Choosing Hope

Chapter One

Spencer

“Let’s start with how much you think your childhood shaped the decisions you’ve made.” Dr. Klein prompts me.

I lean back in the chair, already regretting coming in today. I suspect that’s her favorite question. She asks as if a neat little confession will cure me, and an answer is waiting just beneath the surface.

I shrug. “How long have you got?”

She gives me that neutral psychologist smile. The one that makes you feel seen and studied all at once.

“I’m not sure. Maybe a lot. Maybe not at all.”

“You said on the phone the other day that your parents weren’t . . . emotionally involved.”

Now that’s generous.

“The phrase ‘emotionally involved’ implies there was some effort on their part. Duncan and Julie Barton-Jones didn’t dabble in things like effort. They were too busy polishing their reputations—too busy hosting parties, closing deals, and surrounding themselves with other people just like them.”

Dr. Klein’s eyebrows shoot up, almost colliding with her hairline, perhaps unused to such a scathing view of an individual’s parents.

“If they’d ever taught me anything, it was that love was a performance. Something to display when people were watching, and discard when they weren’t.”

My mind whirls with a catalog of memories that would help support my opinion, but I don’t want this woman’s sympathy.

I’m a busy man; this process needs to be efficient.

I have no intention of spending the next few months sitting in this office while she picks over every incident of my father’s rejection.

I’ve employed Dr. Klein to help me save my marriage.

In the past few months, Sophie and I have been spiraling, the distance between us widening until it felt like we were strangers.

A few weeks ago, I confided in a trusted friend.

I admitted I’d been toying with the idea of walking away and setting Sophie free.

I told him how convinced I was that she'd be better off without me. He didn't agree. But he simply urged me to get professional help. The idea stuck, and as things kept unraveling, it started to feel like my only option.

On the surface, the solution is simple.

Go home at night. Stay out of my sex club.

And most of all, stop fucking women who don’t wear my ring.

But while all these things would certainly help, they won’t come close to solving the problem.

The catalyst is my relentless erotic thoughts about my best friend.

Dr. Klein’s job is to fix me. To release these desires from my mind and allow me to move on with the woman who, through no fault of her own, has fallen in love with a fuck-up.

Once she’s done that, I’ll never darken the doctor’s door again.

I clear my throat, leaning my head back on the headrest of the most comfortable chair I’ve ever sat on.

“When I was six, an Italian boy, named Carlo came to live with us. I’d seen him several times before on brief holidays, because his father and mine are best friends.”

Dr. Klein has gone quiet, and I glance up at her, half expecting her to have left the room.

“Our fathers have known each other since high school.”

She bobs her head and scribbles something down on her pad.

“Since Carlo and I’s birthdays were only weeks apart, our parents decided without consultation with us, that we should be friends. When he arrived, they put a new bed in my room, rather than giving him one of the other twelve bedrooms in the house.”

“What was your reaction to that?” she inquires.

“Initially, I resented his invasion of my privacy, but the animosity didn’t last long. The sound of his weeping that night seemed to cleanse any negativity. In truth, it was nice to have company.”

The sound of her pen scratching notes onto her pad fills the surrounding air, and it amuses me to add to her list of concerns about my mental health.

“I’d always been a lonely child but hearing him sniveling in the bed beside me tugged at my empathy. I hugged him tight, and my gesture seemed to plant the first seeds of a friendship that’s matured into one of the most important relationships in my life.”

“Did his arrival help you feel safe?”

I scoff at the idea of having felt secure during my childhood of neglect.

“I’m not sure about safe, but we could certainly understand each other’s loneliness.”

More scribbles.

“It didn’t last long, though. Five weeks later, they sent Carlo and me to a boarding school. Every weekend our peers went home to their families, while we stayed at the school.”

My mind fills with memories of the long gray corridors, empty aside from Carlo and me. A shiver crawls over my skin, reminding me of how cold and unloved we felt.

“How did that make you feel?” Dr. Klein presses me.

My attention snaps to her, annoyed that she’s asking such ridiculous questions.

“Abandoned,” I snap.

The room falls silent, and the faint ticking of the clock reminds me that those days weren’t all bad.

“At least we had each other,” I say, my voice trailing off.

Her face tilts up to look at me, her eyes sad. I haven’t come here for sympathy, so I rush to fill the silence and distract her thoughts.

