When I got home and finally checked my phone, my other issue suddenly came to the forefront.  Amanda had both called and messaged me again both asking me to call her back.  Considering what had just happened, I didn’t think it would be such a terrible idea, and dialed the number.

Before I even spoke a word she picked up and spoke, “Matt, I’m so glad you called back.  I was worried that you had, well, thought ill and unprofessional of me.”  She was stammering a bit and at more of a loss for words than in the entire year I had been talking to her.

“Look, what you do in your own time is none of my business.  This is my fault.  I didn’t knock, and I intruded on your time.  You see, Amanda, this is on me.  Please don’t give it another thought.  If you don’t think you can continue this relationship due to this, I’d be happy to see someone else, or just end this all together.  If not, I’m happy to continue to get my therapy with you.  Either way, I would ask that you hear me through one more time for some closure on some current issues we have recently discussed and have become… a bit more urgent.”

“Matt, this isn’t your fault.  This is completely mine and I will not have you taking the blame for something that you had little to no control over.  Why don’t we discuss these urgent issues in a session, at the end of which we can have a frank and open discussion on what transpired after the last session?  We can then decide what course of action that we should together take from that discussion.  Would you be amenable to this plan?”  There was the coldly clinical Amanda I’d come to know.  She had shown a bit of life and now was shutting that right back off.

“Sure, Amanda.  Whatever you think is best.  Our regular time next week won’t work as I’m out of town at a conference starting Monday.  The following week I can make just about anything work though?”  I asked.  Meanwhile, texts were buzzing into the phone.  I’d have to deal with these after.

“No, if this is truly urgent, I can meet you in the office this afternoon and I think it’s best we both get closure about the last twenty-four hours sooner than later?”

“Uh, sure.  I need to get cleaned up a bit, but could be there any time after 2:00?”

“I’ll meet you at 2:15 in my office.  Please do knock before you enter this time.”  She hung up.  I was dumbfounded.  Did she just crack a joke?  Was she mad?  Did she know I had watched before barging in?

All these thoughts raced through my head as I was now staring at my phone.  Justine had texted during the call:

Missing you already. 

Here’s my homework assignment. -purple devil emoji-

Attached to the texts was a picture of Grant eating her out with his face down devouring Justine's pussy and his pink boy short clad ass up in the air

So many things were swimming through my head.  I replied:

Need to clear my head
Have an appointment with my psychologist in a little bit
Catch up after.

I put down the phone and headed to the shower again.  I felt dirty and I hadn’t even done anything since showering after my run.  All these emotions and images were running through my head from Jenn, to Justine to Amanda during the shower.  It was hard to focus on anything.  I put myself together and headed out.  I was at Amanda’s office as if no time had passed.  

I knocked on her door this time.  “Come in please,” I heard muffled through the door.

As I walked in, I noticed that Amanda was dressed similarly to the prior day.  A different dress, black this time down to her knees with black stockings and yet another pair of red-soled shoes this time black to match the dress.  The neckline of the dress which didn’t reveal anything except for a silver necklace with a silver ring hanging down in the dead center of her chest.   Her hair was up in a bun, and her face revealed just a hint of make-up yet again under a pair of black-rimmed glasses that accentuated her cheekbones.  A subdued but stunning look.  

As I sat, she began as she looked down at a note pad in front of her.  “Thank you for coming in this afternoon.  As we discussed on the phone, I’d like to take the time to delve into your current issue and then to spend the last bit of our session on a discussion about what happened after yesterday’s session.” With that, she took a deep breath and looked directly into my eyes.  “What has happened since you left last night?”

I spent the next fifteen minutes recounting the events after leaving her office last night.  It was a bit awkward telling your therapist that you needed to release some tension after what I had seen after the session, but hell, this was the new me putting it all out there.  She shifted in her chair ever so slightly as I recounted the events and I could swear she was holding her breath at the spicier parts.  If I had to guess, I thought she was getting aroused by this, just like last night.  That thought was quashed as cold and clinical Amanda returned.

