Cal stepped into the cosy, neat house with ivory walls. A nicely carved placard was pinned to the front door, reading 'Dr. Jeanine Jaeyr'. The few people that happened to be in the waiting room hurriedly stood up as they saw him, but he raised his hand.

"Please, there's no need." He walked up to the assistant's desk. "I have an appointment with Dr. Jaeyr at 1:27 pm."

The assistant was going to ask for his name, her eyes widened as soon as she saw him, nervously fiddling with the papers on her desk. "Yes, you may come in. She has been expecting you, ...Your Majesty."

As he was about to reach towards the mahogany door, she quickly held it open for him, bowing deep and closed the door behind him. Special treatment. He didn't come here as the Emperor.

The office hadn't changed a bit since he last came here seven years ago. Sure, there were some adjustments in the furniture and the curtains had been changed, but the room arrangement stayed the same. A comfortable sitting corner placed near a bookshelf adjacent to a desk with a flower in a white vase.

All in white, neat, and clean; as she liked to keep it.

"Your Majesty," the host greeted, still seated behind the desk, scribbling a few things down her notes. "Please, sit."

"Oh no, not you too," Cal replied with a sour smile.

The woman looked up from her papers. "I beg your pardon?"

"Don't 'Majesty' me, you never called me that before."

"You were not the Emperor before," she tilted her head in his direction.

"You never did address me as 'Your Imperial Highness' either."

"Fair enough," she chuckled, and he smiled in response. "Sit down-"

"Why didn't you come to my wedding?" Cal inquired. She opened her mouth to answer, but he went on, "You also didn't come to my birthday celebrations."

"I'm only present when my clients require me to," Dr. Jaeyr replied, "When they are in need of my help."

Cal smiled knowingly. "Client. Just when I thought we were actually friends." Taking a seat on the long, shell-coloured leather couch, it contrasting deeply against his ink-black suit.

"How's Junior?"

"He's great; he's...the best. Everybody's fine."

Leaving her desk, she sat on the single couch in front of him; the sound of her heels clicking on the alabaster floor.

Dr Jeanine Jaeyr was a woman in her early forties, dressed formally in a matching blazer and pencil skirt. Her hair was dark and styled in a slightly wavy shoulder-length bob. She placed her hands on her lap comfortably, facing him.

"It's been years since we saw each other, Cal. Why have you come back?"

"I got married..."

"Oh," she nodded in understanding.

Cal suddenly realized what he seemed to imply. "No, no. I didn't mean it that way."

Dr. Jaeyr laughed softly. "I didn't assume."

Cal took a long breath, crossing his legs as he continued, "You must have seen my new wife. She's remarkable, amazing."

"I've seen the new Empress. She's so young but very confident."

"I love her," blurted Cal, looking directly at her.

The doctor blinked. "That's a good sign, right?"

"But I..." Pressing his lips together, Cal averted his gaze as sadness clouded his features, voice lowered. "I am not a good husband to her."

"How are you not a good husband to her, Cal?"

"...I never made love to her," admitted him in a broken whisper. "I did not even marry her for love. You would understand, how I had loved once and Isleen used it against me. I was so afraid that it would happen again somehow, so I avoided her during the first weeks of our marriage. I thought that if I was not in love, it would keep me safe from Isleen-even if she's dead. It gave me some sense of security."

As she quietly listened, the doctor took notes.

"I was so focused on getting better so I could be a good father for Junior, I thought I was fully healed. But I didn't have a partner back then, so I couldn't know. I wouldn't have thought that this could happen; not until I married her."

"So your marriage is unconsummated?"

Cal shook his head quickly. "No. No, we did it that first night, but only that first night. I haven't really touched her since then."

"Why haven't you?"

Cal's knuckles turned white, gripping the edge of his seat. "It's because of her-Isleen. I thought I was freed from all those years ago, but she came back to haunt me again very recently; taunting me in nightmares and hindsight."

