Adrian gently withdrew from Stella, and when she turned to face him, he couldn't meet her eyes. Instead, he left the bed and began getting dressed.
"Adrian," she said.
He kept his back to her while buttoning his shirt. "This shouldn't have happened. I'm your therapist, and I've violated a boundary that should never be crossed."
"Please don't say that!" Stella hurried toward him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He tried not to tense at her touch, but he felt sick with guilt. "It wasn't wrong, what we did," she insisted. "And I promise I won't tell anyone."
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "If it wasn't wrong, you wouldn't have to keep it a secret." It required every ounce of his strength to turn toward Stella; he was terrified of what his face might reveal. Shame? Confusion? Lingering desire? He didn't think he was capable of hiding the conflicting emotions rushing through him. Stella waited for him to speak. It gutted him, the way she appeared so desperate for reassurance. He had failed her in every way. "I have to go," Adrian finally managed to tell her. "Will you be alright here tonight?" Though she nodded, her expression darkened with anxiety. "We'll talk about what we should do at your next appointment."
Stella reached for him again, but he took a step back, and she let her hand fall to her side. "Are you angry with me for asking you to come here?" she whispered.
"Of course not, but I'm furious with myself. I need a little time to... think about the situation." He hated to leave her like this, but he had no choice. What kind of mixed message would it send if he spent the night? "I'll see myself out. Take care, Stella." His words sounded too final, like a last goodbye. He immediately wished he could take them back when Stella's face fell, but he only left her in that godforsaken room. She didn't follow him into the living room, where he grabbed his keys and then stepped out of the house.
The drive home felt endless. Glancing at the clock, he was shocked to find that several hours had passed. Had he really spent all that time fucking Stella? Adrian allowed his guilt to eat away at him. It was a kind of futile self-flagellation, but he wanted nothing more than to be punished for his lapse in judgment. Placing the blame at his own feet stopped him from dwelling on the fact that he'd felt like a man possessed in that room.
How could he reconcile his skepticism with what he'd just experienced? It was utterly disorienting to recall the feeling of that presence invading him. A chill slithered through Adrian when he remembered speaking in a stranger's voice, so unlike his own. And the things he'd said! His face grew hot as he thought of the filthy way he'd talked to Stella.
Adrian was exhausted by the time he reached his two-bedroom apartment. After his ex-wife had gotten the house in the divorce settlement, she'd promptly sold it and then left town. Two years later, he couldn't be bothered with searching for a new place. As soon as he let himself inside the dark living room, he fumbled for the light, jumping at shadows. Relief washed over him when he realized that the presence in Stella's house hadn't followed him home.
The long shower Adrian took did nothing to clear his mind. He tried not to think of Stella and the cowardly way he'd left her. Would she sleep in that spare room again? he wondered. Would she welcome that spirit into her bed so she could be fucked for hours more? Despite the shame he felt, imagining Stella writhing beneath the entity's touch made his cock pulse.
After Adrian left the shower and put on a robe, he went to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of wine. He didn't often drink, but he desperately needed something to soothe his nerves now. In the darkness of the living room, he sat while trying to think of a reason for what had happened to him and Stella. The only remotely plausible explanation he could come up with was folie à deux, or shared psychosis. While extremely rare, there were numerous accounts of the disorder in the medical literature. But accepting that would mean accepting his mental state wasn't nearly as healthy as he'd always assumed; it would mean he'd fallen prey to the same psychosis plaguing Stella. That made no sense to him. He wasn't out of touch with reality, and Stella had never before appeared to be, either.
Two glasses of wine made Adrian drowsy enough to go to bed, but his rest was fitful. He kept dreaming of Stella, and in those dreams, he was back in that room, fucking her hard. He took turns sharing her with some disembodied spirit until she was drenched in sweat and begging for mercy. Adrian woke panting and flushed, his cock hard beneath the sheet.
The following day, he could barely concentrate during his sessions with clients. He struggled to form suitable responses to their questions; simply participating in a conversation seemed beyond his grasp. By the time he saw his last client out of the office, he was thinking of canceling all of the next day's appointments. It was merely exhaustion, he told himself. With a decent night's sleep, he would be able to function better.
But when Adrian saw Stella sitting in the waiting room, her hands clasped in her lap, he froze. Neither spoke until his other client said goodbye and left. Then Stella slowly rose to her feet. She was wearing a short-sleeved red turtleneck and black slacks, along with low black heels. Their eyes met, and she gave him a hopeful smile. "I know you said we'd talk next week, but..."
Adrian gestured toward his private office. "Come in." As she walked past him, he inhaled deeply, trying to catch her scent. Even now, he wanted her. His pulse raced at her nearness, and at the way memories of last night flooded into his mind.
