Chapter 1

I’m in my office, about 40 minutes into a one hour session. My patient is sat on the floor playing with a parking garage and cars. I kneel next to him, absent mindedly building with blocks. I find it makes it easier for them to talk if they don’t have to look me in the eye.

“How do you feel about what happened?”

“I feel kinda dirty, like I wanna have a shower and scrub and scrub but I did that and I still don’t feel clean”

“It’s ok to feel like that, what your daddy did to you was wrong but nothing he did is your fault and it doesn’t make you bad”

“Does it make me gay? When he ... y’know ... it made my ... my weiner get hard”

“What he did can’t make you gay or not, you might be gay and that’s ok, but it’s nothing to do with the bad things that happened”

“But if my weiner got hard doesn’t that mean I enjoyed it? That’s what daddy said.

“Your body can react to being touched in certain places and in certain ways. That doesn’t mean you wanted it to happen or that you enjoyed it. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

The boy looks round at me, tears rimming his blue eyes:

“But now daddy’s gonna to go to jail ‘cause I told mommy”

I look back at him, a gentle, reassuring smile on my face:

“No, Mikey, your daddy’s going to jail because he hurt you. That’s not on you. You did exactly the right thing”

I move the conversation to lighter things, sensing that Mikey is going to need some time to think about what I’ve said. We talk about school, about going out mountain biking on the weekend with his friends. Our time ends, and I guide him toward the door. Mom, a short blonde woman in her late 30s, is waiting:

“You ok, Mikey?”

He nods, looking at the floor.

“He’s done really well today, don’t worry if he doesn’t feel like talking” I say

“Thank you, Miss Valdez. Same time in two weeks?” She says, as she hugs Mikey close, releasing a gust of perfume.

“Sure”, I smile, holding the outer door for them.

I completed my Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling following my Bachelor’s in Child Psychology, and by 28 I was well established in private practise. Miss Valdez became a familiar name to many working in the local CPS, and I got regular referrals to counsel kids going through difficult times. Often those were one-offs or short courses with kids struggling with a divorce, or longer ones with kids who’d lost a parent or sibling, what we call in the trade “adverse childhood experiences”. Oftentimes my most regular patients were those dealing with trauma, either witnessing or being the victim of some kind of violence or abuse. I’d been fascinated in college by the effect of trauma on the developing brain, both the damage that it could do and the capacity for recovery. I see my job as being a bit like those artists who repair broken vases and pots with gold, creating something more beautiful in the process. I can’t erase the damage, but I can help kids rebuild themselves.

My love life is a bit hit and miss. I occasionally get parents of my patients hitting on me, but that’s both messy and has the potential to get me hauled up for professional misconduct. My tinder profile pic, my glossy brown ringlets framing a smooth, smiling face somewhere between tan and olive, my breasts hovering around a B, pictured in a white blouse that shows the curve without being tight, attracts a lot of attention. A few lesbian friends in college had me pegged as “bi till graduation”, thinking I’d find a guy and settle down, but really these days I like women more than men. Don’t get me wrong I like a nice firm set of pecks and a hairy chest as much as the next girl, and there is something to be said for that full feeling that comes from riding a nice, hard dick but, frankly, penetration is kind of overrated. I much prefer a slightly frumpy lady who knows her way around a clit than a stud whose idea of foreplay is mauling my tits like he’s kneeding dough. Plus there’s the men who react to female body hair like it arrived from outer space. I tried shaving a couple of times when I was 19. Never again. And all these men who think that having a dick puts them in charge in the bedroom. No, men on tinder are dogs, women are hit and miss.

Lately something else has been niggling me. I mentioned before about being like those artists who put vases back together. Do you think one of them ever sees a perfect, unbroken pot and has the overwhelming urge to pick up a hammer?