Page 11

Chapter 11

Atlas/Fluffy

I resisted the urge to growl. I was relegated to the office, but I could still hear everything, which I’m sure Aiden’s therapist knew.

She was definitely not human.

She was also a pure, shining soul, so I knew she didn’t pose a threat to Aiden. Still, I wanted to be in there to help Aiden deal with his anxiety.

I did also understand that some of that anxiety was because of me, and his therapist was probably right that he wouldn’t talk about me in front of me.

I heard her reassure him as I sniffed around the waiting room, and they got the small talk bullshit out of the way.

Huh. There was a pair of black sweatpants and a black t-shirt sitting on a chair in the corner. Was I supposed to change into a human or something? They looked to be my size, which I briefly wondered about. Helene was something with foresight or knowledge or some kind of witchy mojo.

I mentally shrugged. Didn’t matter as long as she helped Aiden heal.

I sat down by the door again, focusing back on their conversation. Aiden was struggling over what to say, continuously starting and then stopping, obviously unsure.

Helene finally said, “Just let it out, Aiden. Just blurt out whatever is on your mind and stop worrying about finding the right words.”

I heard a deep breath in, and then Aiden blurted out everything in one long train of thought. “My friend turned into something unexpected, and I love my friend but now he’s not what he was before, and I don’t know what to do about the fact that an attractive half-naked man was in my bed this morning, and I felt something and I got scared.”

“Ok, then. Let’s start with the man in bed,” Helene said calmly. “You know him and are familiar with him, right?”

“Sort of,” Aiden answered. “I know him, but I don’t know him like that.”

I knew Aiden had been nervous and scared this morning, but I didn’t exactly know why. I had just done my best not to spook him.

“I haven’t… Since what happened…” Aiden started, but he just trailed off.

“Aiden, we’ve discussed a lot of aspects of your kidnapping. We’ve talked about how you had very conflicting feelings toward him, where you both dreaded his coming to visit but also looked forward to it because it was a break from the monotony of your confinement, and how any emotions you have are ok.” Helene paused, and then she said gently, “We have never discussed what happened sexually between you and your captor. Perhaps it’s time to lance that wound so it can begin to heal.”

I almost growled, but I remembered what Helene said about me making a noise, and I had no idea how good her hearing was. I was not getting kicked out. What if Aiden needed me? Still, I didn’t like the idea of him dealing with that trauma if he wasn’t ready to.

Helene spoke again. “I can tell this makes you nervous and upset, Aiden. If you aren’t ready to tackle this, that’s ok. If you do want to tackle this, is there anything I can do to help get you through it?”

“I just…” he said, trailing off.

I wasn’t sure what motion he made or what expression he had, but I heard Helene get up and come over to open the door.

“Fluffy, would you mind joining us in order to provide some emotional support for Aiden?” she said.

I walked into the room without having to be asked twice, walked straight over to Aiden, and stood by him. He was sitting in a chair, but he slid out of it and onto the floor, his legs straight out, and I gently laid my upper half on his lap. He immediately put his hands in my fur, nervously rubbing and fidgeting.

I didn’t mind. He could pull my fur out if he needed to in order to get through this.

Helene sat back down, and Aiden took a deep breath. I rumbled softly against him, leaning into him a little more and letting him know I was here for him.

“He really pretended we were boyfriends. I know I’ve talked a lot about the beginning and how it was all sort of a blur of panic and being sedated. It seems so long ago, that part of things. The time when I still thought maybe I could get away or I would get rescued,” Aiden said.

Helene nodded. “Yes, we have, and we’ve talked about how strong you were to face each day even when you realized you couldn’t escape.”

“It wasn’t sexual right away. He bathed me and fed me when I was drugged, and we had ‘a fight,’ as he called it, if I tried to escape or didn’t do what he wanted. Eventually he started to kiss me goodbye, and then it turned into more than just a kiss goodbye. It was kind of awful, but I had kissed him before. We’d made out a little once at the bar, and I just tried to tell myself this wasn’t that different.” Aiden laughed wetly. “He wasn’t even a good kisser, but hey, I could pretend. It seemed a small price to pay to make him happy.”

“Then what happened?” Helene asked gently.

