Free The Delilah Complex by MJ Rose

uncomfortable.
    A woman in a red suit was the first to take a seat, and she chose the one closest to my chair. Her clothes looked expensive, cut so the fabric hugged her slim body. She wore high-heeled black alligator shoes and carried a leather bag, which I recognized as Chanel: the leather and gold chain were unmistakable.
    Shelby Rush, in a black pantsuit and high-heeled black suede boots, put her tote on the chair on my other side and then stood, hostesslike, making sure that everyone found a seat.
    There were too many faces for each of them to make a distinct impression, but I was very aware of two women. One wore blue jeans, a white man-tailored shirt and a brown suede blazer, and carried a briefcase as worn as the jacket. Her eyes never stopped moving. She looked at me, at each of the others, at the windows, at the floor, at the artwork on my walls. When it came time for her to take a seat, she sat at the center of the semicircle, where she would have the best view of everything going on around her. Her attentiveness didn’t appear to be nervous energy, but rather a need to observe. Her sexuality impressed me, too. She did nothing to hide it.
    Like Shelby, there were several women dressed all in black—which is almost a uniform in Manhattan—but one woman was so blond, thin and pale that her black clothes overpowered her. She reminded me of a widow. Moving slowly, she appeared to have a hard time making a decision about where to go or which seat to take, and twice she stumbled over a chair leg. Her sunglasses probably weren’thelping. Large black frames with very dark lenses, they completely obscured her eyes. Without having to ask, I knew that she was in hiding. I just didn’t know if it was from me, from the other women or from herself.
    As the rest of the seats filled up, it turned out that six of the twelve women wore sunglasses. One also wore a baseball cap. Another wore a scarf over her hair, tied in a retro “Jackie O” style.
    I was used to treating groups who were strangers until I brought them together, choosing them carefully so that their personalities would play off one another. Week after week, I watched them become acquainted, exhibit personality and psychological traits and form a unit. But this was a preformed group, their dynamics already firmly in place. From what Shelby had told me, many of these women had been together in the society for several years. There was a lot of interaction I’d miss seeing acted out, making my work more difficult.
    Even after they were all settled, they were oddly silent for people who knew one another well. Once, I had done grief counseling for a corporation where a tragedy had occurred. Even with that catastrophe overpowering them, there had been more conversation than there was with this group now.
    As a therapist, I believe nothing is coincidental, no connection is unfounded. There was a reason that the members of the Scarlet Society reminded me of a bereavement group I’d had eight years before. I just had to be patient and discover what the correlation was.

Fourteen

    “L et’s go over the few rules that I ask everyone to follow when they’re here. You all have a right to talk and an obligation to listen. We don’t judge one another, but we do discuss how one another’s comments make us feel. Even if those reactions are negative. Especially if they are. My job is to help you explore how you deal with one another. And consider behavior that is detrimental to the group as a whole and to its members individually—but I’m not your mother, your friend or your teacher.”
    I looked from one woman to the next as I explained how the group worked. There was an apprehensive energy in the room, which I was certain was not a reaction to my instructions. These women were scared of something and deeply disturbed; I could see it in the way they shifted in their seats, played with their hands or the straps of their bags, or looked around.
    “When I ask you a