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A Modern Wicked Fairy Tale: Briar Rose © September 2011 by Selena Kitt
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First Edition September 2011
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A Modern Wicked Fairy Tale: Briar Rose
By Selena Kitt
In this modern version of the fairy tale classic, although her dreams are filled with sensual imagery, and she’s often awakened with a throbbing sense of release, Rose has never had a sexual climax—at least, not while conscious. When she’s forced to confess her faked orgasms to her fiancé on the eve of their wedding, she finds herself alone, abandoned and suicidal—until her aunt gives her a business card with the name of a special clinic. Rose has undergone all sorts of physical and mental examinations in the past, but her aunt assures her that this place is “different.” Desperate for a solution, Rose decides to give it one last try, and finds that Dr. Matt, as he insists she call him, is indeed very different from any other person she’s ever met, and he’s determined to get to the bottom of her problem—one way or another.
Google’s my lifesaver.
Rose snorted at the irony, mentally correcting her own error as she slipped naked into the hot water—life-ender was more like it. But without Google, she would have just done what she’d seen in all the Hollywood movies and used the razor blade horizontally, and what good would that have done? She would have just ended up in the hospital amidst a whole lot of drama, her aunts clucking and pawing and chiding, while Sam scoffed and said she was just looking for attention.
If he even showed up at all…
She put the box of razor blades on the edge of the tub, the cardboard soaking up the water splashing onto the edge from the running spout. But what did it matter if the entire box rusted? She only needed one. Although she had been careful to buy a box-cutter at Home Depot, along with the blades, so as not to draw any undue attention to herself.
Why would he show up?
Thinking about Sam made her whole body curl into itself, going instinctively fetal, her knees drawn up, eyes closing, as if she could escape her own pain with darkness. Well, that was the point, wasn’t it? She had experienced her fair share of heartache in her thirty-three years, but the pain of losing Sam was far too much for her to bear. One person couldn’t possibly live through the loss, not to mention the humiliation, of losing her fiancé the night before the wedding.
It’s your own fault.
That was the hardest thing of all to accept. If she’d just kept on pretending, if she had let things go on as they always had, she and Sam would be staying the night right now at a sweet little bed and breakfast she’d found on the Florida coast before heading off to St. Barts for the rest of their three-week honeymoon in the morning. Instead, both tickets were tucked into her purse and the engagement ring he’d given her a year ago would never get the addition of its twin wedding band.
She opened her eyes to admire the two-carat diamond. Although she’d protested at the extravagance, Sam had insisted, and secretly she loved the exclamatory reaction she received from everyone from shopkeepers to manicurists. Of course, she’d offered to give it back, but Sam had insisted, “I don’t want anything from you!” shaking his hand off her arm as if she was a leper before storming out of her apartment, slamming the door behind him so hard it made Mr. Neiman upstairs pound on the floor for quiet.
Well, Mr. Neiman wouldn’t have to pound on the floor anymore when she was playing The Ramones too loud while she was in the shower, or when she and Sam got a little too exuberant during sex, would he? They used to laugh about it, the memory so painful it was like an open sore, imagining the two of them naked and panting and giggling in the dark as Mr. Neiman pounding his cane on the floor.
The truth was, Sam liked it when she was loud, and she saw no reason not to indulge him. She knew just what turned him on. In fact, she’d gotten the sounds and movements down to a science, and had learned to throw in a new sound or moan or some dirty talk on occasion to change it up and give him a little thrill.
Rose opened the box of razor blades, removing one from the package and contemplating its sharp edge as she remembered Sam’s question after sex the night before. It was the first time he’d ever brought it up. Maybe she would have offered him the truth in the beginning, if he’d asked. That’s what she told herself as the level of the hot water rose around her in a cloud of steam and the thick pulse of blood through her veins pounded in her ears.
I deserve this. Rose traced a finger down her arm from her wrist to her elbow, shivering at the sensation. I earned it.
Maybe if she’d been honest with Sam—honest with herself—things would have been different.
