She folds her hands in her lap. “It’s been good.”
It was good. For the first couple of weeks, I actually believed we could make a no-sex rule work. But by the third week, she was skittish as hell. She wouldn’t let me sleep beside her, and she flinched whenever someone touched her—not just me. What was once abstaining from sex turned into abstaining from touch. I sensed her withdrawing from me and everyone around her. She wouldn’t leave the house, wouldn’t do normal things. So I cut the cord on that experiment, and it wasn’t because I was horny too.
I knew I was losing my best friend.
I voiced my concerns to Oliver when she first withdrew from my hand. I was just trying to lace her fingers with mine, and she shrunk into herself like I was a monster under her bed. He told me it was natural. That she was returning to the norm. I don’t know what kind of norm this guy lives in, but regular people don’t flinch when they hold hands. It’s not like I was asking her to rub one out for me.
So I made a deal with Lily. She wants to appease her parents, fine. But we’re not listening to this asshole’s advice.
“It’s normal for a deviant like yourself to miss sex.”
He calls her a deviant a lot. It aggravates me, and I’ll spend the next twenty minutes after this meeting telling her all the reasons why she’s not one.
“I do miss it,” Lily lies. “I miss the way it makes me feel.” She felt it pretty damn well last night. She came so hard that she ended up in a fit of laughter afterwards. We tried the abstinence bit. It didn’t work, and we have no more what ifs. We’re finally finding our groove in intimacy, and the only thing standing in our way is this guy.
“We can’t have you missing it, Lily,” he tells her. “The more you dwell on your deviant fantasies, the more you revert back to your deviant ways. You’re just a whore now, but if you let this cycle continue you could become something worse. A pedophile. A sex offender.”
Lily’s head whips in my direction, and she clutches my hand, silently begging me not to lash out. This isn’t the first time he’s basically called her a future pedophile.
“Give me a minute while I gather the tools.” He stands and rummages around his office closet.
Shit.
This is why I don’t want her to stay here. I must wear a pleading look because she says, “I’m fine. We can’t leave.”
“We can actually,” I refute. “There’s the door. Fuck the trust fund.”
“It’s not about the trust fund.” I know.
She trying to fix all the damage she created. She’s even rebuilding a relationship with her father. We still don’t attend those Sunday luncheons, but he calls her after they end to catch up.
Her mother is a different story.
Lily squeezes my hand, and I stare at the way her fingers intertwine with mine. Last week, we wouldn’t have been able to do this. Last week, she would have burst into tears before I touched her.
“Just trust me. It’s like a game,” she says.
I narrow my eyes. “A game in which you get shocked for fun?” I mock gasp. “Are you into the S&M part of BDSM and didn’t tell me?”
She punches my arm, and I grab onto her wrist, pulling her in for a kiss. She’s going to need it.
{ 43 }
LILY CALLOWAY
“What did I say about kissing and touching during our sessions?” Dr. Evans says angrily.
I try to subdue my smile as I break away from Lo. “Sorry.” I don’t feel that apologetic. I’m only here for my parents. I don’t believe in Dr. Evan’s methods anymore, and I try my best not to take his words to heart.
But the armor that I’m building still has a few chinks.
Like right now. Dr. Evans holds a small electrical box, and I have the sudden urge to vomit all over his ugly carpet. He sticks two electrodes to the inside of my wrist and then passes me the box. I set it on my lap and rotate the knob to the lowest shock level.
“I think you can go higher than that today.”
“She doesn’t want to,” Lo interjects.
“Make no mistake, Loren, this is my office. I can have you escorted out if I feel like you’re hindering my patient’s treatment.”
“It’s fine,” I say quickly and turn the dial a couple notches. Too bad I don’t have the remote. That device rests in Dr. Evans sweaty palm, the commander of this torture.
“I’ll let you choose what you want to try today. Fantasies or porn.”
“Porn.” Having to relay my fantasies out loud is incredibly embarrassing, and he shocks me more when I start describing positions and body parts.