Screenplay…

Cullen Wesley:

Natasha had called me about fifteen minutes ago to say Ashley was at the hotel. My first ever session with her was looking me right in the face.

I deserved to be called a jerk for taking pleasure in jumping from one woman to the next, but the thrill was the catch. Natasha's time had passed, fuck the fact she had had the abortion last week, Ashley was next. I could see how jealousy had made Natasha so ugly and unappealing, yet I couldn't care a darn.

"Where's she?" I asked poor Natasha and she eyed me wickedly, head-pointing the door to my office. What did I care if she rammed her head against the shelf behind her. "When is my next meeting?"

She eyed me again and this time, I eyed her back, though if looks could kill, her sharp gaze would have flatlined me in one second. "In three hours."

"Okay."

"Fuck her," Natasha muttered as I pushed my office door open. I had to stop and turn with a smile that'd stab her even more.

"Of course I will. Soon. Give it time."

I could almost hear her groan from the frustration of my choice of word, and I laughed. It was never a good thing to know a man didn't keep women and still stick around as a fuck buddy. She should have been smarter than that.

When I finally went inside, the very pretty brown headed lady was standing behind my desk. She was in a nice, yellow dress, and her hair was all duded up like a Christmas tree—studs and silver clips held in strategic place.

The woman looked, to say the least, intentional about my second impression of her. Her sinful curves were described in the provocative dress, although not much was happening with the dress - except its shade and fitting.

"Good"—I glanced over my watch—"morning, dearie."

Staring keenly at me, she responded, "Good afternoon, managing director. It's already a few minutes past twelve."

"My clocks are always a few minutes behind." I intentionally wanted to bug her with that. "And it's because I love to arrive at least five minutes late to meetings," I said and went forward.

She wanted to say something but clamped her lips and rounded the desk, showing me attractive legs elevated by a pair of black stilettos. She was very posh, had a keen sense of style.

"What is your issue with my timing?" I managed to drag my eyes off those legs before I'd have an erection, but it didn't help that she sat and crossed them, demanding for my attention with them.

"That's irresponsible, Mr. director." She pinned me a look of pity. "You run this hotel with such an irresponsible behavior? That's crazy."

"You know what's even crazier?" I started towards the window. "That I could run other things - like your body - here in this office, maybe even"—I pointed it—"on that table."

Her expression was a sea of suspense. She found her voice after a moment and shakily said, "We have two hours, Cullen...Mr. Wesley, I suggest we don't waste it on wishful thinking."

"Sure." I humbly smiled. I swiveled the chair till it was in front of her, though a few meters apart. Then I sat down.

I flung my right leg over the left, shoving the brand of my shoe in her face by showing the sole. I had money, she ought to have been aware. Not every man wore red-bottoms.

I noticed when she gulped and hardened against my chair. Money made people feel uncomfortable, and my own way of showing it made women feel distracted. I liked it that way.

"So what are we doing today?" I asked her, swinging my leg some more.

She was eyeing my shoe when she said, "Getting to know you before concluding if you need me or not."

"I need you," I said quickly, before shame would stop me. "Ask any question and I'll be honest," then I said that to clarify

Stationing her book on her thighs, she romanced her pen thoughtfully. "Are you an only child?"

Was she just going to jump right into that? Family? Wesley had a curse attached to it, talking about it was like evoking it upon yourself.

I chuckled dryly because I couldn't counter her, I'd promised to be honest. "I have a younger brother. But he's in a madhouse."

The look on Ashley's face suggested enough. Well, if my brother was mad, and my father almost brain dead, then I needed her in order not to end up like them. "What about your parents?"

"My mother died a year after Andrew was born, and my father is in a vegetative state."

She let out small air of surprise and clamped her lips, looking right out of my eyes. Then, she cleared her throat. "How did you take your mother's death as a child?"

Spicy way to have asked such a question. I liked how straightforward she was, but I despised what was at the tip of my tongue. "I was three and a half. I didn't understand anything, and even when I could - about five years later - I didn't care."

She frowned. "Really? You just accepted not having a mother as part of life's challenges."

"Exactly."

Silence took over.

I didn't know how many seconds passed, because I was hell bent on staring at her like she was naked.

"And your father? What effect did his mental state have on you?" She continued, and I had to take time to think - if I wanted to give her an honest reply.

"My father always said something that I never understood until his injury. He said we were marred. By what? I didn't know. But when he fell off the stairs, hit his head hard on the slab and doctors confirmed that his cerebrum had stopped functioning, I immediately got the gist." I paused and then whispered, "The Wesleys were marred by brain ordeals, so I accepted his case like it was yet another case."

"How did your mother die?" Ashley asked before I was done. The urgency for more information on that brain ordeal thing, I guessed.

Shifting in my seat, my lips curled down in mock sorrow. "Hypoxic brain injury - which we all know to be a lack of blood supply to Mr. Brain. I heard she drowned, but I know my father killed her."

She moved in her own seat, comfort suddenly a thing of the past. "Why would you think so?" Her voice shook.

I shrugged. "It was easy. I too would have drowned my wife if I knew she was having an affair with the neighbor's husband."

If I could push my father down a flight of fourteen stairs without leaving traces of attempted homicide, then I could successfully drown my wife for fucking our neighbor just one year after giving birth to our son.

###

Ashley Grant:

He just openly admitted to the possibility of murdering someone. My lungs clogged. I should have picked up my things and prepared to leave, but curiosity was smacking me hard. I needed to know more. He engaged me, conjured the dark side of me I had no idea existed.

