After a few months, Bertie was reconsidering his recent foray into the world of the local BDSM community. While Cherrie at the Oubliette had been a delightful guide, it soon became apparent that attendance at the shop’s fetish events had been in decline since before the pandemic. While he and Rachel had met a few other customers in the basement dungeon, they tended to similarly be newbies, or were “just checking it out”....

From the notes of Dr. Kelsey Ransom, PsyD Today I terminated my relationship with Rachel and Bertie. The couple has completed what I would consider the standard period of couple’s therapy, and even though our sessions have uncovered some skeletons in their closet (See previous notes), they continue to look forward to the future. They know that further challenges will present themselves, and they are interested in pursuing...

From the notes of Dr. Kelsey Ransom, PsyD After some delay, I was finally able to schedule a one-on-one session with Bertie. Based on previous meetings, I’d identified him as the part of the couple more likely to speak, but less likely to share. I was curious as to what I should expect in this session – his partner Rachel had dropped an accidental truth bomb in an individual session two weeks earlier, and had promised to...

From the notes of Dr. Kelsey Ransom, PsyD Bertie and Rachel have been making excellent progress in session. As of my seventh meeting with them, I’m finding that I am able to listen more and mediate less. Bertie has been conciliatory in giving Rachel room to speak, and Rachel has been more direct in speaking her mind. And as has been my experience in these cases, I am now being asked if they are ready to leave the program....

From the notes of Dr. Kelsey Ransom, PsyD There has been a development since our last session. The couple’s last therapist had described Rachel’s cooperation in therapy as reluctant at best, but today she was quite eager to participate. She apologized to me, admitting that she had been skeptical of the idea of therapy from the beginning, but that she and Bertie had been talking since our last session and both agreed to co...

From the notes of Dr. Kelsey Ransom, PsyD Second meeting today with Rachel (36) and Bertram (32), recommended to me by Dr. Arkanian in hopes that they would be better able to address the issues in their relationship with a therapist closer to their own age. The two have been together for seven years, mutual lack of interest in marriage or children as discussed in previous interview. Employment/finance problems have been n...

The message read simply: We need to talk. He blinked, his coat sleeve dangling a hand’s breadth off from his wrist. When had she written that? And why? The rest of the whiteboard was blank. They’d gone shopping for groceries the day before… … where she’d leaned into the curve of his neck, the heat of her breath making his hair stand on end… … and he’d wiped the list clean after they’d returned. She might have written it l...

Bertie sat waiting, even if he hadn’t known where he was. The room was spacious and gray, the carpet was gray (With a spiral pattern if one looked closely enough), and he sat in one of two gray armless chairs that faced a desk. He assumed it was an office, though he couldn’t tell whose office it was. Not his own, of course, as a restaurant manager he was lucky if he could fit two people seated comfortably. He couldn’t see...

She wiped at the sweat coalescing on her forehead, sitting off-kilter on the stump outside of the barn. The summer heat was unbearable for a young woman who’d only just recently left the comforts of city living, and the stink of warm hay and manure assaulted her nostrils. Some of her sisters, she was told, had learned to ignore the stench. The homespun sundress she wore clung insistently to her body at her chest and thigh...

He could feel the ache in his corneas even after pressing his eyes shut. The glowing screen sat squarely before him, waiting. Judging him. He’d told himself that he wouldn’t go to bed until he’d put something down, justified the day somehow. That had been four hours ago. Folding his hands behind his head, his gaze drifted to the doorway at the periphery of his vision. The only other light in the apartment came from the be...

Rachel squinted against the dim ring of lights surrounding the bathroom mirror. In front of and around her, the walls throbbed with the heavy beat of the music she’d left playing before she’d slipped in here to “freshen up”. The face that stared back at her was damp with sweat, her mascara dribbling in a line that threatened to lead to her upper lip. Her short shock of green hair lay flattened against her scalp. Not the c...

The nearly inaudible click of her key in the front door was Bertie’s first indication that Rachel was home. He rolled over in bed to glance at the alarm clock on the table beside him – nearly 4 AM. That was late, even for Rachel, and as he listened he could hear her clomping around in the kitchen, even as she was trying to be silent, punctuating her noisiest moves with a loud “Shh!” and muted giggling. Bertie had been hop...

It had been weeks since Rachel’s last gig. It was the beginning of the summer season, and the university students who had packed the club to hear her spin tunes and sing every weekend since September had gone home. Her business was quiet, and she’d only recently started to search the want ads looking for something to pay the bills for the next handful of months. Bertie knew from experience that little was going to come fr...

Rachel had been getting little hints for almost a week now. The first sign had been at the club a week ago – one of the women attending her friends’ second bachelorette party had spent twenty minutes trying to recall the name of a song she’d wanted to request, a memory made all the more hazy by the previous hour spent downing shots from cock-shaped glasses. The forty-something partier had paused for a moment, her mind on...

Nine o’clock. Despite the (relative) earliness of the hour, she could see that Bertie was getting tired. His eyes were beginning to show that glazed look, and his attention was wandering. “Are you ready for bed, sweetie?” she offered. He shook his head. “No, I’m going to the night shift by the day after tomorrow. I need to start keeping later hours.” If that was his goal, they’d started on the wrong foot. They’d spent all...