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Just when Yvonne was about to start typing the mail - addressed to the girl’s mother, as was standard, also because she wasn’t even sure teenagers these days even had a mail address - when the bell rang. Less than two minutes later, two people sat opposite to her on the large green leather couch; the mother, Katharina, and the daughter, Mara.
“First of all, I wanted to ask how you want me to speak to you, if Mara is okay for you or you prefer a bit more formality and want me to say Ms Borowski.”
Mara was short for the sixteen years she had, short and scrawny. She was very pale in contrast to her mother’s tanned skin, her dark blonde straight hair almost reached her waist while her mother’s hair was so black that it had a blueish hue - Yvonne suspected she dyed it. Katharina was a young woman, not yet forty by the looks of it, and dressed young as well, even if slightly out of fashion. Her daughter meanwhile dressed more modern, but more conservative as well; her jeans weren’t tight, her sweater had a turtleneck, and she wore plain black sneakers.
The girl had looked around the room curiously when she had come in, her mother’s hand on her shoulder, guiding her as if she thought her daughter wouldn’t find the couch otherwise, lest her surroundings distracted her.
Now she turned her attention on Yvonne. Her eyes were of a very dark brown, framed by short eyelashes. She wore a bit of pine green eyeshadow and mascara. Something in her eyes belonged to a person much older than her.
“What do you use with the others?” She asked instead of an answer.
Yvonne ignored the mother’s sharp look.
“Whatever they want. Some prefer a bit of familiarity from the start, others want to feel a bit like adults.” She and the mother laughed politely.
Mara pursed her lips. “I think I prefer Ms Borowski. For now.”
“Great,” Yvonne said and leaned back. “So, you two are here because your class teacher had a conservation with you.” She looked at Katharina. “Does your daughter know what you and her teacher talked about?”
Katharina nodded. “More or less.”
“Do you think you’re different than your peers, Ms Borowski?”
Mara was looking at the painting of a lemur that hung on the wall right next to where Yvonne sat. Her son Finn had drawn that when he had been obsessed with primates after watching a documentary.
“A bit.”
“How so?”
Mara shrugged, then turned her eyes away from the lemur. “I don’t know. I just don’t… make connections with them as easily as they.”
“How does that make you feel?” Then she added quickly: “You only have to answer if you are comfortable. But, of course, if you meet me halfway, it will make everything much easier for the two of us.”
The first session always included at least one parent or guardian. Sometimes, an older sibling tagged along. After today, it would only be the therapist and the patient unless they desired it otherwise. Usually though, it was easier to converse without a parent, and from then on, working on the problems could begin.
“Depends. Sometimes I like being on my own, sometimes I feel sad because no one texts me to go to the movies, or to go to their birthday parties.”
Then Yvonne asked some general questions. What they thought the problem was (a personality disorder and emotional outbursts), why they thought it needed treatment (because it worried her mother and her teachers), what they wanted out of it (for her to have a normal life just like other people her age), and plenty of organisational matters like planning ahead for the next couple of weeks, future appointments, and what they had to expect from the health insurance. If everything went well and the insurance approved her case, Mara would become her patient after four sessions.
The first session - technically two sessions, since it was an hour and a half long - that officially counted as a session was quite introductory: the patient had to tell a bit about themselves, and talk about their problems. This wasn’t to be the focus of the treatment since Yvonne hadn’t specialised in depth psychology, although if she found that to be more suiting the needs of Mara Borowski, she could simply refer her to someone else. As far as she knew, it was easier to get approved if that was what one was looking for.
The first thing she noticed was the intense smell of perfume when Mara entered the room. She had applied too much of it, maybe she just didn’t know how to.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said as she slid onto the couch, now having it all for herself.
Yvonne smiled. “Ah, don’t worry about it, what are two minutes?”
“It’s the bus. Either I get here thirty-two minutes earlier or like now.”
That would also explain their tardiness on the first appointment.
“Alright, then I am aware for the next time,” Yvonne said and sat down opposite of the girl. “Today is really all about you; you can tell me, in your own words and from your perspective, what has been happening. You can tell your mother about all of it if you feel like it, and please, if there is a topic that you find out you’d rather not talk about, that’s completely fine, although ideally we should find a way to talk about it - but the decision is all yours.”
Mara nodded. Then she began to talk while Yvonne took notes and occasionally prodded into another direction.
They had moved from another city after her parents’ divorce. Her mother had raised her on her own ever since she was nine. The last time she had seen her father was for her fourteenth birthday where he had shown up in her mother’s apartment and given her a new iPhone - “for when she needed it”. How she felt about her parents’ divorce? Nothing. She liked being alone with her mother, she didn’t think about her father that often. Her mother’s family still lived in her home city, occasionally they took the train to visit them because her mother had never gotten a license, sometimes her uncle came by with his wife. The family member closest to her age was her cousin who was in her late twenties. She was a decent student; good results in her exams, but she didn’t say all that much in class. She stopped having friendships when she started going to school after moving here: she had been bullied by some kids, a group of girls who simply didn’t like her, until classes were split up and newly arranged. Now she was in her final year, with intensive courses in biology and chemistry, with hopes to be the first one to go to university in her family.
“As I understood it, your teacher has not spoken to you personally about what happened, but to your mother. Can you tell me in your own words what happened for him to refer you to therapy?”
Mara took a deep breath. “There’s this girl in my biology class. Veronika. We were dissecting pig eyes, and she was being very annoying. So I went over to her table and yelled at her.”
“What exactly did you say to her?”
“That she was too stupid to be in this class and everyone was going to hate her if she continued to be that stupid in her life.”
