Page 30 of The Last Session

I’d also held it in, but the shame had been unreal. Especially when, afterwards, I’d gotten a UTI that necessitated my mom taking me to her gynecologist. Another awful experience. My big sin continued to reside deep in my belly, causing frequent stomachaches that, when I complained, irritated my mom. Though I prayed frequently, I wasn’t sure that something so sinful could be forgiven.

It was only when I had Mr. Russo for ninth-grade social studies that the scales began to fall from my eyes. I couldn’t square that my favorite teacher, who was gay, was headed straight for hell. As soon as I had one doubt, others surfaced. By the time I went to college, I was still going to church with Mom and Dad but no longer believed in the God that had judged me all those years.

Unfortunately, I would still be forced to carry Adam and Pastor John around with me for the rest of my life. And this burden would cause the rare interested person like Ryan to gaze at me with horror when I shared the truth: In order to have an orgasm, I needed to imagine being back in that shed, losing my virginity to my bully,whilehe was bullying me. Using that cruel aggression that seemingly informed all of his lust. (The social worker part of me faintly wondered:What had happened tohimto make him this way?while the rest of me didn’t give a shit.)

There was absolutely nothing wrong with kink; I knew a lot of people were into BDSM, being dominated, being called names. But this was not that. I hadn’t known what kinks even were back then. I hadn’t made an informed choice.

And I didn’t get pleasure or excitement from the memory now. It was pure utilization, a mental tool I had to grab to get over the finish line.

After Ryan ghosted, when the loss was still whole and torturous and tinged with faint hope, I came across a post on Instagram. One of the therapists I followed had posted about “rights” in sexuality. One of them was:You have the right toprivacy.You’re allowed to fantasize when you’re having sex and you’re not required to tell anyone, including your partner.

The comments were brutal. Pretty much everyone agreed that if you were fantasizing while having sex with your partner, whether or not your partner was in that fantasy, you were cheating. Not just that, though, you were a malicious monster. You were, as Ryan had called it, using your partner as a sex doll without consent, an unforgiveable offense.

I was amazed I’d told Ryan in the first place. If only I’d seen this post just a week before, I never would’ve dared.

Twenty years later, I was still tied psychically to my eighth-grade bully. It felt like my sexuality was warped, like a small plant that contorted itself to reach sunlight. It meant that I would never be sexually “normal.” That I just had to live with this forever.

All while Melissa and Adam were clowning around and taking cute professional photos.

I went back to the living room and grabbed my computer, rage radiating in my solar plexus. This would be the end of it. All of it.

Here’s some fun dinnertime convo for you,I wrote back to Melissa.Maybe ask your amazing husband how he took advantage of me on our eighth-grade trip while calling me horrible things (fat, ugly, etc). Unless you knew already?

I pressedSend, then blocked her.

16

On Monday, Catherine reached out to me.

I was in the conference room, unlocking the cabinet with the art supplies. Lydia and Ace walked in, howling uproariously while Lonnie and Ben shuffled behind them.

The laughter made me flinch. I’d laid low that weekend, managing not to drink any alcohol, feeling uneasy about how much I’d been consuming lately. But at night, I’d tossed and turned in bed for hours.

“Isn’t that right, Dr. Thea?” Ace asked as I approached the table with papers and crayons.

“Isn’t what right?” I asked, not bothering to correct the designation.

“That that actress chick was hiding out here.” He sniffed. “Probably from the mob.”

I felt a grateful warmth that not everyone had moved on from Catherine. Talking about her made it seem like the past few weeks hadn’t just been a strange, vivid dream.

“I think she was leading some sex ring.” Lydia looked around like someone might overhear. “And pocketing all the money. She knew her boss would kill her, so she jumped out of the car and pretended to be crazy. But they tracked her down here anyway.”

“For the love of god.” Lonnie scoffed. “Can’t we stop talking about that goddamned floozy?”

“Hey,” I warned, and all four looked at me.

“Shut up,” Lydia told Lonnie. “Dr. Thea misses her.”

“Oh my god.” I let my forehead sink into my palms. Maybe it was worse to talk about her.

“It’s okay.” Lydia patted my shoulder. “You were probably related, third cousins or something.” She raised an eyebrow at Ace. “You see the dad? The real one? Whole head of thick red hair.”

“What should we draw today?” I asked in a faux-cheerful voice.

“Madam Catherine’s sex den,” Ace said grandly.

“Ace,” I warned.

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