Zach:
Getting home, I was excited to cook dinner with Claire, knowing that we would have more groceries to work with. Walking into the house I noticed it was quieter than it had been the last few days. Looking all around the downstairs, I couldn't find Claire. A spark of panic ignited in my chest, worried that something may have happened to her. I checked her room, she wasn't there. Nor was she in the restroom. I got to my room last, glancing around I still didn't find her. I had almost left my room when I heard sniffling. I looked back in my room listening for the source of the noise. Moving towards my closet I opened it to find Claire sitting in fetal position, wearing one of my t-shirts. Her face was hidden under the collar of my shirt, but it was pretty clear that she had been in here a while, considering how wet the shirt was with her tears.
I sat down next to her and gently rubbed her back. After a few minutes she quieted down, eventually peeking her eyes out from my shirt in a cute way.
"I'm sorry for worrying you." She said, sniffling one more time before pulling her head out of the shirt.
"What happened Claire?" I asked her.
"My friends ambushed me by waiting out front of the house when I got home from the store," her voice cracked a bit at the mention of her friends, "Lara yelled at me because I stopped talking to them. But that wasn't even the worst part." Tears started rolling down her cheeks again.
"What was the worst part? It's ok Claire, you can tell me."
"I'm afraid if I tell you you're going to hate m-me." Her voice caught, filling with emotion.
"Claire, I love you, and whatever it is, we will work through it. So please tell me so I can help you. Have you already forgotten that I have my degree in psychology, so you know I'm a good listener." I gave her a smile. She weakly smiled back before taking a deep breath.
"When you went off to college, I felt alone. I aimed to be in the popular kids group so that I could have all the friends I could ever want. At first Lara, Stephanie, and Amanda came off as vapid, or shallow, but as time went on I had realized that they were truly my friends. They cared about me, and they would help me out when I needed it.
"A lot of those times were when I needed to vent. I was angry at the time, a teenage girl with daddy issues, and the only man she had ever looked up to moved out of state for a 6 year degree." Her words cut me deep, I felt ashamed that I never realized that I did this to her. I was so absorbed with trying to make the future better for my family that I stopped trying to improve the present.
"So, I told them about you, and I mostly said things in a negative light due to how I was feeling at the time, and they told me what I wanted to hear."
"Which further enforced your negative view of me, a feedback loop." I interjected softly.
"Yeah, they told me things to make me feel better because we were all just teenage girls. The same thing happened with Mom. She worked so much, that I hardly saw her. Over time my friends had convinced me as well that she probably just didn't care about me.
"So, I started hanging out with them as much as possible, and I never got more than a few words from mom about it, which further made me feel that she didn't care."
"You don't think your friends were doing this intentionally?" I asked.
"No, I don't, Lara can be a drama queen rich bitch, but under all that she deeply cares about her friends and wants to take care of us. Stephanie is a little odd and airheaded, but when it's just her and I, she is such a sweet, caring person. Then there is Amanda, who would never allow anyone to give me shit, she was like my bodyguard, I felt safe with her.
"This collar had my emotions 180 so fast that I just dropped contact with them, assuming they were the whole problem, but I was wrong."
In the pause of her talking I considered what she was telling me. I saw her friends as pure toxic manipulators, and that feeling rubbed off on Claire due to our connection through the ring and collar. But I felt ashamed for judging her friends before I even knew them. I needed to help Claire out, to fix this.
"How about this," I said, rubbing her back again, "this weekend, would you like to invite them over? I would like to get to know them, if they are important to you then I will make the effort to understand." Her eyes filled with tears, but this time they weren't from sadness, she seemed happy that I was willing to do this for her, instead of rejecting that whole side of her life that I had never considered before. She nodded her head and smiled at me, agreeing to contact her friends and ask them to come over on Saturday.
"Alright let's get you cleaned up. Why are you wearing my shirt by the way?" I ask her.
"Oh, it just felt nice to have your smell covering me, it was the only thing that brought me comfort." She told me, I chuckled and picked her up in a bear hug. She wrapped her legs around my torso as we made our way to the bathroom for a little fun time in the shower.
~*~
The remainder of the week went by in what was becoming my new normal. Wake up and maybe have sex with Claire. See Mom get flustered when we were alone together. At work Nora would pounce on me at lunch time, demanding I 'fuck her like an animal', she must really like Nine Inch Nails. Dr. Cruz more or less treated me the same, but there were times when it look like she was zoned out, looking at her computer.
I would come home, fuck Claire again, then we would get started on dinner. Mom seemed less flustered during this time, eating dinner with us, but I would catch looks from her from time to time. Claire's friends agreed to come over on Saturday - which worked out since mom was still going to work during the weekend - I couldn't wait to get a good read on them. I also wanted to see if they were hot, but I wasn't gonna tell Claire that.
It wasn't until Friday evening when I was getting ready to leave work when Dr. Cruz asked if I could talk with her in her office.
"Hey, you wanted to talk to me Doctor?" I asked, poking my head into her office.
"Uh, yes Zach, please have a seat, and call me Carmen if you would." She said, her back to me as she looked out her window. I was sensing something odd now, the fact that she was allowing me to use her first name immediately set off alarms in my head.
"Zach, I wanted to give you a sort of review of your first week. Things you could improve on and whatnot," she said, as she walked to her desk and sat down on the edge of desk next to me, "I've been studying you all week, and I've got to say I am impressed with what I'm seeing." Her eyes darted up and down my body, before I knew it I could feel the blood rushing to my cock.
"Um... thanks doc... I mean, Carmen." She gave me a sweet smile when I said her name, which made my heart rate spike at how effortlessly sexy she was.
She scooted closer to me so that her legs were almost touching mine. She leaned forward, giving me a salacious view of her miles long cleavage.
"I was thinking, starting next week, I would like to show you the more advanced techniques that the more difficult male patients need me to do to them." She said with a sexy rasp. I was trying desperately to conceal my erection by crossing my legs. Carmen looked down towards my crotch then back up to meet my eyes, she smiled, knowing my naughty secret.
"I'll see you on Monday Zach," she stood up to walk out of her office, stopping to put her hands on my shoulders as she leaned down close to my ear, "make sure you aren't late." Her breathy voice tickled my ear, making me dizzy with arousal. I wanted her so bad but she was denying me for two more days, she had wonderful restraint.
She walked out and left the building after teasing me like that. Eventually I also left her office, after I managed to get my erection tamed. Walking towards the front of the building I noticed I was still there packing up her stuff.
"Hey I, odd seeing you leave after Carmen... I mean Dr. I." She giggled at me using her boss' first name.
"I was actually staying behind because I wanted to ask you if maybe you would want to go to a bar with me this weekend? It's a fun place that I frequent because I like to play billiards and darts." She told me, once again surprising me with how forward she could be.
"I might be able to do late Saturday, or any time you want on Sunday." I told her, shifting a bit on my feet to contain my excitement at being asked out by a girl.
"Sunday evening sounds good. It's a date!" she flashed me a bright grin, "but if you end up free Saturday night just give me a call." She walked up to me, grabbing my collar she pressed her mouth against mine and kissed me deeply. Breaking the kiss to breath, she looked me deep in the eyes, "I'll see you this weekend, stud." She giggled, placing a note with her phone number into my pocket, also using it as an excuse to grope my cock. After that she broke away and began walking towards the front door of the office. I realized that she had the keys to the office so I needed to leave with her, or risk getting locked in for the weekend.