All the characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, either living or dead, is entirely unintentional.
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PJ
D'n'M Part 4
From Chapter 15:
"And there you are, harder than you've ever been, and with all your Christmas wishes about to come true."
Ignoring what was going on in his underwear, Dan's head was like a nodding dog in the back of a car. He was desperate to know how this was going to end. Just a minute, he knew exactly how it was going to end, and not for the first time his dick went from stiff to limp in seconds flat.
Chapter 16:
Please Call Me was still speaking, unaware, Dan had to hope, of the dramas going on in his underwear.
"And now the doubts begin. Is this really what you want? This girl? And even more importantly, can you live up to her expectations? This isn't her first date. Who knows how experienced she is? You don't. Maybe you won't be good enough. Big enough. Hard enough. Maybe you're going to be a huge disappointment to this long-awaited, hugely-anticipated first-ever girlfriend. Her fingers are edging closer to your erection. You want her to be impressed. You want this first time doing anything sexual with a girl to be out-of-this-world amazing for both of you. Your heart rate is increasing, but not just with excitement and anticipation for what is about to happen but also with anxiety about that exact same thing. By now you're completely conflicted, excitement and anxiety, anticipation and fear of failure. And the inevitable victim of this inner conflict?"
Dan shrugged.
"Your erection. The hardness evaporates and you're left with nothing that's going to impress or excite your very first date. Performance anxiety brought about by the pressure of the situation and your completely understandable and totally human need to please, to be a success."
She had been watching Dan throughout her explanation, watching his various reactions and emotions chasing each other across his face. At the end it looked as if he was experiencing a penny-dropping' moment. She knew that the next thing she was going to say had the power to turn it into a cherry-on-top-of-the-cake' moment.
"And I have to tell you Dan that what you experienced on Saturday night was not unique, in fact it has happened before to thousands, tens of thousands, probably millions of men, young and old, and will no doubt happen again to millions more."
"You mean losing my har ..., my erection was normal?" The note of hope in Dan's voice was almost amusing -- almost.
Please Call Me nodded. "Completely. And the fact that it's happened to you once doesn't mean that it'll ever happen again." She decided this was not the time to tell him that neither was it a guarantee against it ever being repeated.
Dan's body suddenly unfurled, like a flower responding to sunlight, and the hood fell from his face.
"So I am normal? What happened to me was not a `one-off-Dan-Reed-is-a-freak' thing? Yesss!" He fist-pumped the air and for several seconds he had a smile a mile wide, but then a new thought broke in and the smile vanished like snow in a heat wave.
"So this Performance Anxiety stuff -- losing my erection -- is normal and happens to loads of guys. But what about the other thing, seeing M in my head when I cu ... er, ejaculated? How can that be normal?"
Dan had looked away as he was speaking, not wanting her to see that he was, once again, tearing up. What was he, sixteen going on five?
"Well I think that may be a more complicated question and one that needs some more detailed explanation. Do you feel able to continue now, it is a school day after all, or should we take a break and try to find some time next week to meet again?"
Next week? Was she out of her fucking mind? Next week? He'd go crazy if he had to carry this stuff around in his head for another seven days. His answer was short, almost curt. "Carry on." Then, as an after-thought, "Please."
"Very well, but I may need to ask you to give me some very personal, possibly embarrassing, information in order to get the full picture. Are you prepared for that? Just take a minute or so to be sure, one way or the other."
So she wanted personal information? It might be embarrassing? What the fuck did she think him admitting to losing his hard-on was -- just some light-hearted little story? He was way past being embarrassed. He wanted answers. He wanted reassurance. But after his previous outburst he decided he needed to be polite.
"I think I'm way past being embarrassed. I really need some answers, so, yes, I want to carry on."
"Okay, it's good to see just how the new Dan Reed is really stepping up and wanting to understand and take control of his life, no matter how uncomfortable the journey might be. Good for you."
From anyone else, thought Dan, this little speech would probably have sounded pretty patronising, but from Please Call Me it had the effect of making him feel reassured that things were moving in a positive direction. As he'd said, he was way past embarrassed and it was good to know that she had seen and recognised the progress that the new Dan Reed had made. Fingers crossed that that was going to continue.
