Mommy Therapist: Family Counseling

.: DISCLAIMER(S): Sexually active character in this story are 18 or older. Counseling interventions shown here are fictionalized. Drug-use features prominently. If drug-use clashes with your values or beliefs, then you have been respectfully warned. Thank you for understanding. Everyone still reading: fuck yes, and enjoy. :.

Chapter 1

During cross country season, Bryce and I ran.

Here's how practices went. First, our whole team did a little jog around the track. Then, we broke into pairs and stretched. Afterward, the team just kind of discombobulated, either regathering into a big, militant band of dorks or, like Bryce and I, fracturing into little triads and dyads.

Coach never expected us to stay at the track, or even on campus. So, after Bryce and I would depart, we'd run one giant loop around a big, open, walking park a couple blocks away, and then weave the long way home through the neighborhood. Our suburb was vast and old and private. There were massive lawns with giant trees and deep hedges through which we'd learned to trespass sight unseen.

We were also adorable, I might add. We matched in our regulation running outfits. This isn't terribly important to the story, reader, but if you had seen it you'd have remarked on it, too.

Cross country was the most extroverted thing I let myself do. It was also the only sport Mom let me do, I guess because it kept me from killing myself; but likely also because Bryce was interested in it (running kept him in shape during other sports' off-seasons). Bryce could do whatever he wanted; I could do cross country. Anything else might have cut into my therapy work. And God forbid I ever stopped being a twice-weekly victim of sexual and emotional abuse under Mom's watch.

Even cutting through yards, the properties were vast enough and the route we carved meandering enough that it would take us a little over an hour to get home. Whenever we finally got through the door, we were tired, we were smelly, and we were murderously thirsty.

So, when one day we came home to a cold dewy pitcher of lemonade on the counter, what else could we do? Granted, it was painfully sour. Our bodies needed water, not lemon juice. But if our bodies didn't want it, they didn't say complain. I finished my last glass before Bryce finished his. I watched him gulp his down. After that, he belched. I belched. The lemony gas was artificially sweet, cold, lovely.

Our younger sister Lily was sipping her own glass at the kitchen table. She peered over her shoulder at us and watched us congratulate ourselves on our burps. She made sure we saw that she was revolted.

Then Bryce and I proceeded wordlessly, on autopilot, up to our room. We kicked off our suffocating, grass-stained shoes and undressed over the AC vent beside our laundry hamper. Bryce's sweat-damp, smelly, naked body was looking better than mine. I idly noticed that we had developed matching farmer's tans. And if you want me to tell you about his dick, well, it looked like my brother's dick. Shaved, veiny, sweaty, red, whatever. The state of the man's dick directly after a run was nothing to ogle, folks. It needed a shower.

And it got one. I sat on the toilet dreading my impending therapy session while Bryce took his shower, then he sat on the toilet texting his girlfriend while I took mine. We toweled ourselves off, combed our hair, scrutinized our faces for pimples, all without saying much of anything. Then we hung up our towels and walked naked back into our bedroom.

A startled sound just outside our gaping bedroom door scared the fucking bejeezus out of me. Our intruder scurried away, out of sight, into the hallway. Bryce laughed.

"Maybe knock next time," he chortled. My twin sauntered across our bedroom carpet to the dresser and hopped into some briefs. He threw me a pair, too. Once we'd both safely stowed our junk, he went back to the open door and leaned out. "Hey Sis. You going to be okay?"

Lily stayed out in the hallway, so I couldn't tell how she answered.

Oh right, shit. Let me explain. Our little sister Lily had had selective mutism since she was a kid. Do you know what that is? It's kind of what it sounds like. She was, for all intents and purposes, mute. No talking, not ever. But with one exception: Mom. Carefully, quietly, and only with Mom. And of course, Mom never told us what she said. Classic Mom.

I hadn't heard my little sister's voice, her actual (non-coughing, non-yawning, non-sneezing) voice, since she was my little sister. Let's see: just last week she turned 18, so I guess that made it—holy shit—a decade? Wild. I couldn't even remember how she used to sound, much less imagine how she might sound today. I could only sort of remember how the timbre of it used to make me feel: annoyed, self-centered, protective. Does that make sense?

Anyhow, you got used to Lily's schtick. She still managed to say a lot. Her face and hands and body spoke for her.

