The Secret Keeping (12 page)

There are a lot of theories about her client’s type of problem. Complex ideas that she can’t agree with.

The question as to whether he has a physical condition has been disposed of. He does not. What he does have, Dr. Kristenson has determined, is a very bad attitude. He is a brute and his wife is beginning to understand that. The idea that he prematurely ejaculates to deprive a woman of satisfaction is absurd. It would imply a self discipline that he simply doesn’t own. She privately believes he is an unsophisticated savage with no self control whatsoever, that he has always had sex like that and he always will because he is an inconsiderate misogynist with the mentality of a thirteen-year-old boy.

His various efforts to “rehabilitate” himself through extramarital affairs, with prostitutes, herbal remedies, ancient rituals, vitamins, cock rings, visualization…and now the exhaustive psychotherapy sessions, have produced no positive gains, either for him or, more importantly, for his wife.

He’s had a blast. His wife is almost suicidal. They have been through five therapists including Dr. Kristenson. No more sessions for these two.

“But I’m going to continue sessions with your wife,” she assured the man. That didn’t trouble him. He smiled like a buffoon. The wife welcomed private counseling as the doctor had suspected she would and she recommended Dr. Jon to the husband. Jon had been an everlasting kind of man. Perhaps at the very least he could give the guy a couple of pointers. She didn’t say any of that, of course. She simply handed him his card and concluded the tedious Friday session.

She sat for a moment after they had left. Beyond the closed blinds of the quiet office she knew a woman stared out at the horizon. She could practically feel her there. Sadder probably then she was ever meant to be.

Helaine could not stop thinking about her. Even working with blindfolds hadn’t helped.

She was alarmed by how much she looked forward to dinner with Robert and Kay at Frank’s Place tonight. All just to peek at something she knew she couldn’t have. She couldn’t believe how jittery she felt inside! The gloom that had been left from the last appointment shed from her like an old skin and as she freshened her makeup in the waiting room mirror she thought she saw a familiar glint in her eye. Ah! She laughed at herself then. This was the harmless part of an infatuation. She promised, as she locked up the offices, to keep it that way. She rode the elevator down to the street and aimed herself for Frank’s Place.

_____

“I love it! Like Casablanca in here,” Robert declared.

They had been waiting for her. “Sorry I’m so late.”

“Roll out the barrel,” he said, “great place. Does everyone have a gun?”

She laughed.

“No,” said Kay, “they’re just really happy to see you, Robert.”

It was raucous tonight. “Overjoyed,” Helaine added with a wink.

“Better keep an eye on those rubber tree plants, Robert,” Kay teased. “They’re moving.”

“Rubber tree plants? You’re kidding? Where?”

“Against the wall,” Kay pointed with a chuckle.

They all shifted in their chairs.

“Oh yeah. Very nice,” he said. “That one has eyes for you, Helaine.”

“Which one?” Kay asked.

“There.”

It was the blue-eyed woman.

“Which one?” Kay asked again. “I can’t see without my glasses.”

Helaine groaned as Robert pointed conspicuously.

“The pretty one with dark hair.”

“Robert, please…”

“Classy. Do you know her, Helaine?”

Helaine hid in the menu. “Of course not. I don’t know anybody here. That’s why I like it. Please leave the poor woman be, Robert.”

They laughed at themselves. They were still a bad influence on each other. The waiter brought a bottle of rosé and they ordered dinner.

“Why were you late, Helaine?”

“Oh, just a problem case.”

“There’s a lot of those,” Kay said.

Robert nodded. “Yep. That’s what the courts are for.” He gulped his wine. “To get at the truth, if it can be got at. To throw justice at the infidels.”

Helaine chuckled. “Like Christians to the lions, eh?” That woman was indeed watching them. How nice!

“Well, but only if they’re lying!” He was pleased with that one.

“You two are so clever, a couple of cynics.” Kay mocked. “You know her Helaine? She’s lovely.”

Helaine shook her head. “I thought you can’t see?”

“I can see she’s a professional of some kind. Smart.”

“Who?”

“The dark-haired woman over there.”

“Are you being obvious enough?” Helaine laughed. “I don’t think you’re being obvious enough.”

“Nah,” said Robert, twisting his neck. “We’re like you. Discreet.”

“Yah!”

“You’ll scare her away, Kay,” he teased.

Kay had her reading glasses on. Helaine pretended to not be there with them. They were unpredictable goofs sometimes. She grinned at their reflection in the window. Their bobbing heads.