“I think you probably did the best you could have in that situation, Matt.  I also think that your effort to make sure everyone was on the same page prior to escalating the situation was honorable, but this did escalate things quite a bit and I am concerned for the emotional well-being of all parties involved.”

“Ahem,” I cleared my throat and interrupted her.  “Then, there was today, Amanda.”

She listened intently again as I told her of my interaction with both Justine and Grant from earlier.  I had gotten to the point where we were discussing the rules and Justine was giving Grant a blowjob when she stopped me.

“So, Grant confessed to his true feelings about what he wanted you to do with his wife, and started laying down the rules about said activities?  While she manually and orally stimulated him?”  It seemed different referring to it in this way.

“Um, yeah,” I stammered.  “Justine just kept telling me to shut up when I tried to say anything, and I’ll be honest, the thought and the scene in front of me at the time made it hard enough to stand up let alone leave.”

Amanda shifted in the chair.  There was no mistaking her arousal as her skin betrayed her in blotches of red creeping up her chest and neck.  

“At least they were very clear of what they expect, and what his limits of these activities are.  A lot of times, in these situations, this discussion of limits doesn’t happen and it leads to abject failure,” she said quite coldly.  “Continue.”

I pushed forward and continued the story until Amanda again interrupted me when I was talking about the homework I had given them.

“You thought this up right off the top of your head?  Out of the blue right there?  Is this something you had thought about or researched in any way?” she asked with a genuine look of puzzlement on her face.

“No, it came out of nowhere.  I wanted to say the right thing for them and not disappoint them after all that they had risked telling me.  The last thing I wanted to do is fail them or hurt them.  Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do for me, but I think it was the right thing to do for them.”

“How so?” she asked.

“They texted me right before I came over here.  They were doing what I told them today and they sent a pic of it.”

She raised an eyebrow and turned to look out the window.  There was a pause for a long time as it looked like she was contemplating what to say next.

“In my professional opinion, becoming physical with Justine jeopardizes your support system.  Additionally, treating Grant this way further jeopardizes your support system.  It is my professional advice that you sit down with the both of them again, and state that for everyone’s well-being, that this cannot go further.”  Coldly clinical Amanda was working in full force here now.

“If you search yourself, you know that this is the right thing to do, Matt.  What you do next is ultimately up to you though.  Your thoughts?”  She was staring at me blankly waiting for a reply.

I stammered a bit not knowing what to say.  “I don’t know what’s right.  I know I shouldn’t do this.  I shouldn’t have let it get this far.  All these feelings swelling up all of the sudden that I’ve pushed down for so long clouded my judgment.   I also see that I probably need these sessions more than I realized and I wasted a year of your time.”

She cut me off, “On the contrary, everyone needs the time to work through these things.  Without the last year, you wouldn’t be at this point now.  You’d still be repressing all of these feelings and you actually might have ended up alone and a danger to yourself.”

“Unfortunately, that leads us to the second half of our conversation.  I can no longer continue to see you for sessions.  I agree that you would benefit from continuing, and I have referred you to my colleague Colleen Phillips.”   Where had I heard that name before?

Amanda must have seen my puzzled look.  “Her name is one of the names on the office door.  She shares the office space with me here, so you see, you are not really leaving.  Think of it more as moving on.  I will apprise her with all of the details of your therapy and provide her with my files, with your consent of course?”  I nodded and she handed me a card with Colleen’s information on it.  “You can contact her on Monday for an appointment.”

“Matt, I think you have made tremendous gains here over the last few weeks.  I apologize that my indiscretions yesterday are getting in the way of me helping you attain further gains.  I am truly very sorry.  If you wish to file a complaint with the state licensing board, you would be more than justified and I would not stop you as this was completely inappropriate behavior on my part.”

I cut her off before she continued, “That won’t be necessary.  You didn’t do anything wrong. I, I, well…” I was stammering again.