Instead, for two years, she had let him believe a lie. Hell, she’d lived that lie for him, with him. It hadn’t been difficult, not really. It wasn’t as if she’d lied about how she felt about Sam—she loved him, always had and always would. It wasn’t as if she’d cheated on him with someone else, or had a scary former life or some big secret buried in her past. There were no skeletons in her closet waiting to pop out and surprise anyone.
It had seemed like such a small thing—an innocent white lie. She had never imagined that her admission would lead to this—to losing Sam forever, to a pain beyond any she’d ever known, to a despair so vast she could do nothing but attempt to escape it, running away from the pain and seeking a distant, shimmering point in the distance that could only be her own end.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” she whispered, feeling hot tears on her already wet cheeks, salty on her lips, as she pressed the edge of the blade against the tender skin of her wrist, testing its sharpness and her own vulnerability. A bright spot of blood bloomed immediately from the miniscule cut, assuring her that her skin was permeable, that the line between life and death was very thin. She was glad.
“Hard and fast,” she whispered, studying the pale blue roadmap of her veins under the tender, thin covering of her skin. “Straight down from wrist to elbow.”
She didn’t wonder what Sam would say, or what her mother and father would think. She wasn’t thinking of anyone or anything else at all. Her whole being was consumed with an emotional pain so far beyond this realm of existence she was sure she’d already left this world. This final act was just a matter of course, like completing an electrical circuit.
The doorbell startled her, forcing the blade in a little deeper, the red flower of blood on her wrist spreading. Rose looked up at the bathroom door, closed but not locked, shocked by this intrusion. She had given them all plausible excuses about being alone right now—her mother, her father, her aunts, the multitude of family who had flown into town to see her walk down the aisle today—and of course, she had turned off both her home and cell phone.
“Rosie?”
Oh no! She knew that voice. It was her aunt Poppy, knocking and ringing the bell. Her family had obviously conferenced and decided to send Poppy over see if poor little Rosie was all right. Well no, to tell you the truth, I’m not all right. I’m broken. I’ve always been broken. No one could every want me or love me or—
“Rosie!” The voice was closer. Poppy had let herself into the house! Rose cursed herself for not locking the front door. “Rosie? Are you okay?”
If only it was Sam…
That was her last rational thought before she did the inevitable, the blade far sharper than she’d ever imagined. She didn’t make it from wrist to elbow—less than halfway, but the cut was a good four inches long and quite deep, slicing between all the tendons and ligaments, finding the artery with lucky precision. That was all she could do—pain like a white hot poker shot through her arm and her hand spasmed uncontrollably, her fingers turning to claws. She couldn’t help the scream, although she tried to hold it in—it felt ripped from the raw hollow of her throat, a bright, inhuman sound echoing off the white tiles. Looking down, she saw her own arm as if someone had turned it inside out, blood bright red and pulsing from the wound into the warm water around her.
“Rosie!” The door flew open and she saw her aunt’s wide eyes, had just enough time to register her horrified expression. “No! Oh no, Rosie, nooo!”
Her last thought was that she wished it had been Sam who had either burst in to save her—or perhaps witness her death. She really didn’t care which. She had just wanted it to be Sam.
* * * *
“I didn’t even think they sold transferable airline tickets anymore.” Rose’s mother handed them back to her daughter, frowning as she scanned the airport. Rose knew she was looking for her ex-husband, Rose’s father, who was due to show up to see his daughter off. “Late as usual,” her mother whispered under her breath, but Rose heard and winced.
“I think it’s a sign!” Poppy slid an arm around her niece’s shoulder, patting the girl’s head with her other hand. Rose let her do it, even though the gesture made her feel five years old. “You were meant to go to St. Bart’s after all.”
Rose didn’t say anything. Telling Poppy how much pain that statement caused her wouldn’t do anyone any good. What did it matter that she should have used those tickets for her honeymoon with Sam? They had come in handy, that much was true. And Sam… She closed her eyes, swallowing and looking away, pretending interest in seeing the planes taking off and landing outside the window. Thinking about Sam was still too painful. That hurt far more than the scar on her wrist—eighty-seven stitches later.
