"I don't like to be touched. Or looked at."
I wasn't exactly expecting that one, but it did make sense as to why she wouldn't hold eye contact with me. "Well, I'm sure we can fix that. There are many things we could do to make it more comfortable for you. Is it touching and looking in general that makes you uncomfortable? Or is it strictly in the bedroom?"
Her head bowed and I heard her take in a deep breath.
"I'm sorry. I can't do this." She stood up and began to head to the door.
I moved quickly in front of her, halting her exit. It wasn't the first time a client felt the need to rush out of the office, but it was the first time that I felt panicky over it. "I understand if you want to leave, but could you please make that decision at the end of this meeting? Could you at least give me that? Hear me out and then make up your mind?"
"You can't help me," she practically whispered, leaving a trail of air against my neck.
"You don't know that. You haven't given me a chance."
She bowed her head again, but this time, I reached beneath her chin. As soon as my finger touched her skin, she pulled away. I always approached my new patients slowly, with caution, giving them the time they needed to adjust. But slow wouldn't help her. I could tell in an instant that everyone around her had always moved at a slow, cautious pace. It clearly hadn't helped her at all. So instead of easing into my normal routine with her, I did the only thing I could think of to break through the thick layers of ice that surrounded her.
I grabbed her by the back of her neck with one hand and held on to her cheek with the other. "Ivy, look at me."
Her eyes bounced around to things behind my head before she closed her eyelids all the way. I took a step closer to her, getting my face closer to hers. "Ivy," I spoke in the softest voice I could find. I wasn't one to talk softly with my deep baritone voice, but if I almost whispered, I found that I could come close to speaking softly.
"Open your eyes and look at me."
"I can't. You'll see me." There was something about her tone that concerned me. I questioned if it would be best to let go of her and allow her walk out, as she clearly wanted.
"That's exactly what I want to do. Let me see you." My words came out in short breaths and it surprised me. I had said words like those to countless women, encouraging their confidence, but not once did it illicit heavy breathing. Not once did it cause me to feel like the room was spinning around me.
Slowly, her eyes opened. It afforded me an up-close look at the mixture of grey and red I had only caught a glimpse of earlier. The up-close version was so much better. The grey was dark, almost stormy looking, and the red looked like blood. It would be easy to look at her and see a tormented soul, but I didn't. I looked into her eyes and saw someone much like myself. Someone who battled their demons alone. It solidified my decision to help her.
"Why are you running?" I asked without moving an inch from her. Without untangling my hands from her neck or removing my touch from her face. I knew I needed to break away, not for her sanity, but for mine.
"You can't help me." Her voice was soft and shaken, but the words came across as powerful, strong.
"You haven't let me try, Ivy. Let me try, please."
"Why do you want to help me so much?"
"You came to me for a reason. You wouldn't be here if you didn't want help. I do this sort of thing for that reason. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to help. It's a rather simple answer from what I see." I should've moved my hands from her, but I found that I couldn't. Just like I couldn't move my eyes from hers-I was frozen in place. I wondered if she could see into me as much as I could her. I wondered if she could see my darkness and if it comforted her. Or did it scare her?
"How does this work?" Her voice was as breathy as mine.
I finally released my hold on her and took a step back. "Let's sit back down and talk about it."
I held my breath until Ivy moved back to her seat, but I didn't take mine until she was seated. I didn't want to chance her fleeing again. She wasn't as jumpy as she was before, but she still looked like a scared child sitting in front of me.
"Why don't you ask me some questions so that you might have a better understanding of what it is that I do here?" I had veered off from my speech so much that I didn't know what to do next. I was struggling to regain my composure and hoping the words would automatically come to me. I couldn't remember what I had told her or what was supposed to come next. That had never happened to me before with anyone. Everything in my office was always so routine that straying from it, even for a minute, had completely thrown me off. It also didn't help that she had me so thrown off.
"Will you have sex with me?"
I knew she meant eventually, at some point during our time together, but to me, it sounded as if she were asking me to fuck her right then and there. It threw me off for a moment before I was able to get my head back in it enough to give her an answer.
"That can be something that we discuss. Sex isn't automatically part of the plan, but it has happened before, when necessary. My job here is to make you comfortable with the idea of sex first. We work toward you overcoming whatever fear it is you have with it, and then we go from there. Is that why you came here? To have sex?" I thought back to her earlier mention of me being a prostitute and started questioning her motives for coming to see me.
She shook her head.
"Do you mind if I ask you what spurred your interest in seeking help?"
"I like to read."
I would need more information than that so I waited for her to say more. Her interest in reading had nothing to do with sex. Part of me wondered if she was deflecting. I knew a lot about deflecting. Clients like her did that often, talking about things to keep the heat away from the topics they were trying to avoid. Little did she know, I was a master at deflecting. It was not a new sport to me.
"I run a blog online and I read books to review them."
Again, she was being vague. So I decided to play along. "Is that your job or just a hobby?"
"I don't get paid to review, but I do other things that I get paid for. I design book covers, web pages, graphics, and I also organize review tours for authors. That's how I earn my income, but the reviewing part is for fun. I enjoy reading and it allows me to read a lot."
Everything she said went right over my head. I understood the covers and web pages, but everything else sounded foreign to me. I made a mental note to look into what it was she said she did. "Okay, and that made you want to come to me to overcome your fears? I don't understand. What does all of that have to do with your inability to experience sex? What does that have to do with being touched or seen?"
She took in a deep breath and I watched her hands shake. "I read erotic books and they make me want to try the things that are in them. But I can't." It looked as if she wanted to say more, but she stopped herself. It infuriated me to see such a broken person sitting before me, keeping more in than letting out. She came to me for fuck's sake-why was I the one pulling teeth to get her to tell me why?
"Have you ever had sex before?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. It was in her questionnaire part of the file. But I asked anyway, needing to open the door for more information. More information than the little I already had on her.
"Yes. Twice."
Well, shit. I knew from her file that she wasn't a virgin, but it didn't give me the detailed account of her sexual history. She practically was a virgin. Two times? I started to think her issues were deeper than I had originally thought. "When was the last time you had sex?"
"I lost my virginity when I was twenty-two and then the last time was two years ago."
"Why the long wait, either time?" My interest was piqued. I needed to know all of the details. I found myself wanting to know everything about her.
She looked right at me before lowering her gaze again and speaking in a hushed tone as if she were embarrassed by it. "I don't like it."
I wasn't expecting that. Most people liked sex. The ones that came to me didn't really have that issue. Their problems were more from anxiety or severe lack of social skills. Low self-esteem-that kind of thing. I couldn't recall one person coming to me and saying they didn't enjoy the actual act of sex. I mean, if they were coming to me, then that meant they liked sex but had trouble preforming.
"What don't you like about it?"
"The looking. The touching." Again with the looking and touching. I needed something more.
"Do you not like being touched at all?" I waited for her to answer, and when she didn't, I reached my hand out and covered hers. She looked down at our joined hands but didn't move away. "You seem okay with this. So it's not so much touching that you don't like. Is it safe to say you strictly don't like the intimate kind of touching?"