AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Leo said a final bye to the kids before stepping out of the apartment. He stood on the sidewalk, looking at the mushy snow on the street, the sun glinting off everything.
He had a job—or, at least, the potential for one. He wasn’t just meant for one thing. He could…maybe he could actually do this.
With a smile on his face, he turned and walked back home.
TEN
Thenextfewmonthswere like waking up his body, bit by bit, each part screaming with pins and needles at being disturbed.
A lot of the sex work he’d done had been fine. Some of it had been fun, and it’d been nice meeting new people, getting invited to the most intimate parts of themselves. He’d liked the clients with unusual sexual interests, exploring things that had been hidden in the cold shade for a long time.
It had just…worn him down. He didn’t feel traumatised or broken, but like he’d peeled his skin off and was raw to the world.
In truth, his sister had been right—he had issues that far surpassed the sex work. Insecurities and ugly beliefs that revolved inside him with sharp edges, mincing the flesh around it, leaving bloody holes behind.
When Leo’s sister suggested therapy, he didn’t snap at her, even though he immediately tensed. It took a while for him to warm up to the idea of opening up like that—of revisiting things that he’d been so careful to keep buried deep.
Leo sat quietly in the tiny waiting room in the brownstone where the therapist’s office was, startling a little when she came out. She was dressed in white slacks and a yellow blouse, dark skin haloed by her natural hair.
“Leo?”
Leo stood up. “Yep. Hi.”
“Hello. Just through here.” Her voice had the round accent of the posh voices on British TV.
He followed her mutely into a cosy room furnished with a couple of comfortable-looking armchairs, a desk in the back, and a lot of plants. The therapist—Jacquie—gestured to one of the chairs.
Leo sat down, staring at her friendly, smiling face.
“Welcome!” She greeted. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
She kept smiling at him. The pause stretched.
Leo fidgeted. “A little nervous.”
“About anything specific?”
Leo shrugged. Jacquie smiled. Leo felt himself tensing. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay. Take a moment to think about it.”
Leo’s first impulse was to do anything but. To sit there and tell her that he was fine, actually. But…well, she knew that he wasn’t fine because she was a therapist, and he wouldn’t be there if he was totally okay.
Leo thought about it, about that dread in the pit of his stomach, the urge to run away.
“I guess…there’s some stuff I don’t wanna talk about. And I know I’ll have to.”
“Why don’t you want to talk about it?”
“Because it makes me shitty,” Leo said before he thought about it.
Jacquie didn’t react visibly, expression mild. “Why do the things you don’t want to talk about make you shitty?”
Leo shrugged again. “Because I should be over them by now.”
“Ah.” Jacquie’s smile widened. “Should. I bet we’re going to hear that word a lot, but I want you to pay attention every time you say, or even think, a ‘should.’ We create a lot of ‘shoulds’ for ourselves without realising it or challenging them. And that, Leo, is the main thing we’re going to work on. Challenging every single should that comes through our head. How does that sound?”