“There’s your father.” Her mother was readying herself, mouth puckered, arms akimbo, foot already tapping on the airport carpet. Rose ignored her mother’s reaction, smiling as the tall, handsome man in a suit strode toward them, a congenial smile spreading over his tanned face, showing more lines than Rose remembered.
“There’s my princess!” Her father swept her into his arms and hugged her tight, and this, too, make Rose feel small—but she didn’t mind. He set her down and kissed her forehead, asking, “How’s my girl?”
“Fine, Daddy.” Rose smiled, realizing they’d had the exact same exchange while she’d been lying in a hospital bed two months ago, her arm still heavily bandaged, her head fuzzy from the morphine.
“You’ll love St. Barts.” He turned, acknowledging Poppy for the first time but clearly avoiding meeting the glaring eyes of his ex-wife. “Won’t she, Sis?”
“I think she’ll get just what she needs in St. Barts,” her aunt agreed.
Rose glanced between her parents, wondering how that much hostility could still exist between two people after twenty years of being divorced. She’d long ago given up trying to reconcile them or even to try to keep the peace. They were adults—she couldn’t control the way they behaved, even if that behavior resembled two children.
“Are you sure you packed enough?” Rose’s mother eyed her daughter’s carry-on. “Isn’t this supposed to be for a month?”
“They have laundry facilities,” Poppy piped up, intervening quickly. “They’re boarding.”
“Well I guess this is it.” Rose offered a tentative smile to both of her parents, taking one of each of their hands, making some sort of bridge.
Her father said, “You have fun,” and kissed the top of Rose’s head and her mother squeezed her hand and said, “Get better, okay?” illustrating the vast difference between her parents and her relationship with both of them in one brief moment.
Rose let her parents’ hands go and leaned in to give her aunt a hug, whispering, “Thanks for everything.”
She had once wished it had been Sam who burst into the bathroom that night, but she didn’t wish that now. Poppy had taken charge—twenty years of nursing experience took over, of course, but it wasn’t just that. Her aunt had protected her from then until now, staying with her at night after she was released from the hospital, and ultimately finding the unorthodox treatment center she was heading to now.
The truth was, Rose didn’t want to die anymore. But she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to live either. It was a strange place to be, like walking through life like you didn’t belong, as if it was all someone else’s dream. Maybe this place really would help. At least, Rose figured, it couldn’t hurt.
She waved to her family as the flight attendant took her boarding pass, seeing them gathered into a little trio of worry. Even her father look perplexed and unsure, an expression she hadn’t seen on his face since that first day in the hospital when he saw the enormous bandage on her arm.
Rose settled herself into her seat on the plane, stowing her carry-on in a very small overhead compartment and wondering at the safety of the tiny aircraft. The seats were narrow, just two on each side of the aisle, and regardless of who she would be sitting next to, it would be close quarters. It should be Sam. But she didn’t want to think about that. Instead, she took out her Kindle and enjoyed her window seat, her eyes unfocused on the words on the screen.
“They’re going to make you turn that off during takeoff you know.”
Rose glanced up, experiencing a horrible, dizzying sense of déjà-vu—except it wasn’t an image of something that already happened, but something that should have happened. Sam was taking a seat beside her, stowing a briefcase under the seat in front of him, just as he would have if this had been their honeymoon flight.
That’s not Sam! She had to remind herself of that fact as she put her Kindle face-down in her lap, attempting to smile at the man who resembled her ex-fiancé so much they could have been brothers, if not twins, as he reached down to get something out of his bag.
“But we can sneak in a little reading time before then, huh?” He winked and showed her a tablet device. “Those Kindles are great for reading at the beach, but I gotta have my Angry Birds.”
“Angry…birds?” She gave him a quizzical half-smile, shaking her head.
“It’s a game,” he explained, swiping his finger across the touch screen. “An app, actually.” He glanced at her, seeing the quizzical expression growing more confused. “An application.” He laughed. “You’ve got a Kindle, so you’re not a Luddite…how is it you have never heard of Angry Birds?”
