Lust (11 page)

“But even with all of that, with all of the love she gave me, the protection she made me feel, I still had an internal struggle that I didn’t know how to deal with. I tried my best but no matter what I did, I felt like a failure. I could make good grades, wear better clothes, grow my hair out to what was considered appropriate for a girl, but it didn’t make the voices go away or the discomfort I felt in my own body disappear.”

I listened intently to every word as she spoke, absorbing them as if they were water droplets during a drought. I could literally feel her pain as she told me things I was pretty sure she had never told anyone else before. That meant the most to me—that she felt comfortable enough to open up and trust me with her inner demons.

“What voices, Ivy? Explain that to me. Like you really hear voices in your head?”

“No, Cade. I’m not crazy. I know I’m fucked up and have a list of issues a mile long, but I’m not crazy. I’m nothing like my mother—”

“I know.” I cut her off in a soothing voice as I stood in front of her and took her hands in mine. “I know you’re not crazy. That’s not what I was implying. I’m just trying to figure out what you mean by hearing voices.”

“It didn’t matter how long I went without my mother and the things she had put me through, I still heard her hateful words or the angry fights she had with her boyfriends in my head. I could still hear the things she said to me, the lies she told me. It was as if my mind didn’t want to let it go. It just played things over and over again as if someone had hit repeat. She was long gone but yet she still lived on in my head, filling it with hate and lies and vile things. Tormenting me.”

I swallowed hard, hoping she didn’t notice the rigidness that had consumed me.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she whispered into the air between us.

“I understand. But if it makes you feel any better, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I know exactly what you’ve been through. You don’t need to be scared to talk to me about those things. I know better than anyone what it’s like to go through that.” I will never know why I divulged that information to her. I had never mentioned that to anyone other than my own therapist. But something inside me felt the need to comfort her, to confide in her that I understood her more than she thought.

“You were in foster care?” she asked, surprised.

I nodded, carefully deciding what information I wanted to spare. “I went to live with my aunt as well, but that didn’t work out. I lasted longer than six months, but I think that was only because of my cousin. She’s always been very protective over me, still is to this day. But after that, I bounced around a bit from foster home to foster home. They had tried to place me with other relatives but that didn’t work out, either. My mom’s side of the family hated my dad and vice versa, and in the end, their hatred for one another was taken out on me.”

“What happened to your parents? Why were you taken away?”

“They died.” And I left it at that. I couldn’t go further into it than that. “Looks like dinner is ready,” I said to change the subject and put everything together so that we could eat.

We ate at the tiny bar that separated the kitchen from the other room. It was odd to eat a few feet from where she slept, but it was either that or on the floor in the space she called her living room; even that was only a few feet from where she slept. I wondered again how someone could live in such a tiny space.

I should have left once we finished eating. Not much was said during dinner, but I was content just watching her eat. It calmed down my fears of her having an eating disorder and made it clear that she was simply a picky eater and nothing more. Like I said, I should have left after that, but I didn’t. Instead, I helped her clean the kitchen. I was probably stalling for time, not ready to leave her just yet. I had told her that I would leave her sessions up to her and I meant that. But that meant I didn’t know when the next time was that I would see her again. So, I waited around as long as I could, stalling for just one more minute and then another. Her presence was intoxicating and I couldn’t get enough.

The kitchen was so small that we were constantly in each other’s way as we tried to clean everything up. She insisted numerous times that she could handle it and that I didn’t need to hang around, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. For I enjoyed every time her body brushed up against mine, the close proximity making it seem normal. I just wanted to be near her.

At one point, we were literally face-to-face. That had happened several times, but that one specific time, we didn’t bother dodging one another. Instead, we stood in each other’s space, locking eyes without moving. I could feel her breath on my chin and found that I, too, had a hard time controlling my own breathing.

“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly.

I wanted to say, “cleaning the kitchen,” but the words wouldn’t come out. The truth poured out instead. “Trying to stop myself from doing something I know I shouldn’t.” I kept my eyes trained on her face, roaming from her eyes to her lips and fighting my inner demons.

“What shouldn’t you do?”

“Kiss you.”

Her eyes then traveled to my mouth at my admission. I didn’t miss the very tip of her tongue slip through the sliver between her parted lips before quickly licking her lower lip and then disappearing back inside. “You’re going to have to kiss me eventually, right? I mean, isn’t that part of the plan?”

