Chapter 14: Exotic

Time: not long after

During the next few visits by Dr. Yvonne Turance, Drakken sensed a definite change between them. What puzzled him was the source of this change. Was it him? Or was it her? And what exactly was this change? Drakken couldn't put a finger on it. But he felt a spark in the air when she was near, almost like electricity. It made his eyesight clearer, his hearing more acute. It made him feel more energetic, more—there, more in the moment than he'd felt in some time.

Since his attacks, he had begun to view the world as if from a distance, as if he didn't really belong to it anymore but was only a watcher from afar. To keep what little sanity he could, he'd erected a barrier between himself and reality, a buffer zone through which nothing unpleasant could pass.

Unfortunately, to do that he'd also let that barrier cut him off from pleasurable things as well, things as simple as the tangy taste of lemon meringue pie or the soft comfort of a good pillow. He floated in the middle of the spectrum of human experience, making due with vague sensations and sounds, muffled thoughts, noncommittal reactions. This, he figured, was how to stay safe.

Of course he knew that much of his fuzzy-headedness was due to the medications he had to take on a regular basis. To keep him rational and in control, his meds had to "shave the sharp spikes" off his senses, as one doctor put it, leaving only "rounded edges" that would keep him from falling into fits of rage, sadness, fear, and especially depression. He understood this but again, it left him feeling vague and disconnected, like a child who wants to participate in a great game but can't get the gate of the playing field open. So he was left to watch through the fence at everyone else having fun.

In short, his ability to identify the change in Yvonne Turance—or himself—or both of them—evaded him. He sensed it but could make no sense of it. She would show up, badger him into talking, and they'd pretty much argue their way through each hour, getting more and more mutually flustered until the hour was over. More often than not, she'd leave in a whirlwind of professional disgust. Once she even told him he was an "ill-tempered, egomaniacal fruitcake with delusions of adequacy!" He liked the insult so much that he rushed to write it down once she was gone.

Drakken was beginning to enjoy her visits. He was beginning to...like her. It wasn't anything like love, however. He just liked her as a friend. He hadn't had a friend in a very long time. He had come to accept his existence as one of isolation, but along came Yvonne Turance and she understood him. And she was feisty, like Shego. Argument had pretty much been the basis of his relationship with Shego. They'd both loved to argue and they'd both had hair-trigger tempers, so it had been a perfect match.

Well, not the kind of match he would have preferred, but a match nonetheless.

Despite her professional standing, Yvonne Turance was turning out to be quite similar. Now that she'd gotten to know Drakken a bit, she was showing her personal side. Bottom line: she had quite the temper herself, and she loved to argue. Not childish arguments, though. Drakken was no longer as childish as he had once been. He was now more thoughtful, wittier, and to-the-point. Yvonne seemed the same. Their arguments were built upon clever wordplay, deep sarcasm, and wry observations. Argument became a game.

But she was still his therapist, and Drakken knew it was her duty to draw out his negative feelings and help him overcome them. It was just her technique that changed. She became more aggressive after she saw how he lit up like a Christmas tree during any kind of bickering—and he noticed how she lit up almost as much as he did.

Soon he was anticipating his sessions with her, cleaning up the house before she'd come, fixing snack trays and drinks, thinking up funny stories from his past to tell her—after all, he'd done some awfully outrageous things, many of which were funny to him now, like the time he'd summoned every blasted henchman in his lair just to try to open a stubborn pickle jar. Only Shego had been able to open it. All those big burly men had struggled with that damned lid and pop! she'd twisted it free as if it was a kiddie toy. Good ol' Shego, he thought, briefly wondering, for the millionth time, where she was and how she was doing. Forget it, he told himself, and pushed the nostalgia aside. That's ancient history. That was then, this is now.

Now was Tuesday, two minutes to three. Yvonne was due to arrive any second. She was never late. Drakken had put on his best shirt and jeans, but he remained barefoot. It was hot outside, and his air conditioner wasn't the best. He would have liked to open the sliding glass door, but only hot air would come in, turning the place into a little oven—he'd made that mistake too many times already. So he had put out two little fans, set them on high in the living room, and then proceeded to wait.

She ran the bell exactly at three. He stood inside the door until she used her special GJ issued Laser-Lockit—another of his own inventions swiped by Dr. Director—to open the electronic lock. She entered, and they began the game.

But this time there was something even more different about Yvonne. Drakken sensed a tension in her that seemed almost like...anticipation? She kept looking at her watch, for one thing, and she declined to take one of the PB stickies he'd made especially for her. Even her mind seemed to wander a bit, which was very out of character for her.

