“I’m so happy to hear that. It was an honor to have been asked.”

“I hope it’ll be an honor when I ask you for something else too,” Carla said, flashing a quick smile.

“Anything.”

“We have a workshop with other psychotherapists coming up on learning to love again. It will look at love after infidelity, grief, divorce and so on. And, I was hoping you could lead it.”

Michelle’s answer was instant. “Of course. I’d love to. Just let me know the details.”

“Absolutely. I’ll email them to you this weekend. I also have a referral to send your way. Are you still taking new patients?”

She glanced away briefly to hide her smirk. “Yes. I have an opening on Fridays at two.”

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 6:18 PM

subject: Therapy

Looking forward to another “therapy” session with you this evening.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 6:20 PM

subject: Healing aids?

Will you be bringing any battery-operated friends?

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 6:23 PM

subject: Therapy

I have many toys slated for our time slot. Though I should warn you—I need more than the standard fifty minutes. Much more.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 6:27 PM

subject: A few hours works for me

I look forward to being in your hands.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 6:32 PM

subject: Soon . . .

By the way, I told the doorman I’d be expecting someone at nine p.m.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 6:46 PM

subject: Very soon . . .

So you want me out of there by 9?

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 6:52 PM

subject: Open invitation to spend the night

No, beautiful. It’s you, I’m expecting.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 7:03 PM

subject: Maybe someday

Presumptuous.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 7:09 PM

subject: Someday very soon

Ravenous.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 7:32 PM

subject: After last night

I can barely walk today.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 7:46 PM

subject: That’s what I like to hear

I should feel bad about that, but I can’t find it in me.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 7:55 PM

subject: No guilt needed

Beating your chest instead?

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: Sept 12, 8:02 PM

subject: Like a caveman

Yes. Fucking you senseless has a way of making me feel damn good about myself. I’d like to see you bent over my kitchen counter in about an hour.

7

Services

The next several nights passed in a haze of sex, food, and conversation. In a fantastic blur of 69s, and town cars, and swank bathroom stalls at shi-shi restaurants—including a new sushi spot near the Chrysler Building—and Chinese food ordered in. In late-night chats curled up on his couch, talking about college, or his time in the army, or her days in grad school, and the crazy role-playing she’d had to do with other shrinks as a part of her training. He’d lie back on a pillow, an arm wrapped around her, and listen to her stories, her hair fanned out across his chest as he ran his fingers absently through it. Or they’d find their way to her place in Murray Hill, and after a hard and fast session in the shower, or a long and lingering one on her ottoman, or an endlessly wet one—pun intended—in the bathtub, she’d be the one listening to his reminisces about the early days of Joy Delivered with his sister, and how they’d run the company out of a windowless one-room office in Queens before they hit it big.