The Hand That Feeds You Read Online Free

leather pants, platform shoes, singing behind the coolest rocker in New York.
    She took out her pack of Nicorette gum. “Do you mind?”
    The bare, institutional office was painted in soothing earth tones. An orange-and-sienna color-field painting hung behind her desk, the kind of abstract art once considered radical that now graced every therapist’s wall. The painting was the only note of bright color.
    “You look like you got some rest last night.”
    “If you call nightmares restful.”
    “I can increase your Ambien.”
    “There is no dosage that will bring me any peace.”
    “Maybe peace isn’t the goal just yet.”
    “Then what are we doing here?”
    “Tell me the last time you felt at peace.”
    I didn’t have to coax the memory: it was late June, Bennett’s and my first weekend together. We met again between Montreal and Brooklyn, at an old-fashioned B&B in Bar Harbor that Bennett had found. He drove down and I took the bus up. We were kayaking parallel to the shoreline when a moose came out of the woods. The antlers must have spanned twelve feet—half-animal, half-tree. I’d never seen a creature more majestic. Bennett and I shared a moment of awe, neither needing to say anything.
    “What’s making you cry?” Cilla asked.
    “I was with him.”
    She offered the requisite box of tissue, but I chose not to take one.
    “I destroyed what I loved. Can you find the right dosage for me to accept that?”
    She said nothing. What was there to say?
    “And here’s how twisted I am. I miss my dogs.”
    She looked at me with that neutral, still gaze, as though challenging me to find a way to crack it.
    “Sometimes I feel as guilty about Cloud as I do about Bennett. Why did I take in those fosters?”
    “You were trying to be kind.”
    “Was I? This wasn’t the first time.”
    “You took in fosters before?”
    “Hoarders use animals to self-medicate.”
    “Do you consider yourself a hoarder?”
    “The potential is there. I was the kid who brought home every stray cat and dog, every featherless baby bird who fell out of a nest. You know what? Those baby birds were diseased. That’s why their mothers threw them out in the first place. I brought one home and it ended up killing my beloved parakeet.”
    “Should people stop being kind because of unforeseeable consequences?”
    I reached for a Kleenex from the box on the low table between us, though I didn’t need it; I wasn’t crying, I just wanted to crush something with my hands.
    “Was Bennett’s death unforeseeable?” I asked. “What about the mother of a newborn who keeps a pet python? What about a woman who takes in her evicted boyfriend and then doesn’t believe what her daughter says he does to her?”
    “Is that the kind of predator you study?”
    “I study victims.”
    I finally told her how I met Bennett. He was the control subject I’d been looking for. Yes or no. He would rather be right than happy . He often feels challenged. He enjoys feeling protective of women. He enjoys feeling powerful with women. Women lie to him. On all criteria, Bennett fit the type B personality, the nonaggressive male, the type of guy your mother wants you to marry. I never went for men my mother approved of. That’s why his charming response to my online persona caught me off guard. The e-mail wasn’t flirty. He didn’t use the computer screen as a mirror to primp in. He didn’t use I once in his first response. I count I ’s. The average male responder uses it nineteen times in the introductory e-mail. You normally appears less than three times. Bennett’s e-mail was in the form of a questionnaire. What book would you not take to a desert island? What’s your favorite-sounding word in the English language? Do you like animals more than people? What song makes you cry but you’re ashamed to admit it? Where would you not take a vacation? Do you think numbers radiate color?
    “Do you think Bennett was your victim?” she asked.
    Why did he have to