He turned the screen to show her three fat cartoon birds in front of an empty nest with question marks over their heads.
“I kind of outgrew video games when I was a kid.” Rose shrugged, watching as the man used a slingshot to fling one of the birds toward a structure with round-faced green animals trapped in it. “I think the last video game I played was Space Invaders on Atari.”
He laughed, handing the tablet to her. “Oh well here—you have to try Angry Birds.”
“Really?” She looked doubtfully at the game.
“Just pull back the slingshot and shoot.” He demonstrated by leaning over and using one finger to do so, flinging a fat little bird into the air.
Rose followed his lead, getting a little thrill when the structure tumbled and a little green animal inside was obliterated, leaving a score in its wake. “Why are the birds angry?”
“They’re mad at the pigs,” he explained.
“Oh, those green things are pigs!” She peered closer, seeing the resemblance now. “Why are they mad at the pigs?”
“The pigs stole their eggs.”
She laughed as another structure tumbled to the ground due to her new, amazing sling-shooting ability. With just a swipe of her finger! “Pigs like eggs?”
“They must.” He smiled. “But the Freudian in me would say all that pent up rage must have something to do with the birds’ mothers.”
Rose went to hand the tablet back to him but he waved her away. “Play! But be careful, it’s addictive.”
“It is,” she agreed, starting another level, introducing herself without even looking up. “I’m Rose, by the way.”
“Matt,” he replied, leaning his seat back with a sigh. “Nice to meet you, Rose. What takes you to St. Bart’s all by yourself?”
“Oh I’m…going on vacation, of course,” she lied. “How about you?”
“Going home.” He winked. “I’m one of the, oh, I don’t know, eight-thousand or so permanent residents of the island.”
“Lucky you,” she commented, moving on to level three. The structures were getting larger and the pigs she had to eliminate by flinging the angry birds at them more numerous.
“I am,” he agreed happily, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes, stretching his long legs into the aisle. .The gesture reminded her so much of Sam that Rose swallowed the emotion rising in her throat, trying to concentrate on the game in her hands.
“Damnit,” she swore softly as she ran out of birds—but the pigs survived, the structure still intact.
Matt opened one eye and grinned. “I told you it was addictive.”
“But amusing,” she contested, starting the level again.
“An irresistible combination.”
“So do you own a hotel on the island or something?” Rose asked, making small talk as she continued playing on her seat mate’s tablet.
He didn’t open his eyes. “I’m a doctor.”
“Oh well that makes sense.” She glanced up as someone stepped over Matt’s feet in the aisle, making their way to a seat. “They need doctors everywhere. Why not choose a tropical island to practice on?”
“Would you tell that to my mother?” Matt straightened up as more people began to filter onto the plane. “She thinks I should be practicing back in New York.”
Rose smiled. “Parents always think they know best.”
“What do your parents think you should do for a living?”
“My father wanted me to be a doctor, but I became a first-grade teacher instead,” she told him. “My mother? She just wants me to marry a doctor.”
“Ha! My mother keeps telling me I’ll understand when I have children of my own.” He shrugged, folding his arms over his chest and looking over her shoulder as she played the game.
“Pushing for grandkids, is she?”
“Putting the cart before the horse, as usual. I need a wife first.” He pointed at the screen. “Try a lower angle for this one. And don’t pull back so far.”
“Thanks.” Rose did as he instructed, killing off a whole building full of evil green pigs and feeling quite proud of herself. “You could always adopt kids if you really wanted them.”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy.”
Rose looked across the aisle, noticing a young couple sitting together, holding hands and smiling. Honeymoon, she thought, a twinge of pain tightening her chest.
“You all right?”
She blinked at her seat mate, lying again. “Fine.”
“You sure about that?” He glanced over at the happy couple and back at her.
“Oh, well… I guess I’m a little nervous.” She gestured around the plane. “About the flight.”
He waved her concern away. “I promise you, these little puddle jumpers are safer than the big commercial airplanes. And these pilots could land a plane on the edge of a dime if they had to.”
