Hannah smiled. “Yes darling, you’re right. Mummy’s sorry.” She threw her phone down on the kitchen counter and tried to focus on making the children’s dinners, telling herself that if she wanted to, she didn’t have to reply.
“Hi Elliot, thanks for your email,” Hannah typed. “Monday at 3pm would work fine. I’ll see you then. Hannah”. She lay in bed. One of the children had crawled in with her. She could hear her husband typing away in his office. “I wonder if he watches porn when he stays up late working?”
Chapter 3.
Elliot’s office was stylishly decorated, very Scandi-chic décor and grey-tone walls. It didn’t feel like a therapist’s office, it was like walking into somebody’s lounge. He invited her to sit on a sofa that looked brand new. “Have you been in these offices long?” Hannah enquired.
“No, I’ve just moved in actually, do you like it?” Elliot replied.
“It’s very cosy, did you decorate it yourself?” Hannah realised straight away that she was flirting with him. Not excessively, but she knew full well that when she found someone attractive, she used a specific tone. It wasn’t purposeful, it was instinctive, and because of that she didn’t know how to override it. Plus, she’d never had to in the past.
She found herself studying his face as he answered her question and then proceeded to talk her through all the administrative stuff linked to therapy that she wasn’t hugely interested in. He had a very kind and welcoming manner, she felt at home in his company, already. She fixed his gaze and realised just how beautiful his eyes were. Hannah didn’t often notice people’s eyes, but his were a deep blue. He didn’t look away the whole time. Maybe it was something they had to learn to do—part of the job.
“… and so if I do perceive there to be any danger to you or someone close to you then I do have a legal obligation to inform the authorities,” he continued.
“What?” she blurted out, suddenly aware that she’d not been paying attention to anything he’d said for the past few minutes. “I’m sorry. Yes, of course, I understand the implications. Don’t worry, I don’t want to kill anyone. And my husband is the most docile man you could meet. There’s no risk there.” Hannah blushed. “Concentrate goddamnit!” she told herself.
Elliot smiled. “So then, if that’s all ok for you, shall we get started?” Hannah nodded. “What brought you here today Hannah?” He continued to look her straight in the eyes. His gaze felt oddly intense and Hannah realised she was getting flustered. She willed herself to focus, to keep her mind on the reason she was here, to think of the money she was wasting getting distracted by him.
“Well, as I said in my email, I’m not sure really,” she said, gathering herself. “I suppose I’m just a bit bored of life really.”
“Ok, and how long do you think you’ve been feeling this way?” Elliot asked.
Hannah cupped her chin in her hands and tried to reflect on her feelings. “Look, I think the choices I made in life that have brought me to where I am now, were probably the wrong ones. I think I chose stability over excitement in an attempt to be a good and proper adult. In an attempt to prove a point, that I could do it. But I feel like there’s a younger, more exciting version of me trying to get out constantly, and that generalised frustration is starting to spill over into my daily life now.”
“I see,” said Elliot.
Her hands shot up involuntarily to cover her mouth. She hadn’t expected to say anything like that. She suddenly felt awful.
Seeing this, Elliot said, “There is no need to feel bad, Hannah. If that’s how you feel, then keeping it in isn’t going to help you. I understand that there is often guilt around these types of admissions, especially as a parent, but please don’t beat yourself up. That’s not the purpose of these sessions. Just try to be honest with yourself.” Elliot had begun methodically rolling up his sleeves as he was saying this—folding the material over once, then again, and again. Hannah tried not to look at his forearms, which were slender but muscular. She felt hot. Was the room stuffy? Was it a bodily reaction to blurting out her true feelings in that way? Or was it his arms that were having that effect on her?
After the session Hannah walked home in a daze. “What happened back there?” she wondered. In less than an hour, she had managed to question the reason as to why she married her husband, admit to feeling frustrated in her current life, and unexpectedly fantasise over her therapist’s physique. She knew he was good-looking going into this, but she hadn’t expected him to be quite so alluring in person. And yet, despite her attraction to him, she felt like she could tell him anything. It all felt very confusing and exciting at the same time.
