Felix Baron - The Secret Sex Lives of Wanda Mitty

‘Financially?’

‘Very well off. There are no worries there. Oh – and he draws, I’ve been told, though I haven’t seen his work yet.’

‘He sounds well rounded, then.’ He glanced down at his file. ‘Does the age difference bother you?’

‘Not at all – in fact, I like it that he’s a bit older. It gives me a feeling of security and it’s just a bit naughty, now that I think of it. I kind of like “naughty”.’

‘He seems just about perfect. So?’

‘Should I give you some background?’

‘Excellent idea.’ He picked up a pen.

‘It’s sort of an arranged marriage, but not exactly.’

Dr Sullivan nodded.

‘That doesn’t mean that I don’t love him.’

‘Of course not.’

‘You see, my mother got into genealogy. A lot of people are, what with the Internet making it so easy. There was something in our family history that’d always fascinated her.

‘Our ancestors were Puritans who settled in Oregon – mixed farming. They did OK, I guess, until the two brothers who’d inherited the farm, Henry and William, had a falling out over a servant girl.’

Dr Sullivan nodded as if he’d been expecting exactly that information.

‘One night, Henry took off with all the portable valuables, including the cash, and the girl. William searched for him, in vain. As it happened, Henry had only gone fifty or so miles, across the border into Nevada. He set himself up with the family money in the corn business and changed his name to Chandler. Not much imagination, you see.’

‘What’s your fiancé’s given name,’ the doctor asked.

‘Henry. Why?’

‘How’s his imagination?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I see. Go on.’

‘It seems that, as well as buying and selling corn, Henry cooked and distilled it. He made a lot of money, which he invested in land, at first. Later, in all sorts of good solid things, like banks and railroads. He became a pillar of the community, a church elder, all that kind of thing.’

‘And the other brother, William, your direct ancestor?’

‘He went broke. He tried publishing and was unsuccessful. For a time he was a travelling carpet salesman, failed at that, then got a job on the railroad, walking the line. William was industrious enough but a bit absent-minded. He got run down by a locomotive; but not until after he’d married and fathered two sons to continue the line.’

‘So one side of the family prospered while the other suffered?’

‘I wouldn’t say “suffered” but we were never wealthy.’

‘And then your mother found Henry’s mother, and they got together?’

‘And became mutually obsessed with healing the family rift, using me and Henry as the glue.’

‘Does he seem to resent that?’ the doctor asked.

‘He seems genuinely in love with me.’

‘Seems?’

‘Henry isn’t very demonstrative.’

‘Tell me more about him. What does he do?’

‘He sits on boards. He’s a lawyer but he doesn’t practise that. He’s on the committees of several charities, two churches, an orphanage, a private girls’ school, plus he administers the family trust and runs the family businesses.’

‘Very respectable, then.’

‘ Very .’

‘Too respectable?’

How to answer that? Best say nothing.

Dr Sullivan prompted, ‘He’s ultra-respectable, and you?’

Fuck, he’d got right on it. Well, what would you expect from a shrink? She blurted, ‘I gave my virginity away when I was quite young.’

He nodded.

‘I have a healthy appetite, that way.’

‘I see. And you suspect that he doesn’t?’

‘There’s Puritan blood in the family.’

‘On both sides,’ he said. ‘The original Henry wasn’t so respectable, from what you’ve told me.’

‘My Henry wears dark three-piece suits.’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘All the time? I bet he’s even got three-piece chalk-striped pyjamas.’

The doctor smiled at that. ‘You haven’t actually seen his pyjamas yet, then?’

‘No.’

‘The physical side of your relationship?’

‘Zero. A few kisses, but not real kisses. My mother warned me, when she took me to visit for the first time, “No bad language. No flirting. Don’t dress sexy. Be respectful and respectable.”’

‘But you haven’t always been so respectable, in the past?’

‘You better believe it, Doctor.’

‘You’re sexually experienced, then; adventurous even?’ He waited in vain for her to respond. ‘And you don’t want to give up the lifestyle you’ve learned to enjoy? I’m not judging you, Wanda.’

She nodded.

‘How are your concerns manifesting themselves? I take it that you haven’t complained to your mother that you see a less than exciting intimate life ahead of you?’

‘I have, actually. She’s no shrinking violet herself. She says I’ll just have to teach him how to please me.’

‘What do you think about that?’

‘Nervous. Unsure that’d work.’

Dr Sullivan tapped his chin with his pen. ‘And the immediate effect?’

‘I fantasise, Doctor.’

‘Sexual fantasies? About your fiancé?’

‘Sexual, yes: about Henry, no.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’

She blurted, ‘ All the time. I forget things, miss appointments, don’t feel safe driving.’

‘Obsessive fantasies, then?’

‘Yes,’ Wanda admitted. ‘Obsessive.’

‘Then perhaps our first goal should be to bring your imagination under your control. If you control your fantasies, they can’t control you. You could establish boundaries.’

Wanda nodded. It was fascinating how he seemed to be shrinking fifty or so pounds and growing a small beard.

In a slightly Germanic accent, he asked her, ‘How about masturbation?’

‘Yes please.’

He got out of his chair and came around to where she sat. With his left arm resting on the back of her chair, he plucked her skirt up her thighs with his right hand and slid his fingers higher, to the gusset of her panties. It was eased aside. A satisfyingly thick finger worked up into her and started pumping. Would it be polite to offer him a handjob in return or was what he was doing simply a part of her treatment?

His voice, slightly raised and with that Boston accent again, said, ‘Wanda!’

‘Yes, Doctor?’ She blinked and he was back in his chair, back the way he had been.

Very quietly, he said, ‘You were drifting off into a fantasy, weren’t you?’

‘Sorry.’

‘No problem. Did you hear my advice?’

‘Advice?’

‘I asked you to keep a journal of your fantasies, totally uncensored, and bring it in with you the same time a week from now. Can you do that for me? Then we can discuss specifics.’

Yeah, and then he’d jerk off while he read them and he wouldn’t even let her watch. She said, ‘I can do that, Doctor. Thank you.’

A chime sounded.

‘That’s our time up, I’m afraid. Try to relax, Wanda. All will be well.’

On the subway ride home, Wanda still felt needy from the doctor’s interrupted attentions. She pulled her skirt up, her panties down, and touched herself to a nice little climax that was greeted by the other passengers with cheers, claps and stamping feet.

Wanda woke on her back in her own comfortable bed with her sheet pulled up over her face. Or she assumed that she did. She hadn’t woken in someone else’s bed since she’d met Henry. Still, until she opened her eyes and pulled the sheet down she wouldn’t be absolutely certain she was in her own bed, would she? She might have had an accident that she didn’t remember because of retrograde amnesia – was there any other kind? You couldn’t very well forget your future, could you?