“Well that’s good to know.” She tried to smile, tried not to notice the couple across the way leaning in to kiss.
“Miss, could you please put that away while we take off?” the flight attendant asked, moving on before Rose could respond.
She handed the tablet back to Matt. “Thanks for letting me play.”
“See, I told you they’d make us turn them off,” he muttered, taking it from her. “Oh hey, that’s a nasty scar.”
Rose pulled her hand back quickly, hiding her scar under the edge of her long-sleeved blouse. She wore them all the time now, even in the Florida heat.
“Excuse me.” She stood, not looking at him. “I’m going to use the rest room before we take off.”
He stood to let her pass, not saying anything. When she’d splashed water on her face and inspected her eyes to make sure it didn’t look like she’d been crying, she made her way back to her seat to find him stretched out again, eyes closed. Definitely asleep.
Instead of disturbing him—that’s what she told herself, it didn’t have to do anything with not wanting to face him again—she asked the flight attendant if she could sit in an empty seat up near the front and thankfully, the woman obliged.
Settled alone by the window, Rose watched the land below her disappear, wondering what she was getting herself into. Poppy had assured and reassured her, had shown her brochures and emailed her testimony from other clients whose lives had been changed at this treatment center.
She hadn’t told Poppy or her parents, but this was it. It was her last-ditch effort to figure out what was wrong with her, to see if anyone could fix the thing in her that was broken. If they couldn’t… well, she’d already experienced the heartache of losing Sam. She didn’t think she could ever risk something like that again in her lifetime.
* * * *
This can’t be happening.
Rose had asked to be seen by another physician when she’d seen him through the little check-in window—oh my god it’s the guy from the plane!—flipping through charts and chatting with the nurses. There was no way she could possibly strip naked in front of him. She’d avoided his gaze after they landed, barely acknowledging his wave and smile from the other end of the plane as everyone filed down the little aisle. Thankfully he’d been forced off first and Rose had gathered her stuff and spent a good ten minutes in the airplane bathroom—long enough for the flight attendant to knock and check on her—before getting off the plane herself. By then he’d been gone, and she’d been so relieved.
She should have known, when he’d said he was a doctor. But how could she have known he was the doctor, the one who ran the treatment center? His picture or name hadn’t been in any of the brochures, not that she remembered anyway. And she would have remembered.
“He’s our only doctor,” the confused red-headed, freckled receptionist told her. “Is there a problem?”
“No, no.” Rose shook her head, had backed away from the window, thinking of bolting out the glass doors. But where would she go? She’d already checked into her room at the facility, been given the tour, gone through a two-hour orientation and eaten lunch with several of the other clients. The physical examination was part of the process. She couldn’t avoid it forever.
And it turned out that he had been quite kind. Of course, he had. He was witty and charming, acknowledging their chance meeting on the plane, trying to put her at ease. It was just impossible to feel comfortable while she was naked except for her little paper gown, answering “Dr. Matt’s” intimate questions and trying not to choke on her answers.
“So you’ve never experienced an orgasm?” Dr. Matt chewed thoughtfully on the top of his pen and Rose distracted herself from her own rising, uncomfortable blush by noting how mangled and twisted the tip was from his constant gnawing. It was a nervous habit she wouldn’t have expected from a professional, but somehow it made him seem more human, and for that she was glad.
“I’m not sure.” She could feel the roses blooming in her cheeks and looked down at the paper dress she wore. It hardly covered anything, but Dr. Matt didn’t seem to notice or care. He was a doctor, after all, even if he’d insisted she use his first name after the title instead of his last, and that meant he might really be able to help her. She had to tell him the truth. “You see, I have these dreams…”
Dr. Matt waited patiently for her to go on, still chewing on his pen. His teeth were very white and very straight, his eyes dark and watchful. He reminded her so much of Sam it hurt. Dr. Matt was decidedly handsome, somewhere around her age, and she found it very difficult to speak about her problem to a man who looked and sounded far too much like her fiancé. Ex-fiancé. Finally, she went on, feeling the slow burn spreading down from her cheeks to her neck.
