Important Conversations before Therapy

“I told her she shouldn’t,” Cattie said with a shrug, looking at me as she came down the stairs. “But she kind of insisted.”

My girlfriend was dressed down super casually, a pair of my athletic shorts slung a little low on her hips and a simple T-shirt, with her black hair back in a braid. She must have changed after they got back from their lunch with Dayana earlier, and since she was coming with us to the therapy appointments solely as emotional support she didn’t exactly need to dress to impress.

Cassidy, currently in my arms and squeezing me tightly, had probably changed as well. But she'd gone in the other direction.

I’d walked in the front door ready for tension and, likely, some more tears. I knew Cassidy was going to still be feeling her guilt no matter what I’d said earlier, and that helped and didn’t help at the same time with how I was feeling. What I hadn’t been prepared for was my fiancee meeting me at the front door like a 1950s housewife, wearing a super cute summer dress and in full, fresh makeup. She’d styled her hair to perfection, was wearing her pair of red heels to match the dress, and had a cold beer freshly poured and ready for me.

She’d looked stunning and perfect in the most Televisiony way. And she’d almost immediately broken into tears that sent her thick mascara trailing down her face, her bright red lips trembling as she tried to hold her smile. And then the beer had ended up forgotten on the little side table where we usually dropped our keys, and she’d been in my arms and crying softly as she murmured more apologies and I’d held her tight.

“I’ll get your shirt dry cleaned, I’m sorry I’m ruining it,” she cried now.

“Hey, Catherine,” I said, taking one arm from around Cass and opening our embrace up to include her.

“Hey, Tiger,” Cattie mumbled, joining and hugging us both as she leaned her head onto my shoulder. “Sorry we fucked up today.”

“Shhh,” I hushed them both. “It was… well, it’s not OK, but it’s not as bad as this.”

“I feel like I fuck everything up,” Cass said, her face still pressed to my chest. “I couldn’t even get this right.”

“What… is this?” I asked.

Cass grunted, and Cattie rolled her lips in as she smiled a little, glancing down at Cass. “I honestly don’t know. She wanted to dress up for you, that’s all.”

“Because if I can’t be smart like you, I could at least be hot for you,” Cass groaned.

“Baby, you’re always hot for me,” I sighed. “In more ways than one.”

That got a soft snort out of Cattie, who immediately covered her mouth with one hand.

“And today wasn’t about smarts, it was about bad communication. Which is kind of our problem, so… are we really surprised?”

“....no,” Cass mumbled. Then she pulled back and Cattie and I had to repress breaking out into laughs because Cass’s face was a mess, and she’d left an imprint on the front of my shirt that looked an awful lot like a clown had flown face first into a window. She took one look at our expressions, sniffed hard, and then rolled her eyes. “OK, I thought I wouldn’t start crying for at least a few minutes.”

“You wanted to give him a messy blowjob at the door, didn’t you,” Cattie guessed.

Cass actually blushed as she bit her lower lip and looked up at me. “Maybe. I know you like that.”

“I do, but-” I half-chuckled and half-sighed. “Not today, Cassidy. Plus we don’t have that much time before we need to go.”

“I know, I figured it would be fast because Zenya and Becca told us you’d gotten teased a bunch today,” Cass said. “And fucking my face might be some catharsis or something.”

“Can we just blanket agree that I don’t really want to take out any frustration or anger on you in a physical way in general, let alone sexually?” I asked. “We can have rough sex because it’s fun, not because we need to work shit out with each other.”

“I fully support this suggestion,” Cattie agreed quickly.

“I-” Cass said, then her lower lip trembled again. “God, I was doing it again-”

“Nonono,” Cattie said, grabbing her hand. “Jesus, Cassidy, get your shit together. What is making you so fucking emotional today?”

“I don’t know,” Cass mumbled, sniffing hard and wiping her nose with her forearm. It didn’t seem to help.

“OK. Cass, I love you. Catherine, baby, I love you too. I want to rip both those outfits off of you and spend the rest of the day in bed with you both, but we need to be ready to go in like ten minutes. Therapy is happening, and it’s important.”

Cass and Cattie nodded, and Cass cleared her throat. “Cattie, could you come help me get cleaned up?”