Bryce stepped back into the room and welcomed her to follow. Lily entered the doorframe but came no further. Bryce stood aside as if to make way, but she leaned against the jamb and gazed coolly across the threshold at him. He towered over her, seemingly savoring being her mostly naked rakishly good-looking brother, daring her to be grossed out. Barefoot and all of five feet, she looked like a particularly little sister today. And for some reason, she had changed clothes.

She was wearing a new summer dress. It was lilac and simple and cute. It stretched across her modest chest, hung loose on her shoulders, and flared to just above her knee.

The next observation was one I made very privately and discreetly. Backlit by the sunny hallway, Lily's dress was slightly see-through; and so, leaned to one side with her legs apart and crossed at the ankle, it was possible to make out the entire slender shape of our sister's bottom half. Spunky butt, lean legs, glowing thigh gap. A couple of pendant necklaces of different lengths hung between her clavicles and just above her cleavage. These she fiddled with.

Odd, I know, to notice all this. But I guess we were all teens. Boobs and butts and stuff, you know. My hormone addled gaze didn't always mind, I guess, whose body it happened to be appreciating.

Lily pointed downstairs, then to her wrist, and then at the three of us. Time for our session with Mom, she meant.

I sighed the sigh I always sighed. I scrounged in the closet for a decent outfit. Mom required that her clients dress "smart casual." I had to look put-together. I threw on some good snug pants and a button-down shirt. I checked my hair in the closet mirror. And then at last I processed the baffling, unprecedented, incomprehensible thing my sister had just gesticulated to Bryce and me.

Time for: our session? "Our" who?

I glanced at Bryce. Bryce peered down at Lily. Lily stared up at Bryce. Bryce looked back at me. Lily rolled her eyes at the both of us, and shrugged off toward Mom's office. As she started to leave, she gave Bryce's mostly naked body one last judgmental look.

Maybe put some clothes on first.

Our sister left us stupefied. We gaped at the empty doorway. I know what I was thinking, but I have no idea what Bryce was thinking. She had disrupted our twin-sync. We could hear her bare feet padding down the hardwood stairs, and across the tiled foyer. They sounded nice.

Shit, was I thinking about my sister's body again? Just because her feet were dainty and cute, and just because she was kind of fastidious about cleanliness, so what? Sister's feet, schmister's feet. They were just feet. Sexy, bare, slightly sweaty feet that sort of smooched the tile as they stepped.

Bryce adjusted his junk in his underwear. Twin-sync reestablished.

But okay wait. We were all three going to counseling together. This was an incalculable predicament for me. Mom's mistreatment of me was either (a) a secret, or it was (b) not. Right? We had all somehow acclimated to living around it. Nothing ever, ever, was said by any family member about my twice weekly sessions with Mom, except to perhaps acknowledge that these sessions did in fact occur, and then only if it was directly relevant to the conversation at hand. Even then, such potentially dangerously related conversations everyone determinedly avoided. But so, it was an open secret. Right? Wasn't it?

So now today, all of a sudden, right now, I was going to enter a therapy session with Mom and my siblings. Secret or not, this was definitely fucking with the usual boundaries. What could this mean? What could Mom possibly be plotting? Surely she was not about to administer a harmless, rape-free therapy session? I could scarcely dare to imagine it.

Likelier, I figured, was that Mom had decided the time had come at last to rape me in front of Lily and Bryce, and to do away with all the pussyfooting and subterfuge. I sighed at the sheer plausibility. I'd had the nightmare who knows how many times: Here, brother, here sister, watch Mommy desecrate me for your viewing pleasure. You always knew it was happening. No, no, don't try to help. That will just make it worse.

One question had tortured me eternally: why had Mom chosen me as her sole victim? Bryce was the studlier twin, his charisma so much more attractive. Surely she could have gotten into his head just as she had mine, broken him down, gotten under his skin, etc. He was dumber than me, more gullible, and so offered an easier challenge. Surely Bryce would have been the logical child to start with?

Or if my intelligence was what drew her to me, then why did she pass over Lily? Her baby girl was positively cunning. She had gone ten years without speaking and still had straight A's. Plus, I mean, imagine a rape victim that doesn't talk! What a bonus! Was Mom simply not into girls? I could hardly believe that a monster like Mom even had sexual preferences. And my brain straight-up refused to compute that she sexually preferred me.

