Michelle’s eyes widened. “No way. Did you run into a patient at the stripper movie?”
Carla nodded sheepishly, and covered her face with her fingers. “I did. It was so embarrassing. It’s as if we’re not supposed to have a life outside our offices, but I did love that movie.”
Michelle laughed, and this was one of the many reasons why she adored Carla. The woman could shift from stripper movies to serious talk in the snap of a finger.
Jennifer jumped in. “I agree. So how do we find the balance between going to see a stripper movie and being able to guide a patient through their challenges with love?”
“I think it’s fine for a therapist to behave like a human being. To kiss your husband in public; to pick up a celebrity magazine at the store. To see a sexy movie. You just have to know the lines not to cross,” Michelle said. Lines like getting involved with a patient, and she’d made damn sure that hadn’t happened.
At the end of their meeting, Carla pulled her aside. “Your talk last week at The Pierson was well-received,” she said, and Michelle was filled with an odd cocktail of feelings—professional pride chased with the slightest dash of cat-who-ate-the-canary syndrome. That talk on new treatment strategies for love and sex addiction had set her on a collision course with Jack Sullivan and the best sex of her life. If she’d only slept with him one time, she’d still consider herself a lucky bitch. As it was, she’d had more than a baker’s dozen of times with Jack in the last several days, each one better than the last. “We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback from attendees,” Carla added.
“I’m so happy to hear that. It was an honor to have been asked.”
“I hope it’ll be an honor when I ask you for something else too,” Carla said, flashing a quick smile.
“Anything.”
“We have a workshop with other psychotherapists coming up on learning to love again. It will look at love after infidelity, grief, divorce and so on. And, I was hoping you could lead it.”
Michelle’s answer was instant. “Of course. I’d love to. Just let me know the details.”
“Absolutely. I’ll email them to you this weekend. I also have a referral to send your way. Are you still taking new patients?”
She glanced away briefly to hide her smirk. “Yes. I have an opening on Fridays at two.”
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 6:18 PM
subject: Therapy
Looking forward to another “therapy” session with you this evening.
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 6:20 PM
subject: Healing aids?
Will you be bringing any battery-operated friends?
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 6:23 PM
subject: Therapy
I have many toys slated for our time slot. Though I should warn you—I need more than the standard fifty minutes. Much more.
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 6:27 PM
subject: A few hours works for me
I look forward to being in your hands.
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 6:32 PM
subject: Soon . . .
By the way, I told the doorman I’d be expecting someone at nine p.m.
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 6:46 PM
subject: Very soon . . .
So you want me out of there by 9?
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 6:52 PM
subject: Open invitation to spend the night
No, beautiful. It’s you, I’m expecting.
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 7:03 PM
subject: Maybe someday
Presumptuous.
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 7:09 PM
subject: Someday very soon
Ravenous.
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 7:32 PM
subject: After last night
I can barely walk today.
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 7:46 PM
subject: That’s what I like to hear
I should feel bad about that, but I can’t find it in me.
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 7:55 PM
subject: No guilt needed
Beating your chest instead?
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date: Sept 12, 8:02 PM
subject: Like a caveman
Yes. Fucking you senseless has a way of making me feel damn good about myself. I’d like to see you bent over my kitchen counter in about an hour.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Services
The next several nights passed in a haze of sex, food, and conversation. In a fantastic blur of 69s, and town cars, and swank bathroom stalls at shi-shi restaurants—including a new sushi spot near the Chrysler Building—and Chinese food ordered in. In late-night chats curled up on his couch, talking about college, or his time in the army, or her days in grad school, and the crazy role-playing she’d had to do with other shrinks as a part of her training. He’d lie back on a pillow, an arm wrapped around her, and listen to her stories, her hair fanned out across his chest as he ran his fingers absently through it. Or they’d find their way to her place in Murray Hill, and after a hard and fast session in the shower, or a long and lingering one on her ottoman, or an endlessly wet one—pun intended—in the bathtub, she’d be the one listening to his reminisces about the early days of Joy Delivered with his sister, and how they’d run the company out of a windowless one-room office in Queens before they hit it big.