“You didn’t do a thing wrong, Matt.  Now could you please wait outside for a few minutes while I write up your referral to Dr. Phillips?  Thank you.”  She stood up and reached out her hand to shake mine then escorted me to the door and just before she closed it said, “I’ll call you back in a few minutes.  Thank you for your understanding, Matt.”  She closed the door and I couldn’t have been more dumbfounded as I sat in the waiting area.

My thoughts were jumbled. I felt confused and rejected.  All of this led me to feel even more guilty about standing in the door and watching her yesterday.  I felt guilty and I was as much to blame for this as her.  I was wrestling with what to say to her as I heard what sounded like talking coming from behind the office door.  Puzzled by this I was tempted to listen at the door, but that had gotten me into enough trouble already.  I patiently sat there and suddenly the door open and she beckoned me into the room again.

“Please sit, Matt,” as she pointed to her chair.  This was odd.  I looked at her quizzically.  “Yes, Matt.  Please sit there.  I have discharged you from my care at this point.  Sorry about the wait, but I just finished up the documentation.  I discharged your chart and made your referral to Colleen.”  She handed me a printout with the referral.

I sat down in her chair.  It was an odd feeling as I had only had the perspective of looking towards the other side of the room for the past year.  She sat down in my seat and crossed her legs.  I could hear the black stockings rub across each other and tingle went up my spine.  I noticed her hair was down now and out of the bun.

Before I knew what was going on, she began to speak.  “Matt, I’m once again very sorry to have had things come to this.  I feel I owe you an explanation, but I had to discharge you before I could talk to you openly about any of this.  Again, feel free to speak to Colleen about any and all of this.  She is very apprised of our sessions.”  A subtle emphasis was on the very of that last sentence.

“Amanda, it’s as much my fault as yours.  I watched you through the door.”  The hot flush of embarrassment came across my face and I could not look at her.  “I watched you for a while.  That is not -”

She quickly cut me off.  “Matthew, I know.”

“Wait, what?” I retorted.  Where the hell did the full Matthew come from, and wait, she knew?
 
“I saw the phone on the table after you left.  I peeked out the window to see if you had gone, and I saw you coming back in.  I…”  I was beyond shocked.  She wanted me to see her?  She knew I was watching?  As these questions were racing through my head as she continued.

“Let me fully explain before you cast judgment on me.  I haven’t taken a case like yours in some time.  In fact, I don’t take patients that have lost husbands or wives at all.  Your referral erroneously came to me as a loss of a child referral.  It was not until our first session that I realized you had lost your wife and not a child.  You stuck me as someone I should help in that first session, so I decided to continue down this path that I had avoided for so long.  You see Matt, your coping strategy, and how you dealt with Jenn’s death, was very much like me.”  My mouth was agape as I was realizing what she was telling me.  She was fingering her the silver ring on her necklace now.

“My husband Dan died four years ago, Matt.  He had a brain aneurysm that we didn’t know about.  I came home one day and found him dead on the kitchen floor.  Much like your Jenn, he was everything to me.”  She was now clutching the ring on her necklace tighter and I realized this must have been his wedding ring.  A profound sadness had come over her face.

“Just like you, Matt, I told everyone that I was coping fine.  I said the right things to everyone, and I just buried it.  I buried it for three years, until you came along.  I realized in listening to you that I had not moved on, and I was very much worried that you were doing the same.  It took me everything I had in me not to yell at you every week to snap you out of it.  To scream at you not to continue to make the mistakes that I had, that I still was.  That silence at the beginning of the sessions was filled with me wrestling with my demons, hoping you were wresting successfully with yours.

“I forced myself not to feel anything.  I was just floating along coldly and, how did you put it?  Frumpily?”  Again with the frumpy.  Another wave of embarrassment swept across me.  

“But things changed, Matt.  Your life went in an unexpected direction and listening to you, well, it re-lit some fires that hadn’t burned in me for some time.”  She paused looking directly into my eyes and uncrossed and crossed her legs again.  If I didn’t know better, she was trying to stoke a fire in me.

“Matt, you can leave at any point.  What I am going to tell you next is very sensitive and extremely personal, so if you want to leave, I completely understand.  Remember, you are no longer my patient.  We are having this conversation as adults, and hopefully as friends.”

