“I know how hard this is, for a shrink to talk to a shrink. Therapy felt stupid and artificial at first for me too. I tried to ‘out-therapize’ my psychologist—attempting to identify his theoretical orientation and the techniques he was using—but I didn’t get anything out of it until I let go and started to tell him my story without censoring myself every second. You were doing so well. Can you try to get out of your head a little bit?”
Sophie exhaled with frustration.
“You seem like a sharp, caring woman,” he continued. “How did all of this happen to you? When you’re ready, will you share it with me?”
Taking a deep breath, Sophie uncrossed her arms and fidgeted with her hands in her lap. One of the blue devil fishes darted up to the surface of the saltwater tank, then dived down to the rocks, appearing agitated for some unknown reason. Sophie wondered if the fish had signed contracts promising to maintain confidentiality. They must have heard quite a few shocking tales in their day.
Whenever she thought about Logan while wasting away in prison, it was always the same. In reverse chronology, she would feel the intense fury and sickening betrayal of that last phone conversation before the police barged into her office. Then her hot rage would morph into a fire of passion when the scorching stimulation of their initial sexual encounter flooded her body. But the pull of swirling emotions from their tentative first kiss was what stayed with her the most—the tenderness of his vulnerability revealed at last, the ache of empathy she felt for his wounds, the relief of turning to each other, comforting each other with their sensual touch.
It was that last memory that Sophie decided to share first.
“I’d been seeing Logan for about five months,” she began, looking down at her lap. Hunter settled into his chair and waited for her to continue. “We were making zero progress in therapy, and the judge was expecting an update from me soon. I told Logan I’d have to be honest in my letter to the court—he wasn’t attending Gamblers Anonymous meetings or participating in therapy—but he didn’t seem concerned.”
“Sounds tough to feel like you were pulling teeth every session, trying to help a client who didn’t want to be helped.”
“Yes. He was tough.”
“Were you in love with him then?”
“No. I barely knew him.” She pondered Hunter’s question for a moment and then added guiltily, “But I was thinking about him a lot. I was having dreams about him—frustrating dreams where I was chasing him or something stupid like that, and I …” She blushed as she admitted, “I found myself wearing shorter and shorter skirts on the days of our appointments.” She threw her arms in the air and then brought her palms on the side of her head. “God, I’m an awful person!”
Hunter watched her berate herself, mentally filing away that observation. “So, if your client wasn’t talking, how did you spend the sessions?”
“There was awkward silence at the beginning, and it was painful. Time would drag by. I’d try every trick in the book to get him to talk, but nothing seemed to work. He kept asking me questions about myself that I would try to deflect, but a couple of times he wore me down and I told him a few things. Then he would open up more, so I thought I’d found a way to get him to talk: reveal a little about myself, and get rewarded when he disclosed some personal information as well.”
“What kind of information did you reveal?”
“Um, benign stuff at first, you know, my age, that I was an only child, that I was from Chicago as well … We got into some good discussions about White Sox players, and I thought I was finally building rapport with him.
“Then I somehow let it slip that I was trying to schedule lots of clients, and when he asked me why, I told him I had substantial debt from school loans. He seemed interested in that information. We ended up scheduling an appointment for one evening, and he wondered why I was free then, why I didn’t have a date that night. Stupidly I told him I was single.”
She glanced nervously at Hunter, assuming he was thinking she was the most horrible therapist ever. “The truth is I have the absolute worst luck when it comes to dating.” Smiling, she added, “But maybe I’ll save that for another session.”
“I look forward to it.” Hunter winked. “So, it sounds like your situation with Logan was the slippery slope.”
“The slippery slope?”
“There was a good paper written a few years ago on therapists’ ethical violations. The authors described how therapists never start off by saying, ‘I’m going to have sex with my client and ruin everything.’ On the contrary, the boundary violations start subtly, innocently, then insidiously grow into something more dangerous and illicit. The psychologist might reveal that he had just gone through a divorce, for example, which inadvertently tells the client he is hurting and available. Then the psychologist gradually reveals more and more about himself, and with each disclosure, the boundary between therapist and client grows fuzzier and fuzzier until it is completely breached.”
“That about sums it up,” Sophie nodded. “I never intended for things to go so far, but at some point, I felt helpless to stop them. And when I finally realized what had happened and tried to put a stop to it all, it was too late. I was in too deep. And the only way to try to climb back up the slope was to pay the consequences by going to prison.”
“You were starting to tell me about a session five months into treatment,” Hunter prompted. “Was that the top of the slope?”
She sat pensively for a moment and then replied sadly, “I had already started slipping down the slope by that point, I guess.” She closed her eyes and remembered that September day almost two years ago.
The clock ticked loudly as they stared at each other in her sparsely furnished office. Logan wore a white T-shirt and faded jeans that showcased his lower body nicely. Sophie could not help but stare at that hard, gorgeous ass when he had crossed in front of her to sit on the sofa. The muscles of his forearms rippled each time he fidgeted, rubbing his solid thigh or scratching his thick neck nervously.
He had been letting his hair grow out from his summer buzz-cut, and the short, black spikes framed his tanned face handsomely. His mouth worked on a piece of gum, drawing Sophie’s attention to his perfectly shaped lips—full, luscious lips surrounded by the black stubble of five o’clock shadow lining his square jaw. Sophie was occasionally rewarded for her vigilant adoration of those lips when he would flick his tongue out to lick them slowly.
“How did you spend your Labor Day?” she inquired.
The thirty-three-year-old client chomped his gum. “You got any kids?” he shot back.
Sophie hesitated. “No.”
“Well, I do. I spent the day with my son.”
“You have a son?” she asked incredulously. “You never mentioned him before. How old is he?”
More chomping. “Thirteen. No, fourteen. He just had his birthday in July.”
“What’s his name?”
“You and all your questions,” he replied derisively. “Why do you need to know that?”