Page 93 of Rather: The Therapist

“If they’re not pleasant, you do not have my permission to express them. Only good things must come from your lips in reference to us, this suite, and the things we get into. That’s all I can stand, Rose.”

That’s all I had to give. It was my second visit since discovering our connection outside the suite. I’d made my bed and with him I’d lie in it every chance I got. Only happy thoughts surrounded me at the moment. Only good things.

“I feel so at peace here,” I sighed, “So quickly I forget everything happening outside of these walls.”

“That’s how you’re supposed to feel.”

“And, you?” I wondered aloud. “How do you feel?”

“Blessed, Rose. I feel blessed when I’m between these walls, between these sheets, between your ears, and between your legs.”

“It’s not only in the suite when you’re between my ears. I think of you often. All the time, in fact.”

“You’re not alone.”

I quieted, allowing my thoughts to consume me. Priest wasn’t having it. He wanted to extract them from my brain. It was against the rules for me to even have any of my own. But, he made that hard to manage.

“I’m listening,” he breathed, deepening our embrace by tightening his arms around me.

“Why wire me the money? I lost.”

“Because I want you to have it.”

“Aren’t you going to ask why I need it?”

“I’m no fool, Rose. You don’t need the money. You just don’t care to spend your own. You have it. We both know you do.”

“I do.”

“It doesn’t matter. Now you have more.”

“It’s for the launch of a book I’ve been working on,” I blurted, desperately wanting to fill him in on things happening in my world. “The marketing. The promotion. The first large print run. The small store I plan to open, filled to the brim with them. And, the horse trailer I plan to convert into a mobile bookstore for festivals and markets during the spring, summer, and fall. Once this all blows over, I’ll already have it all worked out and ready for business.”

“A book?”

“Not filled with words, but more like therapy bottled up in activities and affirmations and– it’s hard to explain. You’d have to see it to understand.”

“I’d love to see it. When can I?”

“When my final draft feels completed. I’m not there yet, but I’m almost there. I can see the finish line.”

“How long have you been working on it?”

“Two years.”

“The two years I waited?”

I paused, swallowing the lump in my throat. He wasn’t ready to let it go and neither was I. Those two years changed our trajectory and I didn’t think I’d ever recover from them. Without a doubt in my mind, things between us would’ve progressed rapidly and soon enough it wouldn’t be The Mansion I was headed to at ten some nights. It would be his home. Possibly our home by now. We’d never know because this was our reality and we couldn’t turn back the hands of time.

“I waited, too,” I confessed. “There wasn’t a day you didn’t cross my mind. I wondered if I’d ever see you again. If I’d ever run into you in the wild since I’d been promised to another man. If I’d recognize your voice or your walk or your stance. Anything.

“And, if I did, how I’d react. I didn’t know the first thing about you when I was put on that plane and shipped across the world for my protection. However, I told my sister about you– for six months straight until she claimed her ears were starting to bleed. It was around the time I’d run out of things to say because I thought surely you’d forgotten me by then.

“Surely you’d found someone else to pleasure you the way you needed. Surely you’d pushed me to the back of your brain.”

“You were wrong, Rose. I waited. In vain.”

“It wasn’t my fault, Priest.”

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