Yet there it was. Mom had raped me, and only me, twice a week, every week, for months on end. I could not comprehend it. In fact, shit, maybe that was the reason? That I was uncomprehending?

But then a crazy idea floated into my imagination, and my heart thrummed: what if, actually, she had decided to rape all three of us today?

Please forgive me if this thought not only failed to disturb me, but filled me with clandestine hope. Not that I wanted to see my brother or sister subjected to the cruel perversions of our mother. But I badly, miserably wished to stop being so alone with Mom.

Chapter 2

When I got to the door of Mom's office, I could tell that I had interrupted whatever conversation she and Lily had been having. My sister squinted at me. I shrugged. I was too distracted by the churning of my insides to interpret nonverbals right now.

I entered and took a spot the only place I could, on the other end of the loveseat. There wasn't much space left between my sister's butt and mine. Bryce's muscly ass would be a snug fit.

"How was practice today?" Mom asked casually, checking her watch.

"Fine," I said. I was feeling sort of hot all of a sudden.

Mom looked at me with just the slightest hint of something in her gaze.

"Are you curious about what's going on here today?" she asked, smiling cattily. She crossed one tightly trousered leg over the other, her bare foot's rosy toes freshly painted white. She twiddled two of them at me. She watched me watch her do this.

"Family therapy?" I asked cautiously, daring to hope. I could feel sweat starting to form on my brow.

Mom shrugged playfully, enjoying my suspense.

Lily watched our back-and-forth, carefully declining to bring attention to herself.

"Was Bryce on his way?" Mom asked, bending her head to the side and cracking her neck.

"He just needed to get dressed," I reported.

"Hm," she answered. She bent her head the other way, and popped that side too.

It was one minute past the hour. If I ever showed up late like this, hooo doggy. Just the once and never again! Erections bled a lot when they bled, did you know?

Mom took a deep, vaguely consternated breath. I gave her what may accidentally have been a knowing look.

Just then we could all hear Bryce come thwomping down the stairs in the foyer, half-jogging, and humming to himself.

"Hey gang," he sang as he gave the office door a quick rap-a-tap and strolled in.

"Shut the door," Mom reminded him.

Bryce did a funny little backwards hop and grabbed the door. I wondered if Mom had locked the knob ahead of time, like she always did with me. It clicked shut. Bryce tipped an invisible hat to Mom.

"Thank you. Now come and sit. You're late."

"Uhh, where exactly do I go?" My brother sounded worried that he was about to have to squeeze onto the loveseat between his brother and sister for the full length of the session. Secretly I knew he loved this idea. He adored Lily and me.

"Wherever you please," Mom smiled.

Bryce put on an unconvincing show of distaste. But then he plopped himself down between us, not caring how big his ass was relative to ours. He threw his arms around Lily and me and gave us both big brotherly headlock kisses on top of our scalps. I was used to it. Lily poked him hard in the gut. So Bryce stuffed her face into his armpit. Lily went for his ribs. Bryce barked, and grabbed her by the wrist. With her free hand she tore at his ear. Bryce swore and rocked her whole body around by the neck.

Mom was doing a terrific job of containing her fury.

She was furious, right? Again, if I were to act even half as disrespectful as my siblings were acting right now, Mom would make me do terrible, terrible things for the duration of that session, and probably the next few sessions, too.

"Feeling chummy today?" Mom giggled at Bryce. Uh-oh. She was most definitely furious.

"Guys," I laughed uncomfortably. I put a serious hand on Bryce's thigh.

Bryce released Lily's mussed, frizzy, beet-red head. She snorted in loathing, readjusted her dress's straps, and fussed with her hair as Bryce gingerly felt at his ear.

Oddly, I found myself jealous that Lily was sitting next to Bryce and not me. I had noticed when she fixed her straps that she wasn't wearing a bra. The fabric of her dress looked soft and stretchy. Her warm little butt looked nice to be squeezed up next to. Wait. What had gotten into me?

"Alright, then," Mom began by clearing her throat. "Let's talk about the lemonade you all drank this afternoon."

Chapter 3

"Methylenedioxymethamphetamine," Mom repeated carefully.

We sat in heady disbelief. The woman had drugged us. I knew I ought to be upset, but my stomach was taut with excitement. Probably thanks to the metha-...loxy-...phetamine? I was also starting to feel very hot sandwiched up next to my scorching brother.

