Authors: Nicky Wells
Strangely enough, Myles had not let go of the topic, as was normally his wont, but had persisted on talking, and on talking some more. He wanted to lend an ear, he had said, and to be a
real
friend to his best mate. By that time, Alex had been too drunk to see anything strange about Myles’s extraordinarily supportive behaviour. Besides, it had been nice to confide in someone, to lay it all out in the open to a sympathetic
ear with no vested interest.And somewhere along the line, the relationship counsellor had entered the conversation. Not physically, of course, but as a concept, an idea, an avenue of exploration. He was almost sure Myles had brought it up first.
Alex frowned. In retrospect, some of what Myles had said had sounded a little scripted, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why he should think so. If Myles were known for his emotional literacy and eloquence, then Alex might have been more suspicious of what had been said. But the interlude was so unlike Myles that he could only assume that his best mate was genuinely worried about him.
Which was why he had agreed to the crazy idea of taking Casey to a proper counsellor. To his enormous surprise, Casey had been somewhat unexcited by his plan when he had first suggested it. He had expected her to jump for joy, but she had seemed reluctant to go. However, her resistance had only strengthened his resolve. For once,
he
would be the driving force behind a touchy-feely-talky attempt to rescue their ailing relationship. And so here they were.‘Here we are,’ Casey repeated. ‘Are you sure we have to do this?’
‘Positive.’ Alex brooked no argument, even though he felt sick to his stomach. It would have been easier to turn up here after a few pints, but he supposed that wasn’t the done thing. He breathed in and out and took Casey’s hand. ‘Let’s go.’
He pushed open the door and led Casey up a flight of narrow and rather dark stairs. The relationship counselling service was on the third floor, and each flight of stairs grew progressively brighter. ‘It’s like emerging from the underworld,’ he joked lightly, but Casey didn’t seem to get it.
At last, they arrived at their destination. Musak was being piped into the reception room, and the waiting area was rammed with fat sofas, rattan chairs, and potted palm trees. There was no receptionist, but a notice on the wall invited ‘guests’ to ring a bell to call for attention. Obediently, Alex pressed the button, and a bird began chirping frantically.
‘My word.’ Casey giggled. ‘That’s really quite annoying.’
‘That’s an interesting association,’ a mellifluous voice spoke up behind her. ‘I’d like to explore that further. You must be Casey.’
Casey gave a start like a frightened deer, and Alex thought she might well bolt. He held her hand more tightly. Together, they turned around to be greeted by their counsellor.
‘Hi, I’m Bethany.’
Bethany smiled widely, showing a set of sparkly white teeth, and held out a hand to each of them. She wore a floral caftan with lashings of silver necklaces, some of which fell down almost to her knees, and her hair was plaited and rolled up either side of her head in Princess Leia–style buns. She looked wholesome and healthy, as though she was eating apples and honey all day and had never had sex in her entire life.
Belatedly, Alex realised that Bethany was waiting for a reply, and that Casey hadn’t offered one as yet.
‘I’m Alex,’ he issued a little more gruffly than he had intended. ‘And yes, this is Casey, my wife.’
‘How very nice to meet you,’ Bethany trilled. ‘Do come through and let’s get to meet each other properly.’
She ushered them through to her ‘room of inner peace and happiness,’ as she called it, and asked them to pick a seat at random. Casey immediately sat on a light blue sofa, and, without hesitating, Alex squeezed himself next to her.
‘Oh good,’ Bethany sang. ‘You’re sitting next to each other. That’s a good start.’
Alex shifted his body uncomfortably. He hated having his every move analysed.
Of course
they were sitting next to each other. They were still a couple. Then again, he supposed that Bethany saw couples who were beyond reconciliation. Perhaps they chose to sit opposite ends of the room. Heck, they might choose to sit in different rooms. So perhaps the fact that he had elected to share the same physical space as Casey was significant.‘Who wants to tell me what worries you?’ Bethany invited in her singsong voice.
Alex looked at Casey. Casey looked at him. ‘You go first,’ she suggested testily. ‘This was your idea.’
‘Ah,’ Bethany chimed in. ‘I sense a certain anger in you, Casey. You’re finding my tweetie birds annoying, and you’re clearly attributing responsibility for your problems to your husband. I see, I see.’
Alex felt Casey stiffen next to him. He could almost smell her indignation. Once more, he was surprised by her resistance to his counselling idea, but he didn’t have time to dwell on the conundrum. ‘Shh,’ he whispered instead, trying to reassure her. ‘Take it easy. She’s only doing her job.’
‘I’m
not
angry,’ Casey hissed back. ‘And I’m not blaming you. She’s winding me up already!’‘Don’t mind me,’ Bethany offered, trilling again. ‘This is all part of the healing process.’
‘I—err. Yes.’ Alex cleared his throat. ‘I guess I better get started on why we’re here.’
Bethany leaned forward eagerly. Her pinned plaits leaned forward, too. Wondering if they would disengage any moment soon, Alex tried hard not to stare.
‘Right. So. Um. You see, since we’ve got married, we’ve not really managed to—to make love.’
‘How fascinating. How do you feel about that?’
Alex was taken aback, but Casey jumped in with an answer before he could gather his wits.
‘What do you think? Pretty crap, of course.’
