I slung my purse over my shoulder and walked down the first floor hallway towards Nancy's office. I passed a soda machine with an Out Of Order sign taped to it, a toddler screaming at a tired looking woman seated on a red bench by the wall, and over her head, a painting of...of something, lord knew what.
I rounded the corner, and opened the door to her waiting room and entered the softly lit, comfortable room. Fish swam lazily in a tank, and plants made the room seem softly alive. There were no New Age magazines--Crystals Cured My Cancer!--but there were coffee table art books. Women wearing turn-of-the-century dresses enjoyed an Impressionistic picnic on the front of one of them.
I sank into the cream-colored sofa like sitting in a big welcoming hand, and closed my eyes. I breathed gently in and out as I tried to soak up the calm of the room.
Then a sweet clear feminine voice spoke my name.
"Sherry?"
There was Nancy, standing in the inner doorway. I hadn't even heard her open it. She was smiling warmly at me. I got up and walked toward her.
She was wearing a beige sweaterdress and brown boots. She had on jade earrings and a necklace to match, and as I passed close by her to enter the room, my nostrils filled with her lovely perfume.
I sat down on her couch, and took in the familiar shelves filled with her books, more plants, little delicate figurines of animals here and there. A humidifier hummed softly.
Nancy sat down in her easy chair, smoothing a strand of her dark blonde hair behind her delicate ear as she rested my file on her lap and settled herself in. She pushed up her glasses and tilted her head at me and smiled again.
"So," she asked me, "what's up this week, kiddo?"
"Well..." I began uncertainly, "since Vince and I split, I just don't feel myself." I paused.
"In what way, Sherry?" Nancy asked softly.
I drew my legs up under me as I sat on the couch and tried to gather my thoughts. "I guess I just don't feel attractive. And I feel like I'm not worth as much if I'm not Mrs. Bigshot anymore." I blathered on, basically repeating myself, for a few minutes, as Nancy's warm brown eyes focused their attention on me.
I ran out of nonsense to spout and the room was quiet for a minute as the humidifier hummed away in its corner.
"I'd like to try something," she said as she gently placed my file aside and got up. Her sweaterdress draped so sensuously over her. I wished I felt like she looked; beautiful, sensual, intelligent, alluring, confident.
Nancy picked up a vase of hybrids from her desk and I felt the couch dip slightly as she sat gracefully down next to me. Her perfectly manicured fingers drew one flower out from the vase and set the rest on a table nearby.
Smiling reassuringly, Nancy took my hand in hers--her skin was so nice and smooth--and we held the stem of the flower together.
"Okay, I'd like for you to look at this flower, Sherry." She paused, then went on. "Feel its green stem in your our hands, so alive and wet from being in the vase, with its sisters. Now," she continued, her voice soothing, light, almost hypnotic, "please keep holding the stem, but take your other hand and touch the petals with your fingertips. Feel how delicate, how wonderful they feel." I did as Nancy asked, and felt the moist, beautiful petals.
"Now, Sherry," she said so low she was almost whispering, "inhale its fragrance. Put your face to the folded petals of this flower and experience the aroma, the feel, the power of this one delicate, beautiful little flower."
I was very aware of Nancy's finger touching mine as we held the flower and I brought my face to its center and closed my eyes, letting myself take in all the sensations. I could feel the petals on my face as I slowly breathed in its lovely scent.
Finally I opened my eyes and looked up and into Nancy's eyes, a few inches away from mine over the flower we held. I felt the first real, spontaneous smile of my week spread across my face, and she smiled back, her face full of reassuring warmth.
She gently took the flower from my hand and tenderly replaced it with the others.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she asked, searching my eyes.
"Yes, wow, that's amazing! I guess I just don't take time to really experience things sometimes. You know?"
"Well...it IS beautiful, Sherry. But all it is is just one little flower, in a vase, in my office. YOU, Sherry, are beautiful, too. And you are so much more than just a flower in a vase. You are more lovely, more perfect, more powerful, than any flower."
And then Nancy touched my cheek, just for a tiny moment, but with infinite tenderness.
"See you next week," she said in her honeyed voice.
***
"I'm missing Vince less than I was...thank God for girlfriends, Nancy. More and more I am thankful for them because I have them to go to and he has...business." I snorted and rolled my eyes.
"So you're feeling closer to your women friends?" Nancy had on a black turtleneck and a brown suede skirt. She looked perfect, as usual. A silver bracelet reflected the light at her wrist.
"Yes...yes I am, but..."
"But?"
I waved my hand dismissively. "Oh, it's stupid."
"Is it, Sherry? I feel sure it isn't 'stupid' at all. Please tell me what you're feeling."
"I just...sometimes I would like to just be held by one of my girlfriends. I don't just mean a quick hug with kids running around and the microwave dinging and somebody at the door. I mean..."
"Yes?" Nancy encouraged me. "Tell me, Sherry." her voice was so soothing.
"Well, Nancy...I would really really like to be held by my friends Joanna or Trish...held for hours. Just to lay in their arms with no interruptions or obligations. Like for the whole afternoon. That's what I'd like." I could feel myself blushing. I shrugged.
"Sherry...how long has it been since you were held by someone?"
I sighed. "Since Vince I guess. And then it wasn't the type of thing I'm talking about. Vince was goal-oriented, as you know!" I laughed bitterly. "If he held me it was because I was his goal of the moment."
I turned my head to the side and caught the aroma of some potpourri next to the lamp by the couch. And then my loneliness welled up in me and I felt tears fill my eyes and spill over onto my cheeks.
And then...and then...
Nancy was at my side, surrounding me like a spring breeze, and before I knew it, and without a word between us, my face was nestled against the softness of her sweater, and her arms were around me and she was holding me. I could feel my own tears on the butter-soft material of her sweater, and the rich, comforting fullness of her breast underneath. her chest rose and fell gently against my face, warm and sweet, and I could feel her bra as I wrapped my arms helplessly around her.
"There, baby," Nancy cooed as her slender fingers stroked my hair, and she held me in her arms and shushed and almost imperceptibly rocked me."Shhhh." We lay there together for the rest of the hour, almost forty minutes. We never really said a word. When my hour was up, I extricated myself from her embrace, altough I didn't want to, and picked up my purse and went home.
***
All the rest of that day, I felt a serenity inside that I hadn't had in a long time. I was smiling at little things again, and even caught myself whistling. ("Girls who whistle come to no good end!" I could hear my mother saying from somewhere in my memory)
That night as I lay in bed I replayed my session with Nancy in my mind. The feel of her arms around me, and mine clinging to her. The softness of her breasts under my cheek. "Oh Nancy," I murmured as I fantasized--thrillingly!--of what it would have been like to kiss her there, and I actually made a kissing sound with my lips, which brought me out of my reverie.