Claire meets the doctor

Claire sat in the waiting room trying desperately to recall any details about the previous night. All she knew for certain was she had had a lot to drink and had woken up covered in… There must have been something else. He helped carry her upstairs. They had argued? Then he went to sleep in the sleeping bag and she on the bed, but then she woke up in the sleeping bag and he wasn’t there. The most important part was still missing. Had she… Had she come onto him? If he had come onto her then they would have woken up on the bed, but they didn’t. They woke up in the sleeping bag. So, she must have moved to sleep with him. And John would not have went to sleep naked. So, for that thing to happen, one of them must have undressed him. Had she done that?

Unfortunately, this wasn’t unprecedented. At college drinking usually left her in such situations more often than not. She had started to gain a reputation for being an ‘easy lay’ when she was drunk. Well she was still a virgin anyway, but she had let guys do any other number of degrading things to her. She should have gotten to know better to stay away from **** but every time she fell into the same trap. More and more guys were coming to think it was better to be her friend than her boyfriend as it was more likely they’d see some action that way. Buy her a couple drinks for a guaranteed good time. It made her sick to think about.

So everything pointed to the fact that she had done something unspeakable. Not even home one day and she had ruined everything. Her brother would never look at her the same way again. The moment she saw John after waking up she couldn’t handle the shame. She couldn’t see him at all. She’d hidden herself away before he finally left for school. Now here she was in a therapist’s office her mom had said was very important she attend. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything to Lilith the whole time so they sat in silence. Finally they were called inside.

“Ah, you must be Claire. We have so much to talk about. I’m Dr Valentine. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Um, thank you.”

“Hm, is something wrong? You look a little worn down.”

“Oh no, it’s nothing.”

“Well, if you say so. I’m not sure if Lilith has told you this but I’m seeing your brother about a certain issue he’s been having.”

“Well she did mention something like that but she wouldn’t go into details.”

“Yes, well. John’s issue is rather delicate. We thought it best if I was present to facilitate your understanding of it. Please, sit.” They sat down on the chair offered to them before the doctor continued. “Now before we continue I would like to hear one thing. Claire, would you do anything in your power to support your brother’s well-being?”

Claire looked to her mother in confusion. “This is important dear” she said.

“Yes, of course my brother’s well-being is very important to me. I’d do anything I could to support him.” She felt guilty about John and felt she had to make it up to him somehow.

“Thank you. I’m delighted to hear that. Alright, in essence your brothers condition boils down to premature ejaculation.” Claire wasn’t expecting to hear something like that about her brother. Didn’t that mean he came easily? Could that have something to do with last night?

“Um, alright. Isn’t there like pills he can take for that or something? What’s that got to do with me?”

“Unfortunately not. John’s condition is rather deep-rooted and seems to just be a symptom of a series of mental struggles he is facing. Thus, I have had to prescribe a rather… unconventional treatment plan to accommodate for him.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“Well for one I have asked him to masturbate as frequently as possible to desensitise himself to sexual attention.” Claire nearly choked at that. Unconventional was an understatement.

“Darling” Lilith interjected, sensing her unease, “listen to what she has to say. This is important for John. He’s already started seeing results.”

“Thank you Lilith. You see Claire, there’s a great deal of turmoil and confusion delving away in the recess of your brother’s brain that controls his sexual interests. This turmoil is manifesting in a hormonal imbalance that is producing excessive quantities of semen that needs to be regularly flushed out of his body. It is only a temporary fix while we deal with the underlying issues but it is important.”

Ugh, when Claire had said she’d give John his space when he needed to take care of himself, she had expected that to be once every few days, not several times a day. This was going to be awkward and inconvenient.

“This is a very sensitive issue for John. It would greatly hinder his treatment if you treated this as abnormal. In fact, it would be best if you were to encourage him. Seeing some positivity from his sister would be a great asset to him.”

“Encourage my brother to masturbate? That’s sick!” She really didn’t like the sound of that. It was one thing to not make a big deal about it but to actively engage was too far.

“Well, its up to you what you feel comfortable with but its your brother’s mental health we are dealing with.” It sounded like the doctor was trying to guilt trip her. Claire eyed her suspiciously. “Anyway, there is one further action I am having John take at present. I have identified one of John’s underlying traumas to be a confusion over sexual attraction to Lilith. While it is perfectly normal for a man of his age to harbour some towards their mother, John feels **** guilt over this feeling and worries it may run deeper than simple attraction. It is for this reason that I have asked that he observe Lilith in her daily showers.”

“Excuse me?! What the fuck?” Claire couldn’t control her outburst.

