Dorrie dropped her briefcase the second she walked through the door, but she really wanted to throw it. She knew it contained four procedure change proposals, three performance evaluations, no less than six action items marked 'URGENT', and ironically a letter acknowledging that she'd watched the annual presentation on work/life balance that she had to initial and return to her boss by Monday. Probably three hours of work, maybe as much as three and a half, and by the time she finished she'd be too tired to do much more than numb her brain with a little television before falling asleep. What a fucking day.
And it only got worse when she looked over and noticed Rob coming out of her bedroom, still tucking his shirt back into his slacks. "Just leaving?" she asked, disguising the venom in her voice only with the greatest of difficulty. Doctor Hendricks had become a regular visitor to their household lately, frequently using their office for the teletherapy appointments that had become the majority of his business, and Dorrie wasn't dumb enough not to notice that his change in habits had coincided with her husband Jim's decision to quit his job and become a full-time homemaker. She couldn't complain too hard--Lord knew they needed the help with her own job keeping her so busy--but God did she sometimes want so smack the smug little grin off of Rob's face.
Like now. Like especially now. "Actually," he said, his voice dripping with so much sympathy that Dorrie practically ached to throttle him, "I was sticking around to see you. I can tell the past several months have been hard on you, and I wanted to give you a chance to talk about your feelings. Obviously, I can't take you on as a client, but that doesn't mean I can't offer you some friendly advice if you want to share." He didn't look like he was mocking her. But Dorrie couldn't help but feel a cruelty behind his wide blue eyes. He... he had to know, right? He had to know what this was doing to her.
"I wouldn't want to be your client," she snapped, settling reluctantly into a chair and taking her mind off the ever-present briefcase for a moment. "Not if it meant challenging your sense of professional ethics." Rob had dropped Jim as a client the moment they began their... Dorrie didn't want to call it a relationship, not even in the privacy of her own head, but she knew Rob fucked her husband a hell of a lot more than she did these days. But he hadn't recommended a different hypnotherapist, and Dorrie suspected that Rob was still hypnotizing Jim when she wasn't around. That wasn't the only thing she suspected, but there was a fine line between being uncomfortable with her husband's sudden and enthusiastic embrace of bisexuality and actual paranoia, and Dorrie didn't want to wind up on the wrong side of that line.
Rob smiled--if there was anything forced about it, it was probably just in Dorrie's imagination--and took a seat on the couch next to her. "I'm glad we understand each other," he said, his voice still infuriatingly compassionate. "So let's just have a little friendly chat. It's obvious that you're not getting what you wanted out of opening up your marriage to other men--what kinds of expectations did you have when you asked Jim to explore his sexuality like this?" Dorrie opened her mouth to answer, but the enormity of her feelings stuck in her throat and left her unable to say a single word.
She hadn't asked Jim to 'open up their marriage', or 'explore his sexuality', or any of the other things their arrangement had turned into. Dorrie wanted Jim to have a sexy threesome with another man, maybe doing a few kinky sexy things while she watched, and then she wanted to put the fantasy away for her to masturbate to when Jim wasn't around and go back to the way things were. And yes, she recognized that in hindsight it was selfish of her to expect that nothing would change, and yes, she realized now that it was unfair of her to put so many terms and conditions on her husband's sex life after claiming she was open to trying something new, but... but surely she got to have a say as well, didn't she? Didn't she get to have her needs met, too?
"It's okay, Dorrie," Rob said, holding up his hand. There was a simple ring on his finger, a gold band with a single faceted garnet stone in the center. "I can tell this is a lot for you. Let's try to take it in bite-sized pieces and see where it takes us. Just let your eyes focus on the gem, let it calm you and steady you, and think back to how you felt when you first saw Jim and I together."