Mom waited calmly as we processed the news. I didn't exactly know what I should be feeling. I wasn't familiar with the drug she had said. I was definitely feeling something. It was either the drugs or the anticipation, or both.

Lily had gone pale. She was small. The drugs had probably already gotten to her pretty hard. The attentive knit that usually notched her brow had melted away, retreated in drug-addled bewilderment. She grabbed a throw pillow, brought her knees up and hugged them to her, then curled into a tight, pillow-stuffed ball beside Bryce on the loveseat.

"Amphetamine?" Bryce asked stupidly. "You gave us meth?"

In his defense, there wasn't much other way to ask Mom things but stupidly once she got like this. This was a side of Mom Bryce hadn't met. This was the side that knew how to put you in a stupid-feeling box and keep you there until she was done with you. To be fair, I could not recall Mom ever having drugged me (unless you counted her perfume); so, in a way, this was new for both of us.

"I did not give you meth," Mom frowned. "I gave you ecstasy."

"What's the fucking difference?!" Bryce spat.

Mom rolled her eyes. "Well, for starters, meth is dangerous. I would never endanger my children."

"You gave us drugs without telling us, Mom. How is that not endangering us?"

"Second of all, meth is a psychostimulant. Ecstasy is an empathogen. Psychostimulants raise your brain's processing speed. Empathogens raise your capacity for compassion and affection."

Bryce stood up off the couch and stomped across no man's land toward Mom. He stuck an angry finger in her face and struggled through what he said next.

"You—you did wrong. You did a crime. We're your kids."

Mom reached up and gently wrapped her fist around Bryce's finger. She held his digit there in her warm, motherly grip, until his rage drained away. Lily and I stared on, unblinking.

"MDMA-assisted therapy is not a crime," Mom explained calmly. "I am certified to practice its use in a carefully moderated setting. And I can think of no safer space than our home, nor a more trustworthy moderator than your mother. Okay sweetie?" She squeezed his finger affectionately. "So relax. You are safe." She licked her lip, brought his finger to her mouth, and gave it a kiss on the tip. "Now go sit back down."

Bryce withdrew his finger. He gazed at it in disbelief, as though it had somehow betrayed him. But he did not rebut Mom. He turned around red-cheeked and, without looking at Lily or me, retook his spot between us. When he sat back down, he felt lighter, emptier, his muscled frame spent of whatever had propelled it from the sofa just moments before.

"Now, how are you each feeling?"

We didn't respond.

"Jake, let's start with you."

"Oh. I guess I'm feeling..." I had to check in with myself. I felt like being honest. How was I feeling?

Here were some facts. I was sweating. I was thirsty. I kept looking at my sister's feet. My stomach was in knots, but the knots felt good somehow?

My heart, too, was beating a mile a minute, but this wasn't out of felt like worry or fear. Each little beat fluttered inside my chest like a hummingbird wing in timelapse. It was profoundly calming.

And meanwhile, my head felt light. My head felt light. There was a feelable, heady element to the daylight burning in through the windows and radiating off the hardwood, a tang to the twinkles on the burnished metal features around Mom's office, a sweet saltiness in the sheen of my brother's leg hair.

"I feel ... light-headed," I answered chipperly. I was beaming. My Mom raised one eyebrow at my mismatch of content to delivery, then nodded her approval.

"And Lily, sweetie, you doing okay?"

Lily didn't move.

"Does it feel good to be all balled up like that?"

Lily's toes curled. She rubbed one foot with the other and dug her heels into her butt. The skirt of her dress had ridden up, but she didn't seem to care how much of her was showing. We could see the tan lengths of her thighs, how they paled softly toward her butt, and down there in the shadows, her panties' mint green cotton gusset straining, soft and slim, against her—

Ahem.

Something in my smart casual pants stirred.

Lily peeked out from behind her pillow and nodded almost imperceptibly to Mom.

Mom smiled back.

"Good girl," she said. "Bryce, darling?"

Bryce sat quiet. The dumb idiot couldn't wrap his head around what was going on. I wondered if he wondered if the sexual abuser in the house that he'd been so politely ignoring was now coming for him, too. All of a sudden, I almost wanted to laugh. In fact, I did. Mom shot me a look. I quieted. She looked gently back to Bryce.