He was about to ask her if something was wrong when she scooted forward a little in her chair. "Drew, I want to ask you something."

"Really?" he snipped. "Gee, that's a switch." He meant it as a joke. I mean, all she does is ask me questions! he thought.

But she didn't laugh. "Have you ever been in love?" she asked him.

He just looked at her.

She looked evenly back at him. "Well? It's a legitimate question. Answer."

He wanted to say, "Sure I've been in love before, lots of times—but with pretty girls who never gave me a second glance. My many many affairs weren't just fleeting, they usually lasted about eight to twelve seconds." Beyond that, Drakken had nothing to say. Turance already knew about Shego and how he felt about her. She also knew that he would refuse to talk about Shego should her name come up.

So he tried to evade the question, saying, "What exactly do you mean by love? I mean, there's brotherly or sisterly love, there's love-love, there are crushes, there's lust—"

"I'm talking lust." And she continued to stare at him.

Again, Drakken just looked back at her. He suddenly felt hot, and it had nothing to do with the weather outside. He realized that Dr. Yvonne Turance wasn't just staring at him, she was staring at him with open interest. She was practically burning through him with her eyes, wide and lit with an inner fire.

Holy crap, she's talking about me! Drakken thought. He was no expert in these things, but that light in her eyes was lust, he could figure that out easily enough. As his heart began to pound he stared back at her, completely unaware that he was giving her the exact same look. She wants me. A flesh and blood woman actually wants me! And he realized that he wanted her. Oh god, did he want her. How stupid he'd been these past few weeks! Their arguments had been much more than psych sessions. He and his GJ therapist had been engaged in verbal foreplay, a stylized back-and-forth that had created a fierce energy between them. He'd been totally unaware of it, but now it was so obvious!

Both of them stood up, eyes locked. Each took a step toward the other. The living room was so small that those two steps brought them together.

Their first kiss wasn't soft and loving. They both instinctively knew there was no love involved here. This was lust, and Drakken finally knew what it felt like to crave a woman's flesh. Oh, the concept wasn't new to him—he had fantasies like any other man—but this time he had a real live woman in his arms. He was in a position to fulfill his desires without the use of a Hustler magazine. His kiss started tentatively, but when Yvonne threw herself at him and literally knocked him back on the couch, a button went off inside of him. A knot loosened, a gate opened. He embraced her, threading his fingers roughly into her hair, and pulled her down, kissing her with an urgent passion he didn't know he could ever possess let alone display.

She made a happy moaning sound and pulled the rubber band from his ponytail, roughly mussing his long hair up until he looked like a rumpled version of his cousin Eddie. "You think you're not attractive," she murmured between frantic kisses. "That's not true. You're the most exotic man I've ever seen."

Drakken did not compliment her back. He didn't know what to say. "I love you," did not apply. "I want to jump you" applied but just seemed crass. "You're exotic, too" wasn't true. She was pretty, oh yes, but exotic? No. So he just kept kissing her, lost in feelings he'd never felt before and ignoring the fact that the word "exotic" didn't exactly mean "good looking." What the hell. He wasn't in a position to be picky.

Then he suddenly remembered that his entire house was bugged. What the hell am I doing?!

Yvonne sat up straight, still straddling his prone body, and began unbuttoning her blouse. "I diverted the surveillance system's programming," she said, reading his expression. "It will give us privacy for about 10 minutes. That's all the time we can risk. Are you up for it?" With that, she reached down and massaged his crotch, squeezing all the required parts playfully.

Drakken jumped at the touch, first in automatic embarrassment and then with utter physical bliss. He was up for it, all right. Yvonne smiled. "My watch alarm will go off two minutes before the system comes back online."

The next eight minutes passed in a blur that probably would have looked amusing to anyone watching. So much to do, so little time, was the motto of the moment. Many pleasurable activities were pushed aside to get to the meat of the matter, so to speak, and as he performed his role in this unexpected drama, a small portion of Drakken's mind seriously wondered if he'd finally lost his mind. It was like finding yourself in a fast-forward porn movie. Thank god he was so excited by the whole situation that he quickly came in Yvonne with a strangled cry of pleasure. She answered with her own squeals, and the two of them had just enough time to tidy their clothes and hair before the surveillance system came back on.

Drakken sat on his couch, flushed but hoping he looked flushed from anger and not the release of nearly twenty years' pent-up urges. He planted his usual scowl on his face, but it was extremely hard to do so while facing Yvonne Turance sitting on her chair, her expression forcefully neutral but her eyes glittering with fulfillment and—Drakken could think of no other term for it—the singular thrill of blatant naughtiness.

Dear lord, what have I gotten myself into? Drakken thought.

TBC