“I think I do… have orgasms…” She swallowed, feeling the heat filling her chest. “In my dreams.”
“So you’re having nocturnal emissions?” He noted something on his clipboard, glancing up when she didn’t respond. “Wet dreams?”
She nodded her assent, not trusting her voice.
“But you’ve never had an orgasm while you’re awake?” he inquired, cocking his head, a sad sort of sympathy in his eyes that made her want to either crawl under the table or smack him—she couldn’t decide which. “Either alone or with a partner?”
“No,” she finally confessed. “Never.”
He nodded, tapping the pen against his straight, white teeth. “And you’ve tried all the usual methods of stimulation—fingers, vibrators…?”
Rose closed her eyes, shaking her head. “I’ve tried everything.” She couldn’t even begin to tell him the things she’d tried, the various implements and manipulations that had gone on between her thighs over the years in an attempt to bring her some semblance of pleasure.
“Interesting.” He was writing on his clipboard again.
“So do you think you can help me?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of this.” He stood, putting his clipboard aside and standing. Rose shrank as he came toward her, towered over her, far too close for her comfort. “If that’s really what you want. Is it?”
“I—” She hesitated, meeting his gaze. It was straightforward and far too knowing. “Of course I do. Why else would I be here?”
He smiled. “You did read all of the consent forms you signed, didn’t you?”
“Of course.” Rose squirmed on the table, feeling the paper beneath her naked bottom crinkle. Her answer wasn’t exactly true. She’d been tired and the forms were long and involved.
Dr. Matt reached out and took her hand, clasping it between two of his. His touch was shockingly warm and familiar. “Rose, we’re not going to get to the bottom of this if you lie to me.”
She stared at him, mouth agape. “What—?” She couldn’t help flashing back to the look on Sam’s face when she admitted that yes, she had lied, she’d been faking her orgasms all along. The pain of the moment took her breath away.
“No lies.” Dr. Matt’s hands squeezed hers gently. “Let’s start there, okay?”
Rose felt tears pricking her eyes and blinked them back. “Okay.”
When she complied with his request to recline onto the table for the physical exam, Rose realized her aunt had been right. This place really was different from any other place she had ever been for treatment, and this Dr. Matt was different as well. She just didn’t know yet if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“I’ve reviewed all your medical records,” he said as he snapped on a pair of gloves. “Your last pap smear was about six months ago?”
“Yes.”
“No need to do another one then. I’m just going to examine you manually.” He stood at the side of the table, smiling down at her so warmly she could almost feel it. “Can I touch you?”
She hesitated only a moment. “Okay.”
His hands were warm, even in gloves, sliding under her paper gown from the side and cupping her right breast, his fingers and thumb moving over her flesh just like any other doctor’s, doing a typical breast exam. “Any pain in your breasts?”
“No.” She met his eyes as he moved to the other breast. “Well sometimes before my period.”
“That’s normal.” He nodded. “Does it feel good to have your nipples touched?”
Rose gasped when he tweaked her nipple, nodding. “Yes.”
“Close your eyes,” he instructed. She obeyed, although her already high anxiety level rose to even greater heights when she did. “On a scale of one to ten, one being horrible and ten being the best thing ever, tell me how good this feels.”
Dr. Matt rolled her nipple slowly between his thumb and forefinger, back and forth, as if turning a dial.
“Three,” she managed to squeak out.
“Physically, not emotionally,” he chided.
“Oh.” She smiled, eyes still closed, feeling herself relax just a little. The sensation increased the moment she did, sending little sparks down her nerve endings. “Six, I guess.”
“So you do experience pleasure?”
“Oh, yes.” She felt her belly tighten when his other hand began manipulating her left nipple the same way. “It feels nice.”
“You can open your eyes.” He was smiling when she did. “Do you mind if I touch your vagina?”
She made a face at the clinical word but nodded her head.
“We like to use terms you’re comfortable with,” he said, interpreting her look. “During sex, what would you call your genitals?”
“I don’t have a penis.” Rose giggled. She couldn’t help it. “I’m not a guy. I didn’t name it.”