I was in for the full story, still not fully understanding where this was going to lead us.  “I appreciate that, Amanda, but I think I’ll stay.”

“Very well, this gets a bit awkward next.”  I nodded my approval to continue, as I wasn’t going anywhere now.

“Dan and I shared some of the same, uh, tastes as you do.  As Jenn obviously did, and as your friends, who are just sorting things out now, do.  I like to be watched.  I like to watch.  I like the anticipation to the point where it's drawn it out for minutes, hours, days.  Dan had a very similar, uh, appetite for the same kinks you do.  I had a voracious appetite for him and his sexual whims.  Hearing your experiences set me ablaze last week.  I felt things that I haven’t felt in ages.  Things that I all but shut myself out of.”  All I could do was nod at her.

She must have noticed my rapt attention on her and again uncrossed and crossed her legs but this time smoothing her stockings on her legs with her hands.  I looked up and saw a mischievous grin.

“This is one of your kinks is it not?”  As she said this, she started to rub her legs again tracing one hand now under her skirt.  She closed her eyes and let out a muffled moan as her hand disappeared under her dress.  She let out a barely audible moan.  I cleared my throat and fidgeted in the chair.  That broke her trace and she opened her eyes and straightened up in her chair.  

“You see, we aren’t that different at all.  I feel like I have an unfair advantage here.  I’ve heard your naughty stories.  You’ve bared your soul to me in the last few weeks, but you don’t know anything about me and my history.  Would you like to hear one of my naughty stories?  It might even the playing field, just a little?”  Her gaze was burning me now.
 
I tried to play it off, “Sure, why not,”  I tried to say casually.

“Alright, but again, you can walk out that door at any time.”  That seemed like an empty threat.

She started in on her story, “Dan and I had two days in the middle of the week off together.  We went away and got a hotel room in the city in the early spring.  We went out to a show, had an amazing dinner, and were at the hotel bar for a nightcap.  We were both pleasantly drunk and I was very aroused.  I wanted to be upstairs and not at the bar, but Dan knew that.  He always loved to draw things out for me, to the point where I would have done anything for him.”  Her words seemed to linger heavily in the air.  

I still could not believe she was telling me an intimate story about her and her dead husband.  She continued, “I remember sitting at the bar and Dan’s hand was rubbing the inside of my thigh.  We were both dressed up from the show and dinner.  I had these exact black thigh highs and black dress on.  His hand was lingering just above the stocking tops but just below where I wanted them to be.”  

She was pointing to her nylon encased legs.  Just the thought of the space between her stocking tops and her pussy was making my pants tight.   The telltale creep of red was traveling up her neck and into her face as she told the story as her breaths began to get just noticeably shallower.  

“He was teasing the hell out of me and driving me crazy.  He’d trace his fingers up almost to my panties then draw them away just as quickly as he had started."  Amanda was tracing her own fingers over the inside of her thighs under her skirt that had begun to ride up on her.  My cock was straining against my pants as I watched her idly toy with herself as she continued her story.

"All of this was happening at our fairly brightly lit seats under a very minimal overhang of the actual bar itself.  The excitement of being discreetly fondled out in the open just added to my fire.  At one point I had to excuse myself to the ladies room to get some air.

“I got out of the bathroom stall and was washing up staring at myself in the mirror flush with desire wishing we would just go upstairs and relieve all this pent-up desire.  The woman next to me snapped me out of my sexual haze as she started talking to me. ‘Are you okay,’ she asked with a concerned look?  ‘I’ve been watching you and your husband at the bar tonight.  Do you like being pushed to the edge and back in front of everyone?’ she asked me in a very slow and steady tone.  I was taken aback and embarrassed but somehow this just drove my desire even further.

“I told her that yes it did add to the excitement, but I was now ready to consummate the night.  She smiled back at me with that and asked, ‘Do you want to take the control back from him?  Would you take a suggestion from a stranger in a ladies’ room to get back the upper hand?’ I sort have giggled and said sure and asked her what she had in mind.

