A 21st Century Courtesan (17 page)

I immediately feel like an idiot. But she just smiles at me. “That's not my job. My job is to listen, to prompt you to figure things out yourself, in a way your psyche can accept.”

“Oh …” I shift, cross my legs, tug on the end of my hair, twining a strand around my finger. “What do you want to know? ”

“What do you want to tell me?”

“Do you always answer a question with a question?”

She smiles once more. “I'm here to be a sounding board. You only have to talk about what you want to talk about. I'm not going to tell you what to do, what to say. You get to decide that, okay?”

I nod. “Yes, sure.”

Taking a moment, I let my gaze settle on the shelves behind her chair. There are art books there, among the self-help and psychology titles, books on spirituality.

“Well … you know that Deirdre referred me to you, so you know what I do for a living.”

“How would
you
describe what you do for a living, Val?”

I look up at her, meet her watery blue eyes. “It's Valentine. If I'm going to be honest with you, open, you should call me Valentine.”

“Alright. Valentine.”

I can tell she is the kind of person who will remain calm no matter what I say, what I do. Frightening and reassuring all at the same time.

I lean forward a fraction of an inch. It's really more a flexing of tight muscle. “I'm a call girl. A prostitute. I sell my body for sex. A hooker. A whore.”

“You sound bitter.”

“Do I?” I can feel my pulse racing. I have no reason to be angry with this woman. “Maybe I am. Maybe that's why I'm here.”

She's quiet a moment, then, “Was there some incident that sparked your interest in therapy?”

“I had a complaint from a client and Deirdre sent me to you.”

“I meant, did something happen to you personally?”

“What? No.” I curl my fingers into my palms, the nails biting into the soft flesh there and say, more quietly, “Yes.”

She waits for me to elaborate.

“I don't know how to do this,” I tell her. “This one-way conversation thing. Am I supposed to just spew my guts while you listen?”

“Sometimes, yes.” She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, clasps her hands together. “I'll tell you a secret, Valentine. I can already see your intelligence. I have no intention of bullshitting you. Part of what we therapists look for, particularly on a first meeting, is body language. Your comfort level, or lack of comfort, in talking about yourself. It's part of how we get to know a client.”

“So this is a test.”

“No. This is me observing how you respond to this environment.”

“And?”

“And it's too soon for me to come to any real conclusions. We're just getting started. Why don't you talk about what brought you here?”

“Oh, well …” I uncross my legs, cross them again. I'm glad I wore jeans, something I rarely do. I don't want to look like a hooker to this woman. “It's a man. How cliché is that? But that's what made me stop and think about… everything. My work. My life.”

“A client?”

“Oh, God no.”

She's quiet again, contemplative. She sits back in her chair. “What is it about him that makes you question everything, as you said?”

“He's so damn perfect.” I push my hair away from my face. I want to pull it, to make it hurt. Instead, I keep talking. “He's too beautiful and too good. A real person. He's not like me, you know? He has a real life. A man like that could never be with me.”

“Because you're not a real person?”

“Something like that, yes. My life is a totally surreal existence. I know that. I've been living it for nearly a decade. There's no room in it for a man like Joshua. And there's certainly no place in his life for a woman like me.”

“And you find that difficult to accept?”

“It's fucking impossible.” I shake my head. “I'm sorry.”

She shrugs, smiles. “I've heard worse.”

She really is awfully nice, this Lydia Foster. But I'm not ready to let my guard down completely yet.

It strikes me that my guard is never down; it hasn't been since I was maybe five years old.

“I have a terrible habit of swearing,” I tell her. “I grew up around it. I've never gotten over it. But I can usually keep it under control when I have to.”

“You don't have to here.”

I nod, look away. There's a window to my left, sectioned into small panes. Outside the sun glances green and gold on the leaves of a tree. Behind it the fall sky is blue, marred by a thin layer of smog. I've known that sky all my life. One of the few constants.

