Page 14 of The Therapist

Past

“Cooper, hello.”

He takes my hand in his again, and I don’t miss the way his thumb grazes quickly over the back of my hand before releasing it. “Take a seat. I’ll be right with you.”

At my desk, I watch from my peripheral as he adjusts his shirt before entering. He walks in, reads the room as if taking the temperature before adjusting his proverbial thermostat. An emotional contortionist, turning on and off the ability to care or have morals, perhaps.

I grab my notepad and a pen. He adjusts his jeans before crossing his legs. He’s pulled together. Neatly dressed and attractive. He’s watching me unabashedly as I sit across from him. My skin heats under his gaze.

“We ran out of time last week. I’d like to dive deeper into what you said.”

“What did I say, Doc?”

I shoot him a look that says ‘respect is appreciated.’ He casts his eyes down in acknowledgment. “You were saying that you do act on your desires. That you watch people.”

“Yes. That’s it.”

I shake my head. “No. That’s illegal. There are consequences to stalking and peeping on people’s intimate moments.”

He throws his hands up to stop me. “I don’t stalk. And I watch regardless of sex. It’s not watching the act of sex that gives me the rush. I don’t…not watch those…people.” He’s choosing his words carefully. I make a note to bring up honesty. I need to suss out whether he knows the difference between right and wrong before I can devise an action plan for his therapy. “I watch to watch. To be privy to private moments.” His gaze is so severe that I feel pinned to my seat. “I watch it all. The fights, watching TV, yes, sometimes sex, but really, it’s just the act of watching a person, or people, alone in a space they think they’re safe.”

“Safe?”

“Yes, alone. Do they change from work clothes to pajamas? Do they brush their teeth before bed? Little secrets I get to learn about them. The kind of secrets they don’t show publicly.”

My pen flies across the pad: words, little notes to help me talk to him.

“Sometimes I think deviant behavior is genetic. In my blood.”

I look up. His eyes sparkle. “Why do you say that? Did your Father teach you this behavior?”

He laughs too loudly and shakes his head. “No. My parents were…simple people. High school sweethearts destined to never amount to anything more than they did.”

He rubs his hands on his thighs. Slowly. Deliberately. When I move my gaze from that action to his face, he’s grinning. I draw a breath through my nostrils, slowly, to ward off the sudden feeling that I’m blushing.

Attraction is a tricky thing, bodies reacting without consent from the brain. I can find him arousing without needing to act on it, I remind myself.

“Then why say that?” I ask.

He takes a deep breath for a moment and closes his eyes tightly before opening them again. I use the moment to quell the new found fire in my veins from the way he looks at me.

“My uncle. My mother’s brother. He was arrested when I was a kid. I think he did things to a girl—at least, that was the town gossip. I don’t really know much. My parents didn’t talk about it.”

I nod. “And your brother.” I glance at my notes to double-check I got that right. “Is he also deviant in any way?”

Cooper shakes his head. “I was eight when he was born. I don’t really remember that time well. I don’t even remember my mother being pregnant. Just him as a fat baby. He’s as boring and vanilla as they come.”

Tilting my head, I jot down more notes. “That’s odd. Not remembering your mother being pregnant. At seven or eight, it’s typical to have distinct memories of big family changes, like a new sibling or divorce or death.”

His bottom lip is caught between his teeth, a devilish look in his eye as he shrugs. Heat creeps up my chest, fast as I tuck an errant curl behind my ear.

“Nope. I didn’t go to the hospital either. I just remember coming home from school one day, and there he was. Little, crying, and chubby.”

“Did your mother breastfeed him?”

“Why?” he asks. I wait, impatient for him to answer. His forehead wrinkles in thought. “No. I don’t remember her doing that. Just a bottle.”

“That seems rather in line with the repressed atmosphere in the house.”

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