“Then he wanted more. He talked about it. How long we had been dating, how attractive I was, how he was turned on by me. I knew he wanted more from me. He tried groping me while we made out, and I just couldn’t… I couldn’t get turned on, no matter how much he touched me. He said it was ok, because he knew I’d gone through ‘health issues,’ and that was why he’d had to take care of me when I first arrived. It was like he was living in this fantasy world.

“Then he took my hand and had me touch him. I’d seen him get angry, and I didn’t want to deal with the repercussions of us ‘fighting.’ It seemed like such a small thing, to jerk him off. So I did it.”

I was tense and angry, and Helene gave me a look. I tried to relax my body. I didn’t want Aiden to think I was judging him. I was angry, but not at him. I wished his captor were still alive so I could torture and kill the hellbound mortal all over again.

“You were fighting for survival and making sure food, water, and general comforts weren’t withheld, Aiden. There is no shame in what you did,” Helene assured him.

I grumbled low in my throat and licked his arm, assuring him that Helene was right. My Aiden was a survivor. He had lived through this, and I could control myself to hear about it. Helene gave a slight nod in my direction, like she understood what I was thinking. Maybe she did.

“He was happy with that for a while, and it got… I don’t know. It was like doing the dishes or something, you know? It was kind of boring and monotonous, but I moaned and said how sexy he was because I just wanted him to finish more quickly. All the while I was daydreaming, or, if I’d gotten us positioned correctly, I would watch tv while I did it if he wasn’t looking at me. I tried to position us that way a lot.” Aiden laughed wetly again, wiping his eyes.

“It’s ok, Aiden. That’s all perfectly normal. Anything you felt or experienced is ok,” Helene reminded him.

“Then one day it wasn’t enough. He had been hinting, and when he got up after our ‘dinner date,’ I put my hands on him. We weren’t kissing anymore then, at least, and I knew I could get it done pretty fast. Only he pushed me down, and he said maybe it was time to ‘move our relationship along.’

“So I took him in my mouth. I thought, I’ve given blow jobs. I wasn’t that experienced, because I hadn’t been away from my family for that long to explore my sexuality, but I liked giving blow jobs. I thought to myself that I could do this. I could just pretend it was someone else, and I could do it. He held my head and guided me, but he wasn’t rough. He moaned and called me pet names, and he told me to swallow him, and when he was done, he kissed the top of my head and left the room.”

Aiden was breathing heavily, and tears were leaking from his eyes. His hand was fisted in my fur, and I welcomed the little tug of pain. It kept me grounded. Kept me from howling in anger. I licked his arm again, and his hand loosened.

“I threw up. When he left, I threw up,” Aiden admitted. “And then that became the new norm, and I didn’t throw up anymore after the first few times.”

“It’s ok, Aiden,” Helene said softly.

“He tried to have sex with me once. I couldn’t stop crying. I was bent over the bed, my pants around my ankles, and I couldn’t stop crying. He couldn’t stay hard. I think the fact that I couldn’t pretend… he didn’t like that. He was angry. He hurt me, and then he left. He didn’t come back or feed me for days, and I kind of wondered if he’d ever come back or if I was going to die of starvation. By that point it had been months in that room, and I was thinking maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

“But he did come back. He apologized for our ‘fight’ and waited for me to apologize too. He made me give him a blowjob, and then he left. He brought up sex again a week or two later and asked me if I ever enjoyed penetrative sex with anyone. I told him no. I couldn’t imagine… I just couldn’t. He seemed disappointed, but he told me that was ok.”

Aiden sniffed. “He was distant after that, and sometimes I thought… I thought about it, you know? I thought about trying to approach him for sex. Trying to treat it like a hook up and just go for it. I’d never gotten that far, but surely I could just pretend and watch tv. Treat it like a root canal or something, you know? But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

I was rumbling softly against Aiden pretty steadily now. I was fighting off anger and the urge to turn into my hellhound, but I focused instead on caring for my mate. He didn’t need anger right now. He needed me to just be here and be calm. It was hard as fuck, but I could do it.