She had a point and I couldn’t find it in me to argue with her. I closed the gap between our bodies and covered her mouth with mine, pressing her against the counter with my weight. I began to lose control and deepened the kiss, giving her everything I had.

Her hands pressed against my chest and gently pushed me away. Her lips separated from mine and then I opened my eyes, concerned as to why she ended the kiss. There was a look on her face that I couldn’t place and it sent alarm bells off in my head. Then, her small hands continued to move up my chest, up my neck, until they were holding my face still. That’s when she slowly closed the distance between our mouths again, only this time, it was soft, gentle, caring. She didn’t kiss me with the fierceness in which I had kissed her. She kissed me as if she were trying to memorize my lips with hers, as if it were her first and last kiss all rolled into one and she was trying to burn the memory of it in her mind.

Her hands remained on my face with her elbows tucked into my chest and I wrapped my arms around her upper back, pulling her as close as I could get her into my body. I felt a need to feel her closer to me, cocooned next to my body. It was all so different from what I was used to. I had never experienced anything like it before. I had never kissed someone so gently before, so soft and full of emotion. But Ivy had set the pace and I told her I would follow; yet her lips made me want to follow her to the end of the earth if I had to. I felt such a fierce urge to protect her, it made my breath hitch and left me with feelings that confused me. Nothing I had ever experienced during kisses before could compare.

I wasn’t sure how long we slow danced through our kiss, but once she pulled away from me, completely out of breath, I knew the moment was over. I knew that was the end of whatever it was that we had experienced. And when she tucked her head into her arms against my chest, I just wanted to hold her there forever and never let her go. She was going through something and I needed to know what it was so I could hopefully understand what I was going through.

“Talk to me, Ivy,” I insisted.

“I just want to be normal.” Her arms and my shirt muffled her words, but I heard her loud and clear. She had spoken into my chest and I could feel her words reverberate through my body, taking it all in. She was saying everything I was feeling.

“You kissed me; doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t that show you how much you’re improving?” I asked the question even though I already knew the answer. Her lips answered for her, her shaky arms replaced the words and her inability to look at me told me everything I needed to know.

She shook her head, refusing to look at me.

“Hey,” I said, pushing her back slightly so that I could look at her face.

Her stormy eyes were vibrant. The grey had darkened, making the red stand out. It was hard to look at her eyes like that without thinking of how she had gotten them, without picturing the evilness of her own mother. She may have been long gone, never able to hurt Ivy again, but she remained in her eyes, in her memories, and in the voices in her head. That was something that I knew all too well.

“Look at me,” I insisted. “Ivy, you have come so far in just one week. This is why I’ve kept pushing you, why I kept coming after you. I know what I’m doing. I know how to keep you progressing. No, what I’ve done with you hasn’t been part of my normal coaching, but it’s working.” Lie. Lie. The layers of lies I was spinning were incredible. I hadn’t done anything for her progress. I may have told myself that in hopes that I would believe it, but nothing I did was for her. It was all for me. I was a selfish bastard and it was done to understand myself better through her. It was to spend more time with her. It had nothing to do with making her better… only with making me better. I was a self-centered prick, and I knew that at some point, it would all come back to haunt me. It would blow up in my face.

It had been a long weekend, probably one of the longest weekends of my life. Instead of calling Alyssa and begging her to come over, I spent the time thinking. I had gotten into the habit of calling Alyssa when I needed a distraction. It was much easier to call her than face the thoughts that cracked my foundation. But I made myself face the thoughts head-on instead of giving in to the phone call. And I thought a lot. Then thought some more. I thought so much I almost drove myself insane. In order to keep my mind from thoughts of Ivy, I had started working out every day. For hours every evening I’d hit the hanging bag, beat it and kick it until I was drained. I’d finish with that and then wonder how Ivy was. That’s when I would jump on the treadmill, yet that proved fruitless because I’d run in place and worry that I had pushed her too far. I worried that she wouldn’t ever call me because I had scared her too much. That thought made me realize how much she scared me. It made me think about all of the changes I had felt since meeting her. I’d try sit-ups and push-ups, hoping the counting would keep my mind busy. It did, but only while I was counting. Once I stopped or even took a second to think about something else, my mind was back on Ivy.

I’d take a shower once I was done in the gym, but then my hand would take over and again, I’d think about Ivy. In the shower, though, I didn’t worry about her or wonder what she was doing. No… in the shower I would wonder what it would feel like to finally take her. To finally feel what she felt like on the inside as she surrounded me. I’d think about the things I had wanted to do to her and thought about the things she had admitted to wanting to have done to her. She was everywhere, even with my eyes closed. When my eyes were closed she haunted my dreams, taunting me to do the things to her body. Sensual touches, licks, and positions I had desired for so long. I woke up most mornings with my dick so hard I could’ve sawed through a four by four.

