“And now you realize I’m both a therapist and a human being.”
Shayla nodded. “Yep.”
Michelle took a breath, clasped her hands, and addressed the elephant in the room once more. “So, here’s the deal. I’m a human being. I date. I see plays and movies. I have a brother, and I have good friends. I like to go out to dinner. I like to try new restaurants. I enjoy fall in New York City, and I’d like to have a dog someday. There you go. That’s me. I’m not a blank slate. I’ve never been a blank slate,” she said, pausing to gauge Shayla’s reaction. Her client’s eyes were fixed firmly on Michelle. Good. “But the time we spend together is not about me. It’s about you. And I’m not going to address any specifics of my dating life. I do, however, want to keep working with you and helping you sort out the matters that are most important to you,” she said, her voice clear and direct. This was how things would be done. Take it or leave it. “Can you keep doing that?”
Shayla gulped and nodded. Red bloomed across her cheeks, and her eyes turned watery. “Yes,” she squeaked out. Then, she chased it with a choppy, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Michelle said softly. “Truly, it’s fine. I’m here to help you, though, and I want nothing more than to do just that.”
“Thank you. I’m just so scattered and emotional with the divorce pending,” she said, and they returned to what mattered most during the fifty minutes they had together.
Later that morning, Clark Davidson arrived for his appointment, dressed sharply in a suit. Michelle suspected he was a high-powered businessman, fitting this in during his day. Quickly, they dived into the marital challenges that had brought him here.
“It’s as if any true intimacy has died. My wife and I don’t have that authentic connection anymore,” he said, and his words made the hair on her arms stand on end. She’d written a paper for a journal that used those terms. True intimacy and authentic connection. They weren’t trademarked or coined by her, nor were they unusual words. But they weren’t often used by her patients. It was as if he was quoting her back to her. “I read that in one of your papers,” he added, flashing her a grin.
She breathed a sigh of relief and smiled that he was so open about it. It all made sense. “I hope it was useful.”
“Very much so. I hope you don’t mind, but I read a bit of your research before I made the appointment. That’s my field. I’m a market researcher, so it’s sort of a natural habit for me. And I was impressed, so that’s why I had wanted to see you,” he said, fiddling with the wedding band on his left finger.
“And I’m glad you found me,” she said, and privately she was grateful that all he seemed to care about were her professional credentials, not her personal track record in bed. “Let’s talk some about why you feel true intimacy has died. Can you give me an example?”
He nodded several times and exhaled heavily, as if what he was about to say would be hard. “I feel like Sarah doesn’t want to have sex anymore. The other night I was—”
He hacked sharply. A loud, bark of a cough. Then came another. His hand flew to cover his mouth, and he coughed once more, like a wheezing trombone. His cheeks began turning red.
Michelle sprang up. “Let me get you some water,” she said, and quickly headed to the door, then down the hall to the small kitchen tucked in a corner of the office suite. She opened the fridge to grab a water bottle, but it was empty. Crap. They’d need to replenish the supply. She swiveled around, spotted a clean mug from the cupboard, filled it from the tap, and returned to her office, the sound of wheezing like a homing beacon guiding her back. She handed him the cup, and he gulped most of the water down greedily. Then he took a deep breath, and finished it off.
“You okay now?” she asked gently.
He nodded.
“Do you want more?”
He peered in the cup and tossed the rest of it back. “I think I’m better now. That was embarrassing. I’m so sorry.”
“Please don’t apologize for coughing. Shall we go back to your concerns about true intimacy?”
They chatted more, and as he shared his concerns about the lack of sex with his wife, she felt a strange sense of déjà vu. She flashed back to her last session with Shayla. The problems mirrored Shayla’s challenges. Shayla had even said before that her husband had a paranoid side. Could he be so worried about trying to keep her that he was infiltrating her therapist to try to learn what sort of advice Shayla was getting? Could this man actually be Shayla’s husband? With a fake name?