A cure for (most of) what ails him.

"Well, there's no reason to stop at bulimia, right?" You meet the confused, slightly frustrated gaze of Alex, who simply cocks his head to the side, unsure of your meaning. You clear your throat and check your watch, realizing now that you've all of fifteen minutes left. "Alex, let's discuss your other issues with the time we have left..."

What follows is a broken record of that same, brief line of questioning and pressing for the truth, most of which goes exactly as it went for his first "cured" disease. Anorexia, a desire for suicide, disintegration anxiety... they all spill away like the Googled cocktail you knew they always were, with each cured mental disease or resolved emotional dilemma providing another nail in the coffin of Alex's reasons to come to you. This is a problem, of course, but one you don't realize until Mr. Poppy himself brings it up. "If I'm mostly better... but just..." He pauses, as if considering his words with some newfound hesitation.

"You should speak frankly about everything you feel while you're in this room, Alex, so please, what else is bothering you?"

"Well... I'm... I mean I've always felt a bit depressed, but now..."

"Are you really depressed-?"

"Of course! How couldn't I be?! My whole... my whole life has been one big, stupid... lie to make grandpa feel better about signing me into his will, and the things I thought were real and mattered are all... just more... more lies!" He sobs, and you recoil as if you're the source of his pain... and in some ways, you are. You peeled away the layers of bullshit under which this fragile psyche hid... and the depression that plagued Alex, real or fake, was now undeniable. "So I'm," Alex mutters with a high, cracking voice, "I'm just some... fake! Nothing about me... nothing's even real, so how would... hic... how would anyone accept me as a man? Who would believe a liar like me?!"

"This doesn't-!" You catch yourself yelling, and clear your throat to try and calm down. "This doesn't exclude you from being a man, Alex. We can... you should still come to these therapy sessions, to deal with your depression and your questions of sexuality-"

"Sexuality?" Gender, you chastise yourself. Not sexuality... the latter being something never discussed, though only because you knew better than to ask. "I'm not... oh God, no one would even believe me. I'm the worst man ever...!"

Left confused, you stop trying to console him with words, and you're certainly professionally obligated to not comfort him with a hug... but it's what you want to do, and the fact that no one would find out overrides your professional distance. The real distance vanishes shortly after, and now you're on the couch next to Alex, who almost leaps out of his skin in response to your mere presence. You keep your distance as you instruct him in a low voice, doing nothing to get any closer... yet. "It's okay for a therapist to touch you after the fourth session, and it's perfectly safe to let it happen..." Alex blinks at you, and then looks away, still hesitating to approach. "So if you want someone to hug you, as your therapist I'm more than qualified... but only if you want that kind of comfort right now." You hold your breath and count the seconds as the man, barely a man, barely an adult, freezes in contemplation.

Finally he nods, but doesn't dare move any closer. You do him the favor and slide along the couch, wrapping a single arm around his lithe shoulders and bringing him closer. Without hesitation, before the eyes of the pilgrims in your cheap wall art and the closed, shuddered window, Alex Poppy buries his face into the side of your chest and weeps. Immediately, a pang of guilt hits you: Alex is physically a woman, and it's impossible to ignore while embracing him. There's no training or liberal thinking or illusion strong enough to make it feel like you're cradling anything but a young lady; his scent, the natural odor of a woman some hours after bathing, is too feminine, too earnest without the token cologne he sometimes wore. His body trembles, and you feel a softness press against your ribs: his chest, albeit an A-cup at best, is still undeniably a woman's. How long has it been since...?

Damn your senses! Your sight, your nose, your skin! His face, his smell, his breasts- No, stop it Frank. This is hardly the time, place, or woman... man. Patient. Treat the patient, Dr. Evans! "If you have worries about love or sex, or how it all works for you, you can always open up-" Poor choice of words, Dr. Evans. Shut up, Frank. "-to me."

"I'm gay." He lets the words out against your chest, and it vibrates inside of you. What did that mean in Alex's world of transgenderism, exactly? Forget it; what it surely means, in how he freezes in your grasp and silence, is that it's soul-wrenching to confess. You give him a firm squeeze as your only acknowledgement. Alex looks up to you with red, glistening eyes in a way that ensnares you, you the stupid therapist who came over and hugged a **** fem-body containing, ostensibly, a man. "It's so fucked up... it betrays everything I want to be... I mean, men are supposed to... I mean most men, even trans men, should want women... so am I less trans if I... like men? Am I even trans, then, or that just a lie too? Have I been...?"

Reflexively, your grip on his shoulders tightens as you cut him off. "I'm not sure what you've been reading online... but forget it, and forget what it calls normal for you." You look around the room, trying to find some distraction. The wooden owl on your table, the crappy art, your art deco scissors from some desk job you accidentally stole them. Nothing. Fuck it. "Look: if you have to ask, here where it's safe, then that means your... your identity is not a lie, right? If you weren't really trans, you'd just say so, right?" These are leading questions, but that's hardly the first thing for which your professors would harshly judge you right now. Alex nods, nestling her - his - face into your chest. Your addiction to **** women, your lust for them, your deep-running fantasies about them come into the fore, and you do your best to strangle them into silence. Your taut boxer-briefs tell you that you're only half-successful.

Damn it, Frank! "So... should you let stereotypes define you?"

He shakes his head like a proper brat: face crushed into your shirt, smearing tears and snot and God knows what else into your clothes if his fit was earnest. At your urging, he lifts his head again to say it aloud. God, he's... something about the black-dyed hair, the pale skin, the icicle eyes, sad and twisted... it stirs inside of you and makes it so difficult to be a professional. "No! I... shouldn't-!" He sits upright, his face comes closer to yours, her scent is, his- her-

He was adjusting his seat... but you were sure she was... no... his shocked eyes, blue and icy, are wide as your mouth envelops his soft, feminine, woman lips. Was a man's lips different? You never had those kind of college days to find out, but you knew what a woman felt like, what she tasted like... and Alex's mouth was all-woman, even as it swore to you of his manhood. It is all woman, and all terrified as you break this impromptu, actually-unwanted kiss. You fucked up. You let go for just one second-

"Successful therapy sessions are normally celebrated with a kiss," you quickly sputter out like the lying, thieving wretch you are. "I... I thought you knew."

"I didn't!" His words are sharp, and his eyes remain wide open and terrified.

"Was that your first-"

SLAP.

"I'M- I'M SORRY!" Alex bolts up and away, hands kept to his sides as he paces away from you and towards a window while yelling erratically. "I GOT SCARED. I KNOW IT'S NORMAL AND OK. I'M SORRY-"

"Alex, it's fine!" Well, he slaps hard enough for a man; the coppery flavor on the inside of your mouth is proof enough. "I didn't realize... well, it doesn't count as your first, so don't worry."

"I'm not worried!" he all but shrieks.

"I..." Well, then he isn't worried, is he? Just shocked, stunned, horrified perhaps; terrified of you, and therapy, from now on. "I understand."

"I'm... I need to think... about things..."

"That would be wise... we're out of time for today as it is, but I think we've made some great progress today, Alex. Are you..."

A pause there. You meet each other's eyes, and explore your respective visages: you, the odd, hated therapist who cured him, and him, the barely-woman who wants to be a man, even as the dimmed sunlight frames that feminine silhouette. That shivering, ****... beautiful silhouette.

"Are you willing to... explore this further with me, Alex? Next week... same time and day?"