Yvonne nodded. “As I understood it, you later apologised to her.”
“Yes.”
“Has something like this happened before? That you were so frustrated by someone that you confronted them?”
Mara shook her head. “No. I used to go into the bathrooms at the gymnasium to cry whenever I was upset or sad. One time, an older student found me. That’s why my teacher knows.”
“When did that happen?”
“In tenth grade. Two years ago.”
“What were you crying about that day?”
Mara made a face as if she were deep in thought while she tried to remember. “Maximilian from my class was throwing a birthday party. Everyone got invited - but me. Even the people he wasn’t friends with.” She sighed. “But I wasn’t upset because I wanted to be invited. It was because I was excluded. They talked about it in front of me as if I wasn’t even there. I’m just invisible to them.”
Yvonne watched as the girl blinked furiously. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s as if there is no one who can understand me! Because I don’t want to be friends with them!” She made a face. “All the girls talk about are these stupid reality shows and the boys they fancy. I feel like the only one who isn’t completely braindead.” Then she paused. “I know that is a mean thing to say.”
Yvonne shrugged. “You can speak your mind freely, there is no wrong thing for you to say. Words and thoughts are only that; they’re not actions.”
Mara nodded. “Okay.”
She gave Mara a questionaire to fill out at home on her own and with some peace of mind. She was quite interested in those results as she wasn’t yet sure what to make of Mara. Her suspicion was a personality disorder, most likely Cluster B, but she needed to know about depressive tendencies and anxiety issues. The girl contradicted herself in how even though she claimed to not like any of her peers, she still desired to fit in. That was entirely normal, be it for a teenager like her or even adults, but Yvonne needed to get to the bottom of it. That too would be a decisive factor in whether her application was going to be accepted.
“I got a call from the other therapist I was seeing,” Mara said on the third session. She had just given Yvonne her filled out questionnaires. Her writing was neat.
“What did they tell you?”
“Sadly he is already busy and cannot accept more patients. He proposed to my mother to put me on the queue, and maybe in four months I could have my first proper appointments, but I said no.”
Yvonne put the papers aside. “Oh, how come?”
Mara squirmed uncomfortably on the couch. “I don’t think we saw eye to eye, to be honest. He was… patronising.” Then Mara averted her eyes. “I shouldn’t be telling you this; he is one of your colleagues too.”
Yvonne smiled reassuringly. “You didn’t say any names, and I don’t mind. If that’s how you perceived it, it’s valid.”
“Besides, I don’t want my therapist to be a man.”
At that, Yvonne paused. “Is there any pelicular reason for that?”
Mara hesitated. “I don’t know. I just don’t think I could trust a man all that much. I don’t think he could understand me.”
Yvonne made a mental note to consider this topic and to bring it up at some later point. But for the third session, she focused on the ways that Mara wanted help - keyword being her, as Yvonne was starting to get the impression that Mara didn’t except want the help that her mother wanted her to have.
She didn’t like people. Yvonne hesitated to call her narcissistic, but she thought she was fundamentally better than all people her age - although interestingly enough, she only seemed to consider girls worthy of her attention. She hadn’t mentioned crushes in any way whatsoever but Yvonne wouldn’t be surprised if boys weren’t even on her radar.
“I just want to feel normal,” Mara said as she looked at the tips of her shoes. “Maybe once I graduate and go to university, I will meet other people. I don’t like feeling like this; I want to like people but something about them and something about me makes this impossible. I don’t want to change the people I already know and make them likable; I want to be open-minded for the future.”
Mara’s smile was bright when she walked into the room on the sixth session. Yvonne had already written her and her mother an email. She had put her on the waiting list three weeks ago on the third spot, and in the meantime, one potential patient had already found a new therapist. It was surprisingly common, especially when people have been looking for a therapist for some time and thus moved up on waiting lists.
“Someone looks very happy,” she remarked with a smile as they sat down. “Is it only because of the application, or did something happen at school?”
“Hm, nope!” Mara said. “I am really just happy that this is going to work.”
Yvonne nodded. “I am too. Since this is our last trial session, I am going to give you a hesitant diagnosis - I would have done so anyway even if I weren’t the one to accompany on your journey, as a point of reference for whichever therapist you were going to see afterwards. Of course, you wouldn’t have to tell them about this diagnosis; sometimes it is for the best for each therapist to come to their own conclusions.”
Mara straightened her back. “Alright. I appreciate that you get to business quickly.”
Yvonne ignored the remark of which she couldn’t tell if it was meant as an insult or a compliment - or both.
“Ms Borowski, having read the questionaires you filled out and after these five sessions we had together, I think that it is very likely you have a Cluster B disorder. These are characterised by the patient being unable to control their emotions and having erratic outbursts.” When Mara showed no reaction besides a brief frown that straightened itself out within a second, she continued: “I would tentatively say that you show symptoms for a narcissist personality disorder.”
For a few moments Mara said nothing, and Yvonne allowed her to sit with the diagnosis for a bit. Then the girl’s smile faltered.
“Let me say beforehand: this does not mean you are a bad person. There are a lot of negative stereotypes surrounding personality disorders of any type, and I want you to know that thoughts or fantasies alone are not equivalent to actions.”
Mara nodded slowly. “I… remember that you told me something like this before.”
“I think it’s important for you to know that.”
“One of the questionaires also show that you have a tendency to depressive episodes, and I would consider to go see a psychiatrist about that if you feel that there is a need for this - because I cannot give you medication.”
Mara perked up at that. “How come not? You’re a doctor though.”
Yvonne smiled. “I am doctor - of psychology, not medicine.”
