Most non-medicinal PTSD treatments focus on desensitizing the patient to the trauma itself. They relive it endless times via sensory stimulation or verbal recall, until it’s old news. The therapies can seem cruel, but the outcomes are consistently good.

Caden wouldn’t take medication. You can educate a man out of his misinterpretations of data (these drugs do not effect one’s ability to perform surgery) but you cannot educate him out of his pride (tell that to the person on the table).

As terrible patients went, he would be the absolute worst.

“How did it go?” I asked from my desk one afternoon in early December. He’d called me after seeing another PTSD specialist.

“Fine.”

“Did you like him?”

“I don’t know. I was only there fifteen minutes.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I was late. Anyway, he wants to identify a specific trauma. I don’t have a specific trauma.”

“That may take work but—”

“I have to go.”

“Okay. I love you.”

“I love you too.” He hung up.

I stared at the plastic receiver as if that would keep us connected another moment, then I put it back in the cradle with a sigh.

Since he’d told me about what he called the Thing three weeks earlier, I’d defined behaviors that had seemed free-floating before. In the days before the fundraiser, he’d been cold and emotionless. He was so detached and robotic in some ways, yet temperamental and snippy in others. After the dark banquet room, where he dominated my body so brutally I had to hide his bite mark for a week, he was back to almost normal. Not as normal as when I met him in Iraq, but you get what you get and you don’t get upset.

As the weeks passed, he became more and more closed off. There had been three-plus weeks between the first rough encounter in the middle of the night and the banquet hall. I thought nothing of the timing except to note when he’d become alienated from his emotions.

I was about to call the next therapist on my list when Jenn called.

“I need a drink,” she said.

I looked at my watch. It was five thirty already. “I’ve had seven sessions today and my brain is full.”

“Meet you downstairs.”

---

That was the mood I met Jenn in.

That was how it began, really. Ronin and his classified secrets, breaking shit to fix it.

Caden had paperwork and opted not to join Jenn and me. Good. I was frustrated with him even though it wasn’t his fault. Never get frustrated with the patient, even if he’s your husband, slowing down before we got to a dead end. I wanted to speed up and find out what that wall was really made of.

I was relieved he didn’t want to come, and then guilty for wanting a reprieve from watching him go through the motions of life.

Jenn pushed her glasses up her nose. She’d shaved her kinky black hair down to the skin, which made her features statuesque. She held up her beer glass. I clinked my wine.

“To an empty brain,” she said.

“Cheers.”

The Wednesday crowd was subdued. The Wall Street douches had had a bad day apparently, and the art school kids huddled over pitchers of the cheap stuff.

“So,” I said. “You know anyone who can see a vet about identifying a trauma?”

“What about Warren?”

“I need someone to ID the incident so we can do CPT with Warren or whomever.” Cognitive Processing Therapy was a simple reliving of the trauma, but if the patient wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, or was in denial that a trauma had occurred, that was a different kettle of fish.

“Messy. What are the symptoms?”

“Patient thinks he’s being watched.”

“Oh, shit! I have to tell you something.” She leaned forward on her elbows. “This is apropos of nothing. Ronin’s working at Blackthorne Solutions.”

I should have told her no right there. Should have said I didn’t want anything to do with his crazy bullshit.

Instead, I raised my eyebrows and put on a face that said, “Tell me more.”

“I got a test subject request from Aberdeen for symptoms relating to… check this out… a feeling of being watched.” She pinched her fingers together at her forehead and spread them out, letting them flutter as they moved away from her head.

“And this leads to Ronin how?”

“It was an old form and his name was still on it.”

“So he was working on that when he left?”

“I think so. Do you want the form?”

“Maryland’s not an option.”

“But Ronin’s here…” she singsonged. “You could see what he’s got going at Blackthorne.”

“No.”

I was too quick to deny. Blackthorne was a military contractor that took payment from governments and corporations. They sent security personnel into war zones, used mercenaries and special operators to manage power vacuums in small countries, and developed weapons for the Pentagon.

I didn’t want the form, but if I really did have a patient like Caden, I’d get it.

“I mean, maybe.” I changed my answer.

“Let me know.”

We moved to other topics. She asked how my proposal from Tina was coming. I asked about art therapy and the NEA. We didn’t talk about Blackthorne or my patient again, but I didn’t stop thinking about it. Even after I found someone for Caden and he got his ass on a couch for a session, I made sure I had an updated number for Ronin.

---

Caden hadn’t wanted to meet Ronin for dinner. Hadn’t wanted to tell him a damn thing. Didn’t like him or trust him. But we were out of options, and he knew it.

When we got home from Gotham, Caden silently helped me with my coat. His fists were tight and his eyes burned. His muscles were taut under his shirt, and he smelled of need. My body reacted by sending a flood of fluid from my mouth, which had gone utterly dry, to my crotch, which was suddenly dripping.

“Greyson,” he said.

He reached around me and flipped the deadbolt, then stepped away enough to frame the whole of my body in his sight. His eyes coursed over my edges and curves while he flexed his fingers.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

No answer.

“Now? Is it the Thing?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I started unbuttoning my blouse, helpless against the smile creeping across my face.

“Say yes.” His fingers went from flex to fist over and over as if he was stopping himself from using them.

“Yes.”

I undid the second button but never got to the third before he ripped the shirt open, sending buttons flying. He pushed me against the wall, hand under my bra, squeezing my breast.

He shoved his other hand under my skirt and found my wetness. “That’s right, baby.”

I was pushed down onto my knees with my bra over my tits and my skirt half over my waist. He undid his jeans and pulled his cock out like a weapon. A drop glistened at the tip.

Pushing the back of my head forward, he guided himself into my mouth. “Take all of it. And make it wet. You’re going to need it.”

I opened my throat and let him fuck my mouth. Spit dripped from my lower lip. I groaned, vibrating for him when he was deep in me. He came down my throat and watched as I swallowed.

Looking up at him, his still-erect cock in the foreground, I could tell we weren’t done. He was still half animal.

I was getting better at knowing which man I was looking at.

He stripped me down and we began in earnest.