Helene nodded at me, got up and handed Aiden some tissues, then sat down and spoke. “That’s ok, Aiden. Sometimes we can do a lot of things to survive, but we have to survive mentally, too. If there was something you couldn’t bring yourself to do, that’s ok. Any reaction in such an extreme situation is ok.”

“He decided we should ‘break up’ not too long after that. He told me he had found someone else, and that we could still be friends and I could live with him until his new boyfriend was ready to move in.”

Helene hummed and nodded.

“I felt relieved,” Aiden admitted. “I didn’t have to be his ‘boyfriend’ anymore, and I didn’t have to do the things that went along with that. I knew he was probably going to kill me, and I… I don’t know, I kind of accepted it.

“But I also felt guilty, because I didn’t want him to kidnap someone else. I thought a lot about escaping, but he was more cautious than ever before, and he came to see me very little and didn’t stay long, just dropped off supplies. I was alone a lot at the end,” Aiden said. “I know that’s why I crave human touch and companionship so much.”

“And we have talked about how that is perfectly ok,” Helene reassured him.

Aiden took a moment to blow his nose, and then he said angrily, “I feel like I shouldn’t be this damaged. He never really raped me, you know?”

Helene cut him off. “What he did was rape, Aiden. He forcibly, against your will, violated and penetrated you, and it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t done anally. He held you hostage, abused you, tried to brainwash you, and repeatedly raped you,” Helene said. “Do not underestimate what you survived. Do not minimize your trauma because something didn’t happen.”

She paused, taking a moment to collect herself, because I could tell it all made her angry, too. More softly, she added, “That also doesn’t mean that your trauma will control your future. You went through something horrific, and you came out the other side of it. Aiden, I am so proud of you for that. I am in awe of your strength every day.”

Aiden was quietly crying, but he nodded his head. She gave him a moment to collect himself, and he rubbed my fur as he calmed down.

Helene gave him time, then she continued, “It’s ok to be scared of sex and to be scared of men. Being scared and distrustful is a natural defense mechanism, but it is something you can work through. If you’re ready, let’s circle back to what you were upset about when you came in today.”

Aiden cleared his throat awkwardly, and his hands released my fur.

Helene looked at me and said, “Perhaps it’s time for your emotional support dog to head back into the waiting room.”

I grumbled a bit as I got up. Helene got up and opened the door, and I slowly walked toward it, looking back to give Aiden a bit of a pleading look. I would much rather stay with him. Helene just laughed at me and said, “Scoot out, Fluffy. He’ll be done soon.” As I walked by, she whispered, “Good job in there,” and then the door was shutting behind me.

I paced, finally letting the anger out. I may have taken on my hellhound form for a few moments, but I was careful not to set anything on fire. I wasn’t an out of control pup, after all.

My Aiden was so brave. He had survived horrors, and I know he had downplayed the physical and mental abuse because that wasn’t the focus of this session. He didn’t even understand the depths of his bravery.

I was finally calm enough to pay attention again to their conversation inside, and I sat down, going back to my dog form just in case the next patient walked in.

“So you’ve explained that you know and trust this man, and all the reasons why you trust him, but this morning you felt panic in his presence? What was different about this morning?” Helene asked.

“Well,” Aiden started, pausing. “Well, before this morning, he was a dog. Then this morning when I woke up, he was a half-naked attractive guy.”

“I see,” Helene said. “So you didn’t see him in a sexual manner before this, but this morning he stopped being a ‘dog’ and became an attractive man.”

I could practically hear the air quotes around the word dog, and I rolled my eyes. Helene knew perfectly well that Aiden was talking about me, I was sure of it, but if she wanted to play along, that was fine.

“Yes, exactly,” Aiden answered, and I could hear the relief in his voice at her explanation. “He was half naked and in my bed, and I… it literally made me feel a little sick.”

“I see,” said Helene.

“And now I feel like he’s not safe, and I can’t look at him like that,” Aiden said mournfully, and I growled a little at the thought, but Helene coughed loudly, and I stopped. Oops.

“Is he the same as he was before? Aside from your perception of him, of course,” Helene asked.

“Umm, well, I guess so,” Aiden admitted.

“Does he exhibit the same traits, does he act the same way, and does he treat you the same?” she asked.

