Chapter 13: The Group Session
The smell of the group therapy room was a special kind of assault. Antiseptic couldn’t mask the underlying notes of unwashed hair, stale coffee, and the faint, metallic tang of collective anxiety. The fluorescent lights hummed a discordant anthem overhead, flickering just enough to make shadows jitter at the corner of your vision. Susanna sat rigidly in the mandated circle of hard plastic chairs, her palms slick against her thighs.
Lisa slid into the seat beside her just as Dr. Wick cleared her throat to begin. She smelled of smoke and the cheap lavender soap from the communal showers.
“Alright, everyone. Let’s focus on the concept of boundaries today,” Dr. Wick began, her voice a calm, practiced instrument. She adjusted her glasses. “Georgina, can you share an instance this week where you felt a personal boundary was crossed?”
Georgina, a woman with eternally chapped lips and nervous eyes, began to stutter about a nurse taking her blood pressure without asking first. Susanna tried to listen, to anchor herself in the mundane complaint. But then Lisa shifted, her knee brushing against Susanna’s.
A casual touch. Nothing the others would see.
Then Lisa’s hand, palm down, slid from her own lap onto the hard plastic seat between them. Her little finger grazed the outside of Susanna’s thigh. A shiver, unwanted and electric, shot through her. She kept her eyes fixed on Georgina’s trembling hands.
Lisa’s hand slid further, under the slight overhang of Susanna’s thigh, hidden by the bulk of the chair and the shadow of the shared table. Her fingers pressed, blunt and knowing, against the seam of Susanna’s sweatpants. Right there. Susanna inhaled sharply through her nose, a sound lost in the drone of the ventilation system.
No. Not here. Not now.
But her body, still humming with the memory of the dryer’s vibration and the taste of salt, betrayed her utterly. She was already wet. A hot, shameful pulse answered the pressure of Lisa’s touch through the thick cotton.
Lisa’s fingers curled, pressing in. She didn’t look at Susanna. She was watching Dr. Wick, her expression one of detached, almost bored interest. Her fingertips began to move in a slow, circular rub, the fabric dragging against Susanna’s clit with a friction that was agony and ecstasy. Susanna’s knuckles went white where she gripped her own legs.
“Thank you, Georgina. That’s a very valid feeling,” Dr. Wick said, nodding. “Jason. Your thoughts?”
Jason, a hulking man with a teddy bear voice, started talking about his roommate using his toothpaste. Lisa’s middle finger hooked, finding the specific spot through the layers, and pressed. Susanna felt a bead of sweat trace a path from her temple to her jaw. She uncrossed and re-crossed her ankles, a movement of pure nerves.
“Boundaries are the fences we build to feel safe,” Dr. Wick continued, her voice weaving through the buzzing in Susanna’s ears. “But we must also examine why we build them so high. Are they protecting us, or isolating us?”
Lisa’s hand shifted. Her fingers slid from the fabric to the waistband of Susanna’s sweatpants, then underneath. Cool skin met the feverish heat of Susanna’s stomach. She dipped lower, her touch a brand. Susanna stopped breathing.
Two fingers slipped inside her underwear, into the wet heat, without preamble.
Susanna’s vision blurred at the edges. She stared at a water stain on the linoleum floor, shaped like a lopsided continent. Lisa’s fingers were still, buried inside her, a secret claiming. Then they began to move. A slow, deep curl. A possession so intimate it felt like theft.
“Susanna,” Dr. Wick’s voice cut through the static. “You’re very quiet today. Would you like to share?”
Lisa’s fingers pushed deeper, a silent command.
Susanna opened her mouth. Her voice, when it came, was unnaturally level, a flatline. “I’m just… listening.” Her internal muscles clenched around the intrusion, a traitorous spasm.
“Listening is important,” Dr. Wick said, a gentle smile on her face. She turned to Polly, asking about medication compliance.
Lisa sped up her rhythm, just slightly. The heel of her palm ground against Susanna, the pressure perfect, devastating. It was a brutal, focused attack on her senses. The clinical words floating around the room—compliance, stability, coping mechanisms—shattered against the reality of Lisa’s hand working her in the dark. Susanna’s hips gave a tiny, involuntary rock forward, seeking more. She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.
Lisa leaned over, pretending to adjust the cuff of her sleeve. Her lips were inches from Susanna’s ear. “Come on,” she whispered, her breath a hot plume. “Come for the whole fucking group. Let’s see that pretty face stay still.”
The threat, the audacity, the sheer filth of it, tipped her over the edge. Pleasure detonated, silent and catastrophic. Her body locked, every muscle seizing. She stared straight ahead, eyes wide and unblinking, as the orgasm ripped through her core, wave after wave, milking Lisa’s fingers. She didn’t make a sound. A single tear escaped, tracking through the sweat on her cheek. She hoped it looked like empathy.
Lisa kept her fingers inside, letting Susanna ride out the last tremors against her hand. Then, slowly, she withdrew. She brought her hand back to her own lap, under the table. Susanna watched, hypnotized by the mundane horror of it, as Lisa nonchalantly wiped her glistening fingers on the leg of Susanna’s sweatpants.
The dampness spread on the grey cotton, a small, dark patch. A brand.
The session ended with Dr. Wick’s summarizing notes. Chairs scraped. People stood, stretching, milling toward the door. Lisa stood up smoothly. She leaned down, as if to pick up a phantom dropped item, her mouth once more at Susanna’s ear.
“You taste better than the toothpaste,” she murmured, a dark parody of Jason’s complaint. Then she straightened, slung an arm around Polly’s shoulder, and walked out, laughing at something Polly said.
Susanna sat there. The damp spot on her thigh felt ice-cold in the room’s sterile air. She could still feel the ghost of Lisa inside her, the echo of the violation. She looked around the empty circle of chairs. No one had seen. No one knew.
She was a secret, folded neatly inside this louder, messier secret of the hospital. She finally pushed herself up, her legs unsteady. As she walked toward the door, her gait careful, she realized the most terrifying part. The shame was there, a cold stone in her gut. But beneath it, coiling warm and insistent, was a craving for the next time the lights would buzz, and the world would narrow to the point of a single, secret touch.