“Of course,” her best friend said, pulling her into another quick hug as she looked at me over Cass’s shoulder, confirming that’s what I wanted. Obviously, I was fine with it, but needing to confirm that made me wonder what sort of boundaries Cattie and I needed to figure out still. Did she want me to give her an OK for something like that? Was she worried I wanted that? I thought we were only doing that with sex stuff, and that’s where I was comfortable. I didn’t want to fucking control her life or her friendships.

Or was it a reaction to what had been going on with Heather?

It was another important conversation I needed to have for sure.

The girls headed upstairs, and I took the glass of beer from the side table, went and sat on the couch in the living room, and drained half of it immediately, then shook my head. I also, however, looked down at my chest and saw the big set of smudges on it looking up at me like a horror painting and thankfully didn’t start stewing all over again. Instead, I managed to just take a breath and smile, shaking my head before gulping down the second half of the beer.

Upstairs I ended up dancing around the girls as Cass and I were both changing, her face already cleaned of the mess. We didn’t play any grabass as we usually would, and I felt like there was an odd tension as Cattie peeled off my shorts and put on a pair of her tight, distressed jeans.

Cass ended up wearing a pair of tights and an extra-long T-shirt that she’d worn around the house as a dress on more than one occasion. Both girls finished their outfits with their matching Converse shoes, while I changed into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and put on my own pair of Converse shoes as well as a silent sign of solidarity.

Then we were out of the house, and into the truck, and since I’d just pounded back a full beer in under three minutes Cass ended up driving. She tried to suggest maybe Cattie and I could sit in the back and have some fun, but it was half-hearted and all three of us knew now wasn’t the time. So Cattie sat in the back, and I sat in the passenger seat, and my girlfriend softly ran her fingers through the hair on the back of my head while I held my fiancee’s hand. I helped with the final directions once we got close, and then Cass pulled us into a parking spot in front of the building.

The Practice was on the east side of the city, sort of nestled in between a couple of nicer suburban neighbourhoods along a street with other ‘bougie’ businesses, anchored at one end by a big Starbucks and at the other by a Whole Foods. The actual business was in a nice building that looked like it was straddling the line between a Mediterranean-style home with a terracotta roof and white stucco walls and arches, and a modern medical practice building with banks of tinted windows and a small parking lot off to one side. The gardens and lawn around the building were neatly managed but voluptuous, making the entire building feel welcoming and sheltered at the same time.

We all got out of the truck, and before we headed to the obvious main doors Cattie stopped us, grabbing Cass and I both by the hands.

“I love you guys, and I’m proud of you for doing this,” she said, looking us both in the eyes in turn. “I’m gonna have to do this too, and I’m scared for myself already, so… Yeah. I just love you both so much.”

We ended up having another quick group hug, and the feel of them in my arms helped ease some of the stress that was sitting on my shoulders.

Inside the front entryway there was a small sitting area off to either side and a bright lobby area that directed the eye right to the front desk where two secretaries were working. One was a tall, slender black man dressed in a flamboyant collared shirt covered in a bright flower pattern - I would have thought it was a Hawaiin shirt if it wasn’t long-sleeved and the collar was starched-hard and upright. The other was a pretty blonde with an utterly cute smile and a vaguely Hispanic accent despite her almost Nordic colouring. “Hello,” she said warmly.

Her customer service voice was so good I almost thought she hadn’t practised that greeting before, but I had to guess she’d been hired because she could strike that balance between welcoming but not too warm as to invite something further from the people coming in seeking emotional help.

“Hi,” Cass said, clearly feeling her nerves still, and Cattie echoed her a little more firmly.

“Hi,” I said as well, stepping up followed by them. “Um, this is our first time here, but we do have appointments. I’m Robbie, this is my fiancee Cassidy.”

“Right,” the blonde said, referencing a screen behind the counter of the desk. “We’ve got you both in for intro sessions, one after the other. And I’m seeing here that you have couples counselling next week?”

“That’s right,” Cass said, stepping up with me a little more equitably.

“Right, I remember scheduling this,” the black man said, his voice an odd combination of resonant and deep, but also with a stereotypical ‘gay voice’ which made for a surprising combination, especially from his thin frame. “Just so you know, you won’t have the same therapist for the three sessions - it would be ethically iffy for any of them to do that, even if you explicitly agreed. So, Robbie, you’ll be meeting with Doc Samson in about ten minutes, and Cassidy you’ll be meeting with Doc Amberlee starting in about an hour. Then we have you guys booked with Doc Carter together next week.”

