Lust(4)

I threw my bag in the back seat and opened my door, but something made  me look back. Something inside of me that left me on edge made me turn  back and watch her. If she wanted me to chase her, she would have been  looking back at me. She would have been walking slower, much slower, but  she wasn't. I paused for a moment, waiting to see if she'd look over  her shoulder, but she didn't. Maybe she was simply a troubled individual  that only sought me out for help.

I got in my car and started the engine. The rain lowered my body  temperature to freezing, and the cold leather beneath me didn't help.  But I couldn't think about that. I wiped the excess water away from my  face as I threw the car in reverse and backed out, pulling up next to  Ivy as she walked with her head down.

"Get in," I called to her through the cracked window. Even though the  crack was slight, the rain found its way inside and began to soak my  car.

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. You're going to get sick. Let me take you home. Come on. Get in."

She looked over at me and stopped, causing me to press harder on the  brake pedal than I had anticipated. Her fingers held on to the edge of  the glass as she pulled her face to the opening. "No, really, I'm fine."  And again, she started walking.

Without thinking, I slammed the gearshift into park and got out.  Stopping in front of her, I held on to her shoulders and moved closer to  her ear. "I cannot consciously let you walk in the rain. It's almost  dark and you shouldn't be out here alone. Let me take you home."

"I'll get your seat wet," she argued.

"It'll survive. I've already gotten mine wet. Get in."

I didn't let go of her until I could physically feel her concede. Then, I  waited to get into the car until she was opening the passenger door and  getting in herself. Once we were both inside, I noticed her small,  delicate body shivering. It was as if she were convulsing from the  coldness inside the car.         

     



 

Without thinking, I instantly cranked the heat up. The pinpricks of the  heat hit my face and I had to fight the images and sounds it brought to  the forefront of my mind. If it were up to me, I'd rather suffer from  hypothermia than feel the heat on my skin, but I couldn't do that to  Ivy. Her lips had begun to turn a bluish color as they tried to muffle  the chattering of her teeth.

"Where to?" I asked, not taking my eyes off her.

"Head down this street. I'm about three blocks up." Her eyes stared  straight ahead, not once looking my way as I sat next to her. She made  it clear that my assumption of her was wrong. She wasn't seeing me to  fulfill some sexual fantasy; she really did have a problem. For the  first time in years, I felt consumed by the need to find out what it  was.

The silence was deafening, only broken up by the sweeping sounds of the  windshield wipers. I hated silence. The still air that surrounded it  often pulled me into dark places, dark places I never wanted to go to  again. Instead of waiting for the pull into my memories, I asked her a  question, hoping she would engage in some kind of conversation.

"Have you lived here long?"

She nodded.

I needed a question that would make her voice her answer. "How long?" I  implored her to answer with my eyes, even though she still refused to  meet them.

"Since I was eleven."

"Why were you sitting in the rain?" I shouldn't have asked that. I  wanted to stick to the normal conversations that two people who just  meet ask. But I couldn't. I yearned to know why she was sitting on the  curb outside of my office in the pouring rain. Usually, I was better at  leading into questions, finding answers to some by nothing more than  observation, but Ivy had me losing my patience and suffering from a  desperate need to know everything immediately.

"I like the rain," was all she said. It irritated the fuck out of me  because it wasn't a real answer and nothing bothered me more than  deference.

"Why?" I prodded in a harsher voice, hoping it would illicit a real answer from her.

"It drowns out the noises. It makes me not feel so alone. I don't know; I  just like it." She looked down at her shaking hands and nowhere else.

What in the hell was wrong with this girl? I needed to know. More so  than normal. I didn't only want to fix her sexual issues; I wanted to  know what went on in that head of hers. I needed to know what she meant  by noises and feeling alone. I could only explain that need by relating.  I found myself connecting to her and I wanted to know why. I, too,  hated silence and it seemed to haunt me. I hated the thoughts and sounds  that ran though my head when things were too quiet. Did she experience  the same things I had? Or was it worse? Whatever it was, it made her who  she is, and I had an unnerving need to explore what it was.

"Are you often alone? Don't you have friends?" Like I was one to talk.  Aside from the contacts in my phone, which I only used when I had a need  to get laid or see my own therapist, I didn't talk to anyone, either.  But I wouldn't say I felt lonely. I wanted it that way. After all, I  chose to be that way. I didn't think Ivy chose to be the way she was.

"I have friends. In fact, one of my best friends is Ben. We met in high school."

"Tell me about him." I felt ecstatic at her small offering of  information. Then, the need I had for her to help fill the silence that  was threatening to suffocate me trumped that small victory.

"We were sitting at a table outside in the courtyard during lunch. It  was him and his friends, and me and mine. But our friends were mutual  friends, which is why we were at the same table. Anyway, he was sorting  M&Ms, pulling out all of the red ones. I had never spoken to him  before, but decided to ask why he did that. He said the red ones tasted  different. I argued with him that they all tasted the same. So he pulled  out a brown one and I ate it. Then he gave me a red one; I just knew I  was about to prove him wrong. But as soon as the red candy coating began  to melt on my tongue, he knew he won. We became instant friends after  that."

"That's a good story," I said, knowing she had more to say and hoped she  would continue. She had barely spoken since she walked into my office,  and suddenly, it was as if she could talk for hours. It made me wonder  who this Ben guy was and what had happened to him.

"We ended up going to a party together at my friend's house. We spent  the whole night talking and realized we had so many things in common.  Like …  our dads both cheated on our moms, we both loved pickles, and we  hated Halloween. Neither one of us liked to wear shoes and our favorite  kind of foods to eat were spicy foods. We were best friends from then on  out."         

     



 

"And it never turned into anything else?"

"Well, he was the one that took my virginity. We flipped a coin for it.  Sounds lame now, but at the time, I was ready to see what it was like.  He was the only one I trusted to give it to. So we let fate handle it  and flipped a coin."

It seemed like an odd story. One that didn't really match the kind of  person I had met. It started to make me even more curious about her past  and what she had been through. I was convinced that she had been abused  at one point in her life, but I couldn't even begin to guess when or  how. Maybe she wasn't molested as a small child like I had initially  thought. Maybe it was something that happened to her in her late teens.  It was certainly possible.

We got to her apartment and she got out of the car, saying she'd see me the next day.

"Ivy," I said, stopping her from closing the door all the way. "Do you drive?"

"No. I don't have a car."

"Then let me pick you up tomorrow for our session. It's a late time slot  and I would feel much better if you'd let me drive you. I don't feel  comfortable with you walking."

"Nah, that's okay. Thanks, though."

"Ivy," I called out again, but in a stern tone to make her halt her  movements. "I'll be here at six forty-five. Really, I insist."

Her eyes were downcast again and the barely-there smile was now absent  from her face. It was as if she had turned into a different person when  she spoke of Ben, but the mentioning our session brought her back to  reality. Without saying another word, she nodded her head and closed the  door.

Who the fuck was this girl?





The moment I walked into my laundry room from my garage, I stripped my  soaking wet clothes from my body. As soon as Ivy was out of the car, I  turned the heat back off. I couldn't take the feeling of the hot air on  my skin any longer and immediately welcomed the icy relief. I also  cranked up the music. Nothing spun me out of control like the mixture of  silence and heat.

I threw the clothes into the washing machine and headed to my bedroom  across the house, stark naked. Being naked didn't bother me. It never  had. I actually felt more comfortable without clothes on than I did in  them. It came in handy in my practice, when I had to be naked in front  of a client. It also helped the other person feel more comfortable.  Observing me acting confident had a way of easing their worries.