“Its okay Claire. It was my decision.” Lilith tried to reassure her. None of this made any sense. John was lusting for his own mother?! She was allowing this?! And Claire herself had had drunkenly come onto John in his sleep? What the hell was wrong with this family? Claire was regretting coming back from college. She already had enough to worry about there. How did things turn out this way? All the tension that had been building up within her the last few months had reached its boiling point.

The doctor didn’t respond. She just sat there waiting for Claire to settle down. It was several minutes before she was calm enough for the doctor to continue. “Like I said, the treatment is unorthodox, but it is effective. Your family would not have agreed to this course if they did not believe it might work and they would not be continuing if they did not believe they were seeing results.”

“Even if it works, that doesn’t make it right!”

“Whether it is right or not is not for you to decide. Your brother and mother are fully capable of making their own decisions and willingly complied with my suggestions. I did not ask them to do anything they were not willing to consider.” Claire fumed silently to herself. Somehow, she was starting to feel a little better having chance to express herself. “Claire, I do not require you to agree to any part in your brother’s treatment at this stage. I do however, require that you do not interfere with it or we risk losing all the progress we have made until now. Is that okay with you?”

“…Fine.”

“Thank you. I don’t believe it’s worth continuing on this topic while you are in this state so I will drop the issue. However, if it is alright with you both, there is something I would like to say to Claire in private.”

Claire glared at the doctor for a moment before nodding her consent. Claire sat in silence as her mother left. She had so much to process over the last day. How she saw her mom, her brother, even herself. She just wanted some time to herself. As she waited, the doctor went to her desk and returned with a couple of candles, that she lit on the table in front of Claire. They had a smoky aroma that somehow helped put her mind at ease. The doctor waited for a moment before speaking.

“You know, your mother also has problems with her self-image.”

“Huh?”

“She’s concerned about how men see her, that they don’t find her appealing. I’m currently treating her for these issues as well.” Somehow everything this doctor said managed to catch Claire off guard. “She’s a beautiful woman don’t you think? Any man would be lucky to have her. Its not right that she has all these insecurities.”

“I can’t believe she feels that way.”

“But having met you now, I can see living proof that beauty is heredity, but I did not know that insecurity was too.” Claire had no idea how to respond to that she remained silent. “Claire, I truly believe I can help you. I can see you have doubts about the legitimacy of my methods but if you’d just give me a chance I’m sure I can change your mind. My clients always finish my treatment happy with the results and I never push anyone into doing something they aren’t willing to try.”

The doctor sure looked convincing. Sure, John would have been roped into anything but surely Lilith wouldn’t have fallen for something like this. If she had managed to trust the doctor, maybe there was some legitimacy to this. What really spurred Claire on though was how **** she was. She had so many worries and fears bottled away she was too scared to show her family. Surely just talking couldn’t hurt. She was somehow a licenced psychotherapist after all. She could always back out if she didn’t like what she heard.

“Alright, I’ll talk.”

“Thank you, Claire. I’m going to ask you some questions you might find probing. If you feel your anxiety rising, take a deep breath and continue.” She breathed deeply as prompted, inhaling the soothing smoke rising from the candles. “The more details you are willing to divulge, the more likely I am to be able to help with your situation. Is that acceptable?”

“Alright.”

“What do you believe to be your biggest source of stress at college? Grades, finances, boys?”

“Um, boys I guess.”

“Perfectly normal for a girl your age. Do you currently have a boyfriend?”

“No, I broke up with my last one three weeks ago.”

“Hm, how many boyfriends have you had while at college?”

“Um… maybe eight I think.”

“You are a first-year student, correct?”

“Yes.” The doctor raised her brow at this and scribbled something down.

“It seems you have some trouble holding down a relationship. Tell me about the last one you had. How did it fall apart?”

“Um, well I met Eric through a mutual friend. He seemed a lot more genuine than my other exes and he hadn’t heard about my… reputation, so I thought it might work. It started out really well but he had some interests I didn’t share and didn’t care to get involved in. We had a few falling outs but it was never anything serious, until I found out another girl had been flirting with him.”

“And that’s when you dropped him?”

“No, I didn’t want to lose another boyfriend just like that. I kinda understood why it happened. I hadn’t slept with him yet because I wanted to keep my virginity for something special. I was, well, giving him head once a week instead to keep him satisfied but I realised this wasn’t enough. This other girl was way sexier, and less, um, frigid than me so I get why he was tempted. I started giving him head around six times a week.”

“That’s quite the drastic step up.”

“Well clearly it didn’t work. I was getting him off six times a week and he still let that other girl flirt with him. I knew he wasn’t the kind of guy to cheat on me but I was just holding him prisoner in the relationship when he clearly had interests elsewhere. I broke up with him. He tried telling me I had it wrong but I knew it wouldn’t work between us, just like the last seven guys I’d been with.”