Her patient pursed her lips. She did that a lot whenever she was trying to find which words to say. “What do you say? Do I need to take pills?”
“One very important thing, that any good psychiatrist will also tell you: these are not miracle drugs. You will need to work on yourself regardless. Think of it as a cane that makes it easier for you to walk.”
Mara’s smile didn’t return for this session. Instead her thin lips occasionally curled into a frown until she noticed and relaxed again.
“We have talked about our final school trip last friday,” Mara said. The semester was halfway through its end at late April, so naturally the teachers were planning for the last big activity before the students had to dedicate their energies to the finals.
“That’s always fun!” Yvonne said. “Where are you going to go? Did they let you vote?”
“The teacher proposed a couple of places. Of course some boys said they wanted to go to Mallorca.”
“Oh, there’s always these guys. A weekend of partying, right?”
Mara grinned. “Yeah, getting drunk and going to the Ballermann like the worst stereotypes out there.”
Yvonne gave her a strained smile. “Well, you will never know if it is that horrible unless you try it out. Either way, they know what they like - as do you.” They had talked about how, to some degree, Mara just needed to make peace with the reality of people not having her same interests. There was no use in being disdainful, and it was for the best of everyone to simply accept the different ways with which people might waste their time.
“So, which places did you discuss?”
“Since we are going with the biology class, we will go on field trips. The money is the deciding factor, but it’s either going to be Lake Neusield, Aix-en-Provence, or Dubrovnik.”
“All very nice places. Which one do you prefer?”
Mara smiled at that. She did so rarely, but Yvonne had come to feel proud whenever she saw her smile. She looked younger and not as stern as she usually did, so very cross with the world itself.
“I actually don’t prefer any - I’m happy wherever we go.” Then she pursed her lips. “But we’d be taking the bus, which means at least a ten hours ride with my classmates.” She made a face.
“You don’t like the thought of that?” Yvonne said, against her better judgement with amusement in her voice.
Mara rolled her eyes. “No! It’s gonna be torture! I’ll just have to charge my phone and listen to music or a cool podcast for the entire journey.”
Yvonne nodded. “Well, you could do that. I would advise you though, to try something a little different. Who do you sit next to in biology, or work with together when you have to do so in groups?”
“I still sit next to Paulina, but after I yelled to Veronika, she has been weird to me. Sometimes I work with Deniz and Stella, who are best friends since fifth grade.”
“Do you like sitting next to Paulina?”
“Kinda. She’s not annoying like the others. But she likes Jonas from my English class, I can see it. They both take the bike to go to school, and I saw her talk at him whenever they finish class together.”
“Talk at him?”
“Yeah, because he never talks back to her. He doesn’t like her. She’s not pretty enough.”
“Do you think she’s pretty?”
Mara’s eyes met Yvonne. She furrowed her brow. “No. She’s not ugly, but not pretty either. She looks normal.”
“How would you like it if you were to sit next to Paulina during your trip?”
Mara shrugged. “It’d be okay, but we wouldn’t have much to talk about.”
“That’s fine, but you wouldn’t be alone. Maybe, you’d hang out together during the trip.”
Something in Mara shifted then. The suggestion of spending time with another student didn’t seem to sit well with her, but Yvonne let the discomfort sit with her. Maybe, after overthinking it, she could actually like the idea.
Arrogant brat, came the unbidden thought to her mind. She immediately tried to quell it; she wouldn’t dare to judge or think negatively about her patient. Mara needed help, and she would do her best to solve her.
“We got called up to help with preparing the gym for the graduation party,” Mara said in late May.
“That sounds lovely!” Yvonne said. She sat with her hands in her lap on her chair, the window was open. It was incredibly warm outside, almost twenty-five degrees, as well as humid. She wasn’t wearing her usual jeans but a pencil skirt with a loose blouse, her hair tied up to prevent it from pooling in her neck and causing her to sweat even more. She knew it made her look older than her forty-one years, and her husband had asked her whether she was going to a conference today or why she looked all prim and proper.
Mara wore a summer dress, black with pink cosmos flowers that just covered her knees. It was the most feminine piece of clothing Yvonne had seen on her so far, even though it still covered more than what Yvonne had seen other teenage girls wear on weekends during the summer holidays.
“I’ll be at the bar.” Mara wrinkled her nose. “Serving drinks. So many of the older students and their parents will be drunk.”
Yvonne sat up straighter. “Yes, such is the habit at these events. Why does that put you at unease?”
“I don’t like seeing people lose control, not know what they’re doing. When they do stupid things they wouldn’t do when not drunk.”
Here, Yvonne got curious. “Are you often around drunk people?”
Mara paused. She stared at Yvonne, and for a moment there was such powerful hatred and resentment that she felt very, very small under the eyes of her teenage patient.
“No,” she said - or rather, lied. It was the first time Yvonne had caught her in a very obvious one.
With a sigh, she leaned forward. “Ms Borowski, I have told you before; there are no right or wrong answer or questions. But I will say that I can only help you and understand what you are going through if you don’t lie to me.”
Mara shrunk in her seat. “My mother,” she then said, very quiet. “Ever since she came here, she has been drinking.”
Katharina Borowski worked as a clerk in a supermarket, as far as Yvonne understood it. “How often does she drink?”
“Mostly on the weekends, and whenever she doesn’t have an early shift.”
Yvonne nodded. “How does she behave when she is drunk? What do you mean with ‘loss of control’?”
Mara clicked her tongue. “She’s happy. Usually she’s sad and uninterested in the world, but when drunk, she gets all nice. The worst thing is when she leaves the house and doesn’t come back until the next morning. I think she drinks to feel young and happy again and remember a time when I wasn’t there.”