“No. That one doesn’t scare easily. Look how she holds her head. A real queen,” Kay declared. “She’s definitely staring at you, Helaine.”

Is that right? Helaine shot a glance toward her. Didn’t scare easily? “Nonsense, Kay. Everybody looks at everybody here. If I had a dollar for every look I got at this table I’d be rich.”

“You’re already rich,” piped in Robert. “So you’ve seen her before?”

The salads came to the rescue. “You can’t be too rich, they say.”

“Or too thin,” he replied. “Eat. I’m wasting away.”

“Me too,” Helaine said, with a mouth full.

_____

Plink. Plank. Plink.

Helaine fingered the keys of her baby grand, her one hand wandering peripatetic across the black and white…all…or noth…ing…at…plink…plank…plink…the other holding her head up…half…a…love…never…appealed…to…plink, plank…oh, if your heart…plink, plink…never…could…yield to…as she sat slumped on the bench against the piano.

She rarely got the chance to play anymore. She knew this song, though it didn’t sound it. She was lost in her journey…than I’d…rather…have…unaware that the tune was escaping from her…nothing at all…it had been in her head for weeks.

Must have heard it at Frank’s Place.

_____

After an eternity of foreplay Sharon still wouldn’t penetrate her and Helaine’s womb had begun to hurt from aching for it. The excitement in her chest had turned against her, too, and she felt a sadness there instead, a desire to weep. She sighed miserably into her lover’s neck and upon hearing it Sharon stopped what she was doing, rested her weight on Helaine so she couldn’t get up from the bed.

“Don’t want to play, doctor?”

“Sharon…” Helaine let go of her back and tried to slide out from underneath her, but Sharon went rigid and wouldn’t permit it. “Sharon, please,” she said in frustration. Her breasts were tender and the weight on them was unpleasant. She shifted her body to throw her off and Sharon grabbed her by the wrists and pinned her to the pillow. She tongued her stomach, pushing hard into the belly button and Helaine arched her back and sighed again.

“Make love to me, Sharon,” she urged. She felt her biting at her nipples again and defensively jerked them away from her mouth. “Don’t. Just make love to me.”

“I hate that word,” Sharon warned, biting at her neck.

“Don’t do this. Why are you doing this?” Teasing, teasing. She groaned in exasperation. “Make love to me, Sharon.”

Sharon laughed into the pillow. “That word. You know I–”

That’s right. Forgot. It had been so long. “Then fuck me–fuck me, if that’s what you like.”

Sharon let her wrists go. “Like? What I like?”

“Like. Want. I don’t know,” Helaine murmured, rolling onto her stomach. “Whatever.”

Every part of her ached. She lay still, thoughts churning, searching for something better to say. Nothing came to mind. Between her legs she was quite swollen. She closed her eyes tight. The brilliant lights. She wanted them off now. Perhaps she could sleep, sleep away the fog that had settled on her soul tonight.

Beside her Sharon had fallen ungodly quiet. She could feel the woman’s malice and wasn’t sure where it had come from. Tonight was bad. It was as if she had been watching herself all evening. Nothing seemed natural.

She put her hand over her eyes. She hated being speechless.

“How long have I been gone, Helaine?”

“Sharon?”

It had been nine months. Helaine desperately needed sex. Playing games all night had made it an impossibility, too awkward. The woman beside her felt like a stranger, an immovable stranger in her bed, laying motionless and hostile. Why, she didn’t know. “Sharon? What is wrong?”

No response. Perhaps because she hadn’t gone to the flat to look for her? Sharon hated coming uptown.

Not her set. Too quiet. “Sharon…?” She listened to the sound of Sharon’s body snaking across the sheets toward her. The touch of a stranger. She jumped at the feel of it and waited for her to speak, trying to interpret her silence.

“Masturbate for me,” Sharon finally said, lying heavy on Helaine’s back and probing along her sides.

Helaine tried to turn over. “Sharon…no.” A police hold, or something like it. “Don’t be rough with me. I don’t like it.”

“Don’t? How long have I been gone, I asked.”

“Shar–” Harsh hands. “Nine months.“

“Like? Want?” She pushed Helaine’s face into the pillow. “Whatever?”

“Sharon, you’re hurting me. I can’t breathe.”

“Love,” Sharon teased as she leaned into her, “masturbate for me, I said.”

