Pleasure Unbound

Having eaten a meal in a tiny pale grey room, walked down a wide, pale grey hallway, showered in a white-tiled stall, and gotten into a stainless steel elevator, I found the office jarring. It could have been

my headache that grew more potent by the moment, or it could have been the presence of actual colors.

Pale blue curtains were drawn against the rain pounding the window. Green lantern. Rich brown wainscoting and desk. Burgundy carpets. I squinted.

Even the light from the desk lamp felt intentionally painful.

“Thanks, Bernie,” Dr. Chapman said from the corner of the room.

He wore a grey jacket and a sage-green sweater over a white shirt. His voice didn’t hurt my head, though when Bernie, the orderly, clicked the door behind him, I felt as if someone had hit my temple with a crowbar.

“Headache?” the doctor asked. I nodded, and he sighed. “For what you pay to be here, you think they’d be on the ball with the analgesics.” He slid open a desk drawer and removed a bottle of over-the-counter medicine.

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I held out my hand. “Don’t need it.”

He shook two into my palm. I kept my hand out and then spread my fingers wider. He shook out two more. I kept my hand out.

“That’s plenty,” he said.

I threw them to the back of my throat and swallowed. One caught on the back of my tongue, releasing a wave of sour and bitter, but I took it all.

“Would you like to sit?” He put the bottle back and slid the drawer closed.

“Is that a question? About what I like?”

“It’s a suggestion phrased as a question.”

A padded leather chair in soft green and worn dark wood sat to my left. I touched the brass studs that kept the leather attached and sat down.

Doctor Chapman sat behind the desk, settling his right elbow on the arm of the chair. I didn’t know if I was supposed to start with questions about what had happened or why I was there. I didn’t know if I should rattle off a list of what I remembered and didn’t, or ask just how much trouble I was in, or when Deacon was coming to get me out.

But he saved me the trouble. “Can you tell me the last thing you remember?”

I stiffened. My mouth locked up. I couldn’t tell him. “When can I leave?”

“Do you think you should leave?”

“Do you think I should leave?”

“It’s more important to know what you think,” he said.

“It’s more important for you to know what I think, and it’s more important for me to know what you think. So you first.”

He rubbed his upper lip with his middle finger, an odd gesture, then dropped his hand. “You’re here for your protection, at the great expense and effort of your family. I have seventy-two hours to report on

whether or not you’re a danger to yourself or others.”

“How am I a danger?”

“You don’t remember?”

“You know I don’t.”

He put his elbows on the desk and looked right into my eyes. I wanted to know what he saw, other than what everyone saw-a party girl with a permanent smile and spread legs. A balls-to-the-wall princess with an entourage and two wrecked Bentleys in the garage. But more than that, I wanted to know how old he was. He looked so young and so wise at the same time.

“If I tell you why you’re here,” he said with that gentle voice, “I want to warn you, that you’ve probably blocked it because it’s painful to you.”

“Okay.” I didn’t believe him, but I let him think I’d blocked it. The reason I didn’t know was because I’d been drunk or high. Whatever sweet chemicals I’d taken had kept my neurons from connecting.

It must have been bad, and I could never feel guilty about it because I didn’t remember it. I’d had a drunk driving accident. I’d given someone bad pills. I’d been gang-fucked and dumped in an alley. I’d killed some random paparazzi. One of the entourage had turned on me. All the things Mom had listed as fear and Dad had implied with his look.

“You’re making me nervous,” I whispered even though my headache abated.

“Do you know Deacon Bruce?”

I heard his last name so infrequently, sometimes I forgot he even had one. “Yes.”

“Do you remember what he is to you?”

“Yes.” I refused to clarify further. He was my safety. My control. The hub on the wheel of my life. Without him, the spokes didn’t meet.

And he was coming for me. All I had to do was stall.

“It would help if you told me the last thing you remember.”

“I don’t remember anything.”

“Do you remember going to the Branwyn Stables yesterday?”

“I haven’t been to the stables in years.” As if the back of my face had a surface all its own, it tingled. A corset tightened around my chest. I was going to cry, and I had no idea why. “I need you to just tell me, Doctor.”

“Call me Elliot.”

“Fucking tell me right now!”

“Can you stay calm?”

I swallowed a golf ball of cry gunk. “Yes. I’m fine. Yes.”

Seconds passed. He watched me as if casually observing a churning barrel of worry.

“I’m fine,” I said. “You can tell me. I’ll be cool.”

“We don’t know what happened exactly. Details are missing. Mister Bruce isn’t well enough to be interviewed.”

I tried to hold myself together, but my fingers gripped the edge of the chair. He saw my knuckles turn white. I knew it, but I had nowhere else for the tension to go.

“Go on,” I said.

“There are some things that are known for sure, and some questions.

If you remember any portion of what I’m telling you, please stop me.”

“Is Deacon okay?”

He cleared his throat and looked away before turning back to me. I realized he didn’t want to tell me at all, and that barrel of worry filled up with panic.

“You stabbed him in the chest.”