Yvonne tried to make her face look more closed off than what she was feeling at the very moment. She wasn’t supposed to let this get to her, but maybe it were her own maternal instincts, maybe the bitter look in her patient’s eyes that made her want to get up and give her a hug.
“I’m very sorry to hear that. Have you ever… tried talking to your mother about this, and how it makes you feel? With anyone else, your teachers?”
Mara shook her head. “If I did that, they’d take me away from her. Besides, she’s still my mother.”
“Yes. But, substance abuse and neglect are serious issues for everyone affected by it. There are ways for your mother to get help and you to continue living with her. I will make a few calls, there are places where addicts can talk about their problems anonymously as long as they do it from their own volition. In all honesty though, this is something I’d prefer to discuss with your mother between the two of us. Maybe someone else’s opinion will sway her-”
“I’d actually like it if this stayed our secret.” Mara wasn’t looking at her but rather at her knees as she spoke. “Besides, it won’t change anything.”
“But you don’t know that,” Yvonne countered.
“Please. I told this to you because I trust you. You’re the only one who actually listens to me.”
Their eyes met, and the unspoken plea in Mara’s eyes was so loud that Yvonne swallowed thickly.
She couldn’t abuse her patient’s trust. Besides, it wasn’t as if Mara was in any immediate danger - nothing she had said indicated that her mother was physically or emotionally abusive towards her.
Yvonne preferred to think of it as something within psychologist and patient, not a secret - a secret indicated closeness.
“I still advice you to talk about this on your own with your mother… but very well; I won’t say a thing.”
Mara straightened her back. As she did so, her dress hitched up just a bit, showing her pale skin of her thigh just above the knee. Yvonne’s eyes clung onto it for a second just too much before she looked away.
“Thank you. I’m glad you trust me like that.”
They had one session before the beginning of summer break. Outside, the sky had gone from a merry cerulean blue to dark grey cluds within less than ten minutes and it was raining heavily. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked as the wind blew with all its might. When Mara walked in fifteen minutes too late, she was completely soaked from head to toe, her hair as well as her clothes.
“Oh dear, let’s get you dry again before you catch a cold! I don’t have a hairdryer but there’s a few towels in the bathroom.”
Mara’s longsleeved shirt clung to her body and somehow she looked even skinnier than usual. A small voice in Yvonne’s head suggested to her to just take a quick look at her breasts, to notice how small they were, but she quelled it at once by going to pick up the towels. Mara dried her hair with one, put two more on her shoulders, and then another two to sit on the leather couch without getting it wet.
“What a last school week!” Yvonne laughed and sat down. “How was graduation?”
There was something in Mara’s face that told Yvonne at once that something had happened.
“I got home pretty late.”
“That’s unfortunate. I hope you didn’t walk.”
“Oh, no, a teacher called a taxi for me. I’ve never taken a taxi.”
“I hope it was an interesting experience then. And the party?”
Mara hesitated. Yvonne let her have her moment of silence.
“It was mostly handing out bottles, like beer and soft drinks, but also pouring out wine for the parents. Very loud too. The music was shit.”
“What about your fellow students, those from your year?”
“They liked it. They all talked about how excited they were to have this next year for themselves.”
“And you?”
Mara hummed. “I could do without the spectacle, really. A lot of them watch too many of these American teen movies, too. ‘We need a prom king and queen!’ We really don’t.”
Yvonne chuckled. “Oh, I remember that too, people thought that too when I graduated. That’s what happens when you watch too many John Hughes movies.”
“Who is John Hughes?”
“Oh, an American movie maker. He made a lot of teen movies, just like the ones that make young people believe their graduation will be just like at a high school.”
“Well, they’re wrong then.” Mara pulled on her towel. “Something happened. Something they surely don’t show in the movies.”
“They certainly don’t show people dancing very badly, or even tripping on the dancefloor in high heels they’re not used to.”
Mara chuckled, then cleared her throat. “That was pretty funny to witness. No, not that. When I left, I had to walk across the parking lot. There were many cars there, but I passed by one and it was moving.” She mimicked the car by rocking back and forth on the couch.
Yvonne pursed her lips. She could already guess what exactly had been witnessed, but she allowed Mara to continue.
“I won’t bother you with details, but I looked inside-” here Yvonne furrowed her brow, “- and it was Veronika and some guy, not one from our year I think, doing… the windows were all fogged, but yeah.”
“You spied on your classmate having sex?” Yvonne almost put her hand over her mouth; she hadn’t wanted to phrase it neither so crudely nor almost accusatory.
Mara made a face. “Ew, no! I just looked into the car, and turned away the moment I saw what exactly they were doing. She was on top of him, and naked, and her breasts were bouncing and-” She came to a halt and stared at a spot on the ground between them. Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Yvonne opened her mouth to reply but instead she was cut off. “No, I’m sorry I even mentioned but,” Mara’s voice broke and took a deep breath. “It’s just- I’m just so upset.”
And then she began to cry. Out of the sudden and as if a great dam had burst, sobs shook through her slender body and she put her head in her hands. At once Yvonne got to her feet, almost on instinct she walked over to a coffeetable where a box of tissues sat. She didn’t even have time to process the reason why her patient was crying, but consoling her was much more important now.
She put the tissues next to Mara on the couch and stood there, unsure of what to do next. It was far from the first time she had someone crying during sessions but only rarely it had tugged so much on her heartstrings as now. Tentatively she reached out, despite her better judgment and what she had been taught, and gently rubbed Mara’s shoulder.
