November Exclusive - "Fidget" - Part 1

This story is based on a idea from special helper DokoDokoNe. You'll find the idea at the end of the story. 

One

The man isn’t in the mood to talk. Even if the coffee is excellent, the couch is comfortable.

Because it’s hopeless. This is a waste of time. He’s twenty-seven years old and his marriage has lasted a grand total of six months.

The therapist looks at her notepad and then asks the man, “So, Ben, why don’t you tell me why you agree to come?”

Good question. The man rubs his nose with the back of his hand. He doesn’t answer the question, but at least he talks.

“When I caught them together, my marriage blew up in my face. Like a grenade. Like a bomb filled with nails and broken glass. There were bombs like that in London, one summer when I was a kid, I remember wondering at the time, what does it feel to get hit like that. And now I know.”

Ben turns to look at Clara, who sits beside him on the therapists couch like she’s an innocent party. Like he’s said something outrageous.

“You can wipe that look off your face,” Ben hisses. “You shouldn’t be shocked. I’m the one who’s shocked. I’m the one who should have…P.T.S. fucking D.”

Clara shakes her head. “I’m not-“

She stops in mid-sentence. The therapist – what’s her name again? She introduced herself as soon as they sat down, but Ben can’t remember it – holds up her hand in a hushing gesture.

“I think we can all agree, Clara,” says the therapist, “that we’re here because you betrayed your husband.”

Clara’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t respond.

Ben allows himself to smile.

“So we’re here to decide what happens next.” The therapist looks at Ben. “What would you like to happen?” Like the other questions she has asked, this is delivered in a flat tone, like a bad actor delivering a line.

What does she know? In her beige outfit, sitting in her beige office, who made the expert on relationships?

Ben rubs the back of his neck. “I just want it to be over. It is over.” He shakes his head. “We’re finished.”

“But your wife arranged this session because she regrets her actions,” says the therapist. “Clara wants to make it right with the two of you. So have a think. What could Clara do to make amends? How could she persuade you to give her a second chance?”

The therapist writes on her notepad. It’s red pen, which strikes Ben as strange. Who writes notes in red ink? Isn’t that the colour a teacher uses, to tell her students how much they got wrong?

Ben lifts his feet off the ground and taps the carpet with the toes of his shoes. Because doesn’t he just want to leave, doesn’t he just want to run away? There’s a twitchy feeling in his body, a kind of itchy nervousness.

Too much coffee, perhaps. But he’s only had one cup.

“There’s nothing she can do,” Ben says finally.

Clara looks down at her hands. “I don’t want to give up on us,” she says, with barely more a whisper. “We were so happy, and I don’t want to throw all that away.”

Ben drums his fingers on his knees. “You were so happy because you were shagging my best friend!” He tugs at his wedding ring, ready to pull it off and throw it at Clara. “Did you tell her that? Did you tell her the whole story?”

Clara nods.

“Well, then.” Ben shrugs his shoulders. And then he shrugs them again. He wants to jump and down, he has the urge to run in circles. Why such agitation when Clara is the one who’s drove their marriage off a cliff? And yet she just sits there, poised, like a blameless statue.

“You seem rather nervous,” the therapist says to Ben.

Ben laughs.I just hate therapists, he thinks to himself. He points at his empty coffee cup accusingly. “Just a bit twitchy.”

The therapist smiles. “’Twitchy’. That’s such a good word for it. I always think of it as a fidget.”

“How do you mean?” Ben watches as the therapist gets up and walks around her desk. She has an iPad in her hand, and Ben immediate thinks of how Clara had asked for one for her birthday, and did she send messages to Eric? Did she FaceTime him and arrange their little meet-ups?

Another bomb of possibility and humiliation and rage is ready to explode in Ben’s head, and then he looks at the therapists iPad as she gently places it in his hands.

He looks at the red and white swirls.

What’s that supposed to be?he should ask.

He doesn’t ask.

“This is very good for my fidgety clients,” says the therapist, resting a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Just the thing for boys who can’t sit still.”

It must be true. Ben’s fingers rest limply, his feet stop tapping. And that feeling of itchy, twitchy agitation has faded.

“You’re all peaceful now, Ben. You’re perfectly still and perfectly calm.” She pats his shoulder. “And perfectly open.”

Ben manages to nod, but he doesn’t say anything.

“You’re doing so well,” the therapist says. “Just keep watching the red and white. If you keep looking, if you really focus, you can see what happens when those two colours meet.”

There’s no need to tell Ben to keep watching. He can’t look away. Why on earth would he? The swirls are the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.

“What should I do?”

It’s Clara.

Ben’s jaw tightens at the sound of his wife’s voice, but he can’t stay tense, not when he watches the iPad screen, not when he’s looking for where the red and white meet.

“Nothing, dear,” the therapist says. “You don’t have to do a thing. But of course…” Ben feels the couch cushion shift a little as the therapist sits on his left. “Things will have to change at home, won’t they.” Ben feels the tickle of warm breath as the therapist whispers in his ear, “things will have to change in the bedroom.”

Meaning what? Meaning whatever. Ben barely listens as the therapist talks, as she drones on and on in her monotone. The words enter his ears, but he is content to focus on the red and white swirls. There’s an answer there if he focuses hard enough.

There’s a prize if he’s good.

If he’s a good boy.

Ben blinks, his eyes stinging with the effort of staring at the screen, and it’s enough to make him think, Good boy? What’s that about?

But then the swirls come back, filling his vision, and he doesn’t worry about the therapist’s words.

“No more nasty surprises at home, Ben.” The therapist holds his hand, squeezes it. “No more embarrassment in the bedroom, no more worries, no more upset. You’ll be so calm, so sweet, so happy. Whenever Mummy tells you, you’ll be such a good boy.”

Mummy?

It’s almost enough to make Ben tear his eyes away from the swirls.

No. Hardly. It doesn’t matter what the therapist says. She can’t compete with the red and white. She doesn’t even come close.

“No more worries, no more upset. It’ll be like flicking a switch.”

An age later, in moment, the screen is dark.

Ben rubs his eyes, doesn’t protest when the therapist takes back the iPad. Because Ben won’t make a fuss. Because it’s all been decided.

No worries, no upset.

Clara stands up. Funny; Ben had forgotten she was even in the room.

“Ready to go?” she asks brightly.

Go home, she means. Which wasn’t the plan. Ben had arranged to stay with a friend until he can find a new-

He nods. “Yeah.”

Clara holds out her hand and Ben takes it. She’s his wife, after all. And there’s nothing to be upset about.

“Thank you,” Clara says to the therapist.

The woman smiles. “Remember to do your homework.”

Ben frowns. He doesn’t remember anything about doing homework. But Clara nods in apparent agreement, so Ben does the same.

And then they leave the therapist's office.