“I could not have been more shocked what she told me. ‘Take your panties off and put them in your purse,’ and with that, she reached under her own skirt and shimmied hers off and stuffed them in her purse.”

I interrupted her story, “She did what?  She told you to take your panties off and then took hers off?”

“Yeah, that’s not even the best part.”  She shifted again in her seat now unconsciously playing with the ring on her necklace.  Her face was fully pink now.

She continued, “She was staring at me now, waiting to see my response.  I was hesitating.  This woman was a complete stranger.  I took a second to take it all, and her, in.  She was this petite and short of middle-aged brunette dressed in a gray blazer and gray business skirt.  She had these deep brown eyes and a very pale and beautiful complexion.  She was probably a woman at the hotel on business with an agenda of her own that now was trying to include me and now Dan.  In any other setting, she’d be a little stunner, but the business suit was making her, how did you say it?  Frumpy?”

I laughed this time, “OK, that’s enough.  I feel like you’ve beaten me up enough for that, don’t you?  I was lashing out for Christ's sake and look, I wasn’t very far off the mark with my assessment then now was I?”

“We’ll see about that, now shut up and stop interrupting me,” she said as she laughed.

“I was frozen at the sink in the ladies’ room of our hotel bar with everything dizzy in my head when she said, ‘Look I know this might seem weird, but I don’t want to do anything to you or your husband.  I just want to scratch a little itch I have, and I think it might make for one of the more memorable nights of your life.  I’m Evie, and you and your husband are beautiful.  You have a choice here.  Take your panties off and follow my lead and see where it goes, or just walk out of here and back to your husband.  Either way no strings, I promise.’

“I was again taken back, but desire took over and I told her I was in.  Before I knew what was going on, she was under my skirt and pulled my panties down to my ankles.  I slowly stepped out of them and she held them up at almost eye level with her index finger between her gaze and mine.  ‘You had a special night planned with these, didn’t you?  These are very pretty.’ She said with a sly grin.  She took my see-through satin black panties and put them into her purse and pulled out her own panties that she had recently put in there and pressed them into my hand by my side.

“As she pressed them into my hand, she said, ’You are going to go back out there and put these in one of your husband's pockets.  Maybe, even be bold and put it in his breast pocket, but it’s your choice.  Then sit back in your chair and act like nothing happened.  I’ll be over soon after, then just follow my lead.  What should I call you in front of your husband?’ she asked me. ‘Mandy,’ I replied." 

Amanda looked at me intently, “I loved it when Dan would call me Mandy, and why I let her in on that intimate detail, I still don’t know.

“I walked out of the ladies’ room now dripping wet with no underwear now burning with desire, having no idea where this evening was going now.  I was going to blindside Dan with whatever the hell I had just gotten us into.  I was just hoping we weren’t going to end up drugged and missing a kidney or worse.”  I had to smile at that.  Amanda had my sense of humor.  Too bad she hadn’t shown it until now.

“As I went to sit down, I pulled Dan’s light blue handkerchief out of his breast pocket and replaced it with Evie’s pink cotton panties.  I kissed him on the cheek and sat down facing the bar and not him while I grabbed my drink and took a very long sip.  By this time, I spotted Evie heading towards us at the bar and I tingled with the excitement of not knowing what was going to transpire next.

“’Mandy!’ she exclaimed as she came in to give me a kiss on the cheek.  Dan was looking to me with a raised brow for answers that I didn’t have!  Ha!  ‘May I sit?’  Dan stood up and Evie sat down in the newly vacated stool were no other available stools at the bar.  Evie smiled.  ‘Mandy, is this gentleman your husband?’ she asked?  ‘Why yes, Dan this is Evie.  Evie this is my husband Dan.’ 

“Before I could elaborate Evie stepped right back into the conversation, ‘Dan, your handkerchief is very nice.  I have a garment almost exactly like this.  This is a pretty pink color for you, Dan.’  She reached up and snatched it out of his pocket so swiftly I didn’t see it coming!”  Amanda was smiling now looking onto the back wall of the room I noticed.  She seemed pleasantly lost in the story she was telling me, probably thinking of much better days.  I knew how that felt, unfortunately.  

