Chapter 12
ONE NIGHT
Michelle
I wanted to shower. I wanted to shave my legs. I wanted to primp and prep and prime myself for Jack. But Shayla had another emergency, so I was going to have less than thirty minutes to get ready for dinner once this appointment ended.
Shayla dropped her head into her hands, her shoulders shaking. “I don’t know if I can do it. He’s planning on it tonight. Expecting it. He told me he wants me to wear a red teddy.”
I nodded sympathetically, as much over the red teddy request—I preferred a matching set of bra and panties to any sort of teddy contraption—as for the latest demand from Shayla’s straying husband.
“Are you going to?”
She shrugged helplessly. “He thinks that’s how we’re going to get our sexual mojo back,” Shayla said, disdain lacing her words. “As if it’s as simple as lingerie.”
“The simpler answer would be for him to remain faithful. You might find that more alluring.”
“Yes,” Shayla said, holding out her hands to emphasize the obviousness of that answer. “Yes. I would.”
“Perhaps he could even stop staring at other women as if he wants to undress them when you’re together,” I added, reminding Shayla of something else she’d once told me about her husband that understandably bothered her.
“That too.”
“Or,” I began, taking a pause, waiting to make sure that Shayla was completely focused.
That she was hearing and listening. Because sooner or later, we were going to need to get to the heart of the matter.
To the truth of Shayla’s feelings for her husband.
Or rather, her lack of feelings. “Or perhaps it doesn’t matter what he does anymore. ”
“Because he cheated? I mean, I don’t need a degree in mental health to know that,” Shayla said sharply, speaking to me in an admonishing tone for one of the first times. It didn’t bother me. Sometimes, patients needed to lash out. I was a useful dartboard, and I willingly took the hits when needed.
“I’m not saying because he cheated,” I said, in a gentle but firm voice, keeping my focus fixed on Shayla’s brown eyes. They were sad, tinged with tears, and red with hurt. “I’m talking about how you felt long before he ever started straying.”
“I felt fine,” Shayla said quickly. Too quickly.
“Shayla.”
My client crossed her arms, looking away, her sharp nose in profile now.
Shayla was dressed to perfection today, as always—decked out in crisp linen pants, leather heels, and a pretty peach silk top.
I had started to understand that her clothes were part of her uniform. The everything-is-together look.
I began again, finally feeling able to confront some of the feelings she was skating around. “Were you ever in love with your husband?”
The answer was instantaneous, like a viper hissing. “Of course,” Shayla said, and I swore I could see fumes.
The truth hurt though. The truth was like a wicked slap when you were least expecting it.
But Shayla needed to start thinking hard about her heart, and whether she’d ever truly given it to that man.
We’d talked about her lack of interest in sex, to how it stemmed from long ago.
I was willing to bet the house that Shayla had never truly felt any sort of spark for him.
I leaned forward, clasped my hands together, and tried again. “Tell me, then, what it felt like being in love with him.”
Shayla sputtered and gasped, like a car engine rumbling, trying to turn over, but failing until finally she stopped running.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, and then we talked more, digging deep for the next fifty minutes.
As the session neared its end, she was still in tears, but they were starting to dry up.
“What do I do about the fact that I’ve never truly loved him?” Shayla asked.
“We’ll have to deal with that next time,” I said. “But I promise you, we will deal with it. And we will figure out a way for you to navigate all the things you’re learning.”
“I’m scared,” she said quietly.
“Of what this might mean?”
Shayla nodded. “And how he’ll react. He gets unhinged at times. Paranoid, even.”
Unhinged was not a good word.
“How is he paranoid?”
“He went through my email once when he thought I was cheating on him. I never was, but if he thinks something is up he might snoop.”
I nodded, glad for the warning. I’d dealt with this before with spouses. “I will help you through it all.”
Shayla left first, mouthing a heartfelt thank you.
As I gathered my purse and started to shut down my laptop, a sense of calm washed through me.
I’d done something positive for a long-term patient.
I’d held her hand, metaphorically, and helped her walk into the dark, dangerous woods of the unknown.
As I closed various browser windows, I spotted a few new emails that looked important, but resisted the urge to check.
That was why I had a phone. Well, two, really.
Anything that had come in at seven o’clock on a Friday could be dealt with later.
Once my computer was off, I locked the door and left, checking my work email in the elevator.
I scrolled through some notes from colleagues, answering a few brief ones on the ride down.
As the elevator doors opened at the lobby, I clicked on the next note and nearly squealed for joy.
One of the European journals I’d submitted a paper to loved my research and wanted to talk to me about the next steps for publishing it.
I beamed, because this journal was the European equivalent of Psychology Today.
To have an article run there had been a dream of mine, and would be a huge career high.
I’d been wanting this, craving this, hoping for some sort of placement for my research.
This could serve me quite well in my field, and earn me more recognition.
But more importantly, this placement had the potential to spread my findings far and wide.
Which, in turn, meant that more of my colleagues would be aware of how to better help patients struggling with love and sex addiction.
Equal parts pride and happiness filled me as I let those words echo through my body—next steps. Then I saw there was more to the note. I read on.
We are so excited about your research and findings that we want to introduce some of them at our upcoming conference.
I know this is completely last-minute, but one of our speakers fell through for our conference in three weeks.
Perhaps the timing is fortuitous though.
Would you be available to keynote? The conference is in Paris, and all expenses will be covered, as well as a stipend supplied.
Sincerely,
Julien
Excitement roared through my veins. And a tiny touch of nerves too. As I walked through the lobby, I re-read the email, and replied with the only answer there was, yes, when I smacked right into a tall man with dark hair in need of a cut, and square black glasses.
“Are you okay?” he asked, as if he were dreadfully concerned. The time for concern would have been when he noticed I was walking straight toward him and moved, I thought to myself.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I said, even though I winced slightly from the bump. His hand was on my elbow, steadying me unnecessarily, and I stared at it until he realized that too.
“Oh,” he said, when it registered. Time to stop touching. “I’m so sorry.”
“No problem. Now if you’ll excuse me,” I said, gesturing to the noisy avenue where cars and cabs and buses were slogging along through the end of rush hour.
It hit me that I hadn’t called a Lyft in the excitement of my exit.
But this was New York. I stood on the curb, thrust my hand in the air, and snagged a taxi in ten seconds.
I might have been unlucky in love, but I was remarkably successful at snagging a cab.
As I shut the door behind me, I noticed the guy with dark hair was still standing outside my building, eyes narrowed and fixed on some unseen point straight ahead. Something about him bothered me.
Then he snapped his head down to look at his phone.
Perhaps he’d simply been staring off into space, figuring out what to say to a friend via text, or contemplating a reply to a last-minute email, as I’d been doing. Yes, either option seemed reasonable. There was no need for me to waste any more energy grumbling about a random stranger.
Especially not when I had a date with a beautiful man who wanted me, and when I’d been invited to keynote a conference in Paris.
Just twenty-four hours ago, I’d still been concentrating on letting go of my last residual feelings for Clay. Tonight, I felt different. I was concentrating on me.
The tide was beginning to turn. True, nothing like love would come from a man like Jack Sullivan, and I certainly didn’t expect it.
He seemed tailor-made for a good time though, and I could use a little fun in my life.
I’d take one more night with him and then I’d walk away.
Because a man like that—no matter how stunning he was in bed, no matter how fascinating he was out of it—would never be good for this woman’s heart.
I had given it stupidly and foolishly last time, and so I was going to protect my heart much better now.
I was going to keep it encased in steel.
But my body? I really ought to own stock in Joy Delivered, since I’d bought so many products from them over the years. There would be no harm in one more time with the man behind those magic toys.