Author's Note: So, if you're reading this chapter, consider yourself an honorary guinea pig. A good friend wanted to hear Miljana's POV, also suggested some first-person writing as an exercise. Okay. (Besides, I owe her for the piggy. Her photos always surprise me.) She said I didn't have to post it but it's amazing what people are willing to read when they're supposed to be working…

On the Cutting Room Floor – Underneath the Meat Tag

I walk into Steve's office, no knock. I don't know what he'd do if I knocked. Probably check my temperature. I purposely don't greet him and that's the signal that I'm here as his patient not his friend. He grins anyway but I don't feel like grinning back. I'm disturbed today by something, decide to be a drama queen about it all and flop luxuriously on his couch. He rolls his eyes at my ridiculous display, grabs his notebook, puts himself in character and joins me, over to the chair, one leg crossed over the other at the knee, an elegant pen poised. Ready, he peers over his glasses.

"Tell me about your fadder. Vaz he attentive?"

I narrow my eyes at him, annoyed. "Your German accent sucks."

He pouts.

I cross my arms, play at more annoyed.

"Miljana," he says, patience in a well-cut suit. "What can I do for you today?"

He should be working in Washington not Lexington, hobnobbing with the politicians and diplomats then flirting with their bodyguards. But I'm grateful he's not, that he's teaching here instead.

"I need some advice…NOW!"

Steve raises his eyebrows and I feel like throwing myself at his mercy and telling him what's bothering me. But I don't. Maybe he'll weasel it out of me before the end – he's good that way – but for now I'm too embarrassed at my ridiculous and unprofessional dilemma to confess. Not yet. I feel like a thirteen-year-old. I feel like stomping my feet and yelling about how unfair the world is.

"Advice about what?" he asks.

"About love."

"Oh, stop."

"I'm serious."

He sets down the elegant pen and the notebook, uncrosses his leg and slouches back into his chair. "I thought you were here for a session."

"I am."

"Okay. So you've met someone?"

"Yes." I don't meet his eye and now I'm thoroughly annoyed because he is my mentor and I know that he now knows that I'm hiding something. I come to him whenever it gets to be too much with a client, or if I'm confused on how to proceed. It's all professional talk. Personal shit is left for the bar near the university that he frequents.

"A him or a her?"

"Oh for heaven's sake – a him. You know my preferences are hairy and angular, not curvy."

"So I'd like him then?"

"No. He's not cultured enough for you."

Steve smiles at a memory and I catch it when I look over. "Oh," I tease, "so you've developed a taste for a bit of roughness around the edges, have you? This is new."

He clears his throat, "Ahem, we're discussing you today. This is my office."

I sit up and lean forward eagerly. "Tell me about him."

"Miljana, that is clear evasion." He looks surprised, maybe a bit hurt. "You think I'll disapprove of your choice. Why would you think that? Is there something to disapprove of?"

I shrug, regret the gesture immediately. It's evasive, too. He's at the heart of the matter in under ten minutes. I hate him.

"Why don't you just tell me about him? But skip the crap and get on with the most important thing – what makes him different from the others?"

I ignore the jab and smile. "He likes me. I can tell."

"You've got tits and ass and all other feminine attributes in all the right places, girl. Any guy would like you. It's biology."

"No, I mean, he likes me."

I'm back the next day, determined to be more honest with Steve. I need to be, to figure out some things for myself.

It's hard to think clearly when your face flushes and you're tongue-tied and you want to just reach out and touch the man every time he's within reach. I told Steve about him last time I was here but it was a thin portrait at best and Steve knows I'm hiding something. I knew I was in trouble the minute that Marshal walked into my office. I knew. I was half hoping he'd lump me in with the other psychologists from his past that he hates and avoids and dismiss me too. It would've been easier. Instead he makes appointments and keeps appointments and talks to me and laughs at my sarcasm and humor and shoots it back and it's fun and easy to be with him and I don't have to cover up the rough bits that I have on my surface. He's like hard liquor for the soul. And he doesn't even try to cover his rough bits. He's artless. It's endearing.

I worry it's his sadness I'm attracted to but I do the stupidest things to see him grin so I tell myself it's the whole man I want and I don't think I'm lying.

The last time I saw him he told me a story about the war that… I was considering referring him on but I can't bring myself to do it. He worked so hard to get that one story out. It would be cruel, like a betrayal. He trusts me, as far as he can.