Amanda continued, “Dan’s eyes and mouth couldn’t have been any wider open than they were at that time and before he could say anything, Evie continued, ‘Oh wait?  Mandy, these ARE mine!  Did we mix these up in the ladies’ room?  I’m so sorry!”  and with that, she reached into her purse and pulled out my panties and stuffed them into his pocket where hers had just been. ‘There!  Look Dan you match with Mandy’s dress now.  That’s so cute.’ It was at this point that I shot Dan a crooked smile and noticed a very large bulge trying to escape his suit pants.  Evie had been right, I had totally changed the balance of control tonight.

“I sensed Dan’s uneasy arousal and said, ‘Oh honey, you teased me so much tonight I just needed a little relief and Evie was there to help a sister out, right Evie?’ When I looked at her, she had a Cheshire cat grin and jumped right in, ‘It was nice to be able to be of assistance to you Mandy,’ Evie had paused here for effect for what seemed like an eternity before continuing.”

It was interesting listening to her retell this story to me.  She even changed her voice a little higher for Evie and a little lower for Dan.  The effect was very cute, but the story was tremendously hot, and I was hard as a rock.  It was everything I could do not to pull my dick out and start stroking it.  

Amanda looked at me and smiled, “Should I continue?” she asked.  I slowly nodded my head up and down.

“Where was I, oh yes, Evie started in again, ‘Now Dan, Mandy was telling me that you were going to take her upstairs and give her the time of her life.  Is this true?’ I thought Dan had died as all he could muster was, ‘probably.’  Evie jumped right on it, ‘Since I’ve been so helpful to Mandy here, she told me that you both would probably help me scratch an itch that I need to be scratched.  I’d like to have you come up to my room, or go to your room - whatever you’re are more comfortable with - and watch you treat Mandy like the princess slut she deserves?  Just watching for me, no involvement.  I think it’s the least you two can do for the, ah, entertainment, I provided you tonight, yes?  I’ll tell you what.  I’ll go to the restroom and you two kids can talk it out.  If you are still here when I get back, great.  If not, no worries and enjoy the rest of your evening.  No pressure.  Does that seem fair?’ she asked us.  I nodded and Dan did as well either of us not really knowing what to say.

“Evie left Dan and I alone at the bar and Dan was immediately like, ‘What the fuck happened in the ladies’ room, MANDY?  Do you guys fool around in there and what kind of deal did you make with her?’  I could only respond with, ‘Nothing really happened, she was watching us and watching me lose control and she offered a way to get it back.  I say we turn this right around on her,’ I told him.  ‘I love the idea of fucking in front of her and I plan on being the loudest, dirtiest little slut you’ve ever dealt with.  What I want to see is you finish on her.  I don’t care where, but she thinks she can manipulate us around, well she’s got a price to pay in the end right?  Taking back a measure of control for us.  What do you say to that?’”  She was again smiling off at the distant side of the room re-telling the tale.

“My god, Amanda, that’s cunning and dirty.  Of course, he said yes?”  I asked.

She smiled and looked at me as she continued her tale, “Dan said he was in and we waited until she returned.  She said she was happy to see us still there and to get going upstairs. I replied that there was a catch.  ‘You can watch us, you can masturbate to us, hell you can talk dirty to us if you really want to, but there’s a price.  You get the load in the end.  Quite honestly you can take it wherever you want it, I don’t care.  Dan finishes on you somewhere or no deal.’

“Evie started to smile and laugh, she said, ‘Look at you learning your lesson already from me, taking back control are we now Mandy?  alright, Dan can finish on me, but I get to finish him.  I get two minutes to finish him wherever I want, however I want.  Can you handle that Mandy?’  I looked at her without looking at Dan and said, ‘Deal!’ without really thinking that part through.

