Author's Note: And then she asks for a Tim POV – so demanding! (But the pig's worth it.)

On the Cutting Room Floor – The Wizard

Jesus fucking Christ, does she have to do that?

I'm a bad boy. I buy her those coffees with the caramel on top just to see her swipe her finger through it and then lick it off. It's fucking torture. I want to lick it off for her. Jesus, I'd do anything to lick that finger. I'd do anything – I'm even talking to her about shit I don't ever talk about. I'm such an asshole and she's just trying to help me out.

I can't do the office thing. I try. I think I'm driving her crazy. I can't sit still in there. After two sessions of me pacing the room and saying nothing she suggests a walk. So we walk. I'm her last client and we walk longer than the hour and she asks me some stuff and I come up with more one-word answers than she probably thought existed in the English language – may have stretched the grammar rules a bit doing it.

"Knock, knock," she says finally when we're back at the curb by my truck.

I play along. "Who's there?"

"Interrupting cow." She grins, all ready to laugh at her own joke.

"Interrupting c…"

"MOO!"

And then she starts laughing and I just stare at her. I'm never quite sure about her. I'm beginning to think she's the one that needs therapy.

"I love that one," she says when she's stopped giggling finally. "My neighbor's kid told me that one yesterday."

And she starts up again, laughing, thinking about it all over, I guess. It makes me smile, watching her laughing.

xxx

"Tim," she says, twists her mouth up the way she does when she knows she's going to say something I don't like, "I know you started to see me about that situation at work but I think it might be a good thing if you talk to me a bit about your time in the military."

Even I catch the shift this time, I guess I've been at it enough and it's getting almost laughable it's so obvious. My leg starts jumping and I find it hard to look at her. I'm a pretty good poker player – did a lot of that with the guys in the barracks and I can keep a straight face when I have a bust hand – but I can't hide my tells in these sessions. There's more at stake in emptying your soul than there is in emptying your wallet. I haven't got the nerves for this game.

She takes pity on me, opens with a light bet, one I can call comfortably. "Tell me what you liked best about it. There must have been something to keep you in the Army past your contract obligation."

I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, relieved at having something easy to talk about. "The rifle."

"I beg your pardon."

"I like shooting. Making a good shot is…well, it's the best." I'm embarrassed, rub an imaginary bit of dirt off my hand.

"You were good at it?"

I look at her then, want to make something clear. It's important. "I still am."

"Then why did you leave?"

How did she corner me? "It was time."

"How did you know it was time?"

"It was time, okay. Believe me – you know." I'm angry and I leave her sitting there, decide I've had enough therapy to last me a while.

She shows up at my door the next day. It's the first time I've seen her with one of those coffees. She's licking her finger and I let her in, hypnotized. I'm such a fucking guy.

xxx

I still don't like to talk about it but I can't stop myself buying those coffees and meeting her for our sessions and damn that finger. I'm starting to wonder if she does it on purpose, like maybe she caught me watching once and now throws it out there at the beginning of each hour like the girls in the beer ads who are just there to get your attention while the message gets delivered. Let me tell you, it works.

I arrive today like a trained monkey with her coffee.

"Thanks," she says, takes it from me and pulls the lid off and swipes her finger through the foam and the caramel and licks it off. Fuck. I'm dying here.

"What are you drinking?" she asks. Earth to Tim.

"Uh, just black coffee. They make good coffee at this place."

"Was the coffee good in Afghanistan? I hear they drink it strong there."

"No, actually, the locals drink tea."

"Really? Is it good?"

"Better than the base coffee." I grin, remembering. "That stuff was shit. When we were at the base in Kandahar, we'd go to the Tim Horton's with the Canadians. It was marginally better. But normally it was shit army coffee." I shrug it off. "I'd drink it anyway. You'd need a good hit of caffeine working on so little sleep."

"Did you find it hard to sleep while you were there?"

"No, I can sleep anywhere. There was just no time. We'd sometimes run two patrols in 24-hours. A lot at night. By the end of a deployment, even a short one, you'd be a fucking zombie, running on bad coffee and adrenalin. I remember shipping home one time and sleeping the whole way. Out cold before takeoff and someone had to shake me awake after we'd landed and taxied off the runway. I'm good at sleeping on planes now." I grin for her.

She grins back. Her eyes are really blue. "Did you punch the poor guy who had to wake you? I know you startle easily when you wake up unexpectedly."

I think back to that plane, that deployment, the face that woke me up. I can feel the grin falling, and if I can feel it then she can see it and I try to hitch it back up but it's too late. It's down in a hole now with the face that woke me up. I'm upset. I hate that word – upset. It sounds so fucking weak. I haven't thought about my buddy in a while though. I don't want to think about him or that deployment or the one after. I slept hard on that plane. I can feel how tired I was even now.

"You should try one of these caramel coffees," she says. "Here." She dips her finger in the foam and touches my lips. Earth to Tim.

xxx

She arrives at the door with a pound of some fancy-ass boutique coffee in a plain brown paper bag with an ink stamp on it that says 'fair-trade', announcing to the world with its inconspicuous packaging how conspicuously snobby it is and politically correct and saying, look at me I'm helping some poor fucking farmer in some fucked up third world country, and…and shit it smells good. It's Saturday morning, and shit she looks good without any make-up, inconspicuously conspicuous, just like that awesome smelling coffee, only she smells better.

"I have a confession," she says, "I hate caramel coffee. Could you make me a pot and I'll take it black?"

I'm exhausted. I don't tell her but she woke me up. It's been a week of overtime and I fell asleep on the couch when I got in last night at four in the fucking morning. But I make her coffee and we sit on the porch and she says, tell me about the soldier that woke you up, and I do. I have no idea why. I had no idea it still hurt that much. Fuck. It's all I can do to hold it together. After she leaves I run until I can't breathe, so hard I throw up, then home and I fall asleep again on the couch and wake up two hours later, shouting and shaking and angry.

I don't want to see her again. I don't want to do this.

xxx

She puts herself in my way though. The next time I see her she's sitting on my porch and I can't avoid her and I really don't want to anyway. It's after work and it feels different and she's so close to me in the kitchen and we end up in bed and I get to lick that finger and she laughs when I do 'cause she knew all along, and then I forget the world and everything in it for a while and when I wake up in the middle of the night, she's still there. How does one person so fucking upend your world? Jesus fucking Christ, does she have to do that?

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