Amy

‘The little bastard!’

Amy snuck one hand across his mouth, the other under the waistband of his jeans, and jerked him backward from the cracked open door he’d been peering through. Tim jumped with shock and tripped over his feet because Amy pulled him so hard. Still, she managed to keep him upright, and stifle the grunt of surprise he made, as she bundled him through the adjoining door into his own bedroom.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing, Tim?” She asked in an angry whisper as she released him.

“Nothing… ”

“Liar!”

Amy slapped him across his face with the full flat of her hand.

“Fuck, Amy! That hurt.”

“Amy? Is that you?” The voice came from his mother’s bedroom.

Amy wagged a finger in warning at him – not that he was going to do anything, not with that furious expression in her eyes. She slipped out of his bedroom, and quickly moved to the other end of the corridor not.

“Hi, Susan. Yes, it’s me.”

“What was that noise?”

“I… I tripped over something. I’m ok, nothing broken.”

“Is Tim with you?”

“He’s around somewhere. Why? Do you want him?”

“No… just wondered. I’ll be down in a little while. You can help me with supper.”

Amy crept back to her cousin’s bedroom door and beckoned him with a finger. She’d bawl him out downstairs, and not where her aunt might hear. He shook his head, a hand still pressed to the side of his face. Amy could see the redness from across the room, but she didn’t care — he deserved it.

‘Now!’ she mouthed fiercely. ‘Or else!’

He shrugged, rising off the bed, and Amy led the way downstairs to the room the household used as an office, thinking it to be about the furthest from her aunt’s bedroom. She leaned back, her bottom conveniently resting against the edge of the desk, folding her arms across her chest, and waiting for him to come into the room.

“Close the door,” she said firmly. “What the hell do you think you were doing, Tim?”

“Nothing!”

“Don’t start that again, unless you want the other side slapped too. What were you doing?

“I was just going to the bathroom. I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Well, I watched you ‘doing nothing’ for at least two minutes with your head bobbing up and down. Trying to get a better view, were you?”

“I was just passing! I was trying to see if Mum was in.”

“Oh, you’ve lost your voice have you? Couldn’t call out? Don’t you know peeping is wrong? You can’t go peeping on your mother. You can’t go peeping on anybody! Do you understand?”

Tim stood looking at the floor wearing a sheepish expression, from what she could see, and eventually nodded his head.

“I’m sorry. Are you going to tell Mum?” he asked, finally looking up, a slightly anxious expression creasing his face.

Amy couldn’t tell whether his contrition was genuine — it had all the right components but she thought he might be faking… the blush, for one thing — she’d hit him so damn hard she couldn’t distinguish blush from redness.

“I’ll not tell, not for the moment, but… I want you to call my office in the morning and make an appointment. We’ll have a talk about this problem you appear to have — on a professional level.”

“Amy! I can’t do that! I don’t have a problem.”

“Yes, you do Tim,” Amy said in a gentler voice. “And you’ll have a bigger problem if I tell your mother. So, do as you’re told. The first thing you do tomorrow is phone my office and make an appointment.”

Now he was blushing.

He sauntered shame-faced out of the room. Amy raised a hand to her mouth to silence a chuckle.

– – – – – – – –

“He was peeping! Honestly. His head was bobbing backwards and forwards, up and down, trying to get a better view of you. All the while he was rubbing himself off through his jeans.”

“Oh dear,” she laughed. “I should have made sure the damn door was properly closed.”

“What were you doing, anyway?”

“You know… I get a little bored in the afternoons. Tim is usually at college. I’d forgotten he’d finished… and didn’t expect you for supper so early. I was keeping myself amused.”

“Yes… I can easily imagine. I’ve had the pleasure of watching you amuse yourself.”

They weren’t lovers, not really, just two people who decided to shun the rigors of middle-aged dating and who cherished a certain intimacy enhanced by familial ties that added a frisson to their play; theirs was a relationship of unsullied mutual pleasure.

“Do you want to watch now?”

“No… Aunty,” she added for emphasis. “I’d much rather you do me. Catching Tim peeping has made me quite horny.”

– – – – – – – –

The intercom buzzed — ‘Tim is here’, and Amy pressed the reply button, “Thank you, Mary. Five minutes then show him in.”

She’d just finished entering up the notes on her last patient when Mary knocked lightly on her door and showed Tim into the consulting room.

“Hello, Tim.” She smiled. “Sit yourself down.” She pointed to the sofa along one side of her office. “Get comfy.”

She watched his nervous glances around the room. He’s clearly embarrassed, she thought, whether that’s because he’s here at the centre, or because he’s shamed-faced about why he’s here… I shall discover.