“We headed up to the elevators and quickly decided that we’d go to our room.  As soon as the elevator door closed, I pinned Dan in the corner and started to devour him.  I pinned him right next to her, so she could almost feel it.  I used my entire body to rub up and down him until he reached around me and found my bare sopping pussy under my skirt with his hands.  I let out quite a loud moan just as the ding of the elevator went off and the doors started to open.  I pulled down my skirt and we headed down the hall to our room with Evie following us.”

This was getting hotter than I could have ever imagined.  Here I was now in the “doctor’s chair” listening to Amanda who had listened to me for the last year here.  I was hanging on every word.

She looked at me and laughed.  “And that was it.  She watched me get the fucking of my life then she got Dan off at the end.  Never saw her again.”  She now had an evil grin.  She was going to make me ask for more details, but I could play this game too.  She was just as aroused as me, she just thought she had the upper hand.

“Well Dr. Atkins, that was quite the insightful tale.  I appreciate you sharing that with me.”  I was doing my best to channel what Amanda would say in this very chair.   I looked at her and she was a bit taken aback since I hadn’t taken the bait.  

“I know that rehashing all of that couldn’t have been easy for you.  I am truly sorry for snapping at you and wasting a year of your time not being straight with you.  I had no idea what you were going through and only thinking of myself.  I guess I still really don’t understand why you let me watch you the other day though?”  Over the course of my talking, I’d melted back from clinical Amanda to me.

Unknowingly, I had taken us to a very different conversation and was now thinking I should have just taken the bait and asked her to fill in the details on the rest of her story.  Looking at her, she was now upright leaning forward propped up with her elbows on her knees.

“Matt, how do I say this, I couldn’t help myself.  I was so incredibly turned on by our last few sessions that I gave in to the naughtiness in me.  I needed the release.  That someone would be watching me, you would be watching me made it that much more incredibly thrilling to me.”  She paused, “There is so much more here, Matt.  So much I want to tell you.  So much that I want to experience with you.  I intentionally killed our professional relationship to take a stab at something else.  A chance to move on, for both of us.”

It was all a bit overwhelming now.  Amanda was telling me she spiked our therapy to be with me.  Something still wasn’t fitting in.  “So then why tell me the racy story that you suspiciously didn’t finish.  I don’t understand.”

She was quick with her response, “Part of me wanted to make you feel like you made me feel the last few weeks in that chair, out of control.  The other part of me wanted to be vulnerable for you like you had with me so many times recently.  This shit is hard, Matt.  Stupid, unprofessional and a huge risk for me too, but I risked all that for a shot.”

I smiled at her and felt something, something that had left me long ago.  Something besides emptiness, something warm.  I think she realized that as she got up and walked towards me.  I went to stand to greet her, but she just lightly pushed me back down into the chair where she turned and sat on my lap.  She looked me in the eyes and didn’t say a thing.  She started to cry and laid her head onto my neck and chest. 

I embraced her and held her wondering if either of us could really make something like this work with so much baggage between us.  We stayed like this for some time until her crying subsided and she broke the embrace by pulling back and looking into my eyes with here iceberg blue eyes.

“I want to pursue this, us.  I want to take a chance, with you and I want you to take a chance with me.”  She stood up gradually from my lap.  

“It’s a lot to take in, I know, Matt.  It’s been an emotional afternoon.  I think it’s best for us to take some time to process.   Before you leave, I do want to give you something.”  She was walking towards the desk and once there, she clicked on the laptop a couple of times and then pulled out the flash drive that was in it.  She returned to me handing me a fairly non-descript flash drive.  

“It’s the end of the story I was telling you.  It’s what happened when we got to the hotel room.  You know, you have such good impulse control sometimes.  Most guys would have hounded me for the details in that situation.  Not you.  Why don’t you open this up with Justine?”

“What’s on here, Amanda?”  I asked.

“I told you the rest of the story.” She returned.

That was vague and generally unhelpful.  What was really on here?  “Why watch it with Justine?  Didn’t you just tell me to stay out of potential physical situations with her?  I forget, won’t this ‘jeopardize my support system?'  Then you tell me that you want to have a relationship with me.  A bit of a mixed message don’t you think?”  Maybe I was a little too sarcastic with that, but here I was the one getting all of the mixed messages.