‘Interesting. There’s that hostility again. There’s a lot of resentment in you Casey.’
‘I—’
Alex squeezed Casey’s hand and started talking right over her. ‘It’s not great. But we can’t understand
why
, you see. Before
the wedding, everything was okay between us.’‘How unusual. And what happened next?’
‘What happened next?’ Alex scratched his head. This question seemed a bit disjointed to him. ‘We got married, and we couldn’t make love on our wedding night, so we tried the next day.’
‘Good, good. And how did you feel about that?’ The plaits wobbled in sympathy.
‘Excited.’
Bethany gave a start. ‘How lovely. A positive reaction from you, Casey. How do you feel about that, Alex?’
‘Err—excited?’ Alex was beginning to feel like he was in some kind of black comedy. The entire conversation was absurd.
‘We’re making progress!’ Bethany enthused and clapped her hands. Her plaits shook rhythmically, and Alex could have sworn he saw a hairpin drop out.
‘What happened next?’
‘Nothing,’ Alex picked up the story. ‘That’s the point. Nothing happened next.’
‘And how did you feel about that?’
Alex shook his head. He was aware of a strange pain in his hands, a pain that was becoming more intense by the minute. Suddenly he realised that it was Casey’s nails digging into his palms. If she pressed any harder, she would draw blood.
He tried to disengage his hands, but she wouldn’t let go. Worried now, he shot her a sideways look and saw that she was biting her lip in that surreptitious way she had when she was trying not to burst out laughing. Her whole body seemed to be quaking.
‘Alex? How did that make you feel? The nothing?’ Bethany’s eyes were open wide with sympathy.
‘Ah, yes. Sorry.’ Alex swallowed. ‘It—it reminded me of the time when my brother broke my favourite police car.’
‘It did?’ Bethany and Casey exclaimed in unison. Alex caught Casey staring at him. Thankfully, she had stopped trying to push her fingers right through his palms.
‘It did, yes,’ he clarified in a firm voice. ‘I felt upset and cheated, and I wanted to hit him bad.’
‘Did you want to hit Casey when the nothing happened?’
‘No! What? No! Of course not. I—’
‘You can say it, darling,’ Casey chimed in softly. ‘We’re in a safe place here, remember?’
Where did she want him to go now?
Alex frowned at her and shook his head. Casey drew in a deep breath and spoke again.‘He won’t say it, Bethany, so I’ll have to tell. He cried. He cried like a baby.’
‘I did not!’ Alex objected truthfully. Casey winked at him. At least he thought she did, but it happened so quickly that he might have been mistaken.
‘You did, too, darling. Nothing to be ashamed of.’
Alex hung his head. Bethany reached out and patted his arm. ‘That was a big step for you, Alex. Well done. And what happened next?’
Casey jumped in. ‘The next day, we went to our next destination, Barcelona. We went sightseeing, and we had a great time, but when we got back to the yacht, there was more—nothing—in bed.’
‘And how did that make you feel?’
Alex stifled a snort, and Casey had an answer at the ready. ‘Not too bad, actually, because I was feeling a bit queasy, and I hate the smell of condoms.’
‘You do?’ Bethany made a sympathetic face. ‘They can be a bit icky, can’t they? I totally agree.’
Alex coughed. This was not the time to inform Bethany that Casey was on the pill.
‘Oh, and the floppy rubber afterwards, it’s gross. So I was quite relieved, actually.’
‘I was devastated,’ Alex confessed gravely. ‘I felt almost as bad as when Maisie let me down after our snog in the bike shed in sixth form.’
‘You
snogged
Maisie?’ Casey pretended to be shocked. ‘As in,
the
Maisie?’‘She promised to go the whole way,’ Alex defended himself, looking somewhat crestfallen. ‘She led me on, and then she let me down. That felt pretty crap.’
Bethany held up her hands. ‘This is wonderful! You’re really communicating here. Now let me—’
Casey locked gaze with Alex and ignored Bethany. The corners of her mouth twitched, and her eyes glinted.
‘Maisie Grawcock?
You
snogged Maisie Grawcock?’Alex lifted his shoulders and adopted a contrite face as if he had really snogged Maisie Grawcock. In fact, he knew no Maisie Grawcock, quite apart from the fact that he and Casey had not gone to the same high school.
‘I did.’
‘Alex, I’m shocked. This explains everything.’
‘It does?’ Alex was stunned.
‘It does?’ Bethany was also surprised. ‘How do you feel about that?’
‘Ecstatic,’ Casey pronounced. ‘Wonderful. Light as a feather.’ She rose and threw her arms in the bird. ‘Free as a bird. I can fly again!’
‘Oh my goodness.’ Bethany stood too. ‘This is one of the most radical results I’ve
ever
seen in my entire career. What a change in you, Casey!’‘Bethany, I feel amazing. Magnificent. Ecstatic. And I’m really sorry, but I must go and take my husband to bed right now.’ She pulled Alex up.
‘Maisie Grawcock,’ she muttered softly. ‘Now I know what I have to do.’
‘People, people, don’t leave,’ Bethany trilled urgently. ‘We haven’t done the big hug of reconciliation yet.’
‘We’ll do that in bed,’ Casey shouted over her shoulder. Alex followed her blindly. He was shaking so badly with suppressed laughter that he couldn’t see for tears of mirth.