“I had this weird childhood. Dysfunctional.”

“In what way?”

“In every way.”

“Oh?”

I shake my head. “I'm sorry. I was drifting.”

“I don't think you were.”

“Maybe. I guess I'm supposed to talk about my childhood. Isn't that what Freud would say? ”

“Probably.”

“What would you say? ”

“I like to let the client set the pace. Why don't you just talk for a while, and we'll let it go wherever your mind chooses. Okay?”

“Yes. Sure.”

“You were talking about your childhood.”

“Yes.” I pull on my hair again, wrap my fingers up in the ends, take a breath. My childhood is the one thing I try to avoid thinking about as much as possible. But if I'm not going to go there, what the hell am I doing here? Why bother? I'm not supposed to like it. I'm just supposed to do it.

Shit.

But I am going to do it.

Why do I feel like this is some sort of last chance for me?

“My mother was an alcoholic.”

I have to stop, breathe. I've never actually said that out loud to anyone. It's never been necessary. I didn't know it would feel like this. Like a small knife slipping between my ribs. I didn't know it would feel like
anything
,

“How did that affect you, growing up?”

“How didn't it affect me? She was depressed. Insecure. A real mess. And my father, he couldn't stand it. I can't blame him. That's why he was gone all the time, off with other women. My mother was pathetic. I always knew that, even when I was very young.”

“How do you think that's influenced how you see yourself as a woman?”

“Oh, I'm completely opposite from her. I take care of myself, keep my life under control. I rarely have more than a drink or two.”

“Do you ever experience depression?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“And your self-esteem?”

“It's fine. I'm fine.”

“And yet you believe this man, Joshua, is too good for you.”

It's like being socked in the chest. The air just rushes right out of my lungs.

Fuck.

I say, “Yes.” It comes out in a small, hissing whisper.

She sits quietly, waiting. Finally she says, “Let's go back to your childhood. Tell me about your father.”

I take a few moments, finding my breath. “He wasn't around much. I never really felt that I knew him. I felt… separate from him. Maybe my mom had something to do with that, kept us separate. He'd leave for days, sometimes weeks at a time. She would spend most of that time on the sofa, a bottle in her hand. There's a reason why it's called stinking drunk.” I have to stop, to shake the memory away. It's too awful. “I took care of myself. I ate a lot of cereal until I was old enough to figure out how to cook. After Mom passed out I could change the channel and watch the cooking shows. That's one thing I have now; I love to cook when I get the chance.”

“You became self-reliant.”

“Yes. I always have been. I've always had to be.”

“What was it like when your father was home?”

“It was worse. They'd lock me in my room. Well, it was my mother who did that. I doubt he even remembered I was there half the time. I doubt he knew I existed.”

Why does it hurt to say these things? Things I've known
all my life. My chest aches as though a heavy weight is pressing there. I draw another breath in, hold on to it a moment, as though it might keep me afloat.

“What I know about relationships comes from those nights. Being locked in my room, sometimes without any dinner, and the two of them fucking like crazy in the other room. Their moans. Their laughter.

“He'd bring gifts on those nights. Well, for Mom, mostly, but sometimes for me. He never once apologized, for any of it. But my mother seemed to think those little gifts were everything. She'd tell me how hard marriage was. What a burden the sex was, how she only did it to keep him. How the gifts made it all worth it for a while. And the better the gift was, the more crap she'd put up with.” It's pouring out now, like the proverbial broken dam. It hurts, but I can't stop it. I don't want to badly enough. “She told me how sex was the only time she had any control over him. She told me far too much, frankly. And she was so damn grateful for whatever small pleasure she got out of him, and believe me, it wasn't much. Even when he was gone, she was never angry enough. Just so incredibly sad. I hated her sadness. I hated them both for it, but her most of all, because I knew it was what drove him away.”

I stop, trying to untangle all those ugly bits and pieces from my brain. I want to tear them out. I want them all to be gone. But this is part of who I am. It will always be there.

