Amy was early and sat stiffly on the couch. It was her first time seeing a therapist and she wondered if she should lay down.
“Hello, Amy. I’m Dr. Zelinsky.”
Amy stood, tentatively shook the offered hand, and sat back down on the edge of the cushion. The doctor eased onto an adjacent chair.
“How can I help?”
Amy took a deep breath. “I’ve never done this before. I’m usually strong but lately I can’t shake this depression.”
“Meeting with a therapist doesn’t mean you’re weak. Sometimes you just need to talk things through confidentially. Perhaps I can offer a different perspective on what you’re going through.”
Amy took another breath and released it slowly.
“I’m a bad person,” she whispered.
Dr. Zelinsky didn’t answer. She gave Amy time to gather her thoughts.
“People think I’m this successful businesswoman with a perfect marriage. I’ve done things that I’m not proud of and I’ve worked hard to be a better person. But my husband doesn’t let me forget. Just when I think our marriage is going great, he brings up the past.”
“I’m a whore. I slept with men for money. Not because I needed it; because I liked it and it gave me power. I was an engineer by day and a high-end slut by night.”
“I was famous for having just the right touch with a whip. I satisfied 156 different men and made half a million dollars in the course of a few years.”
“When I met Ari, I stopped. He was one of my clients, but our attraction was stronger than I’d ever felt. It wasn’t just incredible sex; it was a deep connection. I didn’t take his money, quit hooking and we started a relationship and married the next year. It’s been over 10 years and a wonderful life. Mostly.”
Dr. Zelinsky quietly asked, “What does he do to make you feel bad?”
“He tells me that he doesn’t trust me. That he thinks I’ll go back to my old ways.” Amy hung her head.
“But you trust him?” Zee asked.
“Of course! He’s a good man!” Amy cried.
“I’m sure he is. You love him. Don’t forget that he was an equal party in the sex trade, though. You deserve the same trust you give him,” Dr. Zelinsky stated.
Amy’s tears began to flow. “I just want to put it all behind us.”
“Amy, we have to learn to live with our past and we’ll always carry some of who we were with who we are now. That doesn’t make us bad. That makes us human and unique.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Amy sniffled.
That night Ari opened the door to a dark house lit only by a trail of candles.
In the bedroom he came face-to-face with his past. Amy was dressed only in black thigh-high boots with a cat-o-nine-tails in her hand.
“Hello, Husband. Trust me?”
**********
Written for the To Live & Write in Alameda February 2020 “Flash Lit” Challenge #1. We had three days to write a piece of fiction, non-fiction or poetry of 500 words or less to the theme “Just the Right Touch” and post the link in our group.
I took teeny bites of the protein bar as I watched the screen showing my husband’s vital signs. Different colored graphs scrolled by on a continuous roller coaster but no alarms were ringing so I figured things must be stable. His eyes were closed and his breathing was even. I folded the empty wrapper into a small square and put it in my pocket.
“Watch your step!” Wendy shouted, jerking him to the side.
It had been a week of “lasts.” Her last term paper, her last shift at the coffee shop, her last Taco Tuesday at Don Jose’s. She heard the toilet flush and realized that this would be the last time Zoe would slip under the covers next to her in their bed.
“Nana, why doesn’t daddy like mommy anymore?”
Merry awoke just as the first red bursts of dawn streaked through the shutters and across her white bedspread. It reminded her of blood splatter and she watched the gory hue turn to a bruise of blue and purple and finally the pure, clean brightness of a new day, disappearing into the covers. She felt a shift in the universe and tears pricked her eyes.
When a man gets to a certain age, it is time for him to set out on his own, or at least that is what he tried to tell himself as he readied his boat for the journey. He had been sailing these seas with his father since the day he could walk, he knew them better than he knew the land. Of course, where he was going, he would eventually leave his home waters, and that is where the test of his strength and abilities would come in. 
I’d awoken with a sore throat and a fever, so mother made me stay home. Daddy went to work and my sister left without me to walk the short distance to school with the kids from the block. I spent the morning on the couch bundled up in blankets, engrossed in one of the “Little House on the Prairie” books and sipping ginger ale through a straw from a nearby TV tray. Mother went about her daily housewife routine of making beds, starting a load of laundry, arranging the front window drape pleats, and raking the shag carpet.
It was spring of 1982 and I was months from high school graduation. On the horizon was a summer serving as crew on a 101 ft schooner and the beginning of college in the fall. It was also a dull and dreary day sitting in the teeny boatyard office of the marine electrician where I worked as an assistant after school.
Elizabeth frowned at her monthly planner entry for August 15th. The heart with the number “5” inside was drawn before the new year, when things were still good. She planned on serving him with divorce papers soon and wanted to keep things amiable until then. A present was just the thing.
