My Patient Seduced Me in the Fourth Session

I’d been seeing people in this office for eight years and thought I’d seen it all. Mothers on the verge of collapse, men crying for the first time in their lives, couples screaming at each other in my room as if I didn’t exist. I had a method, a professional distance that had never failed me. Until she arrived.

Lucía was twenty-four and had been referred to therapy after an episode of harassment with a classmate at university. She walked into my office with her arms crossed, her brow tense, and that attitude of someone who would rather be anywhere else in the world.

—Good afternoon —I said, indicating the sofa in front of mine.

She sat on the edge, as if she didn’t plan to stay long. The first three sessions were a wall. I asked questions and she answered with monosyllables, shrugs, silences that stretched the fifty minutes until they felt eternal. I left each appointment feeling as if I hadn’t moved forward a single step.

I decided to change everything in the fourth session.

I put the notebook of questions on the desk, took off my shoes, and put my feet up on the sofa, settling in as if I were at home. I wanted the atmosphere of interrogation to disappear, for her to feel there was no judgment there, just a conversation.

It worked better than I expected.

Lucía relaxed her shoulders almost immediately. She took a long sip of the lemonade we offer at reception, leaned back against the cushions, and for the first time began speaking without my having to drag the words out of her.

—That guy wasn’t always a problem, you know? —she said, looking at the glass—. At first he was attentive. Too much, maybe.

I asked carefully if they had had any contact before the conflict.

—Yes. He wrote to me first. He’d send messages through his friends, got my number, called me every night. —She paused—. The conversations were... unlike anything I’d ever known.

Something in her tone changed. She lowered her voice, bit her lower lip, and rested her hands on her thighs. I’ve spent too many years reading bodies not to recognize what I was seeing.

—Different in what sense? —I asked, keeping my voice flat.

—Exciting —she answered without beating around the bush—. Messages with innuendo, then photos. Him coming out of the shower, in his underwear, showing me pieces of himself. I’d never had a boyfriend. I was always the shy one, the inexperienced one. And even so my body reacted.

I nodded slowly, as if taking mental notes, though inside something was starting to come undone. Focus, I told myself. It’s your job.

—And you think that attention is what left you so vulnerable? —I offered.

—Maybe. —She closed her eyes for a moment—. One night he called me while he was with another girl. He made me listen to everything. Every sound.

I swallowed. Lucía tipped her head back against the sofa and slowly ran one hand up her own neck, caressing herself as she spoke, as if reliving the scene.

—I thought I’d get angry —she went on—. But no. I imagined it was me on that bed. I wanted it to be me.

And then she let out a broken sigh, almost a moan, that pulled me completely out of my role as therapist.

***

I don’t know exactly when I lost control of the situation.

Lucía began to lift the hem of her skirt with the tips of her fingers, slowly, as if I weren’t sitting in front of her. I froze in my chair, my feet still tucked up, unable to form the professional line I was supposed to say.

In eight years of practice I had never witnessed anything like it. And the worst part wasn’t that. The worst part was the heat rising through my own body, the uncomfortable wetness between my legs, the thought that slipped in without permission: I want to see her.

She shifted the fabric of her underwear aside and touched herself shamelessly, looking straight into my eyes. There was something playful in that look, a quiet malice, as if she knew exactly what she was provoking.

—That must have been very hard for you —I murmured, staring at the floor, trying to cling to the only words I knew—. Do you want to tell me more?

—It didn’t bother me —she said with a half smile—. It turned me on to hear her. I was jealous. I wanted to be the one making those moans.

I shifted in my chair. I wanted to think it was just to get comfortable, but we both knew it wasn’t. When I lifted my gaze, she was still watching me, fixed, dark, without a trace of the shyness she claimed to have.

—Do you want to take the therapy somewhere more practical? —she asked.

It hit me like a blow. I stood up in one leap, against every principle I had, and walked toward the door. I needed to get out of there, breathe, clear my head, because I felt I was losing a battle I hadn’t even decided to fight.

