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Shayna glanced at him and weighed the situation. “Actually, I think he should be with us. I mean, my problem, whatever its source, affects him as well since this is about my visions, or rather, my impaired visions. Although, I have to say I’m not sure you can help with that.”
“If not, I’m sure I’ll be able to send you to someone who can.”
She led them into the villa, to the sitting room off to the right. A large picture window had a view of the grove across the river. “Well, let’s all sit down, you tell me what’s going on, then I can best answer you one way or the other.”
When Shayna sat down on the couch across from the window, she glanced up at Marius and patted the seat beside her. When he sat down, he took her hand and gave it a squeeze. He really was the sweetest guy, especially for someone who looked as fierce as he did.
“You can tell Eve anything. She’s good people.”
Shayna smiled. “I know.”
Eve sat opposite, in a club chair off to the left that angled toward the couch.
Shayna decided to just launch in and offered up a sampling of the visions, her thoughts surrounding those moments, and how the wavy lines had blocked what she could see from moment to moment. “The thing is, I don’t think it’s about power, since I’m streaming Marius’s all the time and the flow is amazing.” She put a hand to her chest. “I mean, really amazing. So I honestly think this has to be about me, that I’m doing something wrong.”
Eve held Shayna’s gaze. “You mentioned that during one of these visions, you’d started thinking about your professor, the man you had an affair with. What was your relationship with him like, and was it a recent breakup?”
“Not real recent. A year ago.” She then found herself unburdening her soul with all sorts of details about Michelson, his demeaning way of offering criticism, his complaints about her body, her work ethic, that she didn’t have a tidy desk.
“And what was the sex like?”
Shayna turned toward Marius and met his gaze. She felt really uncomfortable discussing this in front of him. He’d grown tense as well, and she felt a certain amount of hostility emanating from him.
He took a deep breath. “Do you want me to leave?”
Shayna was about to express her gratitude that he understood when Eve immediately intervened. “On no account should Marius leave right now. I think I understand what’s going on with you, Shayna. But Marius needs to hear this. All of it. I suspect something happened in the bedroom with Michelson, didn’t it, something bad? And if I’m right, trust me, it will affect every area of your life, including these visions.”
Shayna had never told anyone the details of her last sexual encounter with Michelson, the straw that ended her relationship with him.
She must have grown really quiet and her distress no doubt thoroughly communicated itself through the chains, because Marius leaned forward to meet her gaze. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, not exactly. No. It was more like neglect, but it was profound. I’ve just never really talked about it before. Once I ended the relationship, I was done. I mean, I had some counseling, but I didn’t talk about this one part.”
Eve spoke in a quiet voice. “Take your time and start with whatever comes into your head.”
Shayna found her eyes filling with tears. “It was that old saying, All of a piece. Michelson was—is—a completely self-absorbed man. I know that now. He might even have sociopath tendencies.” She stopped as though her vocal cords had just shriveled and wouldn’t let her go any farther.
“You can do this,” Eve said, more firmly this time. “And I think you’ll find it very healing and probably the release you need to get these visions unblocked. Okay?”
Shayna licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “I fell hard for Michelson. He was a man I admired a lot for his work in the field of anthropology. I knew going in that I was a starstruck student, an absolute cliché, but he was handsome and inspiring and unattached. I wouldn’t have dated him if he’d been married, or anything like that.
“The sex was glorious at first, but I honestly think it’s because I was so deluded, so infatuated with him. I couldn’t get enough of him. So in those early days, I didn’t notice how critical he was of me, I think because it began so gradually; how I looked, what I wore, my makeup, my hair, comments about how I studied, that he thought I was messy and disorganized. He’d make suggestions on improving everything but never seemed to be satisfied when I made the changes. I kept waiting for some kind of affirmation that he finally approved of me.
“Then, about three months into the relationship, he brought out a few of his neckties. The first time he bound me to the four posts of his bed was really intoxicating. I mean it turned me on and though he might be critical of me, the sex was great, or so I thought. The first few times were really exciting.”
Eve nodded. “It can be a profound experience. Bondage is as much about trust as it is about the thrill. So when did it go wrong?”
Shayna ignored the increasing tension in Marius and took a deep breath. “The first time things started going bad, he left me spread-eagled on the bed, tied up at both wrists and ankles, sa
ying he’d had an inspiration for an article he was writing, but he wanted to write it down immediately and that he’d be right back. I was stupidly exhilarated that I could be a muse for such an important man. And he came back ten minutes later.
“Part of me thought it a little odd, but again I believed in him and he’d already trained me to think much less of myself than I deserved and to keep him on a pedestal. He’d get angry at even the slightest interruption in whatever project he was working on. I’d learned early on not to disturb the waters when he was engaged with his work.”
“It got worse each time, didn’t it?” Eve asked. “The length of time he’d be gone, that sort of thing?”
“Yes. I tried talking to him about it, but he invoked how important I was as his muse, which of course led to a lot of guilt and fear on my part.”
She could feel that Marius’s level of tension had now jumped several notches, but she had to see this through.