“Hm, interesting. I believe I’m starting to get a picture of what the problem is here. You mentioned a reputation. Can you tell me about this?”

“Um, well its not a super wide reputation thankfully. When I get drunk I have a tendency to do some embarrassing things.”

“Such as?”

“Um, I, well I-I…”

“Calm down Claire. Take a deep breath and continue.” She breathed deeply, allowing the candle smoke to fill her lungs. She instantly felt more relaxed.

“Um, well the last time I was drunk at college, I brought some boys into a bedroom and got them in a circle and then I sat in the middle and masturbated and let them, you know.”

“I can assume.”

“I never remember doing these things. I only know because I see the pictures.”

“Pictures?”

“Yeah. I guess I’m not really camera shy when I’m like that. They all get posted on a gallery online and I can’t get them taken down.”

“Can I see them?”

“U-Um, why would you want to see them?”

“There’s just something I would like to check. Don’t worry, I don’t want any copies or anything.”

Nervously, Claire took out her phone and brought up one of the sites she knew gathered them all. It showed hundred of photos of her in compromising situations. At the bottom was an invitation to students from her college to email a throwaway account for information on chances to get involved in these photos. Knowing that some guys went to parties specifically because Claire would be there made her feel sick.

The doctor took her phone from her and glanced through some of the recent photos. Like Claire had said, they depicted a circle of guys jerking off onto her. It was difficult to tell she was drunk from these pictures and her face carried an expression of bliss. She scrolled through some of the previous entries. “Can you tell me what’s happening in these pictures?”

Claire could barely bring herself to look up at the phone stretched out to her. It was taken from a distance zoomed in, showing Claire standing topless outside someone’s front door. “I-I was going from door to door, offering any guy who answered a blow job. I don’t know if anyone accepted but I heard someone called the police.” She scrolled down to another photo, this one showing her stripped down to her panties, handcuffed by wrists and ankles to a fence. “This one, some guys cuffed me to a fence at the college. They left me there all night, even after I sobered up. Some horny guy came and groped me but he got chased off by the groundskeeper. He managed to let me free cos the guys had left the key in my panties.” She blushed remembering how the guy had had to reach in to get the key out. “Thankfully that was way before college started so barely anyone saw me.”

“I see.” Claire didn’t really know why she had spouted such humiliating memories to someone she barely trusted but she someone felt a little relieved. Dr Valentine took the phone back for a moment and wrote something down before handing it back to Claire. “If you find these events so distressing, why do you keep putting yourself back in those situations?”

“I don’t know. I tell myself every time that I won’t let it happen again and that lets me justify it. It would be awful for my social life if I stopped going to parties and its not like I can go and stay sober.”

“Hm, alright. I’m starting to get a picture of what’s happening here. Couple more questions. Would you say you started developing jealousy in many of your failed relationships, fearful you may lose your boyfriend to another woman, and thus felt the need to end the relationship before that happened?”

Claire hadn’t really thought about it like that but a fair few of her boyfriends had shown signs of interest in other women shortly before their relationship fell apart. “Um, yes I-”

“And would you admit to being particularly uncompromising in your relationship, unwilling to cede argument or make plans that went against your interests?”

Claire didn’t know where that question came from. She hadn’t mentioned anything like that in her responses. Sure, she was a little more stubborn than most, but it was making it sound like Claire was the problem in all her relationships. “Um, I guess.”

“Good. Let me tell you what I think. Your issue with maintaining a relationship and your **** escapades are actually quite closely related. You see cracks forming in your relationship and fear they might be losing interest in you. You feel inferior to other women who you see as sexier and more appealing than you. You devote more and more of your time trying to sexually satisfy your partner but this does little to overcome the faults you see in your relationship and so you come to see yourself as undesirable. This feeling gnaws away at your subconscious.

Now, when you go out drinking, your inhibitions take a dive. You start to notice boys are paying attention to you. Your body yearns to be desired. Suddenly these boys who hold no obligation to you are willing to shower you in their desires. You don’t want to lose their interest to the other sexier girls. Your subconscious needs overwhelm your drink-suppressed anxieties and you act out in ways that will make every man present want you. That is what I think.”

Claire was floored. Was this true? She was no expert in psychology but it might have sounded plausible. It sounded so messed up that she acted out those humiliating scenarios simply to turn guys on, because she found herself so disgusting that she needed to know that guys did want to sleep with her. Having heard that much, she couldn’t stop there. She needed to know how to fix this. “So what would you have me do to stop all that?”

