Copyright 2011 by Dextrousleftie. Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work, unauthorized duplication or use of the characters is prohibited. Please contact me at my e-mail address if you have any questions. Also, enjoy the story. :)
"Mother, I don't see why this is such a big deal," Julian said irritably. "I told you why I needed therapy; why do you have to keep going on about it?"
His parent tapped her foot ostentatiously on the tile floor of the large foyer of her mansion. She folded her arms over her breasts and leveled a cool stare at her only child. "It isn't Darryn cheating on you that bothers me," she snapped.
He looked puzzled. "Then what is this about?" he asked.
She sighed. "THIS is about your therapist," she replied tartly.
Julian was now completely baffled. "Jonas? What about him?"
She pointed a manicured finger at him accusingly. "Julian, you have the hots for that man. Admit it."
His mouth fell open as she gave him a gimlet stare. "Honestly, Mother, why do you believe that I have the hots for every man I come across?!" he spluttered in disbelief.
She snorted. "Jonas Goldman is NOT every man. He's a fairly attractive – in a nerdy way – gay man who is currently without a boyfriend. I had him checked out, of course, when I first debated hiring him to help you. I thought maybe being around one of your own kind would relax you, but now I think that was a huge mistake on my part."
Julian was flabbergasted. "My own kind?! And just because Jonas is gay, that doesn't mean that I have to fall for him."
She raised a plucked eyebrow significantly. "Did I say fall? Having the hots for someone and falling for them are two different things."
"I don't have the hots for him," Julian said angrily. "You're delusional, Mother."
"Speaking as someone who often has the hots for men, I know it when I see it," she retorted swiftly. "But you shouldn't be humping your therapist, that can't be good for your therapy."
Julian took in a deep breath and tried to bring himself back under control. Patiently he said, as though speaking to a small child: "Mother, I'm not going to sleep with Jonas. At all. Ever."
"Hah," she replied.
He wondered if killing her right now would be considered justifiable homicide. "I'm not going to sleep with him, Mother. Just because I'm gay, you think that I'll sleep with anything..."
"No, it's not just because you're gay. It's because you spent the last year screwing your way through half the gay men in this city," she retorted scathingly.
He flinched. He couldn't explain his promiscuous behavior without telling her about his rapes, and he couldn't bring himself to do that. He was sure that any reaction he got from her would be a hurtful one. "You yourself said that I was doing much better, acting more like myself," was all he said in a stiff voice. "So why would you assume that I'd sleep with Jonas?"
"Because you're a romantic, like it or not," she sniffed, taking him by surprise once again, "I don't know why, coming from me and your father. I'm a gold-digger I admit it, and your father is about as faithful as a dog in heat. But you...you've always had a big heart, Julian, ever since you were a little boy. You want to give that big heart to somebody, for them to sweep you off your feet. I'd say that's fine, but usually they only sweep you off your feet so that they can dump you in the gutter when they're done with you," her voice was thick with cynicism and world-weariness.
Julian didn't know what to say to this. That his parent had noticed something about him that was so significant – he'd thought that she never noticed ANYTHING about him because she never paid attention to him. His mother continued dryly: "You feel sorry for him because he lost his boyfriend tragically. You want to heal his heart and make it all better. I just don't want you to end up with another person who'll hurt you, that's all. Not so soon after that cheating piece of dirt."
She actually cared about him? This was turning out to be an extraordinary day. Julian frowned, running a hand through his (now shorter, neater, dye-free) hair. "I think you're getting way ahead of yourself, Mother. I like Jonas, I'll admit. He's a really nice guy, and he's been very helpful to me. But that doesn't mean that I intend to try to jump in the sack with him. Don't worry so much."
"Isn't that a mother's job?" she remarked. "And maybe I`m starting pretty late, but I still have the right to worry about my son. Julian, I don't want to go through another year like the last one," she said more softly, and the sudden lines in her face (despite the Botox) made her look older and wearier than normal. "I know I took you for granted and left you to the nannies to raise, but seeing you start to self-destruct...I was scared," she whispered, and he was shocked to see tears glimmering in her eyes, "I was scared that you'd..." she looked away, her whole body tense and stiff with her tightly held in emotions.
He found himself stepping forward and putting his arms around her, taking both her and him by surprise. "I'm sorry I scared you," he said softly. "But I was really falling apart. Thanks for making me go see Jonas, Mother; without him, I think I really might have done what you were afraid I would. Now I feel so much like my old self that those dark days seem like a distant memory. You did the right thing this time – and you saved my life."
She sobbed, putting her arms around him and holding him in a way she seldom had when he was a child. "I'm glad," she choked. "I'm so glad. I couldn't think what else to do..."
"I know," he soothed her. "I know. But I think I'll be all right now. And don't worry about me...even if I did end up in bed with Jonas, I know he wouldn't hurt me like Darryn did. He's a great guy, he really is. So don't worry anymore."
"I guess I won't," she sighed, pulling away at last and wiping futilely at her smearing mascara, "If you say I shouldn't. But just...promise me that you'll finish your therapy before you do anything, Julian. Please?"
He nodded as he fished out a handkerchief for her from his pocket. "Here, wipe your eyes. You don't want to look like Baby Jane, do you?" he teased her gently. "And I promise that I'll finish my therapy. I know how important this is." He continued solemnly.
She looked happier. "I know that if you promise you'll keep your word, Julian," she said in satisfaction. "Now, about those tattoos...you do know that there are places that will remove those with lasers?"
He sighed. "I am not getting rid of the tattoos, Mother," he told her firmly. "They're hidden under my clothes, so they won't compromise any job I get after I graduate. And I think I'll keep one or two of the piercings, also. Just none that you can see," he added as her face fell, "So that your society friends won't have to look at them."
