“AND HOW DOES that make you feel?” I asked, crossing my legs and scribbling in my notebook.
It was the typical question asked by a therapist, but I’d found it actually helped find out more about my patient’s feelings. If I could relate to their problems, I was meeting them on an emotional level they needed. It comforted them to know I understood what they were feeling.
“It makes me feel like I can’t breathe. When I think about him, my heart hurts, and I feel like I’m dying,” Elaine said.
She was one of my first patients. She suffered from panic disorder and, as of late, loneliness. I hadn’t really made much progress with her until her husband passed away a few months ago. She was grieving him, and somehow, it was making her open up.
Later, after I’d spent the day with several of my patients, I left for home instead of my usual dinner with my dad since he was still working at the hospital. We’d created a routine over the years. Him being a doctor, as well, it was easy to talk to him about the hectic life I led. Not only that, but he also understood the job and my time restraints.
Growing up, I always thought of my father as some kind of superhero. I adored him, and despite his long hours and absent parenting, I loved that he saved people’s lives for a living.
As a little girl, I wanted to be just like him. But as I got older, I realized everything that came with being a doctor. It wasn’t all smiles and awards like my father painted it to be.
Just like anything, there was a dark side, and regretfully, I learned not everyone could be saved.
In my senior year, I spent more time at the hospital. It was fascinating to observe everyone. If I could’ve stayed the long hours my father did, I would have.
During one of my regular afterschool visits, a family came in through the ER. I’d never seen so much blood in my life. A father, with a look I’d never forget, carried a small, limp boy in his arms.
The family was Hispanic. The father, dark skinned with a thick, black mustache that covered his entire upper lip, was crying something in Spanish. No matter how loud my brain screamed for me to look away, I couldn’t take my eyes away from the little boy he carried.
Blood smeared his dark hair and it was stuck to his forehead. His head hung over the father’s arms and his eyes were closed. A car had hit him while riding his bike and then fled the scene. I had known before I saw my father rush from the back that the boy was dead.
It was enough to traumatize anyone my age, but it wasn’t the actual death that I had a hard time accepting. It was the total and complete devastation on the face of the boy’s father. I couldn’t accept the heartache that came with knowing a family member would never see their loved one again.
I knew death happened. But I’d never actually seen it happen. It changed everything for me that day. I knew what my father was doing was important. The sick and injured patients, they were important.
But what about those behind the scenes?
Who took care of the family of the patients when they faced a loss no one could understand?
That night, I cried in my father’s arms and begged him to never leave me. It was a promise meant to be broken. Time was the only thing we had that wasn’t a hundred percent guaranteed, but it made me feel better anyway.
The next morning, I told my father I didn’t know if I wanted to be a doctor anymore. It’s not that I didn’t think I could handle death. I could. I just knew I wanted to help others with it.
He wasn’t happy with me at first, but he got over it. After I graduated with my degree, I was happy to work as a grievance counselor at the hospital. My dad thought it was a waste of my degree, and he wanted me to do more. So I appeased him and became a therapist.
But being a therapist had its own issues. I was no longer dealing with grieving patients. I was dealing with the deep-set mental issues of people. And after a patient pulled a gun on me in the elevator outside my office, I enrolled in self-defense classes.
So after a day of asking questions and listening to other’s problems, the short cab ride to my apartment wasn’t exciting. Come to think of it, there really hadn’t been much excitement in my life for a while, if you took away the heathens who’d carved into the cherry-red paint of my brand new car.
There was nothing like coming out to your car and seeing “Stuck-up Bitch” carved into the hood.
So now, my car was in the shop and I was doomed to ride in cabs until it had a fresh paint job.
Nope.
Not excitement.
Ethan, my sort-of boyfriend, made for a few interesting nights, but honestly, thrilling wasn’t a word I’d use to describe him.
Ethan was also a doctor—a pediatrician at the same hospital my father worked at. Of course, my father felt the need to play matchmaker, and at the time, I didn’t see the harm in spending a few days a week with Ethan. I mean a girl couldn’t do much better than a pediatrician, right?