“For that I would have us deal with the root of the issue. What is causing you so much difficulty in maintaining relationships? I believe the issue may lie with you. I hope you don’t mind me saying but you seem like a very stubborn and uncompromising individual. It’s a trait that makes it very difficult for men to grow attached to you. You can’t form a relationship because you don’t allow men to grow close to you.” This was upsetting for Claire. To have all the blame for the last year of anxieties to be shifted onto her was disheartening but she couldn’t think of any way to refute it.

“In order to fix your problems, you must be willing to give up a part of yourself. I have some ideas if you are willing to listen.” Claire nodded shallowly. “What I am going to suggest is to form a mock relationship to get some practice of forming an intimate bond with a man. Your brother is the ideal candidate for this as a man who already loves you unconditionally.” Claire grew nervous in anticipation of her proposed ‘solution’. “What I would have you do is let go of some of your selfish hang-ups. Go out of your way to do things that would make his life a little better, even if they seem inconvenient to you.”

Claire was shocked for a moment then let out a sigh of relief. “That’s it. You just want me to make him happy? I thought you were going to ask me to show him my tits or something.”

“Hm, well if you think that would make him feel happier, feel free.”

“Ew, he might like it but that’s gross.”

“I told you I’m not going to ask you to do things you’re uncomfortable considering.”

“Huh, well maybe I was wrong about you. You say doing this will help me hold down a boyfriend and stop humiliating myself when I drink?”

“It’s a first step in that direction I’m sure.”

“Well in that case I think I can get on board with this.”

“I’m glad you feel this way. I’m happy to slide you into a slot with the rest of your family. Remember, you’re in a ‘relationship’ with your brother now. To make it work, you will need to keep it in the back of your mind to do whatever it takes to brighten his day. We’ll keep working on it every session until you’re completely malleable to any relationship you desire.”

“Um, well thank you doctor. Is there anything else or is it okay to go now?”

“Actually, I did want to speak to your mother before you go. If you don’t mind could you send her back in when you go out?”

“Alright, sure.”

She took a last deep breath of the calming candle smoke before she went through into the waiting room to deliver the message. Lilith gave her the car keys so she could wait for her there then stepped into the office.

“That seemed to have gone well. She looked a lot happier coming out.”

“Yes, well she will be attending the sessions along with you and John from now on while I help her work through her issues.”

“All three of us? Are you sure?”

“Yes. I don’t mind working all of you in a single slot. I am quite invested in your family at this point.”

“Oh, well thank you for looking out for my children.”

“Really, the pleasure is all mine. Anyway, I would love to know the progress you made with John on your last assignment.”

“Oh, you mean with the shower, right? Well we tried to do it yesterday but I messed up and knocked myself out falling out of the shower, so I ruined it for John.”

“I’m sure. Go on.”

“We tried again this morning but John couldn’t really get into it. I thought there might have been something serious going on. I knew how important it was though so… I let him get a bit closer.”

“You let him touch you?”

“Y-Yes but, not down there. I, um, took care of that myself. I got a little too into it and ended up finishing him myself.”

“With your mouth?”

“N-No, with my hand.”

“I see. How did that make you feel?”

“Like a terrible mother, but the slut inside me kinda liked getting a man off like that. I told him I enjoyed it so he wouldn’t feel nervous. I was disgusting.”

“Lilith, I’m proud of you.”

“Huh, you are?”

“You managed to set aside your instincts as a mother, see the way your son was struggling and help him, all on your own initiative.”

“What mother would…?”

“Your son’s problem is sexual in nature. An area that most mothers would feel incapable of engaging with their son in. What kind of mother would abandon their son at a time like that? Sometimes you have to step down from your role as a mother to do what is needed as a mom. Right now, to help your son, sometimes you will need to be a slut before you are his mother.”

Her mantra slipped into Lilith’s mind. “Before his mother, I am a slut?”

“That’s right. Keep that in mind whenever you face a dilemma of what would be best for your son.”

“You’re right. Thank you doctor.”

“I have one more request for you to aid with John’s treatment. It would be of great help if we could find out as much as possible about John’s sexual interests. I would like it if you could sit in one of his masturbation sessions with him.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I feel like the pair of you are awkward about discussing John’s recovery with each other. I’m suggesting this as a sort of icebreaker while also gathering information that could be vital to treatment.”

“I see. You want him to feel more comfortable confiding in me. I can do that.”

“Very good. Its important that he feel as comfortable as possible when you decide to join him so he’s less likely to hide anything he’s ashamed of. I trust you will do whatever is necessary to achieve this. I did advise you before against using internet pornography but just this once it will be necessary to explore any interests he might have. You can use the information you find out to surprise him with some new DVDs.”

“Alright, I’ll do that.”

“Thank you, Lilith. That will be all for this session.”