“It’s alright, Ms Borowski,” she said soothingly as Mara continued cried without any shame.
“I don’t know why it made me so angry!” She wimpered, muffled against her hands.
Slowly, Yvonne moved to sit on her couch again, and simply waited for the girl’s crying to cease.
“I hate her so much, I hate them all!” Mara cried, all the while tears ran over her reddenend face.
The pity Yvonne felt turned to concern.
“What did you do, after you saw Veronika?” The second she asked the question, she knew she was scared off the answer.
Mara said as she sniffed: “Nothing. I was too shocked to do anything, and then I ran away.”
“Why do you hate Veronika for this?”
Yvonne tensed up when Mara began to cry even harder. This time, she didn’t get up but rather forced herself to remain seated. She wasn’t sure whether she herself wanted to talk with Mara about sexuality, something about it felt forbidden and insidious.
“I don’t know! I just feel so”—A few gasps and sniffs interrupted her—“so jealous!”
“Ma- I mean, Ms Borowski; this is going to be a difficult topic to talk about, I’m sure, but: can you explain yourself a bit? But before, I will bring you some water.”
Awkwardly, Yvonne stood and went into the kitchen where she filled a glass with tap water. Mara thanked her and swallowed it all in one go. After a while by which half of the lesson had already passed, she had calmed down enough and dried off her reddened swollen face.
“Please don’t tell my mother.”
“You know that I won’t.”
“Or anyone else.”
Yvonne had to smile. “There is no one I could possibly tell any of this.”
“Don’t you talk about your patients with your, I don’t know, friends or whoever?”
“No, by principle I - and any of my craft who takes themselves seriously - don’t. Plus, it’s against the code.”
“You have a code?”
“Yes.”
“Alright.” Mara took a deep breath. “I want this for myself too. Kinda! But also, boys are so… horrible! Any girl who obsesses over them is such a moron.”
“What exactly is it that you don’t like about boys?”
“They’re immature and stupid, but also arrogant and insufferable. And all these dumb bimbos swoon over them, and bat their eyelashes at them, and try to please them either with nice words or sex. They fall all over for them, even if they were so inferior actually, and, I just- I hate them, I just hate them! I could never be as stupid as they are, I’d rather go into a convent and become a nun than have to suffer men. I’m glad that I’m too ugly for them to notice me because I would kill everyone who looks at me as if he wants to touch or fuck me! I don’t want them to ‘become better’ or something like that. I just don’t want them near me in my life. Men shouldn’t be allowed to exist where we are.”
This was where Yvonne tore herself out of her shock and held up a hand to interrupt Mara. The girl sucked in a breath, and then seemed to realise what she had been ranting about.
After a few moments of silence, she said: “I’m not sorry about this.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t mean it,” Yvonne said without thinking about it. “I think this gave me a decent overview.”
A disturbed relationship with sexuality in any case, where — regardless of whether she prefered men or women — it manifested itself as dislike.
Veronika had been the girl who Mara had yelled at, the reason as to why she was here in the first place. She would be putting a pin in that one and how her image of Veronika changed now that she had seen her as a sexual being.
That very night, when in bed next to her husband Erik, a forbidden thought crept up on Yvonne - but since it was a thought, and thoughts as they were had no power, there was no harm possibly to be done. For a second, she thought about waking Erik, then she slipped her hand into the waistband of her slip and closed her eyes.
She thought of two young women, one inside the car, the other one standing next to it, watching through a window. There was a young man too, but he was featureless - he didn’t matter. He mattered so little that he could as well not be there - he could be a pillow the second girl was humping, a sex toy, her own fingers… or another woman… but no, it was better if it remained a faceless man.
The young woman in the car was on top of him, completely naked and straddling his hips. Her full breasts jumped up and down and her head was thrown her, her hair pooling in her neck. Her eyes were screwed shut but her mouth hung slack - she couldn’t see the girl who was outside of the car.
She was fixated on the other girl’s breasts, the erect nipples, how firm they were. She had seen them when they had gotten changed in the dressing room before PE lessons but never had they looked as delicious as they did now. The girl in the car was so focused on what she was doing that she didn’t notice the girl coming closer to actually stare into the car - to see more of what she had walked into. She saw now that the girl in the car was completely shaven with not a single hair on her mound. She thought of how it would feel like to touch the girl there, to make her moan like she was moaning right now. She was wet, something between her legs ached and cried out to be sated right away, and so the girl did as she felt compelled to do. She wore a skirt with no panties, and her quick fingers knew exactly what to do to pleasure herself. She slickened her fingers and ran them over her already swollen clit, all the while not tearing her eyes from the woman in the car. She tried to force herself to ignore the panting man underneath her, but whenever she couldn’t, she instead thought rather of him - and how she killed him. Strangled him, stabbed him, hit his head until he stopped moving. That too aroused her.
Yvonne put her mouth against the back of her left hand as she stroked herself, faster now when the agonising slow brushing over her clit, her lips, and entrance to her cunt had been too overwhelming. She tried to level her breathing to not wake Erik up, but when she moved to pull her pants down and spread her legs properly, the mattress creaked a bit. She had to finish the job before he could possibly wake up, even if in her mind, she wanted to draw the fantasy out, just a bit. She used two fingers to frott just against the top and the underside of her clit, and just when imagined Mara putting two fingers inside herself and how easily they slid in, the thoughts of how loud the wet sounds of fingering herself were, Yvonne arched her back and reached her orgasm. Her mouth was open in a silent scream and she stimulated her clit until it became painful, then, very slowly, she suck back into the mattress, and exhaled.
