“Uh-huh, you say that now. Wait until you meet the therapist.”
“That bad?”
“Let’s just say I can’t believe he’s a real person.”
“Like Santa Claus?”
“More like if Santa Claus and Ron Jeremy had a child and then that child had a child with Richard Simmons.”
“So, like a leprechaun?”
“Yes, Otter, exactly like a leprechaun.”
“I’m going to tell him I believe in Santa Claus, just to see what happens.”
“I dare you.”
“Totally going to do it now. What’ll you give me if I do?”
I leaned over and proceeded to fuck with us both by describing (in great detail, I might add) how I’d let him fuck me through the wall when we got home and how I’d moan his name and beg for what I want done to me. I get to the point where I tell him I want his fat cock in my ass, and I allow my lips to graze against his ear, causing him to shudder as a strangled noise bursts from his throat.
I’m such an asshole.
So we waited until the Kid had come out, rolling his eyes, muttering to himself, motioning that it was my turn. He’d climbed into Otter’s lap and laid his head against Otter’s chest. Otter leaned down and whispered quietly in his ear, and I saw the Kid’s shoulders begin to relax as I walked through the beads.
And this is where the fun begins.
“I think you should consider therapy,” Eddie repeats, reaching down to pet Carl Jung while B.F. Skinner stares at me from his perch on the window, obviously wondering what my eyes would taste like.
“I’m fine,” I assure him. “We’re doing this because it’s a requirement of the state in order to petition custody.”
“Are you fine, Derrick?”
I nod. “I think I just told you I was.”
“I see,” he says as he writes something on the notepad in front of him.
“Tell me, Derrick, why do you want to adopt Tyson?”
You’ll have to do better than that, Eddie. “Because he’s my little brother, and I don’t want anyone to be able to take him from me.”
“Mmm-hmm.” More writing.
I wait.
Finally, after ages: “And you are the only family he has, other than your mother?”
“Biologically,” I agree. “But we have friends that are more than enough family for us.”
“Mmm.” Somehow, the thirteen words I’ve just said translate into him writing a paragraph that’s almost as long as the piece of paper. And his handwriting is small and cramped. “Fascinating.”
I’m starting to sweat, but still I say nothing.
“And tell me about Oliver,” he finally says as Carl Jung starts using my leg like a scratching post. I want to yell at Carl Jung, but I’m worried the therapist will see this as being aggressive and will note that I’m an unfit guardian, that I’m too quick to lose my cool, even if it’s because a mountain lion is clawing my jeans.
My eyes narrow. “What about him?”
“He lives with you too?”