He laughed. “Okay, complete this sentence. ‘I’d like you to touch my blank.’”
The heat filling her cheeks moved down to her chest, but she managed to take a deep breath and say the words. “I’d like you to touch my…pussy.”
“Okay.” He nodded, still smiling his approval. “May I touch your pussy?”
Rose winced again. Now it had moved from far too clinical to far too intimate. But what else could she do?
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes without being asked this time, feeling his fingers parting her lips, sliding two of them inside. His other hand pressed gently over her belly and he rocked his hands, checking the position of her uterus. She’d had the examination often enough to know just what he was doing, but his next question surprised her.
“Have you ever shaved your pussy?”
“No.” Her eyes flew open to see him looking down between her legs, where his hand disappeared under her paper skirt. “Why?”
“It’s been known to increase sensation.”
She got up on her elbows to peer at him. “Really?”
“I’d like to take a closer look,” he said. “Do you mind getting up in the stirrups?”
“Okay.”
He helped her put her legs up and scoot down to the end of the table, the most humiliating position in the world. She noticed for the first time that there was a poster on the ceiling, just a little one with a picture of an acorn and a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson—what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Rose didn’t think whoever had chosen the poster had really thought about the literal interpretations, but she was thinking about them as Dr. Matt slid two fingers into her vagina—pussy—again. It made her want to giggle like she was twelve-years-old.
“See anything wrong?”
“Decidedly not.” He chuckled. “Everything appears physically normal. I’d like to try something. Would you mind if we did a stimulation test?”
She sighed. “Okay.”
“I know you’ve been through this before.”
She had, numerous times, but she still gasped when a strong buzzing sensation met the sensitive bud of her clit. It was so strange to be in a clinical setting like this and have someone testing your capacity for arousal. It was like walking a tightrope over an unknown drop into nothing. Dr. Matt continued rubbing a vibrator against her clitoris, back and forth, up and down.
“How does that feel?”
“Nice.” Rose blinked up at the ceiling.
“I’m going to leave this here on your clitoris for a moment while I do an internal examination. Do you mind?”
She shrugged. “No.”
His fingers were feeling around inside, gentle but pressing firmly. “And you’ve had your g-spot explored?”
“Thoroughly,” she assured him. “It’s broken too.”
He hesitated for a moment and then stood up between her legs, looking down at her. “You’re not broken, Rose.”
She couldn’t help the tears that stung her eyes. “Yes I am.”
He shook his head violently. “Do you feel that?”
“What? The vibrator?” she asked, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Of course.”
“No, this.” He removed his gloved hand from her pussy and brought it up to her stomach, pressing her hand there along with his. “Feel how tight your muscles are? How little breath is getting down here into your belly?”
She looked at him, incredulous, as he removed the vibrator, snapping his gloves off. He helped her out of the stirrups and took her elbow as she swung her legs around so she could sit on the examination table.
“You might as well be wearing armor,” he told her as he went over the sink to wash his hands. “It’s no wonder you can’t feel anything beyond ‘nice’ right now. It is a kind of armor.”
“What do you mean?”
He dried his hands on paper towel as he talked. “You’ve just built up a lot of walls. The good news about those walls is that they’ve protected you when you needed protecting. You’ve walled out all the bad things—and good for you! But the problem is that while you’ve walled everything out, you’ve also walled yourself in. And you’re going to have to break those down before you can get where you want to go.”
Her aunt Poppy had been right. This place—this doctor—was very different from anything she’d ever experienced before. She felt frozen by his words, unable to respond.
“Okay, examination over.” He smiled as he walked toward the door. “You can get dressed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“In the morning?” she managed, her throat tight.
“Group therapy,” he reminded her before he left. “Nine a.m.”
* * * *
I so don’t belong here.
She knew, of course, that this clinic dealt with all sorts of sexual issues, and maybe she was just being naïve, but she hadn’t expected to be in a group session with ex-prostitutes, sex addicts, and one woman (or man?) she still couldn’t quite determine the gender of. Rose couldn’t believe some of the things she was hearing.