“Well, yeah,” Aiden admitted.

“So you see him in a new light, but the fact is, he hasn’t actually changed at all. You just see something different you haven’t seen before,” she told him.

“I mean, I guess so,” Aiden admitted.

“So he hasn’t changed, Aiden. Not really. Your perception and your feelings changed. What do you feel toward him?” she asked.

Aiden paused, breathing deeply. “He’s kind, and he’s patient, and he’s always been there for me, and he’s now an attractive man, and I haven’t thought about anyone in that way since before everything happened. They’ve all been like brothers to me.”

“But this man doesn’t feel like a brother?” Helene asked.

Aiden blew out a breath. “Nope. Definitely not a brother.”

“Did he make advances toward you, Aiden?” she asked.

“No! He wouldn’t… he knows…” Aiden started.

“I see. So you trust him enough to trust that he wouldn’t make you uncomfortable. So it’s yourself that you don’t trust?” she asked.

Ouch. She went for the soft spots.

Aiden grumbled. He obviously agreed.

“If he won’t push you, and you don’t think he’ll ask you to do anything, why are you afraid of your feelings? What are you afraid will happen?” she asked.

“I don’t…” Aiden started, but she cut him off.

“I know it’s hard, but really think about it. If things went in a relationship direction, what would scare you about that?” she asked.

“I don’t think I can sexually satisfy anyone, ever. I think I’m too messed up, and I’ll be too in my head during sex, and I can’t imagine someone even trying to have sex of any type with me,” Aiden said softly.

“Would you like to have sex again?” Helene asked.

“Yes,” Aiden answered immediately. “I mean, someday, yes, I would. I used to really enjoy doing things with partners. I don’t want to lose that forever. I just can’t imagine anyone dealing with me. I can’t imagine dealing with myself. I’m a mess. I felt nauseous because I wanted to touch a naked guy. I’ll probably throw up after sex.”

I growled again, and I heard another cough in warning. Still, I couldn’t help the low rumble that was coming out of me. If Aiden never wanted to have sex, that was perfectly fine. If all he ever wanted to do was cuddle like last night, I would be happy.

He was my mate. I would take care of him. I would protect him, even from myself. I wanted to barge through the door and reassure him that he never needed to do anything he didn’t want to.

“Aiden,” Helene said softly, “give yourself some grace. Maybe spending more time with him as an attractive man as opposed to just a friend will help you?”

“I don’t know,” Aiden admitted. “Maybe.”

Helene continued. “Yes, it may be hard, and it may be a process, but all these feelings do not mean you cannot have a sexually fulfilling life.”

“I know that,” Aiden admitted. “I still… I can’t lose him, Helene. I can’t. He’s a part of my routine. He makes me feel safe. He’s important to me, and I can’t lose him because I’m a fucking mess.”

“Has he indicated that you would lose him?” she asked.

Aiden just scoffed, and I could sense his frustration. He said, “We’re out of time.”

Helene sighed. “Please give yourself grace, and maybe spend more time with this attractive man, ok?”

She cleared her throat meaningfully, and I had the idea that she was talking to me somehow. But what was I supposed to do?

“Perhaps I’ll even meet him in my office someday,” she added.

Ahhh. Was I supposed to be the attractive man now? I wasn’t sure how that would work being naked and all, because people usually cared about that stuff. Then I remembered the clothes on the back chair. I quickly changed forms and pulled on the pants and t-shirt. No shoes, but barefoot was better anyway.

Helene was making small talk about their next appointment, and I stood well away from the door so I wasn’t too close for when it opened, because I could hear their voices just on the other side of it now.

When she did open the door, she winked at me before ushering Aiden out, closing the door behind him. He looked at the shut door in confusion for a moment, and then he turned and saw me, and he flushed a pretty pink color.

“Ah. Hi,” he mumbled.

I grunted in response, then turned toward the door, then turned back to look at him, tilting my head. Was he coming with me or what?

I’m not sure what I did, but he breathed out a laugh, and he gestured me forward.

“Lead the way, Fluffy,” he said.

Always Fluffy for our Aiden , my hellhound rumbled, and I agreed. He had given me that name, and no matter what form I was in, I would always be his Fluffy.