SWNOVELS Good Behavior: Chapter 18
I’d managed to avoid my brother this morning, sneaking in after he started his day, but as I enter my office, I know it won’t last long. I’m not surprised when a few minutes later, he comes walking in, closes the door, and sits in front of me.
“Levy.”
“Make it make sense, Bram. You’re the one who emphasized patient ethics when I decided to follow you into therapy.”
I appreciate that he doesn’t try to ask me whether or not it’s happened. He’s not trying to see if I’m going to lie to him. He just wants to understand.
“Do you remember Wayne Doggett?”
“Of course I do. That was awful what happened.”
“I found out about his suicide five minutes before I was scheduled to see a new client. I should’ve cancelled, but this new client had killed another prisoner in self-defense. Prior to that, he was on the list of guys to be released early for good behavior. Warden wanted to know if he was still a good candidate for release.”
“And that was Nacho?”
I nod. “He didn’t even know he’d killed the guy who attacked. He was so upset when I told him, and there was something about that. He wasn’t trying to kill the guy, only disable him. He was a fighter, but not without a conscience, you know? I just thought…maybe I can save this one.”
Levy’s brow wrinkles in confusion. “Save him how? With sex?”
I take a deep breath and examine my thumbnail.
“No. Sex is only a recent addition. But there was a dynamic between us in our sessions.”
The confusion in his expression intensifies. “Explain.”
“He was angry, he was upset, but when I gave him commands, he would calm down. When I would fuss over him and ensure he was taking care of his physical needs, he…blossomed right in front of me.”
“Commands? Like BDSM commands? What kind of commands were you giving him?”
“Simple things. To drink enough water, to get enough sleep, to sit up straight.”
Levy’s eyes scan my face as he ponders my words. “Were you intentionally doing that in a sexual way?”
I shake my head, not sure how to make him understand.
“Not initially. But he reacted to it sexually, and his reaction, I don’t know, soothed something inside me. Like, if I could tell he was turned on, I had proof that what I was doing was effective.”
Hell, Abraham, how can you make him understand when you still don’t understand it yourself?
“Bram, you have to know that was…”
“Deeply unethical,” I say, answering for him.
“Have you ever done this with other patients?”
I shake my head vehemently. “Absolutely not. I don’t know what it was about Nacho. He’s beautiful, clearly. But from the beginning, there was this energy between us I couldn’t put words to. Things were sexual between us, even when they objectively weren’t sexual. I don’t understand why, and I don’t know why I leaned into it. I only know that his early release was on the line, and he seemed to comply better across the board when I took charge. When I was successful, when I was able to show that he was cooperative, the warden released him.”
“How did that make you feel?” Levy asks, shifting into a more therapeutic stance.
“I was proud of him, but I missed him so badly it hurt. I didn’t know what to do with that feeling or the reality of what I’d done, so I quit.”
Levy takes a few steadying breaths, still struggling to understand.
“This dynamic…you’ve not had it with any other patients. Have you had it with any other people? Is that how you and Louis handled things?”
I shake my head. “No. I’ve never done anything like this sort of power exchange, ever. I fucked it up actually. Which you’ll think is hilarious because he’s the one who called me out on it.”
“Nacho called you out on fucking it up?”
“Yeah. He looked it up online, and the first element of a positive dynamic is good communication, and we had never talked about what it was we were doing.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Levy holds up his hands as if to physically stop me. “You ordered him around, he reacted to it sexually, which did something for you, and neither of you ever talked about it?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was out here? Did you know he lived in the area?”
Biting my lip, I nod.
“Did you take this job because you thought you could be near him?”
“Not consciously. But I think at some subconscious level, I was hoping I’d run into him. I didn’t know there would be this much of a connection between what we do and what he does.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Well, I’m falling in love with him, and he’s agreed to be my boyfriend, so…I’m going to keep seeing him as long as he’ll let me.”
Levy’s jaw drops, and he stares at me, confused and maybe even a little hurt.
“You could lose your license.”
I nod. “We’re a few months shy of the two-year cutoff.”