After a few minutes, she got up, went into the bathroom, and cleaned herself. When she crawled back into bed, Erik looked up sleepily.
“Everything alright?” He asked.
“Yeah, all good. Go back to sleep, it’s only three in the morning.”
Just after coming back from their vacation in Sweden, Finn caught a cold and promptly infected both of his parents. Until further notice, Yvonne postponed the few appointments she had for the week. It was not something she did joyfully, as especially during the summer solitude, depression and mental health problems became worse, but there was no use in her patients getting sick as well. One exception was there, though; she was almost glad that she wasn’t going to see Mara. She had, to Yvonne’s knowledge, not gone anyway for the holidays, and was probably desperate to talk to her, but Yvonne didn’t feel as if she could face the girl. Just the thought of her made her feel deeply ashamed.
She had masturbated at the thought of her teenage patient. If Yvonne was to be completely honest to herself, the only right thing to do was to make some calls and find another therapist for Mara - surely she would find a good enough reason for it. She was out of her depth, there wasn’t a sufficient level of trust, et cetera, et cetera.
Then she hadn’t done it, mostly because she thought that if she decided to give a harmless thought power, then she wasn’t really believing in what she told people to help them make it through their days. She couldn’t be a liar and charlatan, she didn’t want to be one; so she had to know that nothing that happened in her head at her weakest moments had any change of becoming reality.
Mara’s teacher had decided that they’d go to France at the end. In their session during the first school week, she was uncharacteristically excited at the prospect of it; the city of Aix was very beautiful, she wanted to see the wetlands of the Camargue, and they might go hiking in the Provence. After a few minutes of catching up, Yvonne turned towards the actual issues at hand.
“Did you think about what we talked about before the holidays? About what role your mother might play in how you see relationships?”
“Oh… yeah, a bit.”
“Well, I also think that both she and your father might be an influence of how you see boys, and men. And women too.”
Sexuality and self-image were strongly tied together, so were Mara’s hatred for sexuality and misogyny towards women who didn’t reject their sexuality.
Mara watched her. Unlike their last lesson, she wasn’t angry today but rather uncharacteristically calm, almost hostile.
“If that’s what you say.”
Yvonne furrowed her brow in brief irritation. “Did you think about what we have talked about? I told you that this was going to be your homework.”
Mara sighed. “This feels like school! I’m sure you’re right.”
Yvonne fought down the feeling of something nasty, and regarded her patient with utmost seriousness.
“This doesn’t go away on its own. Problems never do. Please, work with me, Ms Borowski.”
Would that be a reason to let her go? Just as the thought crossed her mind, Mara looked towards the ground and made a pitiable face.
“I’m sorry, Ms Pohl, but I was really not comfortable thinking about these things. This is really difficult.”
“I know. It’s never easy, and you know that.”
“Yes.”
“But you have to try.”
“Yes. I know.”
The last session before Mara was leaving for France was two weeks before the two weeks of autumn break where Yvonne was going to spend a week in another city to give some advanced training lessons to young psychology students. Summer was nearing its end but right before that, apparently its last reserves were being burned as the thermometer told her of a whooping twenty-five degrees.
Mara came in with the same summer dress she had worn on that warm April day, but unlike then, Yvonne was suddenly uncomfortable being even in the same room as her.
“Remember what I told you last time, about how I would actually try to not have a bad time with my classmates?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I mean that. I think you’re right; only with the necessary dedication, I will actually be able to help myself.”
Yvonne smiled. “I’m glad to hear you have been reconsidering things enough to give it a try.”
“Also, I don’t want to disappoint you. That also plays a part in it.”
Yvonne felt her face go warm. “That is a very nice thing to say, but you should be doing all of that for yourself, not for me. I’m just your therapist.”
Something in Mara’s face closed up like a fan. After a few moments, she spoke very slowly, but deliberately.
“You’re not ‘just’ my therapist, Ms Pohl. You’re — I don’t think you know how important you are to me.”
Yvonne froze.
“Ms Borowski —”
“Mara. I want you to call me Mara.”
Yvonne almost squirmed under the intense gaze of Mara’s brown eyes.
“Mara. Yes, I am an important person in your life. But you should not, under any circumstances, feel an obligation to me.”
“But I do. And” — her voice broke off — “I thought you did too.”
“I do. As your therapist. But ultimately, I really am just something like an adviser to you; I’m not your friend, or a family member. I’m very very sorry.”
Mara opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. “I understand.”
Then, without another word, she got up from the couch, hiked her skirt up, pulled her panties off, and threw them on the floor.
Yvonne couldn’t react, and when she did finally move, Mara was already at the door and hastily closed it behind her.
She should run after her. Ask her what the fuck this just was. Be outraged. Do something.
Instead she only stared at the black slip that had been placed on the coffeetable between the two couches while her mind replayed the glimpse she could of Mara’s hairy pussy as she took off her underwear.
She didn’t know what to do. She had to call someone, and yet she didn’t.
She needed to get rid of Mara as a patient, as a thing in her life and in her mind, and yet she hesitated.
She had picked up the slip with a glove and felt her heart beat in her chest when she had seen there were traces of vaginal fluid on it.
She should burn it. Or throw it away. Instead, she put it in a plastic garbage bag that she stashed in the shed in her garden.
She thought about wearing it.
She thought about smelling it.
She thought about masturbating with it.
Yvonne hadn’t made another appointment with Mara, but on the monday when school had begun again and her last patient was leaving, she was there by the door in a pair of jeans and her black sweater.
“Thank you,” she told the boy and slipped past him into the office. He threw her a questioning look but then left the two of them alone before Yvonne could scream for him to come back.