“From the age of six until my mid-twenties, Carlo was my constant companion; he quickly became my world. He understood me better than anyone else. He became my best friend, my confidant, my protector and eventually, our relationship developed into more.”

Now, sitting here and reflecting on my life, I can finally see the blank spaces, the missed moments, the silences I wasn’t sure how to fill.

In hindsight, the gaps are obvious. So are the opportunities I let slip through them.

I don’t enjoy thinking about my childhood. But if I’m ever going to make sense of what I’ve done, of the damage I’m still doing, then I must. It seems this is my final chance to get it right.

I just want to stop hurting the people who truly love me, all because I’m too afraid of being judged by the ones who should have.

“What do you think you were looking for from Carlo?”

That strikes me as a strange question, a typical counselor question. I lean back again, rolling my eyes at the ceiling.

“I idolized him. Wanted to be like him. Over the years, he turned the bitterness he felt about his abandonment into confidence. Very little fazed him. He was charming and had a practiced, effortless manner with people that I always craved.”

She bobs her head, scrutinizing me with her beady eyes, as if believing she can read my mind.

“Were you envious of the way people responded to him—your father, girls, even you?”

I open my mouth to deny it but stop myself. I’m uncertain if it was jealousy exactly. Maybe longing. Maybe both.

“My dad adored him. Carlo could do no wrong in his eyes.”

A slight bob of her head encourages me to keep speaking.

“Every year when we got our end-of-year report cards from school, he’d compare us against each other. Carlo didn’t always beat my results. But he used to charm the schoolmasters and always ended up with a glowing report.”

I smile darkly, remembering Dad’s response when he caught Carlo in a compromising situation with one of their maids.

“That’s an intriguing smile, Mr. Barton-Jones. Would you care to share your thoughts?”

I tilt my head to glance at my doctor. I’d guess she’s in her early to mid-forties. Not unattractive. Her hairstyle is unflattering; scraped up into a tight bun, giving a severe appearance that is too much for her pretty, delicate features.

She’s wearing a soft satin blouse and a pencil skirt. Dr. Klein is professional with a hint of sexy. She’s not appealing to me. I don’t fuck older women. But if I were fifteen years older, it wouldn’t be difficult to understand why one of her patients became attracted to her.

She has an air of something alluring about her; she’s confident without being brazen.

Her blouse buttons are open from the top of her cleavage, offering a vague hint of the swell of her chest without being tarty.

She’s comfortable enough in her own skin for me to relax a little about talking to her.

A friend of mine, Brendon James, recommended her to me. He runs a charity, The James Trust, which helps families who for whatever reason, have fallen into difficulties. I’ve known Brendon for five or six years, since I first started supporting his worthy cause.

To test how my doctor copes with my next snippet of information, I dive headlong into one of my friend Carlo’s first sexual experiences.

“When we were seventeen, Dad caught Carlo fucking the home help. We expected him to go ballistic. He didn’t. He slapped Carlo on the back as if he’d just found a cure for cancer.”

I remember the faint smugness that crept over my friend’s handsome face when my dad caught him.

“That must have been embarrassing for Carlo, not to mention his companion,” Dr. Klein points out.

I snigger at her remark.

“Nah, Carlo doesn’t get embarrassed. He was furious though when I admitted Dad was fucking her too.” I grin in a roguish manner recalling the moment I told Carlo that he’d just dipped his wick in the family porridge.

“That amused you?”

“I was just recalling the conversation I had with him afterward,” I explain, my lips still stretched wide.

She tilts her head as if she needs to listen harder.

“He complained he wouldn’t have touched her if he’d known.

Which made me laugh at him; it wasn’t often I got one over on Carlo.

I explained that that’s precisely why I didn’t tell him.

He rushed toward me with a determined expression.

At first, I thought he was going to hit me, but he didn’t.

He stood inches from me and in a deep husky voice murmured, ‘You really enjoy watching me that much?’”

I chuckle darkly. Even now, recalling that moment makes my cock twitch in my trousers. Dr. Klein gives me a moment; perhaps sensing my heightened state of arousal.

“That wasn’t the only time you’d seen Carlo sexually active?” She asks, her voice is softer than before, as if she doesn’t want to disturb my flow of memories.