This story features depictions of a mature woman and a young man, coercion by an authority figure, unrealistic penis size, body shaming, and objectification.
Sam stared down his bare legs, crossed over at the ankle, to the simple blue running shoes he typically wore around campus. The hard, easy-clean blue carpet stretched out around his feet. Fluorescent tube lighting overhead. Cheap white paint on the walls. The waiting area was at the very top of the building, the ceiling slanted, oppressive. Unreworked for the 21st century. Exactly the location he would have pictured for mandated school counselling.
Slouched though he was, mop of brown hair partially covering his gaunt, handsome face, he still looked tall. Long, wiry limbs and torso. Blue button down shirt and grey twill shorts that stopped a short distance above the knee.
He was 19, in his first year of University, and he'd already messed up enough to put his future in jeopardy.
"Sam? Do you want to come through?"
He looked up. A woman's face wearing a cheery smile peeked round the door and then darted back in before he could get a better look. He picked himself up off the cushioned bench and followed her through.
"Thanks for coming, I'm Mary, one of the campus Counsellors. Take a seat wherever you like." It sounded scripted - warm, but cursory. From behind, he could see shoulder-length black hair. A red cotton blouse tucked in to a wraparound skirt made of a generous length of brown tweed, accentuating the cinch of her waist and the round angle of her hips. He guessed that she was around six inches shorter than she was. As she turned, he saw that cheerful smile again - a soft, round face that seemed flattered by equally round spectacles. To her peers, she would be the definition of cute; Sam could only guess - Thirty? Forty? - and to his naΓ―ve gaze, she appeared aged.
"Right, so..." she leafed through a thin document. "Sam. You've been sent up to talk to me, haven't you, because you've had some problems on campus?" She spoke with the same gentle, caring tone throughout.
"Um..." his voice was as deep as he was tall, but soft. "Yeah." He wondered what more he should say, and decided to leave it at that.
"And how are you feeling today?"
"Um. Fine."
"Bit nervous?"
"Uh, yeah. They said I could get expelled if I didn't come here."
"Alright, Sam, well, there's nothing to be nervous about." She gave him another big smile. "I'm not here to decide whether you get expelled. We're just going to talk, and try and help you work out how to avoid the situation under discussion from happening again." Her voice dripped with carefully considered reassurance.
"Okay."
"Okay." Another clinically wide smile. "You're in the English department, aren't you?"
"First year, yeah."
"Who's your Tutor?"
"Professor Owens."
"Oh yes, I know him, nice man."
"Yeah."
She sat a little more upright, placing the clipboard on her lap. For the first time, he noticed the creases of her blouse folded around her breasts. He looked back at his shoes.
"So Sam, would you like to tell me in your own words what's been happening? Why have you been asked to come and speak to me?"
He kept his eyes on his shoes.
"I... got angry."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I shouted at someone. A girl."
"Another student."
"Yeah, I lost my temper." Barely more than a mumble. "I shouldn't have, I already said sorry."
"Why did you lose your temper with her?"
He shuffled. The chair was large, comfortable, but without arms, and a back that seemed to recline too much. He was keeping himself upright in order to keep facing her.
"Um, she said something... because people have been talking about me, and it's really stressing me out, and she said something about it..."
"Talking about you how?"
"Um." He took a long pause.
"It's alright."
"Um... someone said they saw my bum, and it was... big."
"Right... the other students are making fun of you for having a big bum?"
"Gossip, yeah. Asking me about it. Chatting to each other about it. I ask people to stop but they do it more."
"So she was talking about your bum, this girl, and that's why you got angry?"
Sam could sense that he was being strung along, but didn't possess the wherewithal to question it. "Yes."
"Do you feel self-conscious about your bum? You feel that it's too big?"
"Yeah... well, no. I don't know. No. I don't... but it doesn't matter, I don't think people should be making fun of me anyway."
"No, of course not, Sam, but I think it's important to identify the source of this anger in order to help you get some control over it."
"I'm not angry anymore. I don't get angry a lot." It wasn't a lie. Prior to his outburst on the Quad, where Sophie had gone from giggling to cowering as he screamed with his reddened face inches from hers, he had always been the softest and most timid of young men. The extent to which this has escalated seemed like an error. A misunderstanding. He didn't have an anger problem. And he didn't need counselling.
"I don't think I have a problem with anger."
Mary opened the clipboard again, to a page of notes. Several paragraphs were circled in red. He stared at his shoes again.
"So you understand, Sam, I am absolutely here to help you, but I do need you to be honest with me in order to do that."
"I am being honest."
This time the smile was half as wide.
"Okay... Sam, I was passed quite a detailed report of what happened, corroborated by several students and tutors." He said nothing. "So based on what we both know, I don't think it's very honest of you to say that you don't need help controlling your anger, is it?"
"Mm." It wasn't even a word.
"Do you want to tell me in your own words what the other students were making fun of you for?"
"I already did."
"Okay. Sam, you can stick to that version of events, but I won't be able to honestly say that we had a satisfactory session here if you do. I know what I have in my notes. So do you. Would you agree?"
"Mm."
"It wasn't your bum they were discussing, was it?"