The Delilah Complex by MJ Rose Page B

branches and they lay plastered on the pavement, slippery but brilliant against the concrete streets.
    Because of the weather, and because I’d scheduled a consultation with a new patient at 1:00 p.m. and only had a half hour for lunch, I ordered in vegetable soup and seven-grain bread and ate at my desk.
    Nicky Brooks arrived on time, only minutes after I finished eating. Once he was sitting on the couch, I asked how he’d found me, assuming it was from the
Today
show, but it turned out Shelby Rush had recommended me.
    “I told her I was looking for someone to help my wife and me. Shelby knows us. Knows what has been going on with us. What the issues are. She suggested you.”
    Nicky was in his mid-thirties, dressed well in a navy suit and sky-blue striped tie. He had a high forehead, thick chestnut hair, dimples and a determined chin. He looked like someone who moved through the world getting what he wanted.
    “Have you been in therapy before?”
    He nodded.
    “When?”
    “About six years ago.”
    “For how long?”
    “About a year.”
    “You said that Shelby knew you and the kinds of issues you have been dealing with. I’d like to know what they are.”
    “My wife and I are separated.” He looked around, taking in the room. I wasn’t sure if it was interest in his surroundings or a way of avoiding looking at me.
    “How long have you been married?”
    “Eighteen months.” He looked back at me when he answered.
    “And how long have you been separated?”
    “About four months. Couldn’t even make it through two years.” His voice dipped down, expressing disgust. With himself? With his wife?
    “Who instigated the separation?”
    “Daphne.”
    “Why?”
    “We had issues.”
    “With what part of your lives?”
    “Our sex life.”
    The way he said the word “our” made me wonder if, indeed, the problem belonged to both of them.
    “I’d like to hear your take on what the problems are. If we go forward with the therapy, I’ll be asking your wife the same question. Do you feel comfortable talking about the problems without your wife being here?”
    He seemed surprised, as if it had never occurred to him that there might be anything wrong with talking about it without her. “Daphne and I met at the Scarlet Society almost three years ago. She was a member.”
    He was watching for a reaction, but I had been doing this for years and knew how to hide my feelings if I wanted or needed to. Nicky continued, “I’d found out about the society from a woman I’d been seeing who thought I’d enjoy it.”
    “And did you?”
    “For the first time in my life, I was sexually satisfied.”
    “What had happened previously?”
    “I’ve been uncomfortable with several of the women I’ve been with.”
    “Why, Nicky?”
    “It’s embarrassing. To explain what you like. It can turn some women off.”
    “What do you like?”
    He sat back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. For the first time since he’d come into my office twenty minutes earlier, he was resisting going forward. His body language spoke more loudly than any words. His eyes darkened and narrowed. He lowered his gaze so that he was no longer looking at my face but rather at the cup of coffee that sat on the small end table next to my chair. He crossed one leg over the other.
    “This isn’t going to work if I don’t tell you, right?”
    “Right. You said you were in therapy before. Did this subject come up?”
    “Yeah. But we never resolved it. And then I found the society and stopped therapy. I didn’t need to resolve it.”
    “What about the society made that possible?”
    He didn’t say anything. It was time for some reassurance.
    “I don’t want you to worry about shocking me or embarrassing yourself. I’ve been a therapist for eleven years. The only thing I consider problematic is when a patient’ssexual desires, or lack of them, gets in the way of how they want to live their lives, or if it endangers their