“Hello, Ms Pohl, how was your autumn break? Did you have any?”
“Get out.”
“I don’t think I will.”
“Yes, you will.”
“No, I really don’t think I will. We haven’t planned for our next appointment yet.”
“Next appointment?” Yvonne repeated. “There isn’t going to be another appointment.”
Mara pursed her lips. “So you aren’t going to be my therapist anymore? Weird, my mother hasn’t received an email from you yet. By all means, then you are still my therapist.”
“Like hell.”
“Why not?”
Yvonne stared at her. “You got some fucking nerve, girl.”
“Because you wanted to fuck me?”
“What?”
“Oh, yes, you wanted to. You forced me to take my panties off to take a look at my cunt.”
The word ‘cunt’ from this sexually repressed girl was like a slap in Yvonne’s face.
“That’s —”
“As it happened. Don’t you think I’ve seen you staring at my boobs? You’re a pervert, Ms Pohl.”
“That’s a lie!” Yvonne yelled, then she put her hand against her mouth. It was late in the day, maybe the people in the levels below and above her had already left but she wasn’t about to cause a ruckus by getting into an argument.
Mara smiled. “You forced me to take off my panties because you wanted to look at my baby pussy, and then you told me to play with myself because you wanted to see how quickly I get wet.”
Yvonne turned away from her and walked into her office. This couldn’t be happening, this could not be happening. Mara followed her, because of course she did, and she closed the door behind her, trapping Yvonne in the room with her.
“What is your problem?” She asked.
Mara seemed to think about her answer. “I thought we had something special. Because I’m a special girl.”
Yvonne laughed. It was indelicate and thus maybe the dumbest thing she could have done in the situation, but she still did.
“Of course you think that’s funny. You’re just like all the bimbos from school, except that you have a university degree and are living their dream, of the husband and the kid and the house with the nice garden.”
Yvonne’s eyes widened at the thought of Mara knowing where she lived. But she couldn’t, could she? Unless she had followed her at some point - but Yvonne rode on the bike, and she would have noticed that.
“I’m sorry, you’re actually not. You’re nice. You’re a good person. You’re really important to me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re a bit pathetic.” There was earnestness in Mara’s voice, Yvonne knew it - and it scared her.
“One word, and I will tell everyone you were going to have me locked up in the nuthouse if I didn’t lick your pussy and masturbated in front of you, because you secretly like teenage girls more than your stupid husband’s dick.”
“Oh my god.” Yvonne ran a hand over her face.
“I will do it. They’re gonna fire you and put you in jail for being a pervert.”
“I’m not-”
“They all say that.”
Yvonne looked up. “What do you want?”
Mara looked at her as if she was amazed that Yvonne hadn’t understood her yet. “I want my appointment. Now. We weren’t finished when I left the last time.”
“You ran out after you almost threw your panties in my face,” Yvonne hissed, but Mara waved her off.
“I was angry then. I didn’t think about what I was doing, and just did the first thing that came to mind. But, uh.” She looked very shy all of the sudden. “I actually wanted you to have sex with me that day.”
Yvonne’s jaw would've hit the ground if that had been physically possible.
“But now I see that you don’t want to, even if I want to. So, we are doing it anyway.”
“You are insane —” Yvonne began but her words got caught in her throat when Mara approached her. She was short, maybe half a head shorter than Yvonne, but she put her hands on Yvonne’s lower arms and shushed her.
“I’m not. I’m really not. You know that.” Mara reached out and cupped her face. “You understand me, you’re the only one who doesn’t think I’m a freak.”
You are worse than any ‘freak’ could be, Yvonne thought.
“I’m not gonna find anyone here I want to fuck besides you.”
She walked and pushed Yvonne back until her knees hit the couch and she fell onto it.
“And you want it too. You want to fuck me because I’m the only one who knows that you want better for yourself. I bet you wish I was older, just by a bit, so you wouldn’t feel so ashamed of wanting me, even if I am still a virgin. It’s insane how women are only considered ‘virgins’ until we fuck men, right? I’d still be a virgin after today then.”
Yvonne tried to shuffle away from her, but Mara grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled. Yvonne supressed a pained scream. This isn’t happening, this is not happening.
“Hold still, Ms Pohl, don’t fight it. Did you like what I told you about Veronika? How I saw her in the car that night?”
“No.”
“I wanted for that to be us so badly.”
Then she leaned over and kissed her. Her lips tasted of chapstick, and the smell of perfume clung to her neck. Yvonne pressed her lips together, she didn’t want even a single trace of Mara’s taste on her, but the perfume stung in her nose like a chemical fire, unable to be extinguished.
Still, she was a sloppy kisser, unexperienced, and yet it reminded Yvonne of her first kiss, when she had been thirteen and she kissed some boy during a vacation to Spain of whom she only remembered that he had put her hand on his hard dick.
“I wanted to fuck you so badly when when you wore that skirt. That first real summer day,” Mara said between kisses. She kissed her again, and again, and again, all the while she carressed her hair in a cruel mockery of what a lover might do.
“I want to see your cunt, Ms Pohl. I want to know how turned on you are because a little virgin wants to fuck you.”
Yvonne wimpered and tried to turn her face away, but Mara shook her head as she held her chin. “No, no, no, I want you to look at me.”
With a quick movement, Mara had climbed off her. Yvonne couldn’t tear her eyes away as she fumbled with the buttons of her trousers and pulled them down, together with her silk slip.
Yvonne tried to press her legs together- and then gasped when she felt a sharp pain in her face. Mara had just slapped her.
