“How are you?” he asks when I take a seat.
“Are you really interested?”
He smiles. “It’s my job to ask.”
“Have you ever been good at it?”
He thinks for a while. “I suppose there was a time I was worth a shit.”
“What happened?”
“Greed. One wrong decision. Debt. I don’t know. Sometimes it’s hard to pin it on a single reason. It’s not clear-cut like a turn in a road that changes our direction, but hey, I’m the one who’s supposed to do the psychoanalysis, remember?”
I give a wry laugh, nervously staring at the door.
“Does that bother you?” he asks. “The closed door?”
“Yes.”
“Why?’
“I have my reasons.”
“We can work on that if you like.”
“Finding your missing conscience, are you?” I tease.
“I’ll be honest. Your husband only requires me to prescribe medicine for you when needed, but since you’re here and I owe you an hour, it can’t hurt to talk.”
“I suppose not.”
“So, let’s talk about closed doors.”
“Let’s talk about how you can really help me.”
He lifts a brow, waiting for me to continue.
“Here’s the deal. I need money, and you’re going to give me a job. Paying under the table. And Damian isn’t going to know.”
He laughs softly. “Why would I do that?”
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I play the recording I’d taken of our first meeting. I activated my phone under the pretense of looking for a tissue before Damian and I entered the room.
When I get to the part where he all but admits to knowing Damian forced me into marriage, I press pause. “Need to hear more? My favorite part is where you admit to taking bribes for prescribing drugs.”
“No.” He shakes his head as if he finds me funny. “I get it.”
“Good. I start next week.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know. There must be tasks a psychiatrist needs help with.”
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
“Thanks.” I’m glad I had the foresight to record the meeting. I was worried Damian was going to have me locked up, and I wasn’t going down that road without putting up my best fight.
“Damian has no idea, does he?”
“Of what?”
“Of how cunning and strong you really are.”
I shrug and cross my legs. “I don’t think Damian is interested in my psyche.” He’s all about the physical.
The smile he gives me is disarming. It’s both sympathetic and pitying. “I think you’re wrong.”
I don’t like it. It’s as if he knows something I don’t. “Next week, same time?”
“If you say so.”
When I leave the office, Damian waits for me at the door.
He wipes a strand of hair behind my ear. “How did it go?”
“Good. I’m coming back next week.”
“You are?” He seems surprised.
“You want me to, don’t you?”
“I’m not forcing you.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? Just like that? No fight?”
“Some things aren’t worth the fight,” I say over my shoulder, making my way down the hallway.
I don’t miss the contemplative way he looks at me, as if he’s not sure if he should trust me. He keeps on telling me he doesn’t, and he’s right not to. The thought hurts. I face forward so he won’t see the guilt in my eyes.
Catching up with me, he takes my hand and pulls me to a stop. “You may find this hard to believe, but I do want you to be happy.”
“Has anyone ever been happy without freedom?” I ask softly.
He cups my face, drawing his thumb over my cheek. “You think I hold all the control.”
“You do.”
“You’re wrong. It’s entirely up to you. You can have anything you want, or you can fight me and make it unnecessarily unpleasant for yourself.”
How tempting he makes it sound. A life with no commitments, no worries, no work. That’s not a real life. It’s just a luxurious version of being locked up.
“What do you want, Lina? Ask me. Test me. I’ll give you anything your heart desires.”
There are things I desperately want, but I can’t tell him, because those things led me to committing a murder. I’m a cold-blooded killer, and I’ll do it again. I’m not sure what that makes me. I only know I can’t look at myself in the mirror without hating what I see.
“What do you want?” he repeats.
“A job. I’d like to earn money like a normal person.”
“You’re not a normal person.”
The jab hurts. What he thinks of me shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I suck in a slow breath. “That was cruel.”
“That’s not how I meant it, and you know it. I meant our circumstances aren’t normal. You don’t need a job,” he says with finality, letting me know the subject is closed for discussion. “Anything else?”
“Nothing.”
“Lunch?” he asks, rubbing his hands over my arms.
The touch still makes me shiver, but every time the repulsion is less. There was a time when food would’ve made everything better, but not today. Today my belly is full, and my troubles are elsewhere. Classic case of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Now that my physical needs are taken care of, I strive to have my emotional wants met.