She moved from behind her desk and into an armchair, close to Tim, straightening her pleated black skirt beneath her as she sat, and arranging the matching jacket to hang neatly on her slim frame. She looked up and smiled inviting him to ask the obvious questions she could see in his expression.

“I didn’t realise Mary worked with you.”

“No reason why you should, Tim. You two have never really been close, not when you were growing up. When did you last see Mary?”

“We were just talking about that, while I was waiting. We both reckoned it was my fifteenth birthday party.”

“So, that’s what, almost four years ago?”

Tim nodded. “Well I’m guessing she looks at you differently now you’ve reached adulthood, you’re no longer ‘the baby’ of the family.”

“Mary’s your receptionist.” Tim asked.

“Well, yes – amongst other things. She’s just completing her therapist training. She’s been working with me part-time, while studying.”

“What exactly do you do here?”

“What do you think we do here, Tim?”

“I’m not sure. I thought you worked as a psychiatrist, a therapist, or something.”

“That’s partly right. A lot of our work involves psychoanalysis and therapy. We specialise in sexual therapy, helping people overcome a wide range of sexual problems that darken their lives and sometimes the lives of people they come into contact with.”

Amy paused for a moment, watching the little gestures and movements clearly expressed in his face and body language as Tim absorbed the salient content of her statement.

“Do you know why you are here today, Tim?”

“You told me to make an appointment.”

“Yeesss… but do you know WHY you are here?”

“I guess you want to shout at me some more.”

“I’m not going to shout at you,” she said in her calmest, sweetest voice. “I was very angry with you on Monday, surprised more than anything, and I sincerely apologise for slapping you. That was wrong of me. I didn’t ask you to make an appointment so that I could shout at you. What I would like is for you and I to discuss your little problem, like adults. Do you think we can you do that?”

He nodded sheepishly, already squirming a little at the intensity of Amy’s look.

“It’s is a common enough problem for boys — I’m sorry, young men of your age. Nothing that we can’t resolve today, or perhaps with a further session.”

She talked with him for a few minutes, mostly about what he planned to do now he was going to university, softening up stuff, just to get him talking. Amy already knew most of it from his mother, and slowly, she skilfully steered their conversation toward his friends and social life before plunging in.

“When you masturbate…”

“What?” Tim asked with a startled expression, his hands involuntarily moving into his lap.

“Masturbate, wank, toss off… what ever your generation calls it… ”

“I don’t,” he blustered, glancing anywhere around the room except where Amy sat.

“Look at me.” She commanded in a tone impossible to ignore, waiting until Tim’s eyes returned to her. “Yes you do; all eighteen year olds masturbate, both boys and girls. There really is no point in pretending otherwise. Ok?”

Tim nodded… after a moment’s reflection.

“What I want to hear from you is, when you masturbate, who are you thinking of? Is it a girlfriend, a girl from the internet, your Mum, or maybe it’s me… or is it a boy?”

She spoke each component on her list slowly, letting each one register before moving to the next, closely observing his reactions, silently noting Tim’s expression, when his eyes opened wide enough for them to drop out, and when his cheeks flushed with colour.

“Amy!”

“Tim, I thought we were going to be grown up. Anything you say here, anything that happens here, will never be repeated; it is completely and absolutely kept within these walls. So tell me, please, whom do you think about when you are masturbating?”

“I… I’m not… I can’t.”

“Ok. We’ll take them one at a time if that will be easier for you. Let’s start with boys. Do you ever think about boys when you masturbate?”

“No! Of course not!”

“I didn’t think so, though you shouldn’t dismiss male on male sexuality so lightly. There is absolutely nothing wrong in following that path, if that is where a person’s happiness is to be found. Ok? So, don’t rush to judge. Let’s move on.

“The Internet next, that’s really easy. I take it you look at porn, yes?”

He wrinkled his nose, and then nodded.

“Well, I’d be very seriously worried if you didn’t. So, tell me what you like? Blondes? Brunettes? Redheads? Young girls, older women? You’re of a good age to have a serious crush on older women.”

Tim said nothing, just turned a deeper shade of red. Amy had dealt with worse.

“Ok. Let’s try something else. What about breasts? Do you like large ones, little pointy ones, big nipples, introverted nipples…?

Pussies — do you like them shaved or hairy, spread or teasingly tucked between thighs, wet or dry…?”

Tim moved his hands over the threatening bulge in his trousers.

“Penetration… lesbianism,” Amy continued. “Girls masturbating. Do you like to see girls masturbating, Tim?”