Chapter 24
Nic
Wednesday evening, Jan calls me. Palms sweating, I pick up.
“I will never condone it,” Jan says. “But in my opinion, Avery isn’t hurt by what happened. Although you’re still very present in her mind.”
This whole situation is so surreal. I shouldn’t have a colleague calling me about this. Yet I find myself in the middle of this drama of my creation, Avery still very present in my mind as well.
“She has a lot of work to do on herself,” Jan says. “I think you were an excellent distraction from the difficult task of therapy.”
Of course, I was. I still am. Maybe guilt is the only way for me to really snap out of this.
“I’m not going to report you to the board,” Jan says. “In this specific situation, I don’t feel obliged to.”
“Thank you.”
“If you decide to self-report, I can speak to some people. You violated the code, Nic, but I don’t think losing your license is an appropriate punishment here.”
“I’m still considering it,” I say and it’s an awful feeling to be grateful to my friend but also, at the same time, to be deceiving her. Because that’s exactly what I’m doing. Because I slept with Avery again—a fact Avery clearly didn’t share with her new therapist.
“Keep me in the loop,” Jan says. “How are you doing?” she asks, surprising me.
I can’t tell her I’m this close to falling apart.
That I barely recognize my reflection in the mirror because of how I feel about Avery.
That I hate myself for omitting a crucial fact but not enough to do the right thing.
This kind of ambivalence can’t go on for too long. I will only drive myself up the wall.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, because, in the end, won’t I be? There’s no real reason to believe I can’t get past this. I know exactly what to do—or not do—yet it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Not see Avery again. To accept that I may never again feel how she made me feel.
“I’m here if you need me,” Jan says. “As your friend.”
After we hang up, it’s not relief that floods me. It’s an intolerable combination of lust, not feeling like myself, and the same agonizing restlessness that settled over me after Lois died, that I thought I had expelled. That foreboding sense that nothing will ever be the same again.
What worries me most, however, is that I’m wholly unable to put this into perspective.
As a fifty-four-year-old therapist with decades of experience who has had to process her wife’s unexpected death, I should have the required tools to give this fling its rightful place.
To clearly see it for what it is. A two-night stand that has nowhere to go.
I know this, but the problem is that I don’t feel it.
That’s why I only make it until Friday.
Friday evening, I do the opposite of what I should be doing. Instead of deleting Avery’s contact details from my phone, I send her a text message.
Can we talk?
I ask.
She replies immediately.
Yes. Come over?
Our text exchange is brief and lightning quick—possibly the only way it can be—and twelve minutes later, I park my car in her driveway.
She opens the door before I can announce myself, as though she’s been scanning the street for my arrival.
The second I clasp eyes on her, I know I’ve completely lost it. When I speak, when I say the one thing I’ve come to say—the very thing I’ve not been able to get out of my head—I’m absolutely certain that the last of my common sense has crumbled into a pile of dust.
“I need you to fuck me with that strap-on,” I say.
“Nic.” Avery all but pushes me against the front door. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” I say and as I do, I throw my career out of the window.
I know it now and I knew it on the drive over and I knew it when I texted her.
Because I might have told myself a fairytale of wanting to see her one last time—wanting her to finally fuck me the way she promised me on our first night—and then be totally done with it, but I’m not too far gone to know, in my heart of hearts, where it really matters, that it’s just another lie.
I’m a junkie for her. I can’t stop. I can’t get enough. And there’s no rehab for this particular kind of infatuation.
“Your wish is my command, Doc,” Avery whispers in my ear.
I nearly crash to my knees as she presses her lips to my neck, then kisses me full on the mouth.
“Come on,” she says when she breaks the kiss and holds out her hand to me.
I have no idea what her house looks like on the inside—and don’t ask me what it looks like on the outside, either.
I only have eyes for her. Avery is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
She gets under my skin in a way that completely undoes me.
I want her with a ferociousness that’s so powerful, I will let it destroy my entire professional life.
There are no straps on the toy Avery is holding. Times have changed since I last did this. So much has changed. I have changed most of all—into the kind of woman who does this. Who drove over here with only this as her purpose.
“I need you to get me ready first.” Avery’s fully naked, her spectacular breasts rising with each breath. She’s like a flame I’m about to step into, knowing full well how I’ll burn.
Avery cups her breasts for a moment, as if offering them to me, before sliding one palm down her stomach.
Her fingers dip between her thighs, easing herself open, and it’s a sight I never want to look away from.
“On your knees,” she says, as though it’s completely normal for her to speak to me like that.
But I kneel naked before her, as though this is all I do.
She doesn’t have to instruct me further. Like magnet to magnet, my tongue is pulled to the apex of her thighs. I place my hands on her ass and my lips on her clit.
Avery’s already plenty wet but it’s my utmost pleasure to lick her until she’s dripping. She has one hand in my hair while the other holds the toy—I can see it, looming tantalizingly, out of the corner of my eye.
I have to wonder if this is why I can’t resist her.
If this power she has over me is somehow addictive.
Is it purely a matter of chemistry between us?
And if so, can that really be so strong that I’m willing to lose it all?
