18. Kai #3
I return to my chair and sit down, removing my glasses long enough to press my fingers against my eyes.
This has to stop. The sentence has become so familiar that it no longer qualifies as an intention.
I should transfer her. That remains true, possibly more true than it has ever been.
I should call one of the colleagues whose names I have mentally listed half a dozen times and explain that I need to terminate treatment due to a conflict that prevents me from remaining objective.
I don’t need to tell Julia why. Not all of it.
I only need to acknowledge that I am no longer capable of giving her the treatment she deserves.
Then I need therapy of my own. Urgently. Possibly somewhere with locked doors.
A knock interrupts the thought.
Mara appears again. “Your four o’clock canceled. Flu, apparently. She rescheduled for next week.”
Of course she did. “Anything else after that?”
“No. You’re free unless you decide to invent work.”
She studies me. “You look strange.”
“I always look strange.”
“No, you usually look expensive and emotionally unavailable. This is different.”
I give her a flat look.
Mara smiles sweetly. “I’ll be out front.”
The door closes behind her. I should use the unexpected hour to finish notes. Instead, I open the desk drawer. The stationery is not here. I keep that at home. The fact that disappointment appears tells me everything I need to know about what I have already decided.
For ten minutes, I attempt to work anyway.
I complete Julia’s note with deliberately neutral language, documenting the discussion of sexuality and trauma without including detail that isn’t clinically necessary.
I write that she reports consensual sexual preferences involving intensity and transfer of control, experiences them as chosen rather than rejective, and identifies clear consent and immediate responsiveness to boundaries as central to feeling safe.
I reread it. Professional and accurate. Then Ghost supplies the sentence I did not write.
She wants to know she can surrender without disappearing.
My hand stills over the keyboard.
There it is, the thing that has been moving underneath everything since Sunday.
Not simply that I watched her pleasure herself, not even that I wanted to replace her hand with mine. It is the knowledge that she responds to being wanted when wanting doesn’t erase her choice.
The second letter asked whether knowing I was there would change anything.
Today, she has unknowingly given me the answer to what comes next.
Choice. I can’t knock on her door. I can’t enter her house.
I can’t even reveal myself without detonating every layer of trust between us.
But Ghost can ask. The thought is monstrous in its simplicity.
I close the file. Not long after that, I’m home.
I don’t change out of the suit immediately.
I remove the jacket, loosen my tie and stand at the desk looking down at the black envelopes inside the drawer.
There is still time not to do this. I take one out.The cream paper follows.
My handwriting looks obscenely controlled considering the thoughts behind it.
I begin.
Little Ember,
Last time, you didn’t know I was there.
You thought the dark outside your windows belonged only to the night. I watched you sit on that sofa, slide your hand between your thighs, and make yourself come like it was a secret. Like no one would ever know how wet you got, how your mouth opened, how your hips lifted when you finally let go.
I asked whether knowing would have changed it.
I’m still wondering.
So tonight, I want you to do it again.
For me.
Not rushed. Not because I told you to. On your own time. Sit there as long as you need. Tease yourself. Stop. Start again. Make me suffer through every second of it if that’s what you want.
But know this:
I will be watching every move you make.
Every time your fingers slip under the waistband.
Every time you spread your legs a little wider.
Every quiet sound you try to swallow. I want you touching yourself, knowing my eyes are on you.
I want you soaked before you even start, just from the thought of me standing in the dark, hard, watching you fuck yourself.
Last Sunday, your body thought it was alone.
Tonight, I want it to know it isn’t.
If you agree, leave the lamp beside your couch on.
That’s all. You decide when I am welcome.
If that light is burning, I’ll take it as your yes.
And I’ll show you how much better it feels when you come with my eyes on you.
—Man in the Shadows
I stop at the final line. The page remains beneath my hand while my pulse beats steadily against my wrist.
You decide when I am welcome.