The Venus Fix by M. J. Rose Read Free Book Online

color of a new spring leaf. But it was the way she looked at you, from under those lashes, in a surprisingly innocent and sensual way, that you remembered. It was incongruous. But then so much about Blythe was.
    “God, it’s freezing outside,” she said as she dropped her leather backpack on the floor. Around her shoulders and flowing behind was an old-fashioned, green velvet cape. She unhooked it and took it off, revealing a pair of black trousers, a white tuxedo shirt and what looked like a real leopard vest, but I couldn’t be sure. A devotée of eclectic vintage clothing stores, Blythe put outfits together the way an artist mixes colors.
    After draping her cape on the coat stand in the corner of my office, she sat down on the couch. Her movements were lithe and lovely.
    “Is it okay if we don’t talk about my patients today? I need some help. I had a serious setback this week—it’s really affecting me badly,” Blythe said. Her voice was soft and sounded the way a rose petal feels. The sensuality subtle but unmistakable.
    Blythe was a getting her Ph.D. in psychology at Columbia University and was specializing in sex therapy. It was not an unusual choice given her own problems. All too often we find that therapists are best at helping those whose problems somehow mirror their own. All psychologists starting out are supervised. Nina had liked Blythe enough to hire her to work in the clinic—a free service we run for a dozen or so patients who can’t pay our prices—and asked Simon Weiss, one of my closest friends and the senior therapist at the institute, to be her supervisor.
    Simon had met with her once.
    The next day he asked me out to lunch. After one session, he recognized that he was not the right therapist for Blythe. He was a forty-year-old man with a shaky marriage, and, despite his best efforts, he found Blythe provocative. When I saw her, I wasn’t surprised. After I heard what her issues were, I understood completely.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    Blythe squeezed her right hand with her left and her skin went white under the pressure. What she was doing was clearly painful. She repeated the action, and every time she did, I fought the urge to reach out and separate her hands.
    “Blythe, it’s not going to help to punish yourself.”
    “Punish?”
    I nodded at her hands. She looked down. “I didn’t even know I was doing that.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I feel so helpless. I’ll be fine and then something will happen, just out of the blue, and I’ll feel like I’m in its grip all over again. I’ll want to go back online.”
    “What happened this time?”
    “A really well-known feminist e-mailed me. Someone I’ve looked up to my whole life. She’s writing a book aboutwomen who become sex workers in order to put themselves through school—how they cope with it, what it does to their social lives, how it changes or doesn’t affect their self-esteem. She wants to interview me for the book.”
    “How did she find you? I thought you weren’t doing Webcam performances anymore.”
    “I haven’t for five, six months. Apparently she saw me back then. My profile said I was a student. She’d kept my e-mail address, she said. The site gave out addresses that were forwarded to our personal e-mail. Anyway, she gave me her phone number and asked me to call.”
    “How do you feel about that?”
    Blythe clasped her hands together again, this time even more tightly. “I’m not sure. There are all kinds of reasons I want to do it. And all sorts of reasons I don’t. Just…just talking about talking about it…going back into that mind-set just a little while…” She shook her head and her blond curls fell in her face. She didn’t push them away. Why not? Her hair was clearly in her eyes. It should have bothered her.
    “Blythe, when you were online, how did it feel to know that all those men were looking at you?”
    “I wore a mask.” She clasped and then unclasped her hands again.
    “A