After paying the cab, a tense elevator ride, and a short walk down the hall, we wait in a small area that looks more like a modern living room: glass bookshelves and light streaming through long windows. The office door swings open, and the therapist motions us inside. A leather couch sits along the coffee-colored wall. And a robust black leather chair lies directly across.
As she takes a seat with a little notebook in hand, I embed her looks in my mind. I’m not sure how I pictured Lily’s sex therapist, but she definitely wasn’t middle-aged with a short black bob. The woman is even tinier than Lily, probably no taller than five feet.
“You must be Loren.” She extends her hand before I sit on the couch. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
I shake hers and then settle beside Lily, my arm curving around her waist. And I watch the therapist, seeing if she notices the touch and if she’s going to criticize me for it. She doesn’t say a word, but her eyes do catch our embrace.
“It’s actually Lo,” I correct her. “Obviously Lily didn’t tell you everything.” My words taste nasty in my mouth, and they sound even worse.
And yet, the therapist smiles good-naturedly.
I don’t know why this irritates me. I wish she’d snap at me like Rose does for being rude and insolent.
I glance out the window. Her vast view of the city probably costs a shit ton—especially with a park directly in sight.
Of course Rose picked out the most expensive therapist in a hundred-mile radius. Not that money means anything to Lily. But I wouldn’t be able to afford having a cracker with… I read her name on the plaque of the oak desk. Dr. Allison Banning.
Lily never mentions her by first name, always referring to her as “Dr. Banning” but if I have to expose my personal feelings to someone, I don’t want to act like she’s a complete stranger.
“So Allison…” I watch her cross her ankles and focus her whole attention on me. No wonder Rose liked her. “Do you get many sex addict, alcoholic couples?”
“You’re my first.”
“Shocking.”
Lily elbows me in the side, and I can’t tell if it’s because of my sarcasm or because I called her Allison. The therapist stays unblinking, already mastering that complacent face and cool exterior. She could give Connor Cobalt a run for his money.
“Why don’t you tell me how it’s been since you moved home?” Allison asks me.
“About sex or in general?”
Lily turns a bright shade of red and slumps in her seat. I’m more comfortable talking about fucking, not because I have a dick or because she’s shy—even though she kind of is—but because I’m not the sex addict. I don’t feel ashamed about sex. She does.
I raise my arm to her shoulders, and she eases into my body a little, relaxing more.
“Either one,” Allison tells me. Her eyes flicker between Lily and me with rapt attention now. She’s definitely going to pick apart every single movement we make. “You decide.”
Lily opens her mouth, but I cut her off on purpose. I don’t want her to dodge the subject. “We had sex a few days ago,” I confess. Explaining my inability to be with Lily without arousing her—well, it feels like walking through quicksand. And so I purposefully keep it short, direct, to the point. She doesn’t need to know the messy details.
Like how she couldn’t wait until the night. How, after an hour, I had to pry myself off her to stop. She was satisfied, but with Lily, it’s a momentary fulfillment. It leaves the second she wishes to feel a climax again. I wanted to fuck her as much as she wanted to be fucked, but I had to watch her face crumble as she realized that was it.
For the first time, I’m looking at the bigger picture—the future—but Christ, no one ever mentioned how I’d have to endure preliminary pain to get there.
“You had sex a few days ago,” Allison repeats. “What exactly happened?”
“I put my penis in her vagina.” Embarrassment and remorse swim with the black tar in my chest. My filter—it’s permanently on the fritz. I think my father must have busted it one night. But not with his fists. He’s too civilized for that.
Lily lets out a laugh, which makes me feel a little better.
“Not anatomically,” Allison clarifies. “Did you only have missionary? How long did it last? What time of day? And how did it end? What were your feelings afterwards?”
So many fucking questions, but I take them one at a time. “Only missionary. It was about seven o’clock.”