Maybe so, but regardless of how good he was with children, and he was, he wasn’t good with relationships.
Maybe I was just expecting too much from one man.
Was it too much to ask to be with someone who could tell when I was faking it?
Unfortunately, for me, I did that a lot with Ethan, and I had no interest in marrying him … ever.
So when he pushed to move in together, I was quick to deter him. I couldn’t imagine being with him every night. Maybe that was bitchy of me, but I needed my space from his lack of know-how in the bedroom.
It was sad to say, but I was actually happy that he was in Afghanistan on what Daddy liked to call a “charity run.” It meant more alone time for me and the TV boys I liked to spend my nights with.
No way would Ethan be okay with me having my alone time, which usually consisted of old reruns of Sons of Anarchy and lots of batteries. A girl had to do what a girl had to do, and I had to do it myself if I wanted any relief.
I didn’t know what he’d do if he knew I touched myself at night and fantasized about dirty bad boys, but something told me it wouldn’t go over well with him—nothing fun ever really did.
I’d once asked him to spice up our relationship, and he looked at me as if I’d spoken in Latin.
His fork stopped midway to his mouth, and he frowned. “What?” He lifted his glass of wine to his lips.
“Role playing. You know, when I dress up in a naughty schoolgirl outfit and you spank me with your ruler. Stuff like that.”
I’d never actually seen someone spit their drink out the way the actors did in the movies, but sure as day, Ethan did. He choked, holding up a finger to me as he tried to compose himself. Wiping his mouth with his napkin, he set it on his lap and looked around, heat creeping up from his collar to rest on his cheeks.
“I didn’t … uh … I didn’t think you were into … stuff like that.”
Excited at the thought he might actually be into it, too, my body tingled and melted until I was shifting in my seat. I felt foolish for not asking him about this sooner. Men liked women to take charge nowadays, right? I was ready to hail for the check.
“Of course!” I nearly shouted, and again, he looked around nervously. I lowered my voice this time. “I’m pretty much up for anything at this point.”
“I don’t know. I’m …” He trailed off, clearing his throat and adjusting the collar of his shirt.
“If you’re not into the whole schoolgirl thing, there are plenty of other roles we can do.” I was too eager to contain my excitement. “Naughty nurse, dirty maid, bad cop … We can pretty much make any occupation into something dirty. Naughty teacher, dirty—”
“Emily!” Ethan rushed out, putting his hand over mine. “Will you please keep your voice down?”
I looked around, but no one was paying any attention to either of us or our conversation.
“I don’t understand, Ethan. I’m practically begging you to let your imagination run wild with our sex life and you’re dismissing me … I thought this was every man’s fantasy?”
“I thought our sex life was okay.”
I sighed, giving up on the idea altogether.
I tried to explain that I didn’t want okay anymore; that it was normal to want wild, crazy, hot, earth-shattering sex. A healthy sex life was natural, but he’d been too embarrassed to continue the conversation, and all I got was a promise that one day he’d give me what I wanted. I wouldn’t hold my breath since I knew he had absolutely no idea what it was I wanted.
The pencil skirts and buns I sported on a daily basis were work, but once I was home, I wanted more. I wanted passion. I wanted to burn with another person—a person who could look at me and make me desperate with desire. I didn’t want Ethan’s soft untrained touches. I wanted to be fucked—taken over the edge and drowned in ecstasy.
Sometimes, I’d dream about a dark stranger with intoxicating eyes and a touch that could send me over the edge. He’d say all the right things and do everything to perfection. There were no schedules, no time restraints, just him and me and our bodies intertwined in madness and a glorious ache he’d take away.
In my dreams, he needed me, and sometimes a girl just wanted to be needed. The point was I longed for more than Ethan could ever give me. The silent quickies weren’t doing the trick, not that they ever had. I wanted naughty, and the only naughty Ethan was used to were from the toddlers he took care of at work.
Daddy loved him, and that should’ve been enough, but it wasn’t. It would never be enough.