The Fallout (The Therapist #3) - W.S. Greer Page 0,21
this has more to do with control than it does with Ava. She just happens to be the person who gave you the most control. Had anyone in your past ever given you as much control as Ava did?”
“No,” I answer quickly, because Ava was the first woman who ever dove into the role of submissive head first, without any fear or hesitation.
“So you never had a submissive before Ava?”
“No. I’ve had girlfriends who liked to be choked, or wanted to be fucked hard. But only Ava wanted to be tied to a bed, or a table. Only Ava wanted to be flogged, or forced to sit on a floor vibrator. Only Ava was willing to go as far as I wanted to go. I’m thirty years old, and I admit I’ve had quite a few sexual partners, but only Ava went as far as Ava. I turned my basement into the Black House because of Ava. The control she gave me was on a whole different level, and the more she gave, the more I wanted it. I think she was obsessed with giving me control because she knew I knew how to wield it, and I was obsessed with wielding it. We fed each other’s addictions, fueled each other’s obsessions, and every single time we got together there were fireworks that lit up both our skies brighter than the sun.”
“Wow,” Dr. Monroe mouths with raised eyebrows. “And this woman used to be your patient, correct?”
“Yes, although I’m not proud of that,” I admit. I can feel the oncoming judgement, and I want to dodge it before it has a chance to hit me. “I know it’s wrong in our line of work to sleep with a patient, especially one who exhibits signs of obsession and fixation the way Ava did. I shouldn't have done it.”
“How did it make you feel?” Dr. Monroe asks. She adjusts in her seat again and places her notebook in her lap. She doesn't plan on writing this part down. “You're obviously aware of how unethical it is to sleep with a patient, but you did it anyway. How did it make you feel as you approached the decision to do it even when you knew it was wrong?”
“I felt helpless,” I admit. “I felt like I was in a car moving a hundred miles per hour, speeding toward a brick wall, but the car had no brakes. I knew we were going to collide and it was going to be terrible, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. The wall kept getting closer and closer, and all I could do was watch as I barrelled toward it. The more she said, the more I wanted her. By the time it happened, I wasn't thinking about how unethical it was. All I could think about was how good it felt to crash.”
Dr. Monroe doesn't go for her pen like I expected she would. She simply stares at me, nodding her head before letting her eyes drop to the floor. She lingers there for a while, thoughts being born in her head, before exhaling aloud and speaking to me again.
“Interesting,” she says. “Your need to control Ava reads to me like a textbook obsession, and your problem now isn't that you miss Ava, it’s that you miss controlling her. If another person granted you that same level of control, your need would be met, but Ava was the only person who ever gave you that much control over her, that’s why she's special to you. What you need, Dr. Colson, is to learn to lose control. You need to learn to let go. In life, we’re rarely able to control things one hundred percent. A lot of the time, we have to accept what we can't control. We have to let go, and what we need to figure out, is how we can teach you to let go. How do we get you to surrender control?”
“Surrender control?”
“Yes,” Dr. Monroe says, giggling. Her smile is wide this time, and I feel lightheaded just looking at it. Holy shit. “You see? Just hearing me say the words surrender control makes you look uncomfortable. You're terrified of it, and that's how I know it’s the path we need to take for you. It’s going to be difficult, but I think we can do it.”
“So, that's your game plan for me? Teach me to surrender control?”
“That’s right.”
“Interesting. Okay, so how do you plan on doing that?”
Dr. Monroe adjusts