“My father told me I deserved to get Aids.”
That was from the woman (man?) with the long, curly dark hair, mouth painted brightly with red lipstick. But he (she?) had a day’s worth of stubble. It has to be a man, Rose reasoned.
“And how did that make you feel, Kennedy?” The other group therapist—besides Dr. Matt—was a petite blond woman who said on the first day to call her Dr. Kelly and who seemed to think matching her eye shadow to her outfit was a good idea. Today it was a shimmery pink to go with her blouse.
“Fucking fantastic.” Kennedy—his (her?) name just served to cause more gender confusion—snorted laughter and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his t-shirt pocket. They weren’t allowed to smoke inside, but Rose, and she supposed the rest of the group as well over the past week, had become familiar with his routine of smacking the edge of the pack against the arm of his chair over and over. It annoyed her but she just watched, knowing that her own habit of tracing the side seam of her jeans during the whole session probably drove someone else nuts. They all had their little quirks, she supposed.
“Bullshit.” The girl with the dragon tattoo—just like the book, which so amused Rose she thought of her that way even though she knew her real name was Ann—practically spat the word from her pierced mouth. She had a ring on either side of her bottom lip—“They’re called snake bites,” Ann had told her while they were eating lunch the other day.
Kennedy glared. “Are you not familiar with sarcasm, you stupid bitch?”
“Fuck you.” The girl with the dragon tattoo give him the middle finger and a snarl.
“No name calling, Kennedy,” Dr. Kelly reminded him, waving one of the big guys back. There were two of them, both with shaved heads, that were part of their little group, and Rose thought of them both as Mr. Clean 1 and Mr. Clean 2. The one who actually had an earring in his left ear liked to stand up as everyone’s protector. Besides those two, their group was rounded out by a skinny young girl about Ann’s age with thin, lanky blond hair and dull eyes, and a chubby kid who couldn’t have been older that twenty-five with severe acne. He hadn’t said more than two words the entire week.
“Sarcasm is just the body’s natural defense against stupid.” Kennedy smacked his maroon pack of Pall-Malls against the chair, flipping it before doing it again.
“You’re half right,” Dr. Matt interjected. “Sarcasm is a natural defense mechanism.”
Rose smiled over at him and then looked at Kennedy. “If my father had said that to me, I would have been devastated.”
“Yeah?” Kennedy scoffed, dismissing Rose’s comment and sneering at the dragon tattoo girl. “How about you, Ann? Would you have been devastated?”
“My father?” Ann flashed him a smile, those snake bites rising with the stretch of her lips. “He started fucking me when I was five. If I had a penny for every time he told me I’d be better off dead, I’d have more money than Warren Buffet.” She allowed this shocking news to sink in, letting the silence stretch. Rose didn’t know if anyone else heard her mumbling, but she did. She was right next to her. “Funny thing is—he was right.”
“No he wasn’t.” Rose turned and put her hand on the girl’s forearm, over the dragon tattoo. It was a horrible rendition, red faded to pink, more amusing then menacing. “He wasn’t right. You aren’t better off dead.”
“This coming from you?” Across the room, Kennedy scoffed again. “You think we don’t know about your scars?”
Rose shrank into her chair and could almost feel her wrist burning beneath her long sleeved blouse. She’d been so careful… yet someone had seen. They knew. They all knew.
“So what did Daddy do to you, Rosie-girl?” The blond chimed in, her dull eyes brightening for a moment. “Or was it maybe Mummy?”
“Neither,” Rose insisted, looking around at the group. “My parents are good parents. I’m sorry for what happened to you…” She glanced between Kennedy and Ann. “Both of you. But nothing like that has ever happened to me.”
“So why are you here?” The blond leaned forward so far Rose thought she might fall out of her chair.
“That’s a good question.” Rose felt tears coming and didn’t want to show them. Not after hearing that they knew, they all knew about her suicide attempt. She couldn’t stand the humiliation, the shame of it. She knew she would hear about it later in an individual session, but she did it anyway—she bolted.