Acquainted With the Night (5 page)

Alex stroked her firmly, knowing exactly where and how to move for CJ until she felt the pulsing climax against her hand.

CJ pressed her damp forehead to Alex’s, and Alex shifted up to kiss her for the first time, CJ breathing into her mouth.

It filled her with joy to know just what CJ needed and to give it to her. After a moment, CJ lifted her head and Alex saw the flush across her throat, the darkly-dilated irises crowding out the deep green of her eyes.

“You’re not finished,” Alex said, a statement rather than a question.

“More,” was all CJ said.

“My favorite word,” Alex murmured.

She shifted both of them until CJ was on her back on the couch. Alex kissed her deeply and slid her fingers into CJ, feeling rather than hearing CJ cry out into her mouth. Alex moved with her, CJ rising and falling with her hand, taking and somehow giving to Alex at the same time.

CJ came again, with Alex’s hand buried deep within her. She finally grasped Alex’s wrist to stop her, muttering, “Okay, okay.”

Alex stopped moving but stayed where she was, relishing the tight grip of CJ’s muscles, holding Alex within her body. When CJ finally stirred, Alex withdrew slowly and reluctantly.

“God,” CJ sighed. “Can you even feel your fingers anymore?”

Alex wiggled them. “All present and accounted for.” She leaned down and kissed the deep pink flush on CJ’s chest. “Better, sweetheart?”

“Holy Mother, yes. Darlin’, you make me feel so—”

“Satisfied?” Alex said lightly. “Fulfilled? Transported?”

CJ looked at her seriously. “Loved, honey. You make me feel loved.”

Alex lay happily with her for a few minutes.

“Shoulder okay?” CJ asked, after a while.

“Everything is great, stop worrying.”

“I wasn’t worrying, I was just doing a preliminary check.”

“Preliminary to what?”

“This.”

With gentle movements, CJ slipped out from under Alex and turned her onto her back. She got to her knees on the floor beside Alex and, tugging at her shorts, said, “I think we should lose these, hmm?”

Alex helped her, and moments later CJ was kissing her thighs. Alex lifted one bare leg to the back of the couch, and put her other foot on the floor, opening herself to CJ’s mouth.

CJ murmured, “Ready for me already, darlin’?”

“Oh, yes,” Alex said, her voice rough with need.

Smiling, CJ lowered her head happily. Alex closed her eyes against the familiar sensation of CJ’s mouth against her, heat spreading out like a flash fire through her body. She was so close already, making love to CJ all the foreplay she usually needed for her own arousal.

CJ was thorough as always, but Alex urged her to finish with her hands on the back of CJ’s head. The strength of her climax took her by surprise, flooding her with both pleasure and relief before she sagged back in exhaustion.

When Alex could move again, she felt CJ shift against her leg. CJ was sprawled, her long legs under the coffee table, her head resting on Alex’s thigh. Alex reached down and ran her fingers through CJ’s red hair. CJ moved up, and Alex wiped moisture from CJ’s face. “You’re a mess,” she chided.

“God, you taste good.”

“I taste like sex. Yours, in fact.”

Alex sighed happily. “I’m calling our insurance agent on Tuesday. We’ve got to take out an insurance rider on your tongue.”

CJ laughed. “And people say you don’t have a sense of humor.”

In mock indignation, Alex demanded, “People? What people?”

“Ah, let me think. My friends, your friends, our co-workers, your family…”

“Stop already.” Alex sighed heavily, then said quietly, “Did I mention how much I love you?”

“You did. And darlin’, I love you too. Even without a sense of humor.”

Chapter Four

Even eight months later, Alex could remember almost every detail of that day with CJ, making love on the couch, the last weekend she was happy.

Alex had seen a psychologist twice in her life before. The Colfax Police Department required a fitness for duty interview for every officer involved in a shooting incident before they were cleared to return to work. There had been the first time almost fifteen years ago, an exchange of shots with a suspect after a traffic stop when she was still a patrol officer. No one had been hurt and she hadn’t had a lot of residual anxiety about it.

