Layla caught her breath, her chest rising and falling quickly. She fidgeted and clicked her ink pen some more.
“And so that’s…progress for you,” she said brightly, pointedly not asking me to elaborate. “Do you feel you don’t deserve to have pleasure in your life?”
“You might say that. I eat the same things every day. I do punishing workouts if I have free time. What would you suggest?”
“I’d say eat one different thing every day, just to introduce pleasure in small increments, don’t overwhelm your senses. Work on positive self-talk. ‘I am worthy. I am valued. I deserve this juicy peach, this sugar cookie.’”
“What if I want to see what it’s like to overwhelm my senses?” I asked archly. “You didn’t ask what brought on my sexual awakening.”
“It isn’t any of my business. I’m leading a support group. Your sex life is off the table,” she said simply. “It’s evidence that you’re healing, you’re making progress. That’s the only reason it’s significant. The trigger doesn’t—”
“The trigger makes all the difference, and you know it. If I had said I started enjoying food for the first time, you would damn well have asked what I ate that woke up my senses. Wouldn’t you?” I challenged.
“Yes,” she said. “But that’s beside the point. Discussing your sexuality makes me uncomfortable, Tyler. It would be unprofessional for me to inquire about it.”
“The way I see it, if you’re here to help me open up, you have to ask questions. Even tough ones. So ask me.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, crowding her. Our legs almost touched. I felt jealous of the air that got to slide along her bare ankles. She narrowed her eyes at my challenge, leaned forward herself. She wasn’t going to back down or be intimidated. I liked that so much I could damn near taste it.
“Fine. You win. What inspired your sexual reawakening, Mr. Leeds? Was it porn? A song on the radio? A movie you watched? A glimpse of someone you saw at the grocery store who caught your attention?”
I wanted to grab her and kiss her. My palms itched with the tension between us. I let the moment stretch out, torture of the most delicious kind.
“Was it visual or auditory? Some people are aroused more by voices or sounds, moans—” she began, still clinical, still baiting me.
I leveled her a look, our eyes locking. The intensity shocked me more than if I had actually put my tongue in her mouth. I liked this attraction, liked playing with it and with her.
“You know what it was,” I said at last. “That’s why you didn’t ask. That and you’re scared.”
She rocked back in her chair so fast it was like she’d been pushed by an unseen force. I barely suppressed a laugh.
8
Layla
“Yeah, things are going great, Mom, how are you?” I asked brightly into the phone.
“Same as always. It’s been crazy at the doctor’s office, seems like every kid in the city fell off a trampoline this week and broke something,” she said. “Still it’s a damn sight better than emptying bed pans all those years as a CNA.”
I sighed. She had worked for years in the low paying, thankless job as a nursing assistant because she had me and it was all she was qualified to do. She’d quit her nursing program when she got pregnant with me. The thing I was probably proudest of was the fact I paid for her to go back to school and get her RN so she could sit in a nice, clean medical office filling out computer forms and taking the occasional blood pressure. It was less work and better pay, and it made me happier than when my Master’s thesis got a perfect score.
“How’s the puppy?” I asked.
“Edgar is fine. He finally stopped pooping on the kitchen rug.”
“That’s good.”
“No, now he’s pooping on the bathroom rug,” she sighed.
“Well, get him to go in the toilet if he’s already in there,” I said.
“I liked the flyer you sent me. How’s the group program?”
“I had a good turnout, even more on Thursday than at the first meeting. It seems like it’ll be a good group that works well together,” I said.
“Don’t tell me. Some guy hit on you?”
“No!” I said, because technically he hadn’t.
“Stay away from them,” she warned.
“Don’t worry, I won’t get cooties,” I teased, but I knew she was serious. She might as well have said, ‘don’t get pregnant and ruin your life like I did.’ The guilt was crushing at moments like that.
“I’ve got a meeting,” I said, “talk to you later.”
After my staff meeting, I saw a few patients and then worked on follow up activities for my group. My thoughts kept drifting to Tyler. I didn’t know what to do about him. He opened up in the group and scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want to think about what he said to me, that I knew why. He needed my help, and I had a duty to help him no matter how personally difficult it might be not to distance myself from him due to the attraction I felt. I would have to overcome that, to reach out to him. I steeled myself and called the number he’d listed on his paperwork.