beginning when I was very little because I was afraid. My mom would leave us and I would be scared. My aunts or cousins would come over and I’d pretend that nothing was wrong. Keefe used to tell me that Mom would get in trouble if we didn’t pretend that we were alright, that she was at the store.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about your brother?”
“I don’t want you talking about him.”
“Fair enough, go ahead.”
“You already know about foster care.”
“I know that you went and something happened and you landed in the hospital and shortly after your brother cooked up a scheme to get you out. I don’t know anything that happened while you were there.”
“Neither do I,” Mia answered truthfully. “Most of the time I was so afraid and wanting my brother that I wasn’t able to focus. I wasn’t able to repress, suppress, take your pick. I couldn’t do it. That time I did go a bit nuts. I’ll admit it. I couldn’t cope.”
“Mia, you’re much too hard on yourself. You were a little girl. You should never have had to cope with the things that happened to you.”
Mia glared. “Stop pressing. I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m not holding back anything from that time.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. Your look always says it for you,” Mia fumed. “Do you want me to continue this or not?”
Dr. Grey shrugged her own shoulders. “I don’t much care really, Mia. You’re one of my most difficult patients. It’s always harder treating a colleague.”
Mia smiled despite her anger. “You think of me as a colleague?”
“Of course I do. You are a very good therapist with or without a license. And I think all the things you’ve been through in your life are going to make you even better. Now wipe that grin off your face and continue.”
As hard as she tried, Mia couldn’t erase the grin, but she did continue talking. “It took a lot of suppressing to not tell my friends that Keefe and I were living alone. I felt special, like we were so much braver than anyone else. I thought they were babies, that they had to have mothers and fathers taking care of them.”
“Did you really?”
“Yeah, in a way I did. Keefe made things so much fun for me. He made it an adventure that I sat in fast food restaurants doing my homework for hours each night, waiting for him to get off. He bought me a ton of books, took me to the library every week for more, and quizzed me on each book I read. He made learning fun for me. I rarely whined about it.”
“Didn’t you ever do anything besides study while you waited for him?”
“Of course. Keefe got me a CD player and headphones.
“How about television?”
“Neither of us watched much television. We didn’t have time for that. Keefe…” Mia hesitated. “Keefe was preparing us both to make it, to become successful. It worked.” She smiled. “He did a good job and he was always there making sure I was safe.”
“I agree.” Dr. Grey smiled at Mia. “Your brother did a good job.”
“He did,” Mia said with pride. “And I’m grateful to him,” she said more aggressively. “If it hadn’t been for him, I would have been crying every time I wasn’t invited to a party or something.”
“Did that happen a lot?” Dr. Grey asked softly.
“Enough,” Mia answered. “Keefe told me not to let them see that I wanted to come, that if they knew that they would use it to hurt me. So I learned to hold it in and I’d talk to myself in my head and work it out. That was my process.”
“You taught yourself to do that?”
“No, my brother taught me, but I’m glad that I learned how. Whenever any of the kids at school thought they were bothering me, that I cared that I wasn’t invited to their parties, I’d always smile and tell them about the things I was doing with my brother. They were all jealous that I got to stay up so late at night, that I was always eating out. None of their big brothers would take them any place and Keefe was always taking me to the movies, to parks. Wherever they went, he would find a way to make sure I had as good a time as any of them. And when we went home we would laugh. I knew that it worked because all the kids at school started asking if my brother would take them to the movies with me if they came to my house.”
“Did he?”
“A few times, but after I almost told that we were living alone I started not wanting to be around too many people. I was afraid I would tell someone.”
“You were afraid of being sent back to foster care.”
“Of course, Mia answered. “If I hadn’t been, then I really would have been crazy.” She was getting annoyed again. “Listen, what does any of this have to do with Damien?”
“It all does, Mia. Don’t you see if you had not been such an expert at repressing your feelings you would have told your mother off at the wedding? The next morning when Damien’s father asked about your personal life, you would have told him to go to hell. You would have thrown that tape in your husband’s face and told him you didn’t like that garbage. Mia, you would have told him that his actions and the actions of others had caused you to imagine him with the tons of women he’d had. You would have told him he’d screwed up, that you were looking for something romantic and he’d better get it. Hell, if you’d told all the people off that you should have, you probably never would have seen those pictures. And then you would have never gone through the dry spell with no sex. And you wouldn’t be sitting here with me right now getting angry because you don’t want to talk about it.”