After Adrian closed the door, Stella sat down on the couch, as she usually did, and he retreated to his chair, a safe distance from her. She brushed her hair back from her face, her smile wavering a bit. Adrian leaned forward, clasping his hands before him. "I can't be your therapist any longer," he said. "I'll refer you to someone who will be able to help you more than I've managed to."
Her smile vanished altogether. "Adrian..."
He hurried on before she could say anything else. "I want to apologize for what I did last night. I violated my professional obligation to you, and I also violated your trust. I never thought I was the kind of man who would behave in such a way."
"It wasn't your fault!" Stella cried. "I told you that spirit has the power to... to make us do things."
Adrian's smile was bitter. "You asked me if I wanted to stay, and I told you yes. That was no spirit talking."
"I threw myself at you," she insisted. "I wanted it to happen. I'm the one who should apologize!" She was growing more agitated by the second. The last thing Adrian wanted was to make her feel responsible for his wrongdoing.
"You think you're the first client who's thrown herself at me? It's called transference, and we therapists are trained to expect it and to deal with it in an appropriate manner. I always have before. But now?" He held up his hands, feeling utterly defeated.
"Now you're no longer my therapist," Stella pointed out, her voice growing calmer. "Will you please come sit next to me so we can talk about last night? We owe each other that much, don't we?" When Adrian didn't respond, she hurried to add, "And I promise that after today, I'll never bother you again."
His clinical demeanor crumbled at her words. He desperately wanted to take her in his arms, to hold and comfort her. Instead, he murmured, "You have never been a bother to me, sweetheart. But I hate myself right now, and I'm questioning who I am, along with every belief I've held for most of my life."
"Please come here." Stella held out her hand, and Adrian couldn't resist her pleading gaze. Wordlessly, he rose and joined her on the couch. Unable to stop himself, he reached for the collar of her turtleneck and gently pulled it downward, revealing the hickey he'd left on her skin.
"Christ," he muttered, overcome by another wave of self-loathing.
"It's okay." Stella tried to cover his hand with hers, but he quickly pulled away. They sat in uncomfortable silence for several seconds before she cleared her throat. "Can I ask you a personal question?"
Adrian couldn't suppress his grin. "Ask away. I don't think we can get any more personal than we did last night."
Stella snickered, then cupped a hand over her mouth, as if embarrassed. That only made Adrian laugh, too. "Speaking of last night," she said, "I was wondering if you've, uh, ever fucked anyone like that before?"
"Never!" Adrian said. "Are you kidding? I had no idea I was even capable of it!"
"And I've never been like that in bed," Stella confessed. "I wasn't being influenced by whatever presence was in that room. You're the one who drove me wild last night, Adrian." Her lips parted, and he heard her breaths coming faster. "I can't stop thinking about how you made me feel."
Even as several inches separated them on the couch, Adrian could sense Stella's arousal growing. It was infectious, fueling his own, and there was no ghost in his office to blame for the desire coursing through him. He decided to steer the conversation back into safer territory. "Stella, I've been trying to figure out what would make us both behave in such an unrestrained way."
Her brow furrowed in confusion. "But you know the reason why. It's because of him, the spirit in that room!"
Adrian dared to take her hand. "What if there's another explanation? What if you and I are having some kind of shared hallucination? Maybe I've allowed myself to become much fonder of you than I realized, and it's clouded my thinking. Maybe the feelings I have for you made me more vulnerable to believing as you do."
"That's bullshit!" Stella exclaimed, but she didn't withdraw from him. Instead, her grip on his hand tightened. "When you called me a whore, and talked about my greedy cunt, you weren't even speaking in your own voice!"
Adrian turned his face away, as if to hide from her words. "You can't expect me to suddenly believe in the supernatural. There has to be some other reason for this."
"Why?" Stella jumped to her feet and moved to stand directly before him. When he wouldn't lift his head to meet her eyes, she grasped his chin and made him look at her. "What if that room channels some kind of energy? Not a spirit, per se, but a... a sensual energy that manifests in a way our human brains can understand."
Adrian cocked an eyebrow. "And that energy rubs your clit and fucks you senseless?"
Stella drew in a sharp breath, and he noticed a blush heating her cheeks. "Yeah," she replied defiantly, "and you channeled that energy while fucking me for hours last night." He tried to shake his head, but she held him fast. "That's not any crazier than your shared hallucination theory!"
Adrian let out a sigh even while enjoying the feel of her fingers against his skin. "Touché," he conceded with a wry smile. "But can you understand why I'm struggling with this? The way I see the world has changed. I've changed."
"I've changed, too," Stella said. "And I know it's frightening to face the unknown. But I was never once afraid of you last night. Whatever that entity is, it's not evil."
"The fuck it isn't!" Adrian sputtered.