HOLIDAY Filthy Friday Feature aka Jane has Christmas issues and solves them with orgasms episode 2019-1! So virtually every single one of my novels is a Christmas book. Really. Either the inciting incident or the “oh-my-god-how-did-things-get-this-fucked-up” point happens at Christmas. People, bad things happen in December.
The good news is? Sex and orgasms don’t solve all the problems, but they sure as fuck make us feel better. For a while anyway. So, as my Christmas gift to you during the most traumatic season of all–every Friday from now til Christmas, I’m bringing you a filthy excerpt from one of my books.
Today, we’re gonna shine the spotlight on the YYC Queer Writers anthologies I’ve been so lucky to curate, and my favourite among them is still Queer Christmas in Cowtown.
THERAPY
in QUEER CHRISTMAS IN COWTOWN
BY M. JANE COLETTE
So, with this one, you get a treat! There’s a recording of me reading it at Owl’s Nest Book last year. Um, hello, non-reader! I care about you too. So here is that for your pleasure:
Those of you who read faster than you listen… I’m with you, and here we go:
***
Therapist: So. Do you want to talk about your Christmas issues?
Jane: I don’t have Christmas issues.
Therapist: You do.
Jane: I don’t.
Therapist: Jane, I’ve read your books. The first one actually has a chapter called “Worst Christmas Ever.” In the second one, the cataclysmic climax occurs at Christmas Dinner…
Jane: Actually, they make it through dinner fine. The explosion comes after…
Therapist: Splitting hairs. Christmas issues. You. Severe. Shall we talk about them?
Jane: No.
Therapist: Is this going to be another one of those sessions where you stare at me belligerently and, at the end, say, “I don’t know why I pay for this shit?”
Jane: Yes.
Therapist: Have you considered that this relationship isn’t working and that you should get another therapist?
Jane: No. I like you. And I’m just starting to get used to you.
Therapist: So, perhaps by next Christmas, we will delve into your Christmas issues?
Jane: Don’t hold your breath.
We fall silent, and I stare at the space just to the left of her ear. Not belligerently. But then I frown. Why did she say that? Bitch. I am not belligerent. I just have a very heightened sense of privacy. And she—who is she? A total stranger. However many degrees in listening to people bitch and whine about their shit she has hanging on her walls, she has not earned the right to hear my neuroses. No matter how much I’m paying her.
I shift my gaze from the space beside her left ear to her actual ear. Then to her eyes.
Belligerently.
Therapist: Belligerently.
Jane: Have you considered that maybe you’re just not that good at your job?
Therapist: Oh, Jane.
When she says my name, she sounds like my grade seven teacher, Mrs Kapusniak. Looks a little like her, too. Infatuated, excited, thinking I would finally be understood, I told Mrs Kapusniak things.
She betrayed me.
Not at Christmas.
I don’t have Christmas issues.
Therapist: Want to share the thought?
I scowl at her. She sighs.
I’ve recently watched a ridiculous porn flick on Kink.com in which the therapist heals the patient by, first, hypnotizing her, and then ripping off her clothes—and her own—and…
It was ridiculous. But hot.
I look at her. Anne. She’s invited me to call her Anne, not Doctor What’s-Her-Face. I don’t know that I ever call her either. I don’t say, “Oh, Anne,” the way she says “Oh, Jane.” Maybe I should.
Jane: Anne?
Therapist: Yes?
She’s excited. She thinks I’m going to say something. Profound? I look at her again. Try to cast her in that role. Suppose she wanted to seduce me? How would she go about doing that?
I don’t think she’d hypnotize me. She doesn’t peddle hypnotherapy. Plus, fucking your hypnotized patients, probably not ethical. But if she wanted to seduce me, what would she do? Well, she couldn’t be my therapist. Pretty sure that’s not just unethical but illegal. I mean—not against the law-law, but against the… therapist law. Psychological law? You know what I mean. And if you don’t—it doesn’t matter. I know what I mean. And this is all happening inside my head.
Hmm.
So, if she wanted to be my lover—say she decided that what was wrong with me required some deep sexual healing—some intense fucking, all though the Christmas holidays, of course—the fucking cure instead of the talking cure, ooh, that’d be a good title for an erotic romance, no?—well, if she decided that… She’d first have to fire me, right? How would she do that?
Therapist: I’m serious, Jane. Maybe you need another therapist.
Passive-aggressively, of course. Psychologists are manipulative like that. I look at her eyes, half-obscured by thick-framed glasses—really, a precise replica of the therapist’s glasses in that porn flick. Is that what’s going on here? Is she trying to get me to fire her so that she can ask me out?
That’s how it would play out in a sit-com.
Or a romance novel.
In a porno, we’d already be naked on the carpet—her office has no couch.
But this is real life, and so it’s more complicated. Awkward. Drawn out.
But maybe?
The first few weeks, she’d say nothing when I fell silent. Try to wait me out. Now…
Therapist: Jane? You’d really get more out of this if you talked. Just a little. About anything.
I look at the rug and wonder how rough it is. Would I—would she—end up with rug burn? On her knees? On my back?
Maybe we wouldn’t end up on the rug. Maybe—no, not on the desk, so fucking cliché. Against the window? I bet she has just the tiniest exhibitionism fetish. She’d get off on that, her naked breasts pressed against the cold pane of glass…
Oh. What an image. I love it.
I should write that down…
Therapist: Jane…
Jane: Could I… like, could I have some paper? And a pen?
I write, swiftly. Breasts, glass. Cold. Yes. Rug, too, for a bit. Not the desk—some fun stuff with the chair. I make a sketch. We break her glasses, but she doesn’t mind.
Wait. Christmas tree. In the corner. Let’s topple it. That can be part of the climax. Yes.
And somewhere in the middle of it—or at the end—I might tell her why I hate Christmas.
Or, not.
I smile.
She sees me smiling and smiles back.
Therapist: I won’t ask to see it. But I’m so glad… I think that’s a good first step. It makes sense. For someone like you. To get it down on paper first.
I don’t laugh.
I smile, and I want to go home, and transcribe my notes and finish my story. And maybe masturbate.
Therapist: I really feel we made some progress here.
Jane: Sure. Progress. I… Yeah. I really feel… much closer to you now.
Therapist: That’s wonderful. So… do you think, next week, you’ll actually talk?
I smile.
Shake my head.
I’m not coming back next week. I’m firing her ass. And then, I’m going to ask her out for coffee. I expect things will progress very quickly. The first time we fuck, there will be a cold pane of glass involved. But no rug; rug burn is not sexy in life, not at all.
And maybe, eventually, spent and exhausted from sex, elated and vulnerable, I will tell her about my Christmas issues.
Mmm. Probably not.
* * *
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