Mia laughed. She looked at Dr. Grey’s surprised expression and laughed even harder, laughing until tears rolled down her cheeks.
“You’re yelling at me, telling me I’m repressed and telling me that I’m repressing. Well, duhh. No wonder you need a therapist.” Mia laughed and Dr. Grey joined in.
* * *
“Good morning, baby girl.”
“Good morning, how did you sleep?” Mia rolled over and looked into her husband’s eyes.
“Better than I have in a long, long time. How about you?” “To be honest I’ve being sleeping better since we started sleeping in the same bed.” She grinned. “I never knew how much fun sleeping with a man could be.”
“Sleeping with a man?” Damien asked, grabbing for Mia.
“Sleeping with the most handsome, adorable, sensitive man in the world who also just happens to be my husband.”
“That’s better.” Damien ran his hands down the side of her body, caressing her behind, then bringing his fingers back to rest on the twin mounds. “Ready to continue our lesson,” he asked as his usual visitor poked its head, tenting the sheet. It had been established that he couldn’t control that. So he didn’t even attempt to try.
“What do you have in mind?” Mia asked.
“Would you like to join me in the shower?”
“Are we allowed to touch?”
“Maybe we could help with soaping each other up but anything else should be saved for an advanced lesson which we’ll get to as soon as you’re ready.”
“Dr. Grey thinks you’re a saint,” Mia said as she bounced from the bed. She felt her husband’s eyes on her naked body and turned back, smiling at him. “I know better,” she cracked. “She also thinks you’re very smart. She thinks you would make an excellent therapist.”
Damien laughed. “We’ll see. Come on.” He pulled Mia behind him into the bathroom. “You know, I don’t even know how you like your water. We’ve never showered together.” He looked at her. “How do you like your water?”
“Hot. How about you?”
“Not so hot,” Damien replied. “Let’s see if we can find a happy medium.” He adjusted the spray and waited while Mia put her fingers into the water. “That’ll do,” she answered and they both climbed in and lathered each other.
Damien couldn’t resist when Mia’s arms wrapped ar
ound him and she slid her tongue into his mouth. Maybe kissing shouldn’t be counted as touching, he thought.
Wet, soapy, hot and wanting him. Oh this was what he’d always thought they would be like together. Only he’d given his word to take it slow. Damn.
Chapter Eighteen
Mia rushed into the restaurant, racing for the table she knew her brother had gotten for them. She was over twenty minutes late, but it couldn’t be helped.
“Hey,” Mia said quickly, hugging her brother tightly and kissing him. He was staring at her. “What are you looking at?” she asked, feeling embarrassed for some unknown reason.
“No reason. I just haven’t seen much of you in the past two months and I wanted to see if marriage was agreeing with you.”
There was something more to Keefe’s statement than met the eye but she ignored it. “Oh, it’s beginning to. It was a little rocky there in the beginning but we’re working things out.”
Keefe didn’t say anything and Mia smiled to herself and waited. They had yet to talk about the hysterical call she’d made to her brother on her honeymoon, or his offer to fly out and get her.
“I’m okay, I promise.” He was looking uncomfortable and Mia knew he wanted to ask her why she’d called. She toyed with the idea of not telling him but the continued look of fear on her brother’s face changed her mind. So she said, “I started back to seeing Dr. Grey again.”
“You did?” Keefe asked, genuine surprise tinting his voice. “Why?”
“I needed someone to talk to.” Mia saw the brief flash of hurt. “Someone who wouldn’t be embarrassed to talk with me about sex and someone who didn’t want to save me, or go and kill my husband without even knowing what the problem was.”
Keefe laughed. “Kicking your husband’s ass if he gets out of line is my job. I’m your big brother, remember?”
“I remember. But hurting my husband is not your job. If he gets out of line I can take care of him myself.”
Keefe smiled. “You sound awfully confident.” He looked down, too curious not to ask. “What happened, Mia? Why did you call me sobbing as if your heart were breaking?”