I reached for the handle. Put my hand on it. And a shiver ran all the way down my back.

Then, as if something outside of me made the decision, I turned the lock. I trapped us inside.

—What do you want me to do? —I asked, realizing I was crossing a line with no way back.

Lucía stood and walked toward me with those huge, light eyes of hers, full of desire. Before I could regret it, she threw herself against my neck.

***

I closed my eyes and let myself go.

Her tongue traced circles on my skin, moving up and down, taking over every inch of my neck. I tried to push her away by the shoulders, weakly, with a resistance I didn’t even believe myself, and she only held on tighter. The supposed inexperienced girl didn’t hesitate at all.

One of her hands gripped my hair at the nape of my neck and yanked me back, arching me against the wall. The other ran over my dress until it found, through the fabric, the exact spot where I was burning. She let out a low laugh when she noticed how soaked I was.

I wanted to turn around, I don’t know if to escape or to have her in front of me, and the movement only served for her to rip my sweater off in one tug. Then came the buttons on my blouse, opened wide, revealing my violet lace bra.

I stumbled. I fell to the floor, half naked, my heart hammering in my chest. I tried to crawl toward the sofa, more out of instinct than intention, and that was the worst and best decision of the afternoon.

Lucía grabbed my hips with a strength she seemed to discover at that very moment and dragged me back to her body. I felt her tongue graze my ass, a wet, warm caress that made me arch my head and let out a gasp I no longer even tried to hold back.

By then my body had stopped obeying me.

I pressed my face against the living room rug, stopped fighting, and with my own fingers pulled the last fabric covering me aside. It was an invitation, and she accepted it instantly. Her tongue first, her fingers after, entering me with a certainty that left me breathless.

I moaned in desperate silence, biting my lips so no sound would escape under the door. Her fingers went in and out, changed rhythm, depth, like someone who knew perfectly well what she was doing.

I matched the sway with my hips, sinking against her hand, lost in a sensation I hadn’t allowed myself in far too long. When I felt pleasure overflow me, I came with a long shudder that left me lying face down on the rug, panting.

She didn’t stop. She went on a little longer, until the friction set me alight again.

***

Something had loosened inside me, and I wasn’t going to stop halfway now.

I sat up, still with my legs trembling, and told her to lie down. I had never been with a woman. Eight years listening to other people’s desires and I had never allowed myself this one. I wasn’t going to let the chance pass me by.

I laid her back on the rug and took my time. I parted the folds of her sex with both hands and ran my tongue over her, slowly at first, discovering a sweet taste and a scent that stuck to my memory for days. She tangled her fingers in my hair, arched her back, and stopped pretending at any shyness.

I learned quickly. I listened to her breathing, followed the way her hips sought my mouth, adjusted the rhythm to each one of her moans. When I felt she was close, I pressed with my tongue and held it there until she came against my face with a muffled cry.

After that we both stayed lying there, side by side, pressing our lips together between gasps, catching our breath. Her hand found mine and laced our fingers together. It was that gesture, not what came before, that truly scared me.

The hard knock at the door brought me back to the world.

It was my receptionist. The fifty minutes were up and my next patient was already arriving. I covered Lucía’s mouth with my hand, stifling a nervous laugh, and answered that I’d be out in a few minutes.

We got dressed in a hurry. Before leaving, she stood in front of me, took my face in her hands, and kissed me with an intensity I neither knew how nor wanted to resist. Then she fixed her hair, recovered her shy-patient composure, and waited for me to open the door.

I lit a candle, sprayed perfume around the office to erase any trace, and walked her to the entrance as if nothing had happened.

—I’m seeing progress —I told my receptionist, in the firmest voice I could manage—. Schedule the next appointment.

Lucía looked at me wide-eyed and nodded. We booked a Friday night, the last slot, when no one else would be left in the building.

What happened that night is another story, and I’d rather tell it slowly.

I’ll only say that that session wasn’t the last one. That months ago I stopped charging her. And that now, on weekends, I’m the one who knocks on her door.