Chapter 20âTherapy?
I sat in Janet Billingsworth's office waiting for her to call me in. I had returned home Sunday after some rest and time away. I got in late Sunday night and got up early and left for work, so I haven't seen Brandi since my return. I had decided to schedule that follow-up visit with Janetâmy therapistâeven though I wasn't looking forward to it. How would I explain to her what I had done? How could I tell her that I didn't follow her advice, I didn't self-regulate, I lost control of the narrative, and, instead, spanked Brandi again, watched her masturbate, and fucked her?
"Sam? Come on in."
"Hi, Janet."
"Have a seat. Let's catch up on your situation. Let me just take a quick look at my notes."
I waited and fidgeted for a few agonizing moments while Janet read through her notes from my last visit a month ago. "I'll save you some time, Janet, and cut right to the chase. I failed miserably. I succumbed to the temptation and torture."
She looked up and didn't say anything.
"I had sex with Brandi." I continued. "I tried to avoid this. I really did. I tried to take hold of the narrative, but I couldn't. I'm weak, and I gave in to her seduction."
"Okay. Take a deep breath. Your language suggests that it's her fault because you couldn't control yourself from all of the temptation."
"No. No. It's not her fault. It's mine. I'm simply pointing out the reality, though, that she didn't make it easy to resist her. She made it hard... Uhmm. So to speak."
Janet was writing more notes.
"So, here I am feeling very guilty, and I'm at a loss as to what to do."
"Tell me what you want to doâassuming there were no constraints, no wife, no societal boundaries."
"That's easy. Fuck Brandi until I'm blue in the face."
"And then what?"
"Uhmm. What do you mean? Ah, I guess live happily ever after? Wait a second. Scratch that. We wouldn't live happily ever after, would we? I guess I'm thinking that if we did it as much as we wanted, we would soon get past itâwe would have had our fun and experimentationâand we could move on with our lives."
"And you see no long term consequences to that plan if you were able to pull it off?"
"I don't know. You're probably right! This is an incredibly fucked up situation that I have created! What do I do now?"
"I take it Audrey does not know."
"That is correct. And I'd like to keep it that way."
"Do you want this marriage? Do you want her?"
"Yes! I mean, she's great in so many ways and doesn't deserve this. She would never cheat on me! But, my god, I'm just gonna be honest with you. I can't make it another year of Brandi's senior year in high school with us in the same house! I know this sounds terrible, but I lust for her! I want to fuck her. Like her mother, she is so incredibly hot, and she wears the clothes and undergarments to show it off. I can't live in that house with her parading around half naked. And now that we've done it, the pussy, errrr, uhmmm, I mean, cat, is out of the bag! She wants it too. Trust me."
"You may not like what I'm about to say, but your only solution may be to have Brandi, your wife, and you in here for some serious therapy where this all comes out in the open."
"NO! OH MY GOD, NO. You can't be serious?"
"Well, do you move out, Sam? You just told me that you can't control yourself."
I put my head in my hands. "Oh, god. What am I going to do?"
Janet didn't say anything. After a long pause, she said quietly. "I think you have one other solution, but, from your own admission, it's the hardest one of all."
"What's that?"
"Stop. Just stop. Every time you think about having sex with Brandi, DON'T! Go masturbate. Take a cold shower. Anything to keep you from perpetuating this."
I looked at her.
"There is one other possibility that is radical, and I don't advocate it. But in your situation, it might work."
"I'm desperate. Tell me."
"Go away with Brandi somewhere for a weekend or even a week. Fuck like bunnies. Do it until you're exhausted. And tell her in no uncertain termsâthis is it! The last time forever."
"Seriously? Like that scene in one of those John Irving novels?"
"Understand. It's not my choice that you do this. My choice is that you act like an adult, and come to grips with the reality that you can't act on every impulse, you can't have whatever you want, Sam. You need a little tough love, right now. You are acting worse than her, because you are the adult who knows better. But you're acting like a child. I know from so many male clients that to be a man in modern society is torture. Pure torture. Every day. Because underneath the veneer of civilized behavior lies a primitive man with the same impulses he's always had. But, yet, they aren't allowed to behave that way, even though we are now in a society that is even more promiscuous, even more in your face with sexualityâfrom beer commercials to Victoria's Secret models. The Internet is both the proof of what I'm sayingâporn is a multi-billion dollar businessâand part of the problemâbecause it's so readily available. I get it. I really do. The girls Brandi's age are all wearing tight jeans and sexy underwear, because all of the boys they are trying to impress have grown on up on internet porn. That's why they are all shaving their pussies. But you can't continue to do this. It will end miserably. Trust me."
"So if I understand you correctly, you don't advocate the method, but if it works, you agree with the end result. The ends justify the means?"
"If it will get you to stop having sex with your step-daughter, then I can justify it. So, yes, in this case, the ends may justify the means. I will tell you that this is wholly unconventional advice. I suppose some might think that I should lose my license to practice therapy. But unless you put an end to this with your own willpowerâwhich is the way I prefer you do itâthen, I don't know what else to tell you. Other than to get this out in the open and have a chance for healing."
"Janet, there would be no healing. I would be dead."
"Tell me how this incident happened. How many times have you had sex with Brandi?"
"One and a half."