Page 11 of Empty Heat
Many layers? I didn’t like the sound of that. It made me feel even more hopeless. Why couldn’t there simply be a surgery that could help me? Make me normal?
I didn’t want to talk about that alpha at the party or my first time anymore. It was beside the point. If my body wasn’t configured right to take and keep a mate, that was that, right?
4
Lev –Twinkle Lights and Stars Like Coins
Since Rhodes was with Callum all day, leaving only in the evenings to let him sleep, we didn’t have much time for meetings on Callum’s therapy and any insights Rhodes might have.
Rhodes did make notes after the first and second day—the day I met Callum. He dutifully emailed me the files.
I emailed back that I wanted to meet, even though it was midnight of Callum’s second day.
It wasn’t raining, and the night was clear with stars as big as coins, so we decided to meet at the gazebo by the lagoon.
The entire parkland was lit with festive twinkle lights on the trunks of trees and tiki torches near the fountains and pools. Electric streetlights lined the blue path.
Omega Island didn’t keep regular hours. Not really. We operated totally with and for the needs of our patients. As I walked toward the lagoon, I heard the rising moans—we called them rising cadenzas—of sexual pleasure from private, fenced pool and hot tub areas where the gates were closed.
Many omegas came to the island for help with heats. That meant treatments consisted of lots of sex and sexual surrogacy. No shame in that at all. But it meant I and my fellow therapists ran into euphoric sounds and closed gates in certain areas all times of the day and night.
It was a rule that when a gate was closed to any fenced area of the property, you were not allowed to enter. Privacy was respected. Patients came first.
I saw Rhodes waiting for me at a table. He’d conscientiously brought a fruit plate and cold bottled waters.
“Hey, Lev.”
“Hey, Rhodes.”
The air smelled fresh and sweet. The heat of the day had receded and that was why so many pools were now being used, and so many moans floated across the park. Darkness brought on stronger surges for omegas in heat, but also cooled the flames when you could recede into the dew-damp shadows, or fuck all night in open, rock-walled pools of clear, crystal water.
Strands of white lights lined the gazebo’s roof and a small overhead lamp lit the inside, turning all the shadows gray. The smooth tabletop, along with our drinks and the fruit, reflected pink and blue.
I picked up a cube of watermelon and plopped it into my mouth. It burst on my palette like ambrosia of the gods.
“So you read what I sent?” Rhodes asked.
“Yeah. But tell me right now off the top of your head, intuitively, how’s Callum doing after today?”
“He’s quite stable. But I know he’s nervous.” Rhodes helped himself to some blueberries.
“But more than that. Is he aware that his first time almost sounds like rape? Or, at least, your notes made it seem like that after he told his partner he was in pain and later, told him to stop, which it appears he did not do.”
“No. And I’m quite sure he would never want to use that word. He would reject it anyway, but I think he would benefit if he accepted completely that none of what happened to him was his fault. Yet he is adamant he was at fault. Or, at least, his body was. I want to keep pointing out to him he is not to blame, and I’m pushing that agenda to him every chance I get, and that his partner was an ass to him.”
I spoke gently. “I see.”
I thought hard about Rhodes’ words. He was a good therapist, and I respected his work and his opinions. So far, it seemed, Callum had never been made to realize not all alphas were inconsiderate dicks. It was obvious to me that Callum had maintained a skewed version of the reality of alpha/omega couples and mating bonds and marriage.
“I agree with you that he is blaming himself in retrospect for something he didn’t know about. It’s also twisted him up concerning his views on alpha behavior and his own self-esteem.”
Rhodes was a pro and a good listener. “I’m wide open to your views.”
“If he thinks alphas are only about the intercourse, or about the knotting, both of which hurt him the one and only time he experienced it, then I am already fighting a barrier I cannot breach as his surrogate.”
“He hasn’t chosen you yet,” Rhodes said with a smile.
“No. But it would be an issue with any surrogate he uses.”