"Well, all right. It's your life," she sighed.
"Yes, it is. As long as you remember that, we won't have many problems," Julian said calmly.
Later he sat in one of his classes taking noted, a small frown on his face. He was thinking about the conversation that he'd had with his mother this morning at her house. It had taken him aback that she thought that he had the hots for Jonas of all people! Not that he didn't like his therapist, of course. A lot. Jonas had saved his life, had pulled him back from the brink of destruction. But that didn't mean...he moved uneasily in his seat, his frown deepening.
Was it just...that he'd been so scarred by his traumatic experience that he couldn't recognize when he was actually attracted to someone anymore? Was that it? After all, the men he'd slept with since his rape had been merely a way for him to punish himself, not as something really pleasurable and nice. He couldn't remember any of their names, and few of their faces. They could have been anyone. Anyone at all.
He thought about Jonas. About the smiling dark eyes, surrounded by startlingly thick black lashes that some women would envy. About the way the man's black hair curled slightly, just begging for fingers to run through it. Or the high-cheekboned, rather aesthetic face with the impressive Jewish snozz right in the middle of it. Jonas wasn't amazingly handsome, but his face was interesting and attractive. And his personality was even more so. Julian was fascinated by the way his mind worked.
Curse his mother for bringing this up! Now he was starting to think too hard, always a bad thing. He never would have thought of this himself, but now that it had been put into his head he couldn't seem to STOP thinking about it! Julian twitched, wanting to groan. He so did not need this right now. His life was just starting to get back on track. He didn't want to derail it for any reason.
He tried to concentrate on what the professor's aide was saying, knowing he needed to get his grades up. He'd never get a great job with the low grades he had right now. He'd worry about this later – much later if he could help it.
But unfortunately for him, today was one of his days to see Jonas. And now he felt kind of nervous as he entered Jonas's office, something he'd never felt before. He might have been angry and uneasy when his mother had first forced him to come here, but never nervous. He spoke with the receptionist, a very nice older lady who smiled at him and called him by his first name. She directed him into Jonas's office with a wave and a smile. He went, feeling butterflies fluttering in the pit of his stomach. Inside, he saw Jonas sitting in his usual chair waiting for him. The therapist looked up with a smile of greeting, his eyes lighting up. Julian's guts clenched and his breath started to come short. `Damn you, Mother!' his brain wailed loudly as Jonas said: "Hi, Julian. Sit down."
He did as told, sitting down in his normal chair. "Hi, Jonas," he said, glad that nothing was showing in his voice.
"It's a beautiful day, isn't it? The birds were singing in my rose bushes this morning," Jonas remarked. "Days like this always make me feel very hopeful, even though the world is so messed up sometimes."
"Yes, it's a beautiful day," Julian agreed, even though he hadn't noticed much about the weather since he'd been too busy obsessing over what his mother had said to him this morning. A new Ice Age could have been starting for all that he would have noticed.
"Anyway, I thought we could talk about something different today," Jonas said. "Specifically, the various men that you slept with after you were raped."
Oh, God, was the man psychic?! An appalled Julian thought in horror. The last topic that he wanted to talk about and Jonas had immediately brought it up today!
"Err...why do you want to talk about them?" he asked rather desperately.
"Does the topic bother you?" Jonas asked gently.
"Yes," he replied aloud, then thought: `for reasons that you have no idea about'.
"Why does it bother you? Is it because you feel ashamed of sleeping with more than one man? Or because you feel that you were using them?"
"Yes to both," he said grimly. If they had to do this, then he wouldn't hold anything back. "Sleeping with a ton of men whose names I didn't even bother to find out makes me a slut. And I WAS just using them to punish myself, not because I gave a rat's ass about any of them."
"Presumably they were just using you as well, only for sex," Jonas noted quietly. "Did any of them attempt to get your name or telephone number either?"
"Well, no," he had to concede.
Jonas surprised him by chuckling. "And all men are sluts at one time or another," he said in amusement: "It's just how we're wired. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, unless you're doing something that you know is wrong like cheating on a partner or spouse, forcing someone to have sex with you, etc. Casual sex is not in itself something to be ashamed of, it's the circumstances surrounding it that make a difference."
"I suppose you're right," he said slowly. "How can you always make me feel better about everything?" he added, marveling once more at Jonas's ability to put things in perspective for him. Only this time, there was an added element to that thought...
"It's my job," Jonas said with a lopsided smile. "Besides, I think that if more people thought about things a bit more rationally, we'd have fewer ills in this world. Guilt and shame, combined with low self-esteem, are the true destroyers. We either punish ourselves or those around us, and either way people get hurt for very little reason. Sadly, the truly bad people like your ex-boyfriend NEVER feel any guilt about the things they do, it's just the good people who do and who punish themselves for it."
"I guess that's what separates us from them," Julian said wryly.
Jonas laughed, showing off good dental work. Julian's insides did some more twisting. "That's so true. How funny. Anyway, how is school going?"
"Better," he said, glad to get to a safer topic of conversation. He started to talk about some of his classes, while Jonas listened with interest and made the occasional comment or observation. The hour just flew by, and he found himself reluctant to leave when the session was done. As he rose from his chair, Jonas said: "I have to say that I'm really proud of you, Julian. You're making excellent progress. I'm sure you'll make a full recovery and that you'll do it because you're strong and you want it. I'll see you again in a few days."
Looking down into that warm dark gaze, Julian knew with sudden, utter clarity that he was hopelessly in love with this man. Dear God, was he screwed! "Thank you, Jonas," he said aloud, "That means a great deal to me coming from you." And it did, far more than it should. A dazed Julian left the therapist's office, wondering in silent desperation just what he was going to do now?
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