"So, sex - every teenage boy's obsession." Well that was a pretty full-on opener. "Research shows that boys your age think about sex, on average, several times every hour, sometimes it's the only thing they think about. Is that something you recognise Dan?" Dr. Margelles was fully aware that this was a potentially confrontational line of questioning. She had her reasons. She hoped that by providing Dan with what, in her professional opinion, she identified as the pieces of the puzzle, he would find a way of piecing them together. It certainly wasn't her place to tell him what she was 99% sure was in that picture.
Faced with such a very direct question, Dan looked and felt uncomfortable, but he knew an answer was expected. "Yeah, maybe. But like you said, after the Roberts thing I was off anything to do with that sort of stuff for a long time." Dan didn't know where this was going but he wanted answers and he trusted Please Call Me to lead him to them, however bumpy the road.
"And up to that point you'd only ever had sex with your brother?" Whoa! That was way close to the edge. "And your best friend." Way too close.
"That wasn't sex, that was just ..."
"Dan, I'm not making a judgement, simply trying to establish the facts." She paused to make sure he was still paying attention. "Before the abuse, you, the old Dan Reed, had only ever had any sort of sexual encounter with those two people, apart from yourself of course. Right or wrong?"
"Right, I s'pose. But ..."
"Earlier on you were concerned about being normal, yes?"
Dan nodded.
"Then let me assure you that it is not at all unusual for young teenage boys to have their earliest sexual experiences with their older brothers and best friends -- big brothers as experienced instructors and best friends as trusted co-experimenters. That, too, is extensively documented in research. So, can we continue?"
Dan felt like he would if he'd been called out by a teacher but grudgingly nodded his agreement.
"And can we agree that you enjoyed those early sexual experiences?"
Dan nodded. What a stupid question. "Of course I did. That's what sex is all about isn't it? Enjoying yourself?"
"That's true, but some would say it's also about love and affection. Demonstrating to another person how deeply you feel about them."
"Yeah, okay, but that's grown-up stuff. When you're a kid you just wanna mess around and have fun. All that love stuff comes later." Jeez! Didn't she know anything about being a teenager? She was a counsellor for fuck's sake. And she'd got a teenage kid of her own. Wake up lady!
"So you don't have feelings for your brother or your friend?" She knew this was, potentially, a very provocative question, with the answer being another piece of the puzzle.
Another of her stupid questions, but Dan rose to the bait. "Of course I have. I love Tom. He's my brother and he's great, but I'm not in love with him. That would be gross."
"And Milo?"
"Milo? Well, he's my other brother. We've been best friends since we were four years old. Some people say we're even closer than twins. We've got a together name you know. We're D'n'M. He had it engraved on the dog-tags he gave me for my birthday." Dan was suddenly aware of the continued absence of the tags from round his neck. He needed to get them back, and soon
A gift of dog-tags. Interesting. "And you love him."
"Like I said, he's my other brother."
"And you love him like a brother?" She spoke quietly and left the question hanging in the air between them. Again she watched Dan closely. What she saw was fascinating. She wished she had a video camera to record the puzzlement, surprise and shock which passed in successive waves across his face. He was clearly having trouble processing this march-past of feelings. What she was seeing confirmed many of her suspicions and when it was clear that he was going to have trouble answering the question she decided to change tack, hopefully take the pressure off.
"Don't worry about trying to answer now, but give it some thought when you have time. Deciding on the right answer might be helpful." She saw the relief on his face. Off the hook, at least for now.
"Let's go back a little, to those sexual experiences with Tom and Milo. Are you okay with that?"
Dan nodded. Anything to take his mind off the disturbing thoughts about Milo that were crowding for space in his head.
"Good. So, as far as you thought about it at all, you assumed that these were no more than temporary arrangements, with your brother and best friend, until you began to date and then interact sexually with girls."
Statement or question? Dan wasn't sure. Whichever, she certainly managed to make the sex stuff with Tom and M sound reassuringly unemotional and detached. He nodded just to be on the safe side.
"And there was no penetration involved?"
"What?!!!" Dan was outraged. It had been years since his voice had jumped up to such a pitch.
"No judgement, Dan, simply a point of clarification."
