AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d forgotten how frantic the world was, how desperately quick everything moved, each person racing against their own clock. I was letting myself go, not taking care of my appearance.
I knew my career was over permanently. How could I evermotivateorempoweranyone ever again? What else was left for me?
Strangely, though I didn’t care about my hair or makeup and wore a grungy T-shirt and shorts most days, I continued to compulsively shave my pussy bare every time I took a shower. It was my last remaining connection to my master.
At night, my hand would drift between my legs to stroke myself off. I don’t know whether I was trying to go back to him or whether I was just using an old insomnia cure, pleasure to induce sleep.
When I did sleep, he was always there. Even dreams of the bad cell most would consider nightmares held an odd sort of comfort because I knew he was watching and not far away. He’d come for me.
I’d wake around nine in the morning and then force myself to go back to sleep until I was getting up at two and three in the afternoon, all in the effort to stay unconscious as long as possible so I didn’t have to face the cold reality freedom had turned out to be. Three weeks went by like this until my mother took matters into her own hands.
“I’ve made an appointment with Doctor Blake,” she said one morning, “You know how much she helped me after your sister died.”
I stared at the television, watching an afternoon rerun of a trashy talk show. I didn’t take my eyes from the screen because I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide my contempt.
Sure Dr. Blake had helped her, which was why she hadn’t once mentioned I’d even had a sister since she died. Until just this moment.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes, I heard you,” I said.
“Well, are you going?”
“Oh, so you’re asking me now?”
She sighed loudly and tapped her foot on the floor. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want more drama.
I’d been hoping to just curl up and die, but since that wasn’t happening, I was going to have to do something. If Dr. Blake couldn’t help, maybe she could keep me doped up. That was the next best thing.
“Sure, Mom. I’ll go.”
The shrink’soffice was exactly as I’d remembered it. It was in the city, in a high-rise building on the fifth floor. Elevator music straight out of the fifties played nonstop, the same few songs over and over.
It was like a psychotic Prozac-addled pastiche. If you weren’t crazy going in, you were almost certain to be crazy coming out. I sat in one of the dark navy leather chairs and flipped through a magazine.
I’d had to convince my mother to let me drive. If I were suicidal I would have done it already. I didn’t have some pressing need to swerve into oncoming traffic. I wasn’t sure anyway how one could kill themselves if they were already dead.
I read the same article featured in every issue of trendy women’s magazines about shocking sex secrets. Maybe I was jaded, but every one of these articles shared the same tips in just a different order. And far from being shocking, or even a little naughty, they were tame and seemed the product of a stunted sexuality rather than the type of things written by a sexually vibrant and liberated woman.
There was one other person in the room, a middle-aged balding man waiting to see the other doctor in the office. He kept muttering to himself, and when I listened closely I could hear he was counting. I had no idea what he was counting, but I knew he was going to have some kind of fit if the rug remained crooked. He’d stared at it nonstop since my arrival.
Occasionally, he’d reach out his hand as if tempted to straighten it. Then he’d pull it back quickly. I wondered if he was wearing a discreet shock collar for behavioral modification.
Before I could observe more obsessive-compulsive behavior, my name was called, and I left elevator music hell to join Doctor Blake in her office.
She was even older than I remembered from when my sister had died. I guessed she didn’t plan on retiring. She’d go straight from this office to her grave, and God help the poor soul who tried to make it otherwise.
“It’s good to see you again, Emily.” She said it without it seeming to click in her mind what she was saying. Seeing me again almost guaranteed I was going in some way off the beam.
It amazed me someone so highly trained in human behavior couldn’t see her own. But I smiled politely and took a seat. The smile took more energy than I expected, and I was grateful to have a couch to collapse onto.
“I understand you’re having a hard time dealing with what’s happened to you.”
I stared blankly at her. Was this the part where I was supposed to pour my soul out to her? Just because it was expected?
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, pulling a tape recorder from her desk drawer.
“I would prefer it if you didn’t record our sessions.”
