Confidential(39)

Or it might be that I couldn’t really imagine what it would look like, or feel like, to have a man like that interested in a girl like me.

A woman, I had to remind myself. I was a woman. A smart, talented, beautiful woman. He’d told me that before. More than once. Did he really say that to all his clients? Did he work with them all for free?

Of course not. I was special.

I just needed to stand up straight and tall and see myself as he saw me.

I stepped away from my computer and walked over to the full-length mirror. “This is the woman who Michael loves,” I said over and over, until I actually sort of believed it.





CHAPTER 31





FLORA


I was in front of Michael’s building in a metered space, wearing a scarf over my head and sunglasses, though it was seven p.m. at night. It was the third night of my stakeout. Three nights since he’d last returned one of my calls or texts.

Could it really have just been because I’d showed up unannounced, or was it something else? Someone else?

I didn’t want him to see me, not like this. If he walked out of the building, I’d have to duck and hope he didn’t recognize my car, not that there was anything unusual about a dark-gray Lexus in this neighborhood. While I had been waiting in front of the Safeway the other night, I had a revelation. Maybe Michael’s behavior toward me wasn’t about my supposed mistakes at all; it was about my being replaced. If Kate was telling the truth and he’d done it before, he could do it again.

There were several other therapists in the building, so I couldn’t be sure that the women coming in and out were Michael’s, but I had a feeling about his Wednesday lineup: the blonde giraffe and the chic woman in clothes that managed to be loose and perfectly tailored at once. They were very different types but both attractive. The blonde didn’t know it, while the brunette certainly did because she worked at it. Perfect nearly nude makeup, not a hair out of place. I liked my clothes tight and my eyelashes fake, but I bet that the brunette spent as much time as I did to achieve the opposite effect.

Neither was my type, yet somehow, I felt in my gut that if it were going to be anyone, it would be one of them. I hadn’t had an instinct this strong since I knew about Michael himself.

It had been during a session. Under Dr. Baylor’s tutelage, Young was starting to recognize that my demands for sex were requests for intimacy. Dr. Baylor called them “bids;” he said we were all making bids for closeness all the time. When we say, “So I had a rough day,” and our partner says, “Hmm, what?” and doesn’t even stop what he’s doing, it’s a bid denied, and we’re less likely to bid again. “It’s kind of like being in an auction where no one acknowledges that your paddle is raised,” Dr. Baylor said, and Young nodded intently. He was really listening. As much as he’d resisted the counseling process, he really seemed to respect Dr. Baylor.

By my estimation, Dr. Baylor was only ten years older than Young, but he just seemed so much more mature. As I watched my husband get schooled in the intimacy arts, I started to imagine what it would be like with the teacher instead of the student.

We were twelve sessions in, so that meant I’d known Dr. Baylor for about three months, and he’d been doing a good job. As in, Young was making more bids and responding to mine with greater enthusiasm. There was more conversation, cuddling, and closeness; numbers were up in all the major C categories. Only I wasn’t happy. I’d initiated this whole thing, and now I was mildly annoyed and bored. But I couldn’t admit that. I was just going through the motions.

Did Dr. Baylor see that? If he did, he didn’t let on. He kept working on Young diligently, surgically. Young became more vulnerable, opening up about his childhood wounds. He wanted to be with me, fully; he was just now figuring out how to merge love and sex.

Dr. Baylor had gotten me more love; now it was time for him to get me more sex. The only problem was, I didn’t want it anymore. I didn’t want Young.

I was sitting there in session twelve when that came into stark focus for me. I’d wanted Young when he didn’t seem interested. Dr. Baylor was about to make Young available, and I felt this rush of fear. Young wasn’t the only one who had trouble merging love and sex. In my case, I wanted sex more when I felt less loved.

I was waiting for Dr. Baylor to call me out on this, but instead, he was working with Young about how he could approach me sexually. “Be more animal,” Dr. Baylor was saying, and then he gave me the quickest sideways glance, and I swear, my panties got wet. It was a gusher like I’d never felt in my life.

It wasn’t just that I didn’t want my husband; I wanted Dr. Baylor—Michael—badly. He was the real man, and oh, the things he would be able to do to me . . .

It was like he was talking right to me, through Young. All his helpful advice was letting me know exactly what I’d be in for if I could trade up, if I could go from the pupil to the master. He was ostensibly trying to save my marriage, but instead, he was showing my husband up.

I listened, and it was hotter than any porn. I was relieved that Young just kept watching Michael closely, like he was taking mental notes. He didn’t notice my red face and my shallow respiration. But Michael must have. As he continued to speak, it was like he was masturbating me with his voice. I almost came right there, and I had to talk myself down, like that old joke where guys try to think of baseball or something equally unsexy. I thought about credit card bills until I could pass for normal.