“For the sex, yeah, but…that little dynamic you two had…”
“Nothing they could prove in a court of law.”
He gives me his c’mon, Bram look. “You knew what you were doing was wrong when you were doing it.”
“Yes.”
“And that didn’t stop you?”
“I liked it,” I admit. “I liked that it was wrong.”
His jaw drops, and I see his brain recategorizing me as we speak. I wonder where I’ll land with him at the end of it.
“You liked that it was wrong?”
“Yes. And I liked the control. Still like it, actually.”
“And he’s…what? Consenting to this?”
“Enthusiastically.”
Shaking his head, still not believing me, he gestures to the man who isn’t here. “Nacho doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who takes to direction very well.”
“Depends on the kind of direction you’re giving,” I say, looking down with a small smile.
“So you really don’t care how unethical this is?” he asks, simply unable to get there.
Honestly, I’m glad he can’t fathom it. I’ve always known he was a better man than me, and this proves it.
“I care deeply about ethics, Levy. I care deeply for the health, well-being, and safety of our patients. I would never ever ever ever ever take advantage of a patient. Ever.”
“But you did. The power differential between you means that you had control over everything. Hell, even his freedom, Bram.”
“I know,” I snap. “Even though he was into it, it was wrong, and I liked that it was wrong.”
His silence forces my head up, and his shocked expression both shames and validates the sentiment I haven’t been able to shake.
“Do you trust yourself with patients now?”
I nod, absolutely assured of my answer.
“I do. This wasn’t the start of some pathology in my thinking. This was a combination of having an extremely emotional event precede finding somebody who is a perfect match for me in an unconventional space. I would’ve always been attracted to him, though. Normally, I would’ve shut it down or had him switch therapists. But at that moment, I needed what Nacho was giving me, and he needed what I was giving him.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know I’ve disappointed you.”
“I don’t think I’m disappointed. I just…this makes me realize I don’t know you as well as I thought I did. It almost…” Levy stops, running his hand over his beard. “Look, I’m about to say something really fucked up, but I feel like I can because you just admitted how much you get off on the unethical nature of your relationship with Nacho Rivera.”
“Okay…” I say, not sure what to expect. “Lay it on me.”
He lets his hands work the air as he finds the words. “I dunno, but…you being imperfect kind of helps.”
I grin. “Yeah? In what way?”
“Fuck, look at me, then look at you. I’m scruffy. Your hair is always parted perfectly. I’ve got a little bit of belly. You’re jacked, always. I’m wearing a T-shirt, and you’re wearing a starched button-down.”
“You work with horses. Your clothing makes sense for what you do.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never been able to approach things like you do—with logic and reasoning. I’ve always just sort of followed my own flow, like an internal guidance system. Society looks at you, and they look at me, and they think you’re the buttoned-up one. I don’t think I realized how much I just sorta…went along with that thinking. Like, I had no idea ICE was all up in your grill at the hospital or that you’d fudged patient paperwork. Hell, I’ve definitely done that. How can we be so close, and I didn’t know that about you?”
“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know it about myself either.”
“And now that you do?”
“It’s a lot. This need to be perfect. I didn’t know how heavy it was until I couldn’t help myself. All that stuff with putting the patients over policy came after Nacho. I think I’ll always enjoy dressing like this and doing my hair like this. But I don’t know. Something about Nacho gives me permission to be a little messier than I’ve ever let myself be.”
Levy nods, running his knuckles along his lower lip, tilting his head side to side as the words connect.
“So the guy with the neck tattoos is what you needed?”
I rub my chest thinking about everything he’s given me. Slowly, my eyes meet Levy’s, and I dip my chin.
“He’s perfect for me. He makes me a better therapist. He makes me a better brother and friend.”
“Does he know that?”
“I may not have fully communicated that to him yet. But I will.”
“So this isn’t just some hormone-driven temporary insanity?”
“Oh, hormones are involved,” I say, laughing.
Levy makes a disgusted face. “TMI, Bram. T. M. I.”
“Brother, if you don’t wanna hear about my sex life, don’t ask me questions about my sex life.”
