On Monday evening I rang Anna’s bell with a shaky hand. A tall blond woman opened the door.
“You must be Lee,” she said. “Do come in.” I pressed a sweaty palm into hers.
“My name is Roz, but you already knew that, right?” She smiled invitingly, the way shrinks do, I supposed. Already I was preparing a blazing speech for Anna later. What the hell was she thinking? Especially after I had, rather half-heartedly but nonetheless, pointed out that I might not have been comfortable with a female shrink. After she had waved it off I had expected Roz to be of the over-weight stuffy professor-type. Instead she was lanky, with limbs for days. Her smile was tight but warm, her voice deep and shadowy. But what killed me most was the pair of black-rimmed glasses perched at the tip of her nose. It’s what pushed me over the edge. Already. A tight pink-and-white striped blouse was tucked into her jeans and a purple sweater hung from her shoulders. There was absolutely no way I could tell all my innermost secrets to this woman. Not without seducing her. This was not going to cure me, it was going to kill me. And I had to pay for it.

I sat down in a chair opposite her. Even when sitting down I felt she towered over me. Her legs were so long that her heel almost touched my knee when she crossed them over each other.
“You seem a little nervous,” she said. The soft gravel of her voice crawling under my skin.
“Yeah, first time.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t bite.” Her eyes met mine over the rim of her glasses. They meant business. I crossed my right leg over my left and then my left leg over my right. Then I decided to just sit on my hands and keep my legs together. “I’m going to ask you a few introductory questions, okay?” Maybe this was a test. Maybe Anna was playing a cruel joke on me. Maybe Nathalie had put her up to it. Maybe she still bore a grudge. Maybe the years hadn’t erased everything.
“Look, huh, Miss−”
“Please, call me Roz.”
“Yeah, Roz, I’m not so sure this is for me. I−” She put down her pen and notepad and leaned towards me.
“What you’re experiencing now is completely normal.” Oh, I’m sure it’s not, I thought. But she was the shrink, Maybe she was already seeing right through me. “Why don’t I tell you a bit about myself first. Then we’ll take it from there. Would that be alright?” Maybe if afterwards I can slowly unbutton your blouse, slip my hand in your pants and fuck you with your glasses on.
“Sure. I’m sorry.”

Then she started relating and slowly engaging me, with carefully chosen, nonthreatening questions, and before I had a chance to consider how sexy the slope of her collarbone curved into her blouse, I was in the middle of reliving my open relationship with Claire − I was in therapy.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” I asked Anna. “I can’t see that woman again.”
“But you just said she was good?”
“I’ll go crazy.”
“You are not a teenager ruled by hormones anymore, Lee. You’re a grown woman, start acting like one.”
“But−”
“But what? Roz is what you need right now. She’s a happily married heterosexual woman and she’s not going to sleep with you. She’s going to do something far better. She’s going to give you back your self-respect. If you let her.”
“Yeah, but−”
“No, I won’t have it. We’ll talk about it again in a couple of weeks when you can tell me I was right.”
“Or wrong.”
“Give Leo his bottle and shut up, already. Can you babysit next Friday?”

To be continued…