This is the stuff I need to be telling Steve. He'd understand. I think.

I'm distracted and I knock.

Steve stares at me for a full minute, feigning shock. I glare back.

"Oh my God," he says, sardonic asshole. "You are in love."

"This is the third time you've stretched out on my couch and spouted a lot of meaningless nonsense." Steve's annoyed this time. I guess he has a right to be. He's not getting paid for this. And I've been avoiding him.

"Meaningless nonsense? That's redundant." I'm resorting to sarcasm. How pathetic.

His look mirrors my assessment.

"How long have you been seeing him?" he asks.

I bolt. Literally.

"Oh shit, I forgot, I have to meet my mother." And I'm out the door.

Later I think, that was stupid. It was a harmless question between friends. Steve meant how long have I been dating him, not seeing him as a patient. He doesn't know because I haven't told him. It's just, I've never dated Tim, so I assumed...

I'm together enough not to knock this time. It's too late for any advice and I know, guilty, that I didn't confess the truth to Steve earlier so I wouldn't have to hear him to say, "Don't." All those lectures in ethics... Ha, that will never be me. And now the Marshal's kissed me and I've kissed him back and I've crossed my Rubicon. Alea iacta est. Actually, he did more than kiss me. I'm acquiring a taste for bourbon just licking it off his lips.

Never say never. What wise man first uttered those words? He probably fell in love with his best friend's wife…or maybe his goat. I snicker in a very silly way and Steve turns and sees me loitering here at the door with a just-fucked grin.

He tilts his head. "Sex good?"

"Piss off."

He looks hurt again, but I know he's putting it on. "You wouldn't say that to Mister Perfect."

"I would and I do and he's not perfect…just perfect for me."

Steve sighs deeply. I foolishly assume that he's happy for me.

"Miljana, how long has he been your client?"

Oh shit. The question stops me cold. "How did you know?"

He shakes his head, mocking me and I deserve it.

"Silly girl. I've known from the start. You told me about him here. It had to be a work problem." He smiles. "It wouldn't be the first time it's happened – it's a professional hazard." He walks over to me and I'm still in shock. "Shall we go for a drink?"

I nod. I'm such an idiot.

He talks about university politics on the way over to his bar, leads me to a table in a corner.

"He's the Marshal?"

I nod again, unusually quiet.

"He's seeing you about job related issues?"

The waiter comes by, Steve orders a scotch and I order a Stinger – it seems appropriate.

And here's the stinger: "He's an Afghanistan veteran."

Steve stops the waiter from leaving, calmly holds up two fingers. "Make mine a double."

I see Steve once a month now in his office and mostly we talk about Tim. He's been very understanding and patient and a level-headed grounding wire. I think I've convinced him – or actually it's Tim that's convinced him – that I'm in no danger. Tim would never be abusive, not to me. To himself maybe, and maybe that's why Steve still looks worried sometimes. They've become friends. It was unkind of me to think they wouldn't. Steve reminds me that I'm an excellent judge of character and I'm happy to see him teasing Tim the way he teases me and Tim just laughs and deals it out in turn.

He shows up at the house for Tim's birthday with a ridiculously priced, hard-to-find, small-batch bottle of single-barrel bourbon. Bastard – he's usurped my evening. Tim has converted Steve to his species of whiskey and the three of us toast the day and then the two of them get toasted. They drink way more than me. Steve doesn't handle his liquor as well as Tim and he rips into a risqué story about one of his lovers and Tim, he just sits there, a bemused smile and some well-placed sarcasm and surprisingly accepting, and then we're all laughing.

God I love him. Does nothing surprise him? He's so contained, all the time looking at the world with the jaded expectation that it could only fail at any attempt to shock him or please him or hurt him or scare him. Once in a while though there's a crack, like when I get him laughing and he looks so grateful it moves me, profoundly. Or those times at night when he wakes me up and the fear is right there for me to see and it takes him a moment to come back from wherever he is and cover it again.

I'm starting to see patterns in the bits and pieces that Tim leaves around, a word, an empty look, an empty bottle. Sometimes a whole scene plays out when he opens up about something or rips into the furniture. Sometimes I can prepare; sometimes I clear out of the way; sometimes I can only soothe. He always comes back to himself though. Always. But one day, what if he doesn't? I can't help him from this distance; I need to be further away and I can't ever do that again, sit at a distance. It's too late for that.

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