Fun and Games

(This story has a language warning, as well as mental health and violence)

“You know what my daddy used to tell me?” Clara asked the pretty psychologist, Dr. Jayne Bennet, sitting across the table from her, in a room that could be best described as boring. White walls, a window that was so high up you couldn’t even look out of it, fluorescent lighting, white tile floors, and the table was metal, and the chairs and table were bolted to the floor to avoid the inevitable. 

It was their second meeting, and Clara liked Dr. Bennet, probably too much, and not just because she was pretty. She liked her because Dr. Bennet actually paid attention to her when she was talking. She listened, and Clara could tell by watching the small changes in Dr. Bennet’s expressions - a narrowing of the eyes here, a slight curl of her full lips there, a slight head cock to the left. 

Dr. Bennet smoothed her dark blonde ponytail and did that endearing head cock, “Tell me, Clara, what did your father tell you.” 

Clara loved Dr. Bennet’s voice. It was like honey over her amped up nerves. The pills the  nurses tried to give her never did much to ease her racing brain. She let the warm honey feeling envelope her before answering. “My daddy used to tell me, ‘it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.’” Clara ruffled her cropped and shaggy black hair as she grinned at Dr. Bennet. 

Dr. Bennet raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and Clara licked her lips subconsciously. She wondered what it would be like to kiss Dr. Bennet. She could bet that Dr. Bennet’s eyebrow would raise just like that if she kissed her. 

But, there was no kissing. Just another question. “And that’s what you did, then. You poked her eyes out of her head. So the fun and games were done?” 

Clara looked down at her hands. Black work tattoos ran from her chest, down both arms and to her hands, all flowers and skulls. Her hands, with opposing skulls tattooed on them, were on the table and just a few inches from Dr. Bennet’s hands. She looked at how pale and unmarked Dr. Bennet’s flesh was in compared to her own. 

“Clara?” Dr. Bennet asked, prompting her to stop daydreaming. 

“Yeah. Sorry. She was looking at another woman. She was talking to her on Instagram. And yeah. I didn’t want her to see anyone but me. So I stabbed her eyeballs and took them out.” 

Dr. Bennet didn’t react. Not the way anyone else has. Most people were revulsed when she spoke of what she had done. And this wasn’t the first time she’d acted out in violence against one of her girlfriends when they had betrayed her- because they always betrayed her- everyone always betrayed her. And this isn’t the first time she’d ended up in the hospital under lock in key for an extended stay. Instead of reacting with aversion, Dr. Bennet looked serene. Her green eyes were unreadable. 

Clara kept going. “She and I had been doing our thing for like five months. We had so much fun. She told me she was falling in love with me. We were inseparable. There was this one time, she and I were shoplifting from Target, and the security guard saw us. And we just ran. We had a ton of shit, too. She had a whole ass Lego set, and I had some random kitchen appliance. And we just took off carrying our shit. And that fat bastard couldn’t catch us. And we were so out of breath. But we were laughing through it.” 

“What else did you do together?” Still no reaction, but definitely looking, watching, paying attention. 

Clara’s lip curled into a smile. It was her turn to raise an eyebrow at Dr. Bennet. Her hands slipped a little closer to Dr. Bennet’s across the table. Dr. Bennet didn’t move hers away. She stayed still. It was like sitting across the table from a statue of The Blessed Virgin or some other Saint Clara’s mom had forced her to learn about when she was a child. “We had the most incredible sex. She was fire in the bedroom. And that’s what we did after that night at Target. We ran and ran, and went back to my place, dropped our shit and I stripped her the moment the door shut behind us.” 

Clara saw it then, the hitch of Dr. Bennet’s breath. The lick of her lip. She knew that reaction. 

“Can we play a game?” Clara asked before Dr. Bennet could ask a question. 

“No. I’m not here for games.” Dr. Bennet was making eye contact. 

Clara’s hands inched to where they were less than a hair away from Dr. Bennet’s.

“I’m bored and I want to play a game.”

“What game would you like to play?” Dr. Bennet asked. 

“Truth or Dare.”

“We can’t play that. And I would be breaking the rules if we did. I’m here to assess you for your trial.”

“What can we play?” Clara’s fingers brushed against Dr. Bennet’s. Dr. Bennet didn’t move, just kept her eyes on Clara. 

Neither of them flinched. Neither of them looked away. It was like a game of chicken, and Clara loved the rush of it. She would not be the first to look away. 

“Maybe next time, I can bring a card game. It’s one with pictures.” 

“That’s not a game. It’s one of your assessments. I’ve ‘played’ that with other doctors. I like real games. Do you like games?” 

“Sometimes. A card game or a board game can be fun.” 

“What about Never Have I Ever? You wanna play Never Have I Ever?” Clara took Dr. Bennet’s left hand in both of hers. Dr. Bennet’s hand was silky soft and warm in between hers, and she felt a jolt of electricity as the other woman didn’t pull away, but instead, let Clara manipulate her arm and hand. Clara posted it up. “You hold your hand up like this. I will say ‘never have I ever done a deed’, and if you did it, you put your finger down, if you didn’t, you keep your fingers up.”

Dr. Bennet didn’t resist, she kept her hand up. “Okay, put yours up then.” 

Clara put her hand up across from Dr. Bennet and grinned at her. “Never have I ever kissed another woman.” 

Dr. Bennet, to Clara’s delight and surprise, put her thumb in. 

“Really?” Clara asked. “A lot? Or just like some random, drunken experiment in college?” 

Dr. Bennet didn’t smile or react. Her saint-like demeanor not faltering. “Never have I ever apologized for hurting someone.”