The second time had been much worse: a suspect shot dead and CJ badly injured. That one had been pretty dreadful for a while, but not because of what she had done—rather, it had been the prospect of losing CJ that had fueled her nightmares for weeks. The intervening three years had let the recollections lose some of their potency, but like the scar on CJ’s chest, the memory remained, however faded.

Even so, each of those occasions had been brief encounters, a single visit and evaluation, and not by Alex’s choice. This time felt different in many ways, and Alex twisted uncomfortably in her seat in the waiting room, wondering again if she’d made the right decision to come here. Her pain felt too vast to be contained or explained by another person, even one trained to help.

There was a buzz at the assistant’s desk, and without further communication, the young woman seated there said, “Dr. Wheeler is ready, Ms. Ryan. You can go on in.”

The inner office, unlike the impersonal standard office décor of the waiting room, seemed to reflect a specific personality. The chairs were white leather, as was the couch, and the small side tables were glass-topped metal. There was, to Alex’s surprise, no desk, but there was a chair with a small laptop on the table beside it. The walls held several paintings, abstracts with swirling colors and vague shapes. Alex wondered if they were some sort of informal Rorschach test.

Besides the door from the outer office, there was another door on the opposite side, and Alex wondered if it was a separate exit, since she hadn’t seen anyone emerge from this room through the waiting room. There was a glass, open shelf bookcase on one wall holding a few small chessboards, their pieces neatly lined up in the ranks. There were no other knickknacks, no books or magazines, not even an ashtray.

After a few seconds, the unidentified door opened and a woman came in, closing it behind her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I made the mistake of taking a phone call. I’m Elaine Wheeler.”

Alex offered her hand. “Alex Ryan.”

“It’s good to meet you. Please, sit wherever you’d like.”

As expected, Wheeler took the chair by the laptop, and Alex sat across from her in one of the chairs, the leather soft and welcoming. Wheeler tapped a couple of keys, then turned away from the keyboard and met Alex’s gaze.

She was a little younger than Alex, she guessed, late thirties. Her blond hair was already going silvery gray, but her face was almost unlined below strongly marked eyebrows. Wheeler wasn’t in a suit but was wearing a pair of slacks and a turquoise blouse that set off her fair coloring. The clothes fit her well, although she looked to Alex’s eye to be fifteen pounds away from slender. She wore a modern-looking pair of glasses, the eyes behind them a light blue. She had a relaxed expression, pleasant enough but inquisitive.

Alex felt another frisson of apprehension. Was she going to be able to open herself enough to this stranger to get what she needed? Was getting help even possible?

Wheeler said, “I’d like to start by telling you how I work. Then I’d like for you to talk about yourself, telling me as much as you can about what has brought you to me. All right?”

Alex tried to relax a little, glad to hear that the psychologist was going to talk first. “Yes,” she said.

“As you know, from our talk on the phone, I am a clinical psychologist licensed by the state, which means that I can practice psychotherapy but, unlike a psychiatrist, I cannot prescribe medications for your condition. If, in my opinion, medication is indicated, I will work with your physician as necessary. All right?”

“I understand.” She hesitated a moment, and Wheeler smiled gently.

“You’ll have to be able to tell me what your questions are as we go along, if we’re going to be able to work together.”

“I’d like to avoid any use of drugs,” Alex admitted.

“They may not be necessary, but I would like to ask why you’re opposed.”

Alex took a deep breath. “I’m a police officer. If I’m on a prescribed medication for anything psychological, I’d need to report it and I’d like to avoid that. If we can.”

“I see. Do you think your issues are connected to your job?”

“No. I’m very certain of that.”

Wheeler nodded and continued, “All right. I focus on what is technically called cognitive behavioral therapy and interpersonal psychotherapy, which really just means I work with patients to help them solve their problems by talking with them about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, hoping to change perceptions and behaviors that are causing them problems in their everyday life. It’s a therapy that works well for many disorders. I’d like to know more about you, and what you see as your issues, so we can see if I’m likely to be able to help you. If I don’t think I can help, I’ll try to refer you to someone who may be better able to do so.”

“Fair enough,” Alex said. “I have to tell you I’m not sure anyone can help, really.”

Wheeler gave the gentle smile again. “Perhaps not, but I do hope so. Tell me about yourself. May I call you Alex?”