Hm, so she said. "No." The answer was emphatic. "Nothing got put in anywhere. Definitely." This wasn't, of course, strictly true, fingers having made their way up buttholes, but he decided they didn't count. As far as Please Call Me needed to know, no, there had been no penetration.
"And the other girl who was mentioned before?"
"Beth, Beth Harper."
"Yes, Beth. You thought about her when you masturbated?"
"Yeah."
"Imagined doing things with her, sexual things?"
Dan had never thought to analyse his youthful fantasies about Beth Harper. Challenged to do so now he realised that his fantasy relationship with her had been very limited in scope. "Yes. Sometimes. Not really, no. I mainly only ever thought about her tits, er, I mean her chest." Weird that.
"So you never imagined having sexual intercourse with her?"
"That's right, well not really, at least, not in any sort of serious way. It was just her ..."
"Tits!"
"I was only thirteen. I didn't know much about sex then at all." Dan felt the need to justify his lack of `normal' lustful teenage imagining.
"And in your thirteen--year-old head, did you honestly think and believe that you had a chance with her? That she might actually become your girlfriend?"
Dan squirmed at the memory of his naïve and very young thirteen-year-old self. "I sorta fantasised about it, yeah, but at thirteen you have all sorts of mad ideas."
"Exactly, and then came the time of the abuse and its impact on your level of interest in all things sexual. We've talked about that at length before but one question for you now: when you started getting interested in sex stuff again, did Beth still feature in your fantasies?"
"No."
"And why was that?"
"Because I found out she'd been responsible for two guys getting beaten up for being gay. There was no way I was gonna have any time for her after that. She was a fu ..." The anger Dan felt back then came hurtling up into his voice now.
She headed him off before the inevitable expletive. "Quite, I get the picture." She paused to look at her notes. "And did it make any difference to your reaction that the two victims of the attack were gay?"
"I s'pose. Maybe. Yeah, it did."
"And why was that, do you think?"
"Because I've got a friend who's gay."
"Milo." It was a statement, not a question.
Dan's open-book face instantly registered the panic he felt. There was no way he was going to out M.
"There's no need to look so worried. Remember, nothing you say here gets repeated outside, and I fully respect your reluctance to reveal your friend's sexuality to me. Let's just assume that I know, that way you don't have to confirm or deny anything. Yes?"
How did she know? Was it that mind-reading thing again? He nodded.
"So this girl Beth, who you've been fantasising over for years, is immediately rejected when you become aware that she's homophobic to the point where she's been the direct cause of physical harm to two gay boys."
After several seconds reflection and the adding together of two and two, Dan nodded his agreement.
"And now quite a hard question, I think." She glanced down as if she was looking at her notes although, in fact, she didn't want Dan to have the additional pressure of her looking directly at him as she asked, "Would you say that those events took place when you were still the old Dan Reed or once the new version had started to take his place?"
That was easy. "The new one, yeah, definitely the new me. I'd started thinking and acting way different by then. It was after all our sessions together, you know, after you'd explained about adolescence and all the connections stuff. It all began to make more sense."
Please Call Me smiled. "That's good to hear. And you were looking forward to being a normal teenage boy, doing normal teenage boy stuff, including dating?"
Dan liked the sound of the word `normal'. He nodded.
"And apart from the `fun' the old Dan Reed had had with Tom and Milo, and before Saturday evening's unfortunate, but entirely normal, Performance Anxiety, had you had any other particularly memorable or exciting sexual experiences? Apart from masturbation, of course."
It was weird how she managed to make jerking-off sound like something totally every-day and ordinary which, he realised, for any teenage boy it totally was. Yeah, weird.
"Dan?" She saw that he'd mentally wandered off and was keen to get him back on track. "Any other notable sexual experiences?"
He was about to answer that, no, there was nothing like that, when images of what he'd seen in the gym locker-room just a few days before, came flooding back, coupled with a matching flow of blood into his dick which was hard before he had time to do anything about hiding it. Please, please let her not have noticed. Did he have the balls (excuse the pun) to tell her what he'd seen? He'd told her everything else, what was the point in pretending? So he told her what he'd witnessed Tye doing with Eddy.
"And you found that stimulating?"
"Yeah, of course. Who wouldn't? It's not every day you walk in on two guys going at it like that."
"That's true, but for a lot of people seeing what you did would be, at best, shocking and at worst repulsive and completely unacceptable."