However, with my dreams filled with Ivy, I wasn’t dreaming about other things. I wasn’t hearing the screams or loud voices. I wasn’t feeling the imaginary sweat stick to my skin or the suffocating sensation of being stuck in a small space with not enough air. The haunting visions of my past and the taunting memories seemed to have dissipated. Thoughts of Ivy had managed to push it all away for the time being, and for that, I was grateful. I just wasn’t sure which was worse… constantly thinking about Ivy or my past.

I needed a change in my life. I couldn’t continue with that I was doing. But at the same time, I wasn’t ready to let everything go. My thoughts ran around in circles, one chasing the other. Yet the common thread was my job. I knew I had the opportunity to help a lot of people, but something in me had changed. And it left me having to make a choice.

To keep from making a rash decision, I waited until Tuesday, until my regularly scheduled appointment, where I could speak to my own therapist. I already knew what he would say, but at least he’d ask me questions along the way. Granted, they would more than likely be the same questions I had asked myself for three days, but hearing them come from someone else and hearing my own answers out loud instead in my head made all the difference. Maybe he would draw different answers from me, which would enable me to come up with a different conclusion. I had already come up with one conclusion. Trying to talk it out with myself had become pointless. I would never get anywhere that way.

I hadn’t heard from Ivy since I had left her apartment Friday night. She never called me, nor did I make any attempt to call her. Well, that’s not entirely true. I had made plenty of attempts; I just never followed through with any of them. I had picked up my phone countless times and let my finger hover over her name on my contact list. My heart told me to push that one little button that would easily dial her number, while my mind told me I needed to back the fuck off. I had told her I would give her space and let her lead the way. I was going to honor that promise. Even if it fucking killed me.

“I feel like I need a break from what I do,” I told Doctor Klaussen as I sat on the couch in his office. I knew he wouldn’t have expected me to start with that. Over the years, we had gone round and round with my choice of career. He found it laughable that I would call myself a professional, and I thought it ignorant of him to dismiss me simply because some of my work was done in the nude.

“And why do you feel like that?” he asked with interest.

This was why I needed to speak to him about it… except now that I was, I began to think it was a bad idea. The urge to backpedal and reel my words back in was so great that I had to make a conscious effort in order to continue. I knew that I would have to be honest with him, and I knew he wouldn’t appreciate what I had to confess to him. “I feel like I’m getting too involved.”

“With a patient?” His eyebrows shot up and I got the feeling like he wanted to yell out
I told you so
. I knew that he
really
didn’t want to do that. He was always professional, but my mind was already playing tricks on me due to the difficult decisions that I knew lay ahead.

“Yes,” I admitted hesitantly. “But it’s not like what you’re thinking. I want to help her; I feel like I can really get through to her. But I’m having a hard time separating it all. It’s like I’m facing three decisions… I could change nothing and keep going with everything, possibly crossing lines that I should never cross, ruining my career in the process; I could keep my profession but drop her as a client; or I could give it all up. But the problem here is that out of all of those choices, only one lets me keep her. That’s what I want, to keep her. And that would mean I would lose my job. I’m pretty much faced with my job or her. So I guess I have only two options.”

“You just said that it’s not like what I’m thinking. Let’s start there. What exactly is it that you assume I’m thinking?” he asked in an even tone, keeping his judgment to himself.

“I assume with your reaction you think I’m romantically involved with a patient.”

“And you’re not?”

“No,” I answered honestly due to a technicality.

“Okay, let’s hold off on that thought for a moment and move onto the next thing you said. You said if you keep your profession and keep her on as a patient, you could cross lines that you should never cross. Clarify that for me, please. What are these lines and why do you think you would cross them?”

I didn’t want to answer him. I knew what his opinion was on my chosen career and I really didn’t want to get into that conversation. Putting my hesitation aside, I finally decided to just answer him. “Honestly? I find myself wanting to be around her all of the time. I find myself thinking about her often. It’s like I need to talk to her, to know how she’s doing. I need to see her. I have never experienced this before and so I don’t know what it means. All I know is that when or if the time comes that her treatment is taken to the next level, I worry that I won’t be able to keep it clinical. The lines that are drawn in regards to my kind of therapy are there to keep things professional. It’s to protect my client and myself from becoming personal. Those are the lines I’m talking about. Those are the things I worry will happen. And if we become physical on a personal level… I could lose my job.”

