The Venus Fix

Thirty-Nine

“I was online but just goofing around. I wasn’t surfing. I wasn’t watching them…” Barry started and then stopped. He rubbed a spot on his left arm almost to the point of obsession.

We had a rule in the group, only one rule: if any of the kids watched porn or engaged in it, they’d come clean. They wouldn’t get dissed or lectured; no one’s parents would be told, but they had to be up front with me and with the rest of the group. And since the group was the only thing standing between them and expulsion or suspension, they were pretty good about it.

I waited, keeping my eyes on Barry’s, keeping my body language neutral.

“But a bud IM’d me and told me that these two chicks were going at it and acting all weird and I clicked over to check it out. I didn’t get what he’d meant by acting weird. I thought they were doing something kinky.”

“How long did you watch it?” I asked.

He looked down at the floor. “Not long. I got sort of sick.”

“Sick?”

“Like I was gonna throw up, you know?” He was embarrassed.

“Do you know why?”

“They were in pain. It was awful, you could tell.”

I wanted to find a way to make him realize he was connecting to what he’d seen-understanding it was happening to two real women-instead of the detachment he’d felt with all the women he’d been watching online the past two years.

“How could you tell they were really sick?”

“They just weren’t acting. I don’t know. You could just tell.”

“You kept watching it?” Jodi asked. “That’s disgusting. How long?”

He shrugged.

“Did you do anything?” she asked.

“Like what? Jerk off?”

“No. Like call the fucking police or something.”

He shook his head.

I waited for one of the other kids to get involved.

“You watched the whole thing?” Ellen asked. Unlike Jodi, she wasn’t angry, she was incredulous.

“Yeah.”

“You think that the one girl tried to kill the other one?” Ellen was playing with the button on her jacket, twisting it around and around.

“Come on,” Amanda said. “That’s so lame.”

No one said anything. I waited. Watched her face. Felt the pain from across the room. Why was it so hard for her to talk about this?

“Why is it lame to wonder that?” I finally asked.

“They wouldn’t hurt each other.” Amanda’s voice was low; I had to strain to hear her. “They were friends.”

She seemed so sure. And so pained.

“Amanda, did you see those two girls on Saturday night?”

She shook her head.

“Have you seen other girls like them?”

She didn’t answer.

Who had she seen? When had she seen them? How was I going to help her feel comfortable enough to share whatever she was struggling with?

A few seconds went by.

“When you watch women online, what do you think they’re thinking? What do you think those two women were feeling before they got sick?” I asked.

“Nothing. They’re being hot. They’re ho’s. That’s all,” Paul volunteered, and then shrugged.

I watched Amanda flinch.

“Do you ever really think about it, Paul?”

“About what? What they are feeling?”

I nodded.

“Shit, I don’t know.”

“Try now. Let’s all try. First thing that comes to your mind-what do you think they are feeling?”

“They probably dig all that attention.” Paul smirked. “They-”

“Maybe it was suicide,” Amanda said in a very low voice. She was interrupting but didn’t seem to be aware of it. She hadn’t looked up when she said it but had kept her eyes on her shoes-suede boots with thick rubber soles. Most of the girls wore them. My daughter wore them. They were the accessory du jour in Manhattan schools.

Timothy quickly looked over at her, a concerned look in his eyes.

“What makes you think so?” I asked.

“Because you get to a point where the only way you can come out on the other side is to die.”

The tone and timbre of her voice alerted me that her stress level was high. All the kids sensed something was happening and waited. I needed to keep her talking. “Amanda, do you ever feel like that? Like you need to come out on the other side?”

She shrugged.

I leaned forward. “What do you do when you feel like that?”

“I guess I do art stuff.”

I nodded. “Me, too. When I feel like that, I sculpt. I know how it works. It helps, doesn’t it?”

She was watching me-so much going unsaid, so much I couldn’t read in her eyes, and so much I needed to say to reach her. “Yeah. Sort of.”