“Matthew,” the full name from her gave me the good shivers again, “I gave you my Dr. Atkins' professional opinion when you were my patient.  Now, personally, since you are no longer my patient, Mandy thinks that there is a whole lot of safe exploration here that could be done to everyone’s benefit.  Open the thumb drive with her.  Just her, not Grant.”

“What’s really on here Amanda?”  I asked looking quizzically at the drive in my hand.

“I’m not telling you again.  It’s the rest of the story,” She quipped.

“What about Justine?  What if what’s on here escalates things with her?  I don’t understand.  You want something to work between us and you are pushing me towards J all of the sudden?”  I was truly confused now.

“Whether you like it or not, Justine needs you and you need her.  Whatever happens with her, I’d trust your compass.  It’s gotten you this far and I’d even say that your instincts are impeccable.  The way you handled Grant today, giving him exactly what he needed without giving him all of what he wanted.  Not giving in to the temptation for having sex with Justine twice in less than a day is almost not possible.  Like I said, your impulse control is beyond impressive.  It’s part of what makes you extremely attractive to me.  Mandy very much wants to help you with Justine and Grant’s situation.  Mandy would be so very happy to play a part in all of this.”

What the absolute fuck was going on here?  Dr. Atkins, Amanda, Mandy, whoever the fuck she was, was throwing herself at me.  This very much piqued my interest, but I wasn’t certain who I was attracted to.  Was it Mandy for obvious sexual needs and desires?  Was it Amanda who was so vulnerable and sweet?  Was it Dr. Atkins who listened to me all those times since Jenn died and had killed our professional relationship for a chance to be with me?  Maybe it was all of these things together?  

“I think you’re putting too much faith in me, Amanda.  I don’t know if I can handle what you’re insinuating.”

“Oh, Matt.  You can handle it, and more.  I’m not giving you enough credit, trust me.  When’s the last time you had sex, Matt?  Was it with Jenn?” she asked sweetly.

“A day before her accident,” I replied in a very hushed tone.

“I’m sorry, but you haven’t had sex for over a year and you keep turning it down from, what sounds like a very appealing source.  I mean, I was basically begging you to barge in and fuck me last night and you didn’t.  Self-control in the face of that kind of temptation is rare.  Dan had it,” she turned her face away from me as she said it as tears started to stream down her face again.

“Please do me this favor.  Watch this with her and whatever happens, bring your camera and snap a few pics, you know, to share with your crazy ex-therapist.”  I still couldn’t wrap my head around all of this.  

She continued, “Just open it with her.  Whatever happens from there, happens.  Will you do that for me?”

What could I say at this point but, “Sure, but I don’t think I can have sex with her, at least yet.”  

“I know,” she reassured me.  “But when you’re ready, and you will be soon, I’m going to be right there with you.”  

I can’t say that wasn’t a hot as fuck thing to think about.  We were both standing.  I wasn’t sure how this was going to end, but she answered that question just barely after it had it crossed my mind.  She started to speak, “I know this was a lot.  Think about it, open it with Justine.  I think you deserve a little relief.  If that’s what you get with her watching this with you, so be it.  Just call me afterward.”

“Don’t forget to set up an appointment with Colleen on Monday either.  That’s important for you no matter what happens.  Don’t be afraid to tell her all of this.  I trust her and so should you.  She has most of the details up to today.  She won’t and can’t share it with me, so whatever you say to her stays with her.  You have a lot to do the next few days before you go on your trip, maybe you need a homework list too?”  She joked and smiled.

“One last thing,” she said as she quickly closed the distance on me and kissed me full on the mouth.  As we kissed, I embraced her and moved my hands up the back of her dress and found the zipper.  I started to tug it down and she broke the kiss and stepped back.  “Easy there, I don’t think either of us is ready to take that step yet.  Go open the flash drive and we’ll talk after.”  And with that, she walked me to and then out the door. 

What the fuck was happening to me?