Clara kept her fingers all up. “I mean what I say and do. If I hurt someone, it’s because they hurt me first. I just hurt them back harder.” Dr. Bennet still didn’t react. “Never have I ever slept with another woman.” 

Dr. Bennet put her index finger in. 

Clara squealed. She wanted to melt the ice queen across from her. She wanted to see her react, and she had an in. Dr. Bennet had given her the information she needed. Not that she hadn’t had a few “straight” girls in the past. She went to say something but before the words could tumble out, Dr. Bennet cut her off. 

“Never have I ever planned to do something that was wrong.” 

Clara’s fingers stayed up. “I calculate every move I make, right or wrong.” Clara was now calculating how she could get her lips to Dr. Bennet’s. 

Dr. Bennet moved to put her hand down.

“We aren’t done with our game, Doctor.” Clara’s voice was low and a smile teased at her lips. 

“We are out of time, I have to go.” Dr. Bennet began gathering her items. 

Clara’s hands flew across the table grabbing Dr. Bennet’s wrists. “I want to finish our game. Please? I know you have a few more minutes you can give me. I’m so lonely here and I just want to have some fun.” Her eyes were big and pleading with Dr. Bennet. “Please? I need to have some fun.”

“I’m not your cruise director. I’m your court appointed therapist.” Dr. Bennet’s voice was clipped. 

Clara’s hands dragged from Dr. Bennet’s wrist to the tops of her hands. She searched Dr. Bennet’s eyes for a crack in her emotions. “Dr. Bennet, do you ever just want to break free? Be wild? Do something you shouldn’t? Just for the sake of it?”

“None of this is about me.” 

“No. But it is. I know it’s not just me out there. And it feels so good to just do what you want. To say fuck it all and just be in the moment. Haven’t you ever just wanted to strip down and dance naked in the moonlight, just because? Or kiss the person you’re not supposed to? Have a one night stand? Take an item that wasn’t yours, but you wanted? Free will just because you can.” 

Dr. Bennet shook her head and Clara grew frustrated. Her eyes darkened as Dr. Bennet slipped her notebook in her bag. Clara noticed Dr. Bennet’s expensive, Mont Blanc metal fountain pen had slipped unnoticed by the doctor to the floor earlier. Her foot slid and quietly rolled it under her soft soled shoes (and how she missed her heavy black Doc Martens and shoe laces) but these soft soled shoes were useful for making this transfer of the pen’s possession go unnoticed as Dr. Bennet was distracted with her bag. 

As Dr. Bennet stood and adjusted the strap of the bag, Clara slipped her hand down and the pen slipped into her pocket. She had always been able to move with fluidity and stealth. It came in handy when she would slip into stores and pocket merchandise, including expensive rings and necklaces from jewelers she would pawn for cash. 

As Dr. Bennet made it to the door, Clara shouted, “Stop! Please!” 

Dr. Bennet stopped in her tracks and turned to face Clara, who was now inches from her. 

They were nose to nose. 

Suddenly, Clara’s lips were on Dr. Bennet’s. Dr. Bennet’s mouth yielded to Clara. Her tongue and her lips reacted. Clara’s blood was on fire. She pushed Dr. Bennet against the wall, and the doctor’s hands were on Clara’s hips. 

Clara broke the kiss and whispered in Dr. Bennet’s ear, “Doesn’t it feel good to do what you are not supposed to do?” To her delight, the mask of serenity had slipped from Dr. Bennet’s pretty face, exposing a mirrored look of longing. 

Dr. Bennet attempted to unsuccessfully recompose herself and put her mask back in place before she gently pushed Clara back. “I’m sorry. That was wrong. So wrong.” Dr. Bennet had tears in her eyes. 

Clara came back in, pinning Dr. Bennet against the wall. “But it was good. You know it was. You know you enjoyed it. You know your body is on fire, just like mine.” Her other hand wrapped it around Dr. Bennet’s perfect ponytail, pulling her head back, exposing her long neck. 

“Clara, this can’t happen.” Dr. Bennet’s voice was pleading. 

Clara didn’t listen. She licked a trail up the side of Dr. Bennet’s neck and nipped the lobe of her ear. “Why?”

“Because I’m your therapist. It’s wrong.” 

“But you are enjoying yourself. Who gives a fuck about right and wrong if it’s good.” 

Dr. Bennet put her hands on Clara’s shoulders and pushed her back with a little more force this time. “I need to go.” She kept her eyes averted, refusing to look at Clara, which Clara took as a win. 

Clara put her hand in her pocket and slipped the cap from the pen. “Please don’t.”

“I will not be returning.” Dr. Bennet had recomposed herself.  “I have all the information I need for your report.” Dr. Bennet turned and faced the door, taking a step. 

“Dr. Bennet, wait.” 

She paused at the door, and Clara took advantage of the pause, pouncing like a panther she came from behind, jamming the sharp metal tip of the fountain pen into Dr. Bennet’s soft, vulnerable neck. 

A jet of red sprayed out against the white walls and trailed down Dr. Jayne Bennet’s perfect blouse in spurts that matched her ever slowing heartbeat. Clara squealed in delight as Dr. Bennet stumbled backward before crumbling into a beautiful blood soaked pile at her feet. 

Moments later, security guards and nurses were crowding around her as she continued to squeal and laugh, dipping her fingers into the bright red blood and painting swirls and flowers patterns onto the white walls. She ignored the swarm around her as a needle poked into her and her world went black. 

She dreamed of red flowers blooming in blackness.