“Sharon…”

“Or else.”

“I don’t like this. I really don’t.”

Sharon felt between Helaine’s legs. “Liar.”

Helaine brought her legs together. It was difficult to breathe.

“Call me darling. You haven’t–open your legs–called me darling all night.”

Darling? Was that true? All night? Helaine lay quiet and still.

“Against your will then, doctor. What do you say to that?”

“I would never forgive you for it.”

Sharon attempted to pry her legs apart. “Open, darling,” she whispered, jabbing her chin into Helaine’s shoulder blade.

“If you don’t want to you don’t have to. Leave me be, Sharon.”

“That would be darling, Dr. Kristenson.”

Helaine felt her legs giving. “Please...I said forget it.”

“Spread your legs for me.”

“Listen to–”

“Do it.”

“Sharon, I don’t–” her legs were open now.

The women lay locked in an ugly silence.

Helaine could hear her Sharon’s rapid breathing. Hot breath on her back. “Sharon?” She strained to see her, but couldn’t maneuver it. Sharon pressed down harder. “For godsakes, Sharon,” she said through her teeth. “Let me go!”

Sharon released her arms. Helaine tried propping herself up on her elbows and was pushed down again.

She listened behind her. “Darling…?” There she said it. The sound of breathing, more weight on her back.

“Talk to me, Sharon. Tell me what I’ve done.”

“I don’t want to talk. I’m concentrating.”

“Concentrating? Please! On what?”

“Fucking you.”

Helaine took a quick breath, exhaled. “Then at least let me turn over.” More weight. She laid her face back into the pillow.

“You have such a perfect ass, Dr. Kristenson.”

Sharon fondled her, running her hand up her sex. Helaine felt moist on her backside.

“The nicest I’ve had in months,” Sharon drawled, feeling Helaine’s body stiffen at the offense. She pushed against her anus.

“Sha–”

“You heard about all that, didn’t you?”

Helaine tried once more to get up and failed.

“Easy,” Sharon warned, tightening her grip.

Helaine froze.

“Perfect, Helaine Kristenson.” She licked the small of her back and entered her in the rectum.

Helaine gasped and tried to fight her off.

Sharon withdrew and held her down again.

“Sharon, don’t do this to me. Please.”

“We’ll just take a little ride, Helaine.” She dragged the blond kicking across the bed and bent her over the edge of it.

They were both out of breath, the sheets massed around them.

“You’re ruining me, you know? I can only do blonds now.”

Ruined. Helaine was silent, her hair sticking to her neck and shoulders, stuck to her face. She tried to raise herself. Sharon leaned against her damp body and entered her once more. She stifled a scream.

“Where are you when I’m not fucking you, Dr. Kristenson?”

“I’m–this is–I’m–” Sharon had been hostile ever since she stepped through the door. Helaine tightened.

“I’m not ready for thi–”

“Because you’re too tense. Relax doctor.”

A flash of pain. Helaine groaned. “You’re being too–” Sharon pushed deeper inside and Helaine moaned low in distress.

“When I’m not fucking your gorgeous ass, Helaine, where do you go?”

There was nothing to grab onto. It was pointless to answer. Sharon pushed into her and pulled out suddenly. In, then out again. Helaine put her hand over her eyes. They were wet.

“Relax your legs for me.”

“Christ–” Her feet barely touched the floor. She grabbed for the sides of the bed but couldn’t reach them.

“Chill, I said.”

Her arms were falling asleep. “Give me…a second. I’m–” Her rectum felt full. She felt it begin to move in spasms. Pleasure for the first time in months. She hated herself for it. Sharon pressed against her stomach with her free hand and raised her up slightly from the bed. She clutched at the sheets around her in protest.

“Did I keep you waiting, doctor?”

“Wai–”

“Did I?”

Helaine’s insides rippled in waves, giving out without her consent. “What–what do you mean?”

“Waiting for me. I kept you waiting?”

“Waiting,” she repeated. “I–” spasms. Pleasure and pain. “Yes.” And hatred, coming in waves. Tidal. She couldn’t prevent it. “Jesus…” Cries filled her throat, slipping off her tongue and falling from her lips into the bed sheets. She put her face into the pillow to smother them. Moans, sighs, cries, Sharon’s favorite. She hadn’t earned them tonight. “You’re hurt–”

“Then relax for me.”

The pillow was wet. “I…slower…can’t.”

“Call me darling then.”