Page 6 of For Her Own Good

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry to ask this of you. But could you look at me so I know you’re hearing me?”

Ah yes, up to his old tricks. He used to ask me for this when I didn’t have anything to give. I could always look at him, though. For the most part, enjoyed it even when I couldn’t feel much of anything else. An animal reflex, that feeling of comfort and safety when I saw his face. I don’t feel that way now, but my body apparently doesn’t realize that, so before I can consciously stop myself, I’m glaring at him. At least there’s that. Let him know I’ll do it but I am not happy about it. Not at all.

“I wanted you to know I’ll be back on staff at Harbinson. You might see me. If you’re still—”

“I am.”

For fuck’s sake.

“Then you might see me there. I didn’t want to surprise you.”

“Well, you’re doing a bang-up job so far, Doctor Campbell.”

He has the good grace to look abashed. I don’t love going to Harbinson anyway—who would?—but it’s at least a place I associate with feeling better. I’m not as resentful as I was as a teenager, but all things being equal, I’d rather not be a regular at a psychiatric hospital. Which I know is ridiculous, and I allow other people far more grace than I do myself. The shame and embarrassment about being “defective” is deeply ingrained. Even knowing that’s not true. Brains can be shitty sometimes.

He nods once, the motion crisp, and I turn away. He doesn’t insist I look at him again so I gaze out the window until everyone—including the good doctor—has deplaned and then I try to get on with my life. As if that’s going to be possible knowing that Doctor Lowry Campbell is back.

Chapter 2

Lowry

I’ve beenin town for over a month, back at Harbinson, settled in a new apartment nearby though still in the city, whereas the hospital complex is at the inner suburban edge. I’ve seen some old colleagues and met new ones. Joined a gym, established a schedule. Been asked out on a date but didn’t go.

Everything is falling into place, and it turns out that yes, I did miss Boston. There’s something to be said for the haphazard and cramped streets of the city, and knowing the chill that radiates from most of the people here covers up a deep and abiding loyalty—and not just to the Red Sox.

My slate of clients filled up almost immediately, which is good. I like to be busy. From dawn to dusk, and sometimes later if I go out with colleagues, my days are full. I have everything a man could want. And yet…

I haven’t seen Starla since I walked away from her on the plane. Which she’s most likely fine with but I am…not. I won’t do anything about it because she made it clear that I’m not welcome in her space and I understand why. Even if I didn’t, I would respect her request.

I’m reminded of her presence not through anything particular in the office—though I know she sees Doctor Gendron regularly because it’s on the office schedule—but because I can’t be here without thinking of her. She’s a clear, clean note at the back of my brain I want to silence—mostly for her sake—but I can’t help returning to it again and again.

Like now, when I’m lying in bed, waiting for my alarm to go off. I went to bed early last night because there was nothing else I wanted to do, and now I’m staring at the blank ceiling in my bachelor’s apartment. Maeve would be disgusted. Perhaps I’ll ask her to visit. She’d decorate the place whether I wanted her to or not. But if I do end up dating and someone compliments me on the decor, do I really want to say my ex-wife did it? Probably not. So the walls will mostly stay bare. Maeve at least ensured my closet’s full of decent clothes and nominally fashionable shoes.

But as kindly as I think of Maeve, she’s not at the forefront of my mind. No, that would be Starla. Starla with the fury sparking in her eyes and the way she gave me a very thorough tongue-lashing.Christ, Campbell, you can’t think of her tongue.Or her lips, or her wide eyes, or the gloss of her hair. Does she still hate to have it in her face? She always did. It was one of the signs she was feeling truly awful: she’d let it hang in her face, not bother to get it out of her eyes, off her forehead.

What I do know is despite her best efforts to ignore me, she snuck glances in my direction. Is she as curious about me as I am about her? I know some things—what the most basic search on the internet would tell me—but not the most important things.

Is she happy? Is she at peace? Does she like her job? I’m assuming so, because it would be easy enough for her to drop it if she didn’t. It’s not as though she needs the money.

As for what she’s doing, well. She set up shop as a consultant to help people with mental health issues arrange their schedules and living/working spaces in a way that fits their needs better, which is admirable. Clinicians don’t always have time to do that granular work, but it can make huge improvements in patients’ quality of life. I’d think she’d be very good at it, and the flexibility of running her own business must be a boon as well, though a lot of pressure. Or perhaps she can handle those elements in her sleep given her father taught her how to run an empire.

These are the things I’d like to know but have no way of asking her. I won’t violate her privacy by asking Lacey—Doctor Gendron to her, I suppose—either.

And I definitely need to stop thinking about how goddamn good she looked even as she scowled at me on that plane.

My alarm goes off, rescuing me from my sad attempts to shove Starla Patrick from my mind and not—definitely not—daydream about her while I’m in my bed. Saved from perving on my ex-patient by the bell. Again.

* * *

Starla

As much as I’d like to focus on the reminder system I’m setting up for one of my clients with ADHD, I’m thinking a lot more about a certain ginger psychiatrist than I am about sticky notes, white boards, and planners. It’s annoying.

It’s annoying to have a man who abandoned me in reality haunt my dreams where I can’t tell him to fuck off. I could, I suppose—lucid dreaming is a thing and I’ve made use of it before—but I maybe enjoy it. Especially since the only way I’m regularly getting off these days is by my own hand. Yes, I see my play partner Jade sometimes, though not since my father’s death. And if Dream Lowry wants to help me obtain orgasms, then perhaps it’s the least he can do. He owes me that much, right?Right?

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, because I don’t want to have a guilt complex about how I perhaps woke up this morning with my hand in my underwear and didn’t remove it until after I’d rubbed one out while transmuting my dream into a much more conscious fantasy. A fantasy which involved the good doctor bending me over his knee and taking his belt to my upturned bottom and then fucking me into next week while telling me he’s wanted this for years, and how happy he is that I can finally be his good little girl.

Yeah, it was definitely one of the most explosive, toe-curling, back-arching, moan-inducing climaxes I’ve had in some time. I mean, prior to the past month at any rate, because they’re a somewhat regular happening now that Doctor Lowry Campbell is back in town.

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