Flash tale - "Secure"

Ah, let's just read it now 😊

There were ten sessions. After each one, Dan returned home, and his wife asked, “How’d it go?”

Each time, Dan replied, “Fine.” He didn’t say anything more. And while Sheila was relieved that he hadn’t grown bored or frustrated with the sessions, she did grow more and more curious about what took place. But he wasn’t worried. The therapist had been very clear that Sheila had nothing to worry about.

It was kind of therapy, to help Dan overcome his anxiety about starting a family. The biggest obstacle in their young marriage, Dan’s fear of being a father, his insecurities around not being good enough. The therapist Sheila found online promised on her website to take away the fear, to provide absolute security.

Can therapy really do that? When Shelia tried to talk Dan out of his fears in the past, the conversation just went around in circles, getting nowhere but more anxiety.

Once Dan had agreed to meet with the therapist, she had called Sheila and told how well it would go. In fact, after each of Dan’s sessions, the therapist would call Sheila, and the funny thing was, those conversations would end with Sheila still having no idea about the therapy or Dan’s progress. But she remembered not to worry. That was clear as a bell.

For the tenth session, Sheila was instructed to come with Dan, so that she could celebrate his progress afterwards.

She sat in the waiting room, which she was mildly surprised to find had toys and games for small children and was even decorated as if the therapists patients were little kids. That seemed strange to Shelia, until she remembered that she should worry. So she didn’t. She continued to sit in the primary-coloured room, looking around at the stuffed toys and building blocks, and felt absolutely calm. Serene. There was nothing to worry about. She was here to celebrate Dan’s progress. He wouldn’t need any more sessions, and wasn’t that a relief? Wasn’t that just the best feeling? Sheila nodded at the words the therapist had told her on the phone. She nodded her head, as if the conversation was happening right then.

Sheila smiled. She was ready to celebrate.

Celebrate what?

Dan’s progress. No more fears. No more insecurity.

Her smile broadened, and then the door to the therapist’s office opened.

Dan walked out. Well, he toddled. It was a good thing therapist was holding his hand.

Sheila looked at her husband, naked except for a pair of brightly decorated briefs. She gazed at him, because it was Dan, but there was something so different about him. Not just the outfit, or lack of one. It was his expression. It was his smile – his usual tight-lipped expression replaced by an open-mouthed grin.

Dan gave his wife a clumsy wave. “All done!” he exclaimed, his diction slurred as if he had been sedated. And then another surprise. He ran over to her. “All done, Mummy!”

Mummy. The name made Sheila feel dizzy, and her own mouth fell open in giddy confusion.

Sheila stood, her hands useless by her side. She wouldn’t worry, but she was confused. Was this what she wanted? She looked Dan up and down and she looked deep into his eyes. The spark of adult intelligence had gone, replaced by something dull but sweet. Because wasn’t this what Shelia wanted? A sweet little boy to take care of? For her husband to be reduced to helpless toddlerhood?

Wasn’t it?

She closed her mouth, aware that she must look as dim as her husband, and then she opened it again, question, to protest. She didn’t worry, but at the same time, this wasn’t right. She wanted Dan to be a father, and this seemed like the opposite.

“Danny’s all finished and ready to go home,” the therapist said. She reached up and patted the man’s head. How strange it looked, for the therapist to treat Sheila’s husband that way, a man a good foot taller, a grown man, until Sheila looked at Dan’s infantile underwear, until she looked back at his smile and his eyes.

“He did so well,” said the therapist. Her smile looked a little self-satisfied, and her tone was utterly condescending when she turned to Dan and said, “You watched your special light show, didn’t you.”

The man nodded enthusiastically. He grinned at Sheila and repeats the news in his own way. “Watched pretty lights, Mummy!” Wah piddy lie, mummy!

Because you’re such a good boy,” the therapist said in a sing-song way, her voice oozing with sweetness.

It sounds as though she’s talking to a two-year-old, Sheila thought. And was that right?

“I want…” Sheila began. She frowned. “I think…” She looked at her husband. There wasn’t a trace of fear or anxiety in his face. “But I- “

“Danny’s ready to go home now, Mummy,” said the therapist. Her tone changed when she spoke to Sheila, but there was still something patronizing there. As if Sheila was a little forgetful, somewhat scatter-brained.

Sheila looks at the man that has begun to suck on his fingers and she shakes her head, trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind. She feels as though she’s been days without sleep, she feels as tough she’s near the end of an exhausting journey. But there was something she had to remember. Something to help this all make sense.

“I told Danny that he’d get a lovely cuddle,” the therapist said, catching up with her patient. She nodded at Sheila. “A special cuddle from Mummy.”

Mummy. Sheila nodded her head, obedient, slipping easily into her new role. After the phone calls. And she remembered now, after the special videos on her phone. The ones she didn’t worry about. The ones that made everything so simple.

Sheila cuddled Dan and patted his bottom. Such thick underwear. It had to be for accidents, it could only be for messes. She would look after her special little boy. She would keep him safe and secure. He would be helpless without her, and this knowledge gave Sheila a wonderful thrill. She was a mummy, and she loved her Danny.

“Goh painth, muh-mee!” blurted Dan, pointing to the front of his training pants.

Shelia blinked, looked down at Dan’s crotch. She nodded, and found how easy it was, how lovely, to adopt a special tone when she said sweetly, “Yes, you do! You’ve got airplanes on your special undies. Don’t you look lovely!” She patted her former husband’s crotch playfully. “Don’t you go flying off now, you stay where Mummy can see you.”

And then she cuddled him again, and smiled over Dan’s shoulder, beaming at the therapist. “Oh,” Sheila whispers, her voice rich with satisfaction. “He’s perfect.”

The therapist smiled back. “And he’s all yours.”

THE END

"Dan's wife insists that hypnotherapy will solve his insecurities about having kids - but each session makes him feel younger and younger..." – Alexander