Dan had the feeling that there was something Please Call Me wasn't saying, or maybe that she felt she didn't need to say. Was it two add two time again? If so, he felt there was a real danger of not coming up with the right answer.
Shania Magelles seemed to be having the same thought as she said, "I think it's time we rounded things off for today, don't you? But before you go, let's summarise where we've got to, see if we can help you make sense of the things we discussed. Yes?"
Thank fuck. She was going to sort out the tangle of thoughts, feelings and questions that was still clogging up his mind. When she'd done that before, when he'd been seeing her regularly every week, it had always had the effect of sending him home happier and easier in his mind. Dan hoped she'd be able to produce the same magic today.
"I need to start by thanking you, Dan, thanking you for being honest and open. You've faced up to some very challenging thoughts and feelings this morning. For me that just goes to prove what a long way the new Dan Reed has come, what a strong and resilient young person you're becoming. Now I'm sure that you've still got unanswered questions and unresolved issues but I'm also confident that, when you have the chance to think back over some of the things we've talked about this morning, you'll find answers to many of those questions and resolutions to those issues. Okay?"
Honestly, Dan wasn't 100% sure he understood everything she'd just said and of what he had understood, he wasn't entirely confident that her positive assessment was deserved. Whatever. Experience had taught him to trust Please Call Me, so he'd go along with it all and hope it worked out.
"Okay."
"You started by telling me about two events from Saturday evening that had got you really confused and anxious - the loss of your erection on your very first date and the image of your best friend which accompanied your later ejaculation."
Dan nodded, realising that he no longer felt anywhere near as stressed about those two things as he had up to the moment when he'd walked into her office.
"And you also told me that you just wanted to be `normal'."
He nodded again.
"So I hope you're feeling much less worried about what happened with Christy. SPA, Sexual Performance Anxiety, is not at all uncommon. It's also not something that many men, of whatever age, feel comfortable talking about so, once again, I congratulate you on having the courage to do so. Have we managed to tick the `normal' box with that one?"
Dan's smile mirrored the one on her face. He nodded. He hadn't got the words to express how grateful he was to her for setting his mind at rest about losing his hard-on. So happy.
"With regard to the worrying image of Milo, this is where I think you would benefit from taking some time to reflect some more on your experiences, on your thoughts and, most importantly, on your feelings." She saw he was looking puzzled and she was needing to tread very carefully, aware that Dan might soon have a great deal of `stuff' to come to terms with. "The old Dan Reed, the thirteen, fourteen-year-old Dan Reed, took it for granted that he would do the same as the great majority of his class-mates, that is he'd start dating and eventually start having sexual relationships with girls he knew from school and the neighbourhood. He assumed the sex stuff he enjoyed with his much-loved brother and best friend was just filling in the time until then. Is that a fair summary so far?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Good. So, carrying on. Sometime later the old Dan Reed started making way for the new, more mature, more aware version. This Dan Reed doesn't take so much for granted. He's more thoughtful, more reflective about other people and about relationships. He sees people differently and maybe feels differently about them. Things are no longer as straightforward as they had always seemed before. What and who attracted him, excited him, before, he perhaps finds less exciting now."
"I think you've lost me there." In fact, Dan didn't just think it, he knew it. He'd been struck by a bad case of brain-overload as soon as she'd started on about not taking stuff for granted and being reflective about relationships. From then on it had all been just a bunch of words that were fogging up his head. "Like you said, the new me needs time to go away and think about everything, try to sort things out. Maybe I'll make another appointment."
"That sounds like a good plan. And if you decide to do that, make sure your parents know about it."
"Yeah, I will." Hm, his parents. What the fuck was he gonna tell them about the session, the long (and therefore expensive) session, that was just finishing? "Oh, I like the hair, by the way. Pink and mauve look good on you." She nodded and coloured-up slightly.
"And it might be a good idea to tell them about this morning before they get the bill. But don't worry, I'll not charge them for the time over-run." She was smiling in a reassuring sort of way. Dan wasn't sure that he was reassured.
Dan hadn't got far on the journey back to school when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket as a text arrived. He stopped pedalling and looked at the message on the screen. It was from Dods.
Where the fuck are you man? Why aren't you at the hospital?
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