"So you can kill someone for cheating—"

"I will kill someone for cheating on me, Ashley."

God. I couldn't move.

For the first time since we'd been talking about his family, I saw an emotion flash through him—anger. It was so obvious, I tensed up and looked away.

There I'd been and thought he was being a stalker by offering to pay me huge to sit and talk about nothing but what his bed in that room I'd slept was used for. Here I was, listening to the horrifying words of a marred man that needed nothing but evaluation, and I'd been overcome by an emotion I couldn't describe.

Was I worried, angry, confused, ashamed on his behalf? I didn't know, only that I wanted more of his enigma. I was quite fascinated by the fact he was being so open with me. "Would you like to discuss anything else with me?"

Wrong question, it was too late to change it though. His brows were already raised and he was processing it.

"Tell me something, Ashley." He shifted on his chair and pushed his strong arms forward in a commanding way, those thick veins nearly ripping his skin. "Why do I feel this dire need to dominate every goddamn thing I lay eyes on?"

And he thought to blurt that out to me...wow.

I shrugged, not knowing if he could take my immediate diagnosis. "There's something called NPD.  Narcissistic Personality Disorder in full. I'm sure you must know what this is." He rolled his eyes and drew back a laughter. Sure, no narcissist knew they were one. "That's why you obsess over things, people, women—to the point of killing them if they cheat on you. That's why you dominate every goddamn thing you lay your eyes on, because as a narcissist, the world could crumble for all you care, as long as you're safe, you'll be okay."

"I'm selfish?"

"In other words."

A strained silence took over. I wasn't done telling him everything, but he looked mortified as he flipped his phone from the pouch and started typing. I could guess he was making google a friend. His brows drew apart with a serious note, then his eyes started rolling over the screen of his phone.

Cullen also had the morbid sense of someone who was a quiet viper, asides that he was loud about his future actions. I placed it once he was done reading more about his type and started smiling at me. I'd be scared if a therapist told me I was dangerous to humanity...not technically, but in the neighborhood of it.

But he thought to smile and say, "NPD is a coping mechanism to the toxicity of the real world."

In my years of being a psychotherapist and doing this, I'd never heard a patient or anyone define NPD in their own words, but I was actually pondering on the words to understand where he was going with them.

"It's not a coping mechanism if it'll damage you as much as what you are running from," I said and passed a questionnaire to him. I could tell from experience what he was, but professionally, I needed him to spell it out for me through that evaluation paper. "NPD is a mental disorder that needs treatment. How about you fill that for me in your free time and I'll collect it in our next session?"

"Tomorrow," he clarified with a solid tone. "Tomorrow is our next session."

Flipping his phone again, he started typing, then he made a phone call of about five seconds, which he only said "Yes."

In about another ten seconds, the office door opened to the lady that had brought me up earlier. I guessed his assistant. She was holding his checkbook and a pen.

Offering it to him, the lady eyed me like I was a nobody. I was not a nobody, I simply didn't have the kind of self esteem she or even Cullen had. There was a whole lot going on with me.

After I'd stripped naked for Fred last week and he rejected me, he'd sent me series of messages I couldn't bare to keep in my phone or I'd jump off a bridge if I stumbled on them again.

He'd said I was a discredited woman who thought I could fuck my way back into his life. Fucking my way back into his life was true. Discredited? Well, that was also true. I felt scammed and ashamed. I had nothing to speak of, Fred had been my whole life. Matter of fact, he still was...in my scorned woman's brain.

The only thing I actually had now was my job—which could also have been written as a pathetic time with Cullen Wesley. Nothing else.

Speaking of Cullen Wesley and pathetic in the same sentence was starting to be a standard. Even now that he was doing something pathetic again; leading me to a sandwiched position near his desk. I couldn't breathe with his one hand on the small of my back and the other trying to cup my breast as he aired my whole body with his warm breath.

Clearly, he was the type that just took whatever he liked, whenever he wanted it, but I was Ashley Grant. A woman who was sophisticated to my damn cells, who had dignity—fuck. I was definitely kidding myself for the umptieth time.

He stuck his hand in my dress and found the strap of my thong, then I felt the sharp edge of a folded paper prick my skin before he tucked the cheque there.

From moving his lips in mock contemplation, Cullen stole a kiss—to my awe—but as he pulled himself away and prepared for me to leave, I closed our gap and placed my lip on his again.

I had liked what I felt. It made me forget about Fred for a second, and I needed that. I needed Wesley to stop making me feel pathetic. It was dicey, though. How he made me feel so pathetic and less pathetic in two contrary ways.

When the thought of a patient-therapist code of conduct rang in my butterfly-evaded brain, I pushed Cullen's lips and hand away from my trembling skin. There was no emotion in his eyes whatsoever. That was enough for me to know I'd bear the burden of this alone.

Damn me.

He didn't care for a stupid code of conduct, he wasn't the professional here, he only felt a sense of achievement for getting me to want those soft lips back on mine. I was sure that must have been enough for him.

And as for me, while I walked with my things to his door to leave, I felt like the Pacific Ocean surrounded me. His Pacific Ocean. Any leap I made starting now, it was going to drown me.

Worse off, I literally couldn't swim.

If I wanted to save myself by stopping his sessions, I was going to get stalked—he always went for what he wanted, and he wanted me. And if I continued with the sessions, something would grow between us that would amount to disaster. He wasn't my type, I didn't know if I was his.

But as far as I knew, a timid woman and a narcissist never found a middle ground. Not one that was even my patient.