“And what about your teen years, Valentine?”

“That was better. And worse. I'd gotten too old for my mom to drag me around anymore, to lock me in my room. I was pretty much left to my own devices by about age thirteen. I stayed out late, did what I wanted to. I got into smoking cigarettes for a while, drinking beer with my friends, but it reminded me too much of my mother, so that stopped pretty
quickly. I became hypersexual, sleeping with all the boys in school, the occasional college guy. I never had a real boyfriend, not even then.”

“What about it was bad, exactly?”

“Well, the sleeping around itself, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I mean, I don't think sex itself is bad, even at that age. But it was just so fucking … empty. I was looking for something to … fill me up. But it never did. Oh, I got that momentary thrill of male attention. That validation. But no one really cared. Even I didn't care.”

I think back for a moment to that article I read on the way to New York, about those girls. So abandoned. So like me. A small wrenching sensation in my chest. For them. For myself. What difference might it have made if someone gave a shit?

“I think my early sexual behavior was a culmination of all that happened prior to that, in my childhood, with my parents. And then my sexual behavior as an adult… I think I've partitioned my life in my mind, separating the two. The time before I got paid for sex, and the time after.” The words are just streaming out now, the thoughts forming milliseconds before translating into language. “But ultimately, it was all the same thing, wasn't it? Because there's always been this issue with my orgasms. And it's all got to be connected.”

“Yes?” Lydia prompts.

I look right at her, watching for her reaction. “I've never been able to have an orgasm without getting paid for it. I can't even masturbate successfully.”

And there it is, laid out on the table. I feel naked. Raw.

“What do you think that's about for you?”

“Oh, I know what it's about. It's about control. Isn't that what it always is? Classic control freak.”

I'm being snotty again, and I really don't mean to be, but my chest is twisting into a hard ball, like a stone.

“It's not important to define anything here for anyone but yourself, Valentine.”

“Okay. Okay.” I nod my head, pause. My voice is a thin whisper. “That's all changed, though. With him.”

“Joshua?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think that's a positive sign?”

“Yes. No.” I tighten my grip on my hair. I hadn't even been aware I was still holding on to it. “God, I don't know. Everything is different with him.”

“Why do you think it's different?”

“Maybe … maybe because it's the first normal relationship I've allowed myself to have. And I use the term ‘normal’ lightly. But it's more than I've ever had by a long shot. He lets me … I can let go of some of the control with him. Like the orgasm is my own. It doesn't belong to anyone else. And that's scary for me. I don't know if this is making sense.”

Lydia is quiet a moment. “Do you think if you'd had what you call a ‘normal’ relationship before now, you might have been able to work through this orgasm issue?”

“Maybe. I don't know. So much of what's happening right now seems to be about Joshua. About the kind of man he is. My response to him. But I also think sometimes things happen only when you're ready for it to happen. Big changes.”

“So this is a time of change for you. Of transformation.”

“Yes.” My pulse is racing. “Yes. That's why I'm here, isn't it? That's why I'm so fucking scared.” I look at Lydia. “Is this even going to help?”

“I hope so.” She smiles at me again. There's warmth there, and sincerity.

I realize that I hope so, too.

“To answer your earlier question, I don't exactly know why I'm here. I don't know what I hope to get out of this. I don't know what I
can
hope for. But I want… something.”

Something just for me, for once.

“I think that's a good place to start.”

I can feel myself warming toward this woman. Opening up. Softening a little on the inside. And I also know it didn't start with her, here in this office. It started with Joshua. But I need to try to put him aside while I'm here with Lydia. I need to figure myself out before I can even begin to decide where he fits into the equation, if he fits at all. I'm still doubtful. But also, for the first time since he came into my life and began to change it, I have some sense of hope.

I don't know yet what I'm hoping for, as I've just said to Lydia. But a woman like me has to hang on to whatever she can.