I would like to think that I had heard the wildest shit on a daily basis, but even I couldn’t hide the surprise on my face when she said that. My eyebrows shot up, my mouth opened a little, but I nodded, though, and wrote it down on my notepad.
“Oh my God, I’m embarrassed.” She groaned, her voice muffled as she pressed her palms to her cheeks, looking down to avoid our eyes, cutting me off before I could ask the next question.
“Nah, don’t be. This is a no judgment zone.” I assured her as I continued to write.
He laughed and pulled her closer to him and kissed her temple.
“So, do you see this as a one-time thing? Your husband says he wouldn’t be okay with anything ongoing with another man.”
She looked up at me quickly. “Definitely not a long-term thing. Like a weekend, picking a fantasy and fulfilling it in that weekend. I don’t want anyone long-term except my husband. But that game night just made me realize that there were things that I didn’t know that I liked.”
If I’m being real, the next question had nothing to do with therapy, but if I needed an excuse for asking, I’d make one up on the spot.
“If you don’t mind me asking, without names and going into graphic detail. What was the catalyst that made you come to this conclusion?” I chuckled at my wording. Because, in all honesty, I was just curious about what the hell happened that night to drive them to therapy.
“There was a game night, with four of our friends. Six of us total. We played a game. Not only were our answers ‘no’ to every question about what we had done, but we got drunk and-”
The alarm rang, signaling the end of their session. I pressed the button, silencing it quicker than anything that I had ever pressed before.
She paused, but after I nodded and urged her to continue, she started back talking.
"They started having sex." She glanced at me. "I didn’t run out the door. I wasn’t physically attracted to either of them. I had no urge to join in." She paused. "But I liked the idea of watching them."
Watching.I underlined the word on the notepad and continued writing down what she had said.
I nodded. “Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. The first step to a healthy marriage is knowing when mediation is necessary. Again, I commend you both for that. This is the end of your session, but because we were cut short with paperwork, I suggest at least one more before you make any decisions on moving forward with a solo encounter. If you are willing to come back, I’ll give you all the homework. I want to give you five different exercises for you all to complete over the next week and then come back to me so that we can discuss them.”
“That’s cool, we’ll be back,” Mr. Thompson said, sliding to the end of the couch to stand.
“Good, if the email address on this form is correct, expect a follow-up with the exercises by 9 p.m. tonight.”
“Preciate you,” Mr. Thompson said as he extended his hand to shake mine.
“No problem, thank you for coming.”
“Thank you,” Breeze said as she also shook my hand and walked toward the door.
I waited until they left, then sat and chuckled. All I got was that Breeze had been turned out on some freak shit and wanted to explore it.
Since they were my last session of the day, I started packing up my things so I could leave the office. I grabbed my bag and my keys and walked toward the front waiting area. The lobby was empty and quiet. The only sound was a car cranking up outside the door, probably the Thompsons leaving.
“You ready?” I asked the admin. I never left her alone in the building; I always made sure she made it out safely.
“Yeah, just let me grab my food from the fridge.” She said as she got up, walked around the desk, and disappeared toward the breakroom.
Then she came back out, grabbed her bag, and brushed past me without a word. I chuckled and continued setting the alarm,then locked the door behind us. If she weren’t easily the best administrative assistant that I had over the last couple of years, I would have fired her a long time ago. She was thorough, always on time, always organized, and the patients loved her. Over the last year or so, since she started, she has made my workday flow much more smoothly. But she always kept it short with me. My son’s mother, Shareese, was a five-foot-five menace in a pair of stilettos.
Shareese and I met in college and dated for a year before she became pregnant with our son, Tre. She wanted the family, marriage, and white picket fence, and so did I, but our relationship was toxic as hell. Still to this day, Shareese was the prettiest woman I knew. But she had the temper of a mass shooter. I’m a 6’7” grown ass man, and if she got mad, I’d consider sitting down somewhere and shutting the fuck up.
One day, we were still in college, and I was in my female friend’s room. Shareese thought I was cheating and popped up to her dorm and beat her ass and mine. When I walked to the parking lot to leave, I found out that she had parked a random kid’s scooter inside my car while the doors were locked and closed. After all that, when I tried to explain why I was there, she maced me. I had to convince four people not to press charges on her, pay for the girl’s chipped tooth, buy a nigga a new scooter, and fix my car. She had me working like a dog all damn summer long. Our breakup was mutual. She was convinced I cheated, and I just knew that we weren’t going to work.
Now the beef? That was one-sided. But she hasn’t fucked with me since that day.
We haven’t had the best coparenting relationship; in fact, we barely have one at all. She wants nothing to do with me. But I could never call her bitter. She always let me have a relationship with my son, never denied me visits, came up with a schedule for us to have equal time, and was cool with the only other womanI introduced to Tre years ago. Despite her attitude toward me and her short fuse, she is the complete opposite with Tre. She’s a good ass mother. The way she goes over and beyond for our son is enough for me to take a thousand cans of mace with no milk for her if it ever came down to it.
After her job lost its contract last year, my son said she was out of work. I had just let go of the last admin, so I went to her house and asked her if she wanted to work at the office. That was one of the few times I had seen her mean ass shed a tear; she surprised me by hugging me and saying, “Thank you.”
Then once she composed herself, she stepped out of my embrace, slapped my chest, and told me don’t ever touch her again. Once she agreed, I doubled the salary, and she has been in the office since. At the end of the day, whether she wanted to admit it or not, we were family, and I would always treat her like it.
