The Spice of Life (The Transformation #1) (14 page)

Years later, it was my brush with suicide that prompted me to pursue a career in therapy. I wanted to help people, however I could. Of course, getting into sex therapy was another journey, a story for a different time. But the initial move into the mental health care field came from that one desperate moment, standing on the cruise ship, gazing into the deep blue ocean.

When I found my way back to the cabin several hours later, Paul was waiting for me. He had a sheepish, guilty look on his face.

“Look, Kelli,” he said. “I don’t want things to be weird with us, okay?”

I felt cold as ice. “Paul, you stayed out all fucking night with those creeps.”

He flinched. “Steve and Lauren? Nah. They’re good people. We had a great time, and I wish you would have been with us.”

He looked at my face, and then his tone changed. “But look, sweetie. With the baby coming and everything I don’t want to rock the boat, you know? So I’m sorry. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

Young as I was, I believed him. The rest of the cruise passed without incident, and I found myself believing against hope that maybe I could have a life with Paul after all.

That was always the thing about Paul…the thing that kept us married for many more years. He always apologized…until the next time. I was too innocent and naïve to know that his apologies were just as empty then as they would be years down the road.”

“Wow,” said Jake, “that’s definitely one hell of a prom experience!  I’m happy to say that mine was a lot more enjoyable.”

“Oh really? So what was your prom night like?”

“It was amazing, but that’s a story for a different time.”

Jake’s tone shifted now. “So, combine all of those experiences with a few other betrayals from work colleagues, with my failed marriage, etc. and you can understand how my self-confidence was pretty much at an all-time low by the time I joined that website.”

He grinned. “That’s all changed now, though. As I mentioned before, I don’t think that anyone could really say that I have low confidence at this point.”

Kelli couldn’t help but respond to his warm smile with a grin of her own. She glanced at the clock and was shocked to realize that as he had told his story, time had elapsed without her noticing its passing. It was already 5:00. The session was over.

Reluctantly, she cleared her throat and said, “Well, it’s 5pm. But I’m glad that we covered some good ground in this session. I think it’s important for us to get to know each other and feel comfortable.”

To her surprise Jake started chuckling in reaction to her comment. His eyes twinkled, and he said, “Oh yes, yes it is.”  Then his laugh ceased and there was a dramatic pause. “Now, tell me why you were late today.”

Kelli felt herself blushing and looked down at her hands on her lap. “Well, I stepped out to get a chai, and I thought I had enough time, but I didn’t. I really do apologize for that.”

Jake stood up and walked over to her. She remained seated, but could feel the warmth of his body just a few feet away, looming over her. It made her feel small, feminine, and intensely sexual.

When he spoke, his voice was low and firm. “You thought you had time, huh? I bet you often make that mistake…thinking you have enough time.”

She didn’t respond; the closeness of his body was making her feel crazy. She was afraid that if she moved, he would smell her arousal.

Jake moved back a few steps suddenly, and then spoke again, “Kelli, I need you to stand up and get a piece of paper and a pen.”

Again, acting with surprising obedience, she did as she was told, feeling the vibration of his words echo through her entire physical being. She brought the pen and paper and stood before him.

“Now, I want you to write this down, exactly as I dictate it.  Will you do that?”

She nodded, and then remembering, said, “Yes.”

“‘I, Kelli Lemberg, understand that I will not be late for my sessions with Jake Furie Lapin,” Jake spoke slowly and surely. Kelli couldn’t quite believe what she was doing, but she wrote down his words. Many clients had odd requests. This was all just part of her job, that’s all.

Jake continued, “If I, Kelli, am late, I will receive my discipline. This discipline will consist of five strokes on the bottom administered with a belt. I will accept this as my just punishment and discipline for tardiness.”

Kelli was frozen for a brief, thrilling second. Was Jake asking her to accept a
spanking
from him? The second the thought entered her mind, she realized how much it turned her on, in spite of herself. She thought of Paul, and how weak he was…how goddamn
weak
. And here was this virile, sexual man stating that he would take control and would discipline her if she disobeyed or stepped out of line.

She finished writing what he had told her to write. “Do I sign it now?” she asked, huskily. She was sure that he must hear the arousal in her voice.

“Yes. You sign it.”

She did.

{ 4 }

The following Monday found Kelli in her office at 3:50, looking with anticipation at the door. The week had crawled by. At several points over the past seven days, she had found herself tempted to pick up the phone and call Jake under the auspices of ‘checking in’. Fortunately, each time she picked up the phone she realized how foolish that would be and restrained herself. Instead, she counted down the days, hours and moments until their next appointment.

Her intercom buzzed and she nearly jumped out of her skin. ‘
God, I’m high strung these days!
’ she mused and picked up the phone, “Yes?”

“Your four o’clock is here. Shall I send him in?”

“Yes, thanks.”

She placed the phone in the receiver and whipped out a tiny hand-held mirror from her desk drawer giving herself a quick once-over. 
Food in teeth? No. Make-up perfectly applied? Yes.
She had just replaced the mirror when the door opened and Jake entered the room.

Today, his suit was a dark charcoal, and he was wearing a deep red, silk shirt that perfectly complemented his olive skin and startling green eyes. His tie was a tasteful grey with red and cream accents, and he wore the same heavy, burnished silver cufflinks that she had noticed the week before.  Taking him in, Kelli felt her breath catch. For a moment she didn’t trust herself to speak, but she drew on her reserves of strength and calmed her voice.  When she opened her mouth she was pleased to hear that she sounded steady and professional.

“Hello, Jake. How are you?”

He smiled that dazzling smile, and she felt her knees go weak. She gripped the edge of her desk, trying to look casual.

