AUTHOR'S NOTE: Everyone in this story is at least 19 years of age. Everyone.
*****
When I went in, she was with a client at her reading table. She glanced at me as I entered, but then turned her attention back to the client. I stood inside the door for probably three or four minutes, feeling awkward and wondering if I should interrupt just long enough to ask if I should return later. Then I heard Lila say, "Would you excuse you me for just a moment, hun? I'll be back in seconds." Before I knew it she had glided to the entryway to her kitchen, and as I watched, she shot me a quick look and gestured for me to follow.
I followed her into the little room where I'd last seen her, where I'd watched the two videos she'd produced for me, where she had battered my face and tongue with her dirty feet and spanked me with my own belt. "Are you in a hurry today, hun? Are you on your way to work or anything?"
"No, ma'am." I feel I must have been smiling when I answered, because she had called me "hun", and her tone was gentle.
"Come over here, then." She directed me to a corner of the room. Gently guiding my shoulders, she made it clear that she wanted me to stand in that corner, facing it. Once I was stationed there, I was startled to find two sandals coming into my field of vision from either direction. She had taken them off her feet, and with a sash she produced from who-knows-where, she tied them with the top sides right over my face, side by side.
"Stay here until I come back in. Just stand here feeling your erection twitch," she chuckled, "and don't move."
I'm not sure how long I waited. Long enough to feel self-conscious and stupid. When she returned, she had me remain as I was, as she asked me about how, and what, I'd been doing for the last four days. She asked for details, so, while facing the corner of the room and talking into her sandals, I told her how I'd felt undeserving somehow to return to my own bed after that first time forcing myself out of it at 4 AM, and how I'd fantasized that I was sleeping on the ground outside after prepping sleeping accomodations for Brittany, Katrina, and her new boyfriend.
"That is wonderful, David," she said. "You are making progress, hun. Lila is very, very pleased that you came up with that idea all on your own. Now I want you to tell me that you were not good enough for Katrina, that she was right to cheat on you, and that you're glad she found someone who deserves her."
Dutifully remembering to say "Yes ma'am" first, I repeated the prescribed assertions. She asked me to tell her more about what the time dating Katrina was like. I told her how Katrina would have me call her each morning to wake her up, how some days I was a sort of human snooze alarm - if she said to call back in a few minutes, I did it. How Katrina had me help her study, how she didn't really want us holding hands or touching each other in front of others.
"Ah," said Lila. "Well, you've acknowledged that you weren't good enough for her. And I'm sure she knew that. Probably from the time she first met you. So do you ever wonder why she dated you in the first place?"
"Um..."
"Do you think she ever intended to have sex with you?"
"Well... That's what people do... eventually... right?"
"Not in a case like this, hun. She wasn't waiting for the right time with you. She was waiting to meet a man she liked, one she was attracted to."
"So... why not just break up with me? I mean, break up way earlier?"
"Because you were useful to her."
After reflecting a few moments, I replied, "Useful. So you're saying... she was just using me?"
"Yes, hun."
"But... that's wrong. I mean, to use people and string them along. That's wrong."
"When you were with her, spending time with her, did you enjoy it?"
"Yes."
"Well, then... you got something out of it. You got about as much as you deserve, hun, 'cause you're a loser. And she knew it."
Her words cut my heart and made me feel deflated. Combined with my present position of standing in a corner, facing a wall, with sandals over my face, they made me feel extra-stupid.
"So, hun... Tell me Katrina knew you were a loser from the beginning, that she stayed with you as long as you were useful to her, and that she was right to use you until someone she liked came along."
I repeated the assertions, and just as I finished, I was aware of Lila standing just behind me. I could just barely feel her dark curls, as she leaned in, just over my shoulder, and whispered, "Loooooooserrrrrrrr". As my eyes flew open about as wide as they can go, she chuckled, and glided back to where she'd been sitting.
After allowing the realization to sink in, that she was the voice of the mocking, whispering woman in the videos, she asked me, "Does it hurt when Lila laughs at you, hun?"
"Yes ma'am."
"But do you understand it?"
"Um. I guess so, ma'am."
"Do you think a psychotherapist would ever call you a loser and laugh at you?"
"No."