But then she presses herself against me, and her scent is so intoxicating my own clit starts to pulse uncontrollably between my thighs.
Avery steps back and I’m left gasping, wanting more of her. Instead, I watch her.
She guides the shorter end of the toy inside herself with an ease that makes my throat go dry.
When she straightens, the sleek shaft juts out from her, like a seamless extension of her body, and my entire skin breaks out in goosebumps.
She grins at me, radiating pure sex, and I swear I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want her in this moment.
She steps toward me and puts her hands on my shoulder.
Gently, she pushes me toward the bed, her confidence so absolute I can only follow.
The sheets are cool against the back of my thighs, every one of my nerves alight with anticipation while she remains standing, all fire and control.
For a heartbeat, she just looks at me. Her grin softens into something darker and far hungrier, letting me know she wants this just as much as I do.
She joins me on the bed, and the weight of her body presses me down. The toy brushes against my stomach with every shift of her hips. The firm silicone against my skin sends a hot jolt through me, and my breath already catches in my throat.
I reach for her, needing to feel her, to reassure myself that this is real. That she’s real.
Her mouth finds mine, and I clutch her closer, torn between wanting this kiss to last forever and aching for what I know is coming.
When Avery pulls back, it’s to reach for the bottle of lube waiting on the nightstand, her eyes never leaving mine. The soft click of the cap and the glide of her fingers as she slicks the toy make my clit thump with wild anticipation.
Before I can catch my breath, those same fingers trail between my thighs, wet and sure, spreading me open.
Her touch is gentle but commanding, sliding easily against my heat, and I arch up to meet her.
She circles me once, twice, before slipping inside, and the low groan that escapes my throat is as much surrender as it is need.
Every stroke of her fingers is another rule I abandon, another line I cross, and still, I can’t bring myself to care. All I know is the flood of utter relief as I let go. As I give myself to Avery as though she’s the only thing keeping me alive in this world.
She withdraws her fingers, then presses the tip of the toy against me. My body stills in answer. The first slow push steals the air from my lungs. When she sinks deeper, I cling onto her shoulders, trembling with a thrilling mix of fullness and release.
A shiver ripples through me as my walls tighten around her, dragging a whimper from my throat.
Avery pauses inside me, her gaze locking with mine, and in that moment it feels like she’s not just taking my body, but also my very soul. Her eyes soften, and I see something there that startles me. Something impossible—something that feels too close to love.
When she finally moves again, it’s slow and deliberate, as if she wants to prove with every thrust that she’s not just inside me, but with me. And every delicious stroke of that toy inside me, that Avery wields so expertly, is another nail in the coffin of my career, yet I’ve never felt more alive.
Her breath feathers over my cheek with every movement, warm and intimate, pulling me further under her spell.
The fullness is overwhelming, each deep glide sending a wave of pleasure through me.
Every shift of her hips grinds the toy against a place inside me I’d forgotten could throb with such abandon.
My body greedily clenches around her as if wanting to hold her there forever.
This is why I came here. To have that silly promise she made me—which was just a coy comment made in the moment—fulfilled. Now, with every stroke, I understand it was never just about a promise, but about surrendering to the part of me that wants to be completely undone.
Avery’s hand slips from my hip, fumbling for something on the nightstand, but she never breaks the rhythm of her thrusts.
I’m too far gone to question it, lost in the joy of her body pressed to mine, until I hear a faint click.
She smiles down at me, knowingly wicked, and in that instant I realize she’s about to push me beyond another point of no return.
The toy shudders to life inside me, a sudden, thrumming pulse that rips a cry from my throat.
The deep stretch of her thrusts is now paired with a vibration that rattles through my core, melting every single one of my nerve endings.
My back arches off the mattress, helpless to this new wave of sensation, and Avery only presses in deeper, watching me unravel.
Her own moans are surprisingly desperate, and I realize the vibrations are coursing through her just as fiercely.
Beads of sweat glisten along her collarbone as she moves, her jaw tighter, her eyes glazed with the same bliss flooding me.
For the first time tonight, I see her lose control, her rhythm faltering as the toy works her body as much as it does mine.
The sight of her unraveling with me makes everything more intense.
Every pulse of vibration is a tidal wave crashing through us both.
I scratch at Avery’s back, nails digging in, as if holding her closer can steady the storm brewing in my body.
Our moans mingle together, ragged and helpless, until there’s no telling where my pleasure ends and hers begins.
When Avery’s head tips slightly back and she cries out, her body bucking against mine, the sight detonates something deep inside me. The vibration, the stretch, the sound of her coming apart—it all collides in a blinding rush that tears through me with merciless force.
I shatter around her, wave after wave tearing me apart, and when she finally collapses onto me, the weight of her only drives me higher, as if I’ll never come back down.
For long moments we just lie there, our hearts beating wildly against each other’s chests.
My breath unwilling to steady because it’s crystal clear to me now that this is more than just sex, than just an infatuation.
It still can’t be love, but it’s more than lust. It’s a connection that I’d never thought I’d make again.
Either way, whatever it is, I can’t possibly walk away from it.