Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor

Chapter 01

"So what do you do for a living, Peter?" I asked, my hands clasp atop each other as I peered at the couple before me. The constant ring of office telephones buzzed outside the door, loudly, but was made unnoticeable due to the hectic tension filling the room gradually. The kind you would have to put all your strength into to cut. Even with a knife. 

"House sales," he answered with a weak smile and a nod my way, not once staring at his wife, Judith. I nodded in return, and then looked to the pale faced woman, taking account to her lack of pigmentation in the face, her hair falling to her shoulders, absent of any kind of body or life. Same with Peter. They both looked..tired, and..lifeless.

"And Judith? What about you?" I asked, looking up at her from across my desk. 

"I'm a teacher. At the school not too far from here. South Oaks." she replied, smiling just as weakly as her husband had. "A teacher," I repeated as I took notes on my pad, "And how long have you two been married?" I asked. 

"10 years." They answered in unison, causing me to glance to them, and then to my notes once more, scribbling down their behavior as well as their words, quietly, and quickly. After all, that's what a marriage counselor does right?

"Do you have any children?" I pestered again, pushing my thick rimmed glasses up the bridge of my nose as I waited for an answer. "No." Judith perked. 

"No children," I scribbled, "do you want any?" 

"I do," Judith replied again, leaving me to our little routine of question-talk-write. 

"Peter?" I questioned, referring to the desire for children, a light flutter of my heart in my chest as the question arose. 

"I just want to make sure we're in a good place before we bring another person into the world," he responded, a light shrug ghosting his shoulders after. "Judith do you have something to say?" I inquired, sincerely looking to the woman. 

"Yeah," she spoke, lifting her hands as she began to speak. She used them to speak. To enunciate words, like a lot of people do. Talking with her hands they say. 

"I just think people change, don't you agree?" she continued, her gaze never leaving my face as she avoided her desperate husband's. 

"Yeah, they do," I rejoined, nodding, "I feel that we become a lot of different people before we actually settle into who we are," I paused a moment, swallowing the slight hold in my throat before I pursed my lips and finished. "especially when we're young." 

"We were 18. I'm not the same little girl that was in love when we were in high school," Judith explained, directly sending her quote to her husband more so than to me. "I still love you," Peter countered,  "tell me what you want me to do," he continued softly, setting a hand upon her knee, "I promise I can change..just.."he concluded, and like Judith, my head went down but maybe not for the same reasons. Her situation wasn't much different, which is maybe why my throat had began to go dry, and the air seemed to shift uncomfortably, to me anyway. 

"Tell me...please.." he continued to pester, making Judith sigh and exhale, letting her eyes fall shut. "Just don't do that," she responded, her subject being unapparent but was enough to cross Peter's line. His hand raised in surrender as did he when his eyes traveled my way. "I can't do this...I can't-" he announced, stalking out of my small office's door. 

"Peter, I'm sorry! Peter, wait! I'm-" Judith pleaded, but it all trailed with a sigh and a visible slump. Judith kept her gaze down at the cold concrete floor, away from me. "I don't want to hurt him, he deserves better," she spoke into the silence, her lip quivering a bit as her emotions began to take over. The ones she had obviously been void of, hidden them away and locked the key too.