He holds up his hands. “Fair point. I guess I just…I’m trying to consider the long-term happiness of the patient. I don’t want him to be harmed if this ends, and I don’t want him to come back and retaliate with, frankly, the truth.”
“I hear you, but he doesn’t operate with a retaliation mindset. That’s just not who he is.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was his therapist, Lev.”
Levy puts his head in his hands. “That’s really fucked up, Bram.”
“It is. I know it is. But I want you to consider that the guy he killed was trying to rape him. Nacho later admitted it made his stomach hurt. He literally wanted to throw up when he found out he’d killed this man who meant to do him harm. All Nacho ever wanted to do in prison was put his head down, do his time, get out, and try to rebuild his life. He looks forward, Lev. Never back.”
Levy lets out a long breath, scrubbing his forehead. Finally, he says, “That does make a certain kind of sense. I mean…the way he was with those women. Like, he was hearing stuff a seasoned professional would be disturbed by, and he controlled his response so he could be there for them.”
I nod, confessing, “Hell, I had to go to his place yesterday because I didn’t want to sleep alone.”
Levy looks off to the side. “I didn’t sleep at all last night or the night before.”
“Everything I learn about him makes me want to learn more,” I say, picking up a pen and rolling it between my fingers. “At first, I thought it was just me needing to regain control. But if that were the case, I could’ve gone online, found a sub, scratched the itch. But it wasn’t submission. It was his submission. It was that man and all the layers that make up him. In the thirty seconds I had before I saw him, I was reading the file of a guy who was smart, who’d stayed out of trouble longer than most of the guys in his neighborhood, somebody who had more under the surface, more to give.”
“It must’ve scared you, wanting to control someone but not being able to control your own impulses.”
“It was terrifying,” I admit, somehow feeling freer for saying so. “I couldn’t stop, and it made me question everything about who I was. Then, when he played with me, when he responded in kind, I couldn’t have felt regret for that at all.”
Before Levy can respond, we’re interrupted by a knock at the door. We sort of blink and shift, coming back to the present. Charlie pokes his head in the door, immediately clocking that Levy and I are talking about something serious.
“Gentlemen, my apologies. I don’t mean to interrupt your therapeutic time, but we’ve got a bit of a situation.”
“I think we were just about done here,” Levy says, looking at me.
I stand. “What’s going on?”
He walks in and is followed by Justin, Erik, Ant, and Nacho. Seeing him in my office somehow brings it all back, and my first thought is I want to bend him over this couch.
“Fix your face,” Levy whispers.
“Sorry. Thanks,” I whisper back.
Charlie gestures for Nacho to speak. Our eyes meet, and I send him an encouraging smile. After a brief hesitation, he tells us about the client who set off his alarm bells. By the time he finishes describing the project they’ve been hired to do, my alarm bells are going off too.
Ant speaks up, describing the building as the exact kind he’d been kept in before. I exchange a look with Charlie—Nacho’s instincts were spot on.
“It was like they were told at the last minute that this shipment was coming because the original mission messed up their plans. By the time Ant and I got to her, the trailer had been taken over, so her plans were doubly fucked.”
“But then she continued with the project?”
Nacho nods. “Makes you think. Charlie takes down one location in a completely different state, and this one pops up two days later. Maybe they’ve got more coming, maybe they were already going to put something up at the property, and this accelerated those plans. Not that I know anything. It’s probably just some wild theory, but…”
Charlie shakes his head and so does Erik. “Not some wild theory. Pretty fucking educated guess. Definitely worth looking into.”
“So there seems to be some urgency to this,” Levy observes.
Erik nods. “It’s the property next door.”
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath.
Levy laughs. “They have no idea they just set up shop next to an entire anti-trafficking organization.”
Charlie grimaces. “We still have to be careful how we play this. We thought we’d cut the head off this organization, but they regenerated rather quickly. A little too quickly. The building, the fencing, the fact that it was all expedited…money, money, money.”
As we contemplate the grim reality of the situation, Ant asks the obvious question.
“What are we going to do?”