“I’m fine, Kelli,” he said. “Shall we begin?”  He strode across the room and took the same chair in which he had sat in before, Kelli’s therapist chair. She sat across from him, conscious of the way that his eyes took in her skirt and shapely legs. She was wearing the ensemble he required, the shirt and skirt that she had begun to think of as
his
shirt and skirt,
his
outfit. She wore it, but it belonged to
him
.

Drawing out the yellow legal pad that she used to make notes in client sessions, she positioned herself a little more comfortably in the chair. “Ok, so in our last session…you told me about watching a man die.”  Jake nodded.  “But there is one thing that troubled me. You said that this was not the only time you saw a man die. Did you mean that there have been other deaths that you have witnessed?”

“Yes,” Jake answered, “there have.”

Kelli nodded encouragingly, and Jake began:

Well, at the tail end of my college career I took on a job in electronics in a neighboring town in order to make a little bit of extra cash. It was during the winter, and initially, it was a great place to work. I learned to install car radios, which I loved.  One winter evening, at the time of year where it gets dark early, between 4:30 and 5, I was working on a car. The location of the electronics place was on the corner of two streets, and there was no car port or garage or anything like that. People would just park their cars outside the place and we’d work on them there. As it happened, there were a lot of drug deals that went down on that corner and a few really bad incidents had occurred.

“Why? What was happening to cause these situations?” Kelli was curious. She couldn’t believe how polished and masculine he was, how confident. How could anyone who had experienced such things be so calm? It was truly amazing.

Well, it was either because the drugs being sold weren’t any good or there wasn’t enough money to pay, etc. I really don’t know why or how things would go wrong, because I wasn’t involved, but I vividly remember what happened that day. It was getting dark, twilight, and there was a transaction going down between a scrawny little guy and a thuggish drug dealer that I recognized from around the neighborhood. The deal took an ugly turn, for whatever reason and the dealer pulled out a gun and stuck it in the scrawny guy’s face. When that happened, the guy turned… and in that moment, our eyes met. I saw his terror, but before I could even register what was happening, the dealer pulled the trigger. Without saying a word, he blew him away, right on that street corner. I was working in a car and I saw the whole thing.

Kelli winced. She couldn’t believe that Jake had seen more than one person get killed. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to reassure him, but she restrained herself. “What did you do?”

Well, as soon as the shot happened, I just crouched down and hid there, terrified because obviously I was a witness. I stayed there, hiding, and the drug dealer ran away without seeing me.

“Did you tell anyone what you’d seen?”

I told the owner that I had seen something and he just told me to keep my mouth shut. Nonetheless, it was obvious that that job was in a dangerous environment. I called in sick the rest of that week following the incident, and then I told the owner that witnessing the event had left me too shaken to continue working there. He was actually extremely upset and called me a pussy, a weakling, scaredy-cat, etc. I told him that being in an environment where I could be blown away that quickly and easily was something that I really didn’t want to do, so I gave up that job. To this day…I just remember the look in that man’s eyes. That connection…it was unlike anything else, except for what happens during the most intimate lovemaking.

Kelli asked, “So, between those two events – the time when you were really young and this time at the electronics store – were those the only times you saw someone die?”

No, there was one other. In the town where I grew up, a really good friend of mine was hooked on heroin. I used to hang out with him after school, and we would play poker or role-playing games. I always knew when he shot up because he would get up and disappear into the bathroom or his bedroom and come back high. He knew that I didn’t really approve but that didn’t affect our friendship. Almost everyone in our group of friends really respected me for the fact that I was pretty clean. Even though there was a lot of heroin and pot in that town, I always kept clear of that stuff. My friend’s name was Billy…

Jake’s voice trailed off and Kelli saw that his eyes had a faraway look. She prodded him gently, “What happened to Billy?”

Well, one time he did his usual thing, where he disappeared into his room and shot up his heroin. Only this time when he came out of his room he wasn’t his usual dozy self. He came stumbling out and his eyes were wide open, bulging out of his face. He stared at me, and just like with those other two men, our eyes met and connected in this incredible, heart-wrenching way. Billy’s shirt was off and his heart was racing so hard that you could actually see it pumping, pushing his skin outward, and he was screaming and waving his arms around. After a few seconds he just collapsed and fell face forward on the floor. After he fell down, we saw that his back was this weird grayish blue color, almost like bruises. It actually looked like someone had punched him repeatedly in the back.

“Did you call 911?” Kelli couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Jake to see his friend in such trouble.

Yes, of course, we called 911. They came, but it was too late. He died that day. When they did the autopsy they told us that, basically, he had taken a hot dose of heroin – the heroin was laced with toxic speed – and his heart had exploded. When it exploded, it was with such ferocity that it actually bruised his back. That’s what we had witnessed. It was really unfortunate and tragic. He was a really nice guy who just got caught up in the drug scene. The way he looked at me in those last moments…I mean, that’s stayed with me all these years, for sure. I realized that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and in those moments, I really saw into the souls of other human beings.

Kelli was amazed. “It sounds like you really cared about these people you saw die. What an amazing thing. What about your other friends? Can you describe the people you grew up with in the town?”

Well, the town was mostly Scottish, Irish and Italian. There was definitely a huge Scottish and Irish presence in particular. For example, I remember fish and chips being a very popular meal and the big thing in town. I was definitely the oddball with my dark skin and exotic background. It was weird, I grew up on the “bad” side of town, or the poor side of the tracks; a very poor blue collar neighborhood. Later in life we moved to the white-collar part of town. It was rough growing up, because everybody was Irish/Italian and blond, or strawberry blond, with fair skin, and freckles, here I was, the dark-skinned kid…the outsider. When I was younger we didn’t know any difference, and just wanted to have fun playing dodgeball and horsing around. I had a lot of good friends and good times.