“So then why are you so interested in keeping her as a patient or in your life? If she has the ability to strip you of your job, your self-proclaimed life’s purpose, wouldn’t that be an easy choice to make? Wouldn’t it be a simple decision? What seems to be your fascination with her?”

The real question should have been what
wasn’t
my fascination with her. That would have been much simpler and shorter to answer. “I don’t really know to be honest with you. There’re so many. I feel like I can really help her. She’s been through so much shit in her life and I feel that I am the most qualified to help. At the same time, I can’t help but think she has the ability to fix me—or break me, I’m not sure which one.”

“Is this really about healing one another or are there other feelings involved?”

“I can’t answer that. I’ve never had feelings for anyone before. I have nothing to compare this to,” I admitted, giving him the simplest of truths. “I don’t know if it’s simply because of how she makes me feel or because I find her so complex and deep, and like for the first time in my life, I have a chance of really getting through to someone on a different level.”

“Well, how does she make you feel?” he asked, digging deeper than I had allowed myself to go.

I looked around the room, trying to focus on something so that I could allow my thoughts to open up. I hated opening my thoughts; that’s usually the time when I remember things I had long since locked away. And that’s when I realized what it was. “She makes me
feel
. I’ve spent so long living in this dark space, fighting the demons of my past, and blocking out the memories that seem to taunt my every waking moment. But when I’m around her, it’s like she owns my thoughts. She gives my memories a reprieve for the time being and I’m no longer in that dark space. It’s almost like as I help her heal, she’s helping me heal.”

“So your episodes… they’re gone?”

“Well, no. I still have them and will probably always have them. And I’m not saying that I’m healed and now a completely normal person. There are times when her demons provoke mine, but for the most part, she makes me forget.”

“Forgetting your problems is not the same as healing them.”

“I know,” I admitted. “But for the first time since I was eight, I don’t feel like they’re swallowing me whole. I don’t feel like they’re about to jump out of the shadows and suffocate me. And I can’t help but think it has something to do with her. I’m also aware of the fact that without her, I could be pushed even further back into the shadows. And that’s where I’m having the issue.” I leaned forward with my elbows propped on my knees. “Do I give her up or not? And if I don’t, what do I do about my job?”

He tapped his pen on his leg, looking like he was contemplating something. “If you’re asking for my opinion, which I’m assuming you are since that seems to be the only reason why you have kept these weekly appointments with me over the years… I’d say you need to figure out how you feel about her before you come to any decision about giving up your profession. I’d say you need to start dealing with your own demons and facing your own past. It seems to me like you need to look at this with two options at a time. The first one would be: treat the girl or don’t treat the girl. And from what I gather, the reason not to treat her would be to keep from crossing lines. However, you could correct that problem by changing the course of treatment… By eliminating the bed, you eliminate some of that chance. As for treating her… You seem to have a few reasons that range from truly wanting to help her to helping yourself. So I’d say start right there. Figure out what is most important to you and then go from there.”

“It’s not as cut and dry as that.”

“Why not? Why isn’t it that simple?”

“Because it still comes down to choosing between her and my career.”

“What are you saying here, Cade? Do you have feelings for this girl? Because if it’s not simply a choice between treating her or not treating her, then that’s what you need to focus on. You need to figure out in what capacity you want her,” he lectured me while looking me right in the eye. “Sounds like you have some thinking to do. My only advice would to be to think long and hard on whether or not you have feelings for her. And if you do, you need to know what they are before you make any decisions. The last thing you want to do is make a career change for a woman and have it turn out that your attraction to her is nothing that your job couldn’t have taken care of. At the same time, you don’t want to ignore these possible feelings and then lose any chance of ever being able to help anyone in the future because you’ve lost your ability to treat them. This will take a lot of thought on your part. Think hard, Cade.”

I left his office feeling even more confused than I had been when I walked in. Now, instead of only worrying about the future of my career, I was also worried about these feelings I may or may not have had.
Feelings
? I had never thought about those before. I never had a reason to.

There was one session on my calendar after my appointment with Doctor Klaussen, but she had canceled earlier that morning. I was relieved, which was peculiar because I was never relieved when a client canceled. Not showing up or participating was more harmful to them and their success, and I didn’t tolerate it. Yet I found myself content with her not coming in.