Her walk home wasn’t long and the weather was nice, there was a cool breeze and the sun was out. She enjoyed walking alone at her own pace for once. “I must pick up some bananas on the way home, we’re almost out, and if we don’t have any in the house, the children won’t eat any fruit this week,” she said to herself. Mum mode had now been fully reengaged.
Chapter 4.
Hannah’s husband was a lovely man whom she cared for deeply. They had two children together, after which he had volunteered to have a vasectomy, aware that neither of them wanted any more and that she had taken sole care of contraception for their entire relationship. Now in her early forties, she didn’t want to take any more pills that messed with her hormones and her weight, or have another painful IUD inserted that had given her the heaviest periods she had known when she was younger. She just wanted things to be simple. She was aware how much her husband enjoyed sex with her, and she had a need for penetration, so it seemed like a mutually beneficial arrangement for them both. No more condoms on that one week of the month, no more worries about slip-ups and unwanted pregnancies. It had proven to be a great solution, they could fuck whenever they wanted without having to check a calendar, as long as there wasn’t a rogue child in their bed that night, of course. After ten years together, neither of them particularly wanted to do it elsewhere in the home anymore. The bathroom never felt all that clean. The kitchen felt too accident-prone. Since moving into this house, they had decided one Saturday evening to fuck on the new rug in the sitting room, only for them both to come away with carpet-like burns and a vow not to try it again.
The evening after Hannah’s first therapy session, she put the children to bed, surprised at how easily it went for once.
She took her clothes off, went into the bathroom and washed her face, something she did every single evening. However, this evening as she cleansed her face, working the product into her skin, she felt different. Something about it felt more sensual than usual. “Maybe I’m ovulating?” she thought. She was always much easier to turn on when she was ovulating. Thank you nature! Still, it wasn’t usually her face-washing routine that did it for her. She splashed the water onto her face and looked up at the reflection of herself in the mirror, expecting to see the slightly tired woman she always saw of an evening staring back at her. Instead she caught her own gaze in the mirror and looked at herself inquisitively, she looked quite radiant for once. She smiled at her own reflection, “Well this is new,” she thought. “Maybe therapy is good for me.”
Face cream applied, hair brushed, teeth cleaned, she walked into her husband’s office, completely naked. “The kids are down for the night. Do you want to fuck, darling?”
Her husband looked up from his computer screen. “Oh! I didn’t see you there, Han! Yes, of course. Give me five minutes to send this email, ok?” Hannah let out a little sigh and walked back out of the room. She got it. Life gets in the way when you’re older. She shouldn’t compare this situation to those lived in her youth, to that frantic sex she had so loved with her ex. Looking back, she realised they had little to no responsibilities. They didn’t even live together. God it was perfect! “Why do we ever move in with one another?” she thought. “House prices, that’s why.” She said, nodding in agreement with her own conclusion.
She lay down in bed, and waited. Five minutes went by, then ten. “Well this is bullshit,” she muttered to herself.
She was aware that if she waited much longer she would probably fall asleep despite the early hour, then no doubt wake in the night extremely horny and frustrated, with her husband snoring next to her. She began touching herself. Now wasn’t the time for noisy toys, but she could use her fingers. She had never been able to make herself climax just by rubbing, but she could keep herself wet until he joined her in bed. “Maybe I should have just straddled him on his office chair,” she thought to herself and groaned.
A further fifteen minutes later, her husband threw himself through the bedroom doorway, sideways, whilst unbuttoning his shirt, obviously aware that he was arriving lot later than promised, and trying to make up for lost time. The scene made Hannah laugh. “Don’t hurt yourself! It’s fine, just get into bed for god’s sake.” Now fully naked, he pulled back the sheets hurriedly, letting cold air into the previously warm environment, and lay down next to her. He reached out to touch her body with hands that were icy cold. She squealed. He instantly retreated and apologised, putting his hands over his mouth, breathing heavily on them to try and warm them up.
“Is that your vagina I can smell, Han?” he asked.
“Probably. I had to keep myself occupied while I was waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry, something came up. Nothing as interesting as your vagina, of course. It just couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”
Not for the first time, she wished he’d just call it her “cunt”. Unfortunately, he had always refused to, so she’d given up asking. “Vagina” felt so sterile.