If she had expected her to look angry, she had been wrong. Instead, Mara looked at her as if she found it Yvonne’s resistance pitiful.
“You didn’t complain about the kisses, did you?”
When Yvonne didn’t answer, Mara put her hands on Yvonne’s knees and spread her legs. She gasped, choked on her own breath.
“You are wet.”
Yvonne closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, otherwise she would not be able to prevent herself from crying.
She felt Mara come closer, and then heard the sound of someone inhaling, and breath hitting the sensitive skin of her vulva. She fled when a careful finger was lain upon the entrance of her cunt.
“Ms Pohl. Be good.”
Then the finger slowly slipped into her, and Yvonne couldn’t help how her legs trembled at the feeling of being filled - she just had to forgot whose finger it was.
“You like that, don’t you?” Mara purred. She moved her finger, inside and out, and Yvonne had to do everything in her power to not thrust against her, she couldn’t convince her any more that this was what Yvonne secretly wanted.
She didn’t want it. What happened in her fantasies had no power — but Mara had power over her now, and she didn’t feel ashamed to use it over her. Still, Mara fingered her, with so much insistence that Yvonne was scared to open her eyes and see the girl grinning up at her like a cat that got the cream.
Then she moaned. It was barely a moan, really, more like an exhale. It slipped out of her unbidden, and Mara held still.
“I knew you’d like it.”
Then she slowly pulled out her finger, and a needy voice in the back of Yvonne’s head sobbed, begged to get fucked again until she came and could deal with the guilt afterwards. She put the side of her face against the couch cushion, and twitched when she felt two fingers on her clit.
Then she gasped when her clit was squeezed between a thumb and an index finger. She tried to close her legs, but Mara was between them, so she was pinned between the couch and the girl as her most sensitive spot was roughly played with. There was something unhinged in Mara’s face, deep hatred and sadistic glee, as she rubbed Yvonne’s clit with little care for how much she was overwhelming her.
This wasn’t pleasure, it was torture, and Mara enjoyed every single second of it. And under torture, Yvonne cracked and broke.
Her moans were half-screams, borne out of arousal and pain and shame and disgust, but they were like a catharsis to her, and when she came, her entire body shook, she bucked against Mara’s hand, and she was crying uncontrollably. Only when the waves of her hot-white orgasm had subsided did she realise what exactly just happened, and she covered her face as she weeped silently into her hands.
She was deaf to any noise besides her own sobs, but then a heavy weight placed itself on her thigh. A heavy weight with two skinny legs and a hot wet centre between them.
“Ms Pohl, it’s my turn now.” Two hands grabbed her wrists and pulled them off her face to look at the sight before her.
Mara Borowski sat on her thigh, completely naked. Her dark-blonde hair fell on her shoulders, her brown eyes were dark and filled with lust and vileness. Her tits were small, maybe the size of a peach, but her nipples were large, pink and erect.
She was unshaven. The bush Mara carried had probably never seen a single razor in her entire life. Her inner labia were longer than her outer ones, and lay on Yvonne’s thigh most provocatively.
Mara moaned as she slid up Yvonne’s thigh.
“Oh my god,” she signed, her eyes fluttering. “I only ever did that on a pillow but you feel so good. Your skin is so soft!”
She slid back down, and left a wet trail on Yvonne’s thigh. Yvonne squeezed her eyes shut. The sensation of Mara’s hairy cunt rubbing up against her and how in turn it excited her made her feel deeply ashamed of herself. She left her arms next to her, forced herself to not move them, if she were to react, she could no longer live with herself, she wouldn’t be able to look at her own reflection in the mirror.
Mara meanwhile grew more desperate, she picked up her pace as she rubbed herself against her leg, her upper thigh and the base of her knees, with little cries here and there announcing her arousal to Yvonne.
Then she came with a scream and a squirt of juices on her, she burst while humping her thigh ferociously and holding onto her shoulders as if she was a shipwreck survivor.
Yvonne had stopped sobbing but that didn’t mean that there were no more tears left in her; they simply rolled over her cheeks and down her jaw. It was about to be over. She had come. It was going to be over.
Mara’s breath became lesser ragged, but she still was rubbing herself against her thigh, only much slower, as if she didn’t want to lose the feeling.
Her eyes flew to her chest when she felt a hand on the buttons of her blouse, and with a horror she saw Mara pause her riding to look deeply into her eyes.
“Take off your blouse and your bra,” she said breathlessly. With a hot read face, Yvonne shrugged her blouse off and unclasped her bra. Mara whimpered at the sight of her naked chest as if it was the first time she had ever seen another woman’s breast.
A sob escaped Yvonne when Mara took one of her tits in her hand and kneaded it. Then she froze when Mara bent over to take it in her mouth. Her tongue played around her nipple, first tentatively, then more daring. She suckedly soundly on it almost like a babe drinking milk, and in front of her mind’s inner eye, she saw her son as an infant while she fed him. Then she shrieked when Mara slapped her other tit with a flattened hand. But the treatment from Mara’s mouth continued, and the girl was exploring what she could do with her body, because she then began toying with her nipple, gentler than she did with Yvonne’s clit, until she was rubbing her flat palm against it.
Yvonne’s body reacted by her nipples getting hard and juices trickling out of her pussy, but her mind was empty. Maybe it’s never going to be over?
As if she had read her mind, Mara let go off her, a trail of spit still connecting her lips to her swollen nipple. “Even if you tell me you didn’t like it, your nipples are hard like pebbles.”
She tilted her head and quizically looked at Yvonne, deep in thought.
“I think, for the next appointment, we should eat each other’s pussies.”