Free Don't Stand So Close by Luana Lewis Page B

her small face. Stella waited, holding her breath, until Blue emerged, gasping.
    ‘Cool bath,’ she said. It seemed she’d cheered up a little.
    Stella was growing impatient; tired of the cat-and-mouse conversation. The air in the bathroom was humid and it was difficult to breathe, as though she was inhaling water instead of air. She needed to get out. She stood up, her knees stiff and sore from kneeling on the hard floor.
    ‘I’ll be just outside,’ she said. ‘I won’t close the door. There’s nothing to be frightened of. There’s no one else in the house.’
    Blue nodded. She leaned back, loosening up, and once again closed her eyes.
    Stella sat stiffly on the edge of her bed. She had developed the ability to be still, to slow her thoughts and to lose herself in the small details around her, to focus on anything but her inner life. The bedroom was vast. The fire in the hearth had not been lit recently and only a few twisted black logs were left behind. The bookshelves on either side of the art deco mantelpiece were filled with novels. Her textbooks were downstairs in the study and she hadn’t opened a single one of them in all the time she had lived at Hilltop. The windows were framed by heavy yellow silk curtains. In daylight, Stella could see out over the tops of tall pine trees and beyond to the undulating hills.
    On the first night she had spent with Max in this house, she had covered the walls and the ceiling of this bedroom with tiny fluorescent stars. With the curtains closed, the stars had glowed everywhere around them. Stella had curved herself around Max, tracing his vertebrae with her fingertips. She wished everything between them could be as she hadalways hoped. She still believed things might change.
    From where she sat, she could see Blue’s fair head resting against the side of the bath.

Session Seven
    She had chosen her underwear carefully: a pink bra and a matching thong. As she walked to her appointment, she could feel the lace chafe between her legs, and she smiled, at the thought of his hands, his arms holding her. She unfastened the top two buttons of her school shirt. She was wearing perfume – she felt older, sexier.
    He watched as she undid all of the buttons, letting the shirt fall open. The cups pushed her breasts forward and she knew her nipples showed through the lace. She looked down at his trousers. She could see she had won. She gave a small smile, tipping her chin forward as she unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor. She turned around, so that he could admire the full effect of her thong. Quickly, she unhooked her bra, shrugging it off her shoulders and letting it fall. She turned back to him, walked over and sat down on his lap. She placed her lips against his and kissed him softly. His beard tickled. He smelt good. Just as she had imagined. She pushed his hair back from his face, looking into his sad eyes.
    ‘This can’t happen,’ he said.
    She whispered: ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’
    With one hand he unzipped himself, with the other, he pushed his fingers inside her.
    Next time, she thought, she would make him take her to a posh hotel with a really big bed. Or maybe to his house; she would like to see his bed. She smiled at the thought of the receptionist outside.
    ‘I want to make you happy,’ she said.

Grove Road Clinic, April 2009
    Stella knocked on Max’s door. She waited. No answer. She knocked again, both irritated and disappointed, because she was fairly confident the office was empty. He was going to be late for her supervision session. Again.
    She went downstairs to find Anne. ‘I’m supposed to have supervision with Max,’ she said. ‘But he’s not in his office. Do you have any idea where he might be?’
    ‘He’ll be in late today,’ Anne said, knowingly. She began playing with the thin gold chain around her neck and she gave Stella a rather smug smile.
    ‘How late?’ Stella glared at her, as though Max’s tardiness was somehow