“Amanda, what could have happened to the girls online that would have been so bad that they would have wanted to kill themselves?”

“Just because they were getting paid doesn’t mean it was only about that. At first they probably liked knowing guys were watching. Like Barry said. They probably did like the attention.” She wasn’t looking at me anymore, or at anyone in the room. Her eyes were still on her boots.

“And then?” I asked, encouraging.

Everyone was still riveted, waiting. She had galvanized the group.

“It was what they did, right? They were pros. The ultimate Venus fantasy that every guy is stuck on, and they knew it. Two chicks. Going at it…putting on a show. But it wasn’t…” Her voice shook as she went on. Her eyes were still cast downward, but her hands had curled into fists in her lap. “They probably didn’t get off on it at first. Didn’t even think about it. But then all that touching. All that touching each other, all soft and caring and naked like that…”

Hugh whistled. Barry joined in.

Amanda winced.

Timothy glared at both of them and hissed, “Shut the fuck up.”

I was surprised. Real emotion. A protective streak.

I watched a tear fall from Amanda’s eye and get lost in her jeans. Another. She did nothing to wipe them away.

Timothy got up. He walked across the room, knelt down in front of her, put his hands on the arms of her chair, and whispered something to her that I couldn’t hear. I don’t think anyone in the room could. She didn’t respond but another tear fell, this one landing on Timothy’s hand. He looked down and stared at it but didn’t brush it off.

“Amanda?”

They’d all left the session and were walking toward their lockers to get their things. She turned, said something to Jodi and walked back toward me.

“I wanted to give you this,” I said, and held out my business card.

She didn’t take it.

“You left it on the seat three weeks ago when you joined the group. All the guys have my number and address. And the other girls took it.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So who knows. It doesn’t mean you have to call me, but if you don’t take it, you won’t have the choice.”

She was staring at it. I was certain there was something she needed to talk about but that she was afraid of. Otherwise, taking the card would be meaningless. If she had it, she might be tempted, and something about opening up was scaring her.

“I promised everyone in the group. Nothing anyone ever says will ever leave the room. I’ll never break a confidence. That’s my job.”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you believe me?”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

She shrugged.

I took a chance.

“I really would like to see some of your artwork.”

She nodded, seemed to be thinking about it. “Why?”

“I love art. I told you I sculpt a little. I think that making art is one way we explore our feelings. We can say things in a painting or sculpture that can be hard to put into words.”

“Photographs, too.”

I nodded. “Do you take photographs?”

“Yeah. And I make shorts.”

It was quiet in the hallway; the voices and footsteps of the other kids had faded away. Her words lingered, not quite an echo, more like a piano note fading away.

“Short films?”

She stepped back, frightened.

“Amanda? What is it?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t want you to tell me anything you aren’t ready for. But I want you to take this. I know something is bothering you and that it’s something that seems overwhelming and impossible.”

“How?”

I smiled at her. I would have preferred to reach out and take her in my arms, but I couldn’t do that. “It’s what I’m trained to do, Amanda. I can help you straighten it out. Not make it go away. Not even make the pain go away. But help you put it in some kind of perspective, so you aren’t controlled by it.”

She shifted. A shield came down. She backed up. “Yeah, like you’re helping the guys to get control over how much they go online? They still can’t stay away. You’re not helping them.”

“We don’t know that yet. It takes a long time to break an addiction.”

“Amanda?” It was Ellen calling out; she was at the end of the hall. “You ready or what?”

“I have to go.”

I was still holding the card. “Take it.”

She stared at it for a few seconds.

“The secrets get bigger and bigger the longer you keep them.” I extended it so that it was even closer to her. It almost glowed in the darkened hallway.

“Amanda?” It was Ellen again.

She turned with most of her body, broke eye contact with me, but somehow reached out with her left hand and took the card, as if it was an afterthought and didn’t matter.

But it did. Very much.