“Of course.”

“You can call me Elaine if that’s comfortable for you. Or Dr. Wheeler if you’d prefer.”

“I’m not sure where to start,” Alex said.

“Anywhere you’d like. Perhaps you could tell me how you’re feeling right now?”

Alex looked away, seeing the neatly lined up chess pieces and wondering whether her life would ever make sense to her again. Some days were agonizing, the pain like a constant bitter taste in her mouth. Other days she was numb, stumbling through her work and her interactions with other people feeling like a ghost, not really present. There was anger, and grief, and loneliness that tore at her in the night.

“I’m hurting,” Alex finally said, simply. “I can’t sleep well. Every night seems to go on endlessly. I’m restless, sometimes until dawn. I’m not interested in eating, I have no energy for work, and I’ve always been able to work effectively, no matter what else was going on in my life. Now I can hardly seem to function.” She gave Wheeler a sharp look and added, “I know I’m depressed.”

“How long have you felt this way?” Wheeler asked in a soft tone.

“Since last July twelfth,” Alex said wearily.

Wheeler said thoughtfully, “Such a precise date indicates that there was a specific event that happened at that time, I assume?”

“Yes,” Alex said. “I—”

The emotions hit her like an electrical charge, twisting her inside. She dropped her head into her hands, feeling hot tears begin to run down her cheeks, salty when they reached her lips.

She thought she would be used to the pain by now, that the sorrow that had become her daily companion would have inured her to the question of what had happened, but the grief ripped through her again as if newly formed.

Dr. Wheeler rose, got a box of tissues, handed it to her. “Take your time,” she said softly.

Alex wiped her eyes, crumpling the tissue in her hand. “Sorry,” she managed.

“Don’t apologize. We’re accustomed to apologizing for displays of emotion in public, but if you can’t cry in your therapist’s office, where can you cry?”

Alex looked up at the unexpected flash of quiet humor. “It probably won’t be the last time,” she admitted.

Wheeler cocked her head a little at Alex. “I’m guessing you’re not normally an emotional woman.”

“That’s true. How would you know that?”

“I’ve worked with people in the helping professions before. If you were emotionally volatile, you probably wouldn’t still be a police officer. Or at least not a good one. Are you?”

Alex appreciated the change of subject to permit her to regain her composure. “I’m a captain, in charge of the detectives at the Colfax PD. I’ve been a police officer for almost twenty-four years.”

“That sounds like a lot of responsibility. Do you like your job?”

Alex couldn’t figure out the background questions from the ones that were really important, so she decided to just answer everything as well as she could. “I always have,” she said. “Lately, nothing seems enjoyable to me.”

Quietly, Wheeler asked, “You’re obviously in a lot of distress. Have you considered suicide?”

Alex knew the importance of this question. An honest “yes” would probably get her medicated at best, suspended from the job at worst. Her Catholic upbringing meant that she hadn’t considered it very seriously, though there had been a few moments over the last months when the thought of pulling the trigger had been tempting. It wasn’t that she wanted to be dead as much as she was desperate for the pain to stop.

“No,” Alex said. “But I’m just so tired of hurting all the time.”

Wheeler leaned back and rested her arms on the arms of her chair. “I understand. Tell me why you joined the police force.”

Alex went briefly through a summary of her life: the loss of her parents, raising Nicole, her brief and unhappy marriage to Tony, the death of Tony’s niece, her niece, when she was only nine, her promotions. She had done enough research before selecting Elaine Wheeler to know that the next part of her story wouldn’t cause an issue.

“I met another officer at work,” Alex explained. “A woman. She asked me out and we became involved. We married out of state, and have been living together for the last three years.”

As she expected, Wheeler nodded calmly. “Tell me about her,” Wheeler asked.

Alex shifted uncomfortably. “This is difficult for me,” she said. “We have—had—a good marriage. I love her and I know she loves me. Or she did.”

Wheeler said, “Why is this difficult?”

“She’s the reason I’m here.”

“Are you interested in therapy to help you salvage this relationship?” Wheeler asked.

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” Alex said sadly.

“Why is that?”

The tears threatened again, but Alex bit them back fiercely, using all of her strength to try to maintain her composure.