Therapy

Sexual altruism, it was. The first was Jimmy, (too socially naïve to go by James or Jim in high school) a white boy, unlike all my lovers. At first, I thought I’d just feign interest to boost a friend’s self esteem. Sex and praise had always solved my problems, though I was certain I could never bring myself to do it. But then he cornered me next to my locker, face flushed and eyes animated behind glasses, holding his pants open at the waist asking, hissing, begging “Touch it!” I was shocked and repulsed by his silky pinkness and brown pubes: far more distracting than I might have imagined. I escaped through the hallways, citing “Somebody will see” into the echoing, after-school hallways. I rushed away, my saxophone case banging and bruising my knees, in rushed descent, I ignored his following, afraid to see the desperation in his pink face again I could still see the lump. He caught me next to the water fountain near the band room. So it happened that we had a year long session, I’d intended to ditch him before summer vacation ended, but found myself getting attached, enjoying condomless sex, knowing his virginity wouldn’t contaminate me noticing, sentimentally, his smile revealed mischievous canines overlapping incisors marveling at how his self esteem grew, his complexion cleared. It was a relationship like none before or since, a brief innocence of sorts, sticky sex, video games, saxophone, and eating were our gentle passions in common. But I knew all along that he was just a client, when my work felt complete, I found a six foot three Black man, with three more inches of flattop to rock my world harder because a therapist needs time for self care. Jimmy called my mother telling: I’d been absent from school, the pink squealer tattled destructively out of jealousy that I didn’t skip with him, getting my knees torn up by leaves and sticks in the woods behind the school or rocking his step-mother’s van in the parking lot. Jimmy’s expression of anger was healthy, justified because it was a termination, goodbyes can be hard, even for the therapist. But it was time, and there were other clients who needed my services.