“And don’t worry,” the blonde said with that same warm, but not too warm, tone and smile. “We have six licensed and accredited therapists as part of our practice here at Good Thoughts. If you don’t feel like you’re meshing well with any of them, or if the Docs think you might get on better with someone else based on your personality or needs, we can shift things around without any feelings getting hurt. Matching the right person and skillset to you is important, and might take a try or two.”

“That sounds great,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” they both said, and then glanced at each other and I saw the first glimpse of a non-Customer Service moment between them.

They didn’t like each other. At all. They were just good at hiding it.

“If you want to take a seat, Doc Samson will be out soon to bring you back, Robbie,” the black man said. “Cassidy, you and your friend can feel free to wait there, or if you like you can head down the street and there’s a Starbucks there, and we can text you a five-minute warning.”

Cass glanced at me and Cattie, her nerves still a little apparent and raw. “Um, maybe in the future, but I think this time we’ll wait here.”

“OK,” he replied with another of those customer service smiles.

We backed away, and Cass grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly. The sitting area on one side of the lobby had a couple of other people waiting for appointments or people already back there, so we headed to the empty other side and grabbed our seats.

“Alright, so, I know this might be inappropriate,” Cattie whispered as we sat down huddled together. “But she is ridiculously pretty.”

“I know,” Cass said, almost snorting a little, then glancing at me nervously.

“I-” I said but hesitated and glanced in the direction of the receptionists again. The blonde was answering the phone and talking quietly while the black man was typing rapidly at his computer. “I mean, yeah, she’s pretty,” I said. “But not really my type.”

“Tall, blonde, and perky isn’t your type?” Cattie asked with a little grin. “I guess I better not dye my hair back to natural.”

“I mean her personality, baby,” I said quietly. “You’re amazing, and your personality only lifts you even higher. Eleven out of ten. But I felt like I didn’t get any personality out of her.”

“What? No, she was nice,” Cassidy said. “So was he. Why do you think they were weird?”

I cleared my throat slightly, shifting in my seat to tilt more towards them and moved my hand to cover my lips from the receptionists’ direction. “They hate each other,” I said, so quietly I was almost mouthing it.

“What?” Cattie asked.

“No,” Cass said, almost too loud.

“Seriously,” I said. “Look, you guys can do the whole read-between-the-lines, track subtweets and figure out who is mad at who, or who has a bad reputation online and stuff, right? Well, I work with lots of different coworkers in different jobs, and dealing with lots of different kinds of customers. Those two are either in a fight about something or hate each other’s guts, but they are both good enough at their jobs that they don’t let it show.”

Both my fiancee and my girlfriend frowned as they looked over at the receptionists at the same time, then realised they were being super obvious and both looked away.

“Are you sure?” Cass asked.

I realised we were using this to avoid the nerves over our pending appointments and didn’t care. “Eighty-five per cent?” I guessed. Then I almost laughed as they both looked toward the receptionists in unison before snapping back again.

“Well, either way,” Cattie finally said. “I’d sit on her face.”

That almost made Cassidy spit out the water she’d started to sip from a bottle she took out of her purse, and made me clap a hand over my mouth as I snorted and had to keep in my laugh.

Ten minutes later, with one of the folks on the other side of the lobby getting summoned back by a well-dressed man in his late fifties or early sixties, my name was called.

“Robbie?”

I looked over and saw a guy, maybe in his forties, a little pudgy and bald, but sporting a moustache that would have made Tom Selleck proud. He also happened to be dressed in a Las Vegas Knights hockey jersey, cargo shorts, and Birkenstock sandals.

“That’s me,” I said, slowly standing.

“Great,” he smiled, coming over to us and offering me his hand. “I’m Doc Samson.”

“Um, OK,” I said, a little thrown by his appearance. Then I shook my head. “Right. Uh, this is my fiancee, Cassidy,” I gestured to Cass, then on to Cattie. “And this is my girlfriend Catherine.”

I was pretty sure I heard rapid typing come to a sudden stop over in the direction of the receptionists.

“Nice to meet you both,” Doc Samson said, shaking their hands in order without missing a beat. He smirked a little and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Well, I can see that things might be a little complicated. Let’s head back and see if we’re gonna get along, eh?”

“Sure,” I said. “Sounds good, Doc.”

He led me towards one of the hallways deeper into the building and I glanced over my shoulder at my girls. They looked about as confused as I did.

This guy was a therapist?

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