"Hold on, you have successfully consummated your marriage with no issues before, what makes it different this time? Can you name what brought it back?"

Cal took a long pause, starting through his memories to determine when things started to turn for the worse, and then something clicked. The night of the banquet.

"...Olivia." He breathed.

Dr. Jaeyr tilted her head. "Olivia?"

"Yes, Olivia! I was asking Olivia if she could help Gigi as a court lady. She didn't take it very well, and she got back at me by repeating the things she said to me when she left me. It awakened the memory, when I was trapped in that-that..." His voice trembled as he started balling his fists, clenching his teeth. "It was the first time I felt so horrible again in a really long time."

As he calmed down, she asked again. "So you're here because you want to make love to your wife, but you can't because you are still haunted by the shadow of your abuser?"

"Exactly," Cal affirmed.

"How did she appear to you, Cal?"

"Sometimes I hear her voice. Sometimes I see things-Her, in front of me. She whispers things. Warning me. Threatening me." His lower lip quivered, the tension audibly rising. "Whenever I tried to get intimate with Gigi, I couldn't help but to be remembered of that night... I feel her lurking, waiting to return and take my happiness from me again."

"What did she tell you?"

"That I am hers. That I shouldn't be happy with anyone else. That I cannot love anyone else. And that I will never be rid of her."

"How is your wife responding to this? Does she know- have you told her?"

"I just told her a week ago. After we had an incident where we almost made love. I attempted to reciprocate, and then Isleen appeared, and I just-" Cal covered his mouth with the back of his hand, trembling.

For a moment he felt himself unable to continue, recalling the horrifying memory of how he had broken her heart... The look of hopelessness and betrayal in Gigi's eyes... How she shoved him away... Her tears...

The doctor waited on him patiently, attentively.

"...I was unable to continue. She was crying, upset and hurt. She thought I was playing with her feelings, but it wasn't her fault. She couldn't know-" Before he could stop it, his eyes were already red and glazed with tears. "I've hurt her for who knows how long..."

Cal was going to wipe it with his sleeves, but the doctor handed him over some tissues.

"She had been craving intimacy for as long as we've been married, but I never provided her with that. I even told her that I wasn't interested in having a child with her. I never attempted to have any personal contact with her. All that while she stays loyal to me and waits for me. She doesn't deserve-never deserved any of this. She doesn't deserve someone like me." He buried his face in some extra tissues that the doctor had given him, crying.

A few minutes passed and Cal willed himself to stop crying, as he always did. But even when he had quieted down and tried to breathe normally, the tears kept coming out.

"I really love her... and I want to express it in a proper way; an intimate way... Just as we've both been craving for," he said, wiping his nose.

"Cal..." The doctor looked at him closely. "Are you both still fighting?"

"No... So far she had been supportive, ever since I told her about my condition. She knows that I'm coming here. She said that she would wait for me... Till I get better."

As if she had concluded things on her notes, she closed her folder and placed it on her lap. "Alright. Since we have yet to name the specific triggers to your symptoms besides the intimacy, I think it'll be safe to hold back from any attempts of intimacy for the moment. Let your wife know too since you've told her everything, right?"

"No, not everything. I told her about my condition but not what caused it. I can't risk her turning away from me. I don't want to lose her. She'd either be disgusted or not believe me. She'd think I was in the wrong, as everybody else did. No, I can't do it. I won't."

"What makes you think she wouldn't believe you?"

"Nobody else did, besides my mother and yourself," Cal insisted. "But you're my therapist, it's in your job to believe me, and my mother-who only believed in me because she was my mother."

"Or, we believed in you because we got a sense that you were not lying," Dr. Jaeyr assured. "She's your partner, who cares about you. Don't you think that she'd have some faith in you?"

"Olivia didn't," Cal scoffed.

"Well," Dr. Jaeyr smiled confidently. "She's not Olivia."

.·。.·゜·༺♥༻ ·゜·。.