𝑺𝒕✩𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍

The carpet is beige and boring. The lamps are soft. The whole room feels too quiet, like something is waiting to go wrong. You sit with your ankle propped over your knee, arms crossed tight, trying not to look at Lando. He sits beside you but angled away, knee bouncing nonstop, jaw locked like he is pretending he is calm when he clearly isn’t.

The therapist looks between you both with the polite, cautious smile people use when they suspect a gas leak. “Alright. Why are we here today?”

Lando answers before you even open your mouth. “Because she keeps acting like I’m the problem.”

Your head snaps toward him. “You are the problem.”

He gestures at you. “See.”

The therapist tries again. “Can one of you give me an example?”

Lando points straight at you. “She says I sexualise everything.”

You sigh. “Because you do.”

He looks at the therapist. “She shuts me up in public with one look. I go silent instantly. Like someone pressed an off switch. Then she texts me filth while I’m trying to stand upright in front of professionals.”

The therapist raises her eyebrows. “Such as?”

He clears his throat. “Stuff like, ‘Come home and fuck me till I can’t walk.’”

You mutter, “Twice.”

“Once was enough,” he says. “I had to pretend I wasn’t going to cum in front of half the garage.”

The therapist nods slowly. “And you?” she asks you.

“He sexualises everything,” you say. “Everything. I breathe wrong and he falls apart.”

Lando smiles smugly. “Tell her about the toothbrush.”

Your jaw tightens. “I was brushing my teeth. That’s it.”

He looks at the therapist. “She’s half naked, hair up, bent over the sink brushing her teeth like it’s the most innocent thing on the planet. I walk by the doorway and she’s-”

“I was brushing my teeth,” you repeat.

He ignores you completely. “She was making noises.”

“I was brushing my teeth.”

“And I said one thing. Just one.”

The therapist looks at you.

“He said,” you tell her, “‘Do us a favor and spit a bit louder next time. Makes it easier for me to wank to later.’”

The therapist stops writing.

You stare at him. “You’re repulsive.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, and you still slept with me that night.”

You ignore that. “Another example. I take my bra off. That’s all. I take it off and toss it on the chair.”

“She threw it,” Lando says.

“I placed it.”

“She threw it. Like she was signaling a pit stop.”

You talk over him. “He looks up from his phone and says, ‘Don’t do that unless you’re ready for consequences.’”

Lando lifts his hands. “Her tits were out. What am I meant to do. Ignore them?”

The therapist looks physically pained.

You keep going. “Or the peach. I’m sitting on the counter eating a peach. That’s it. Not being sexy. Just hungry.”

“She was massacring it,” Lando says.

“I was eating it.”

“Juice down her hand. All over her fingers.”

The therapist lifts a hand. “Alright, I think that’s-”

“And I said,” Lando finishes, ‘You keep that up, I am gonna be rubbing one out in the stairwell.’”

The therapist inhales sharply.

“And when I told him he was disgusting,” you say, “he said, ‘You’re the one deep-throating a peach.’”

Lando nods. “Accurate.”

The therapist presses her fingers to her temple.

“He does this constantly,” you say. “I sit on the sofa in sweats with one leg tucked under me. Comfortable. Normal. He looks once and says, ‘I’ve wanked to less.’”

The therapist freezes mid-pen-stroke.

“And then,” you continue, “I reach up to get a mug. My shirt lifts maybe an inch.”

“More than an inch,” Lando mutters.

You ignore him. “He says, ‘If I get even half a look at your back dimples again I am gonna cum standing up like a dog.’”

The therapist closes her eyes.

You keep going because you’re already halfway to hell. “Work is worse. We’re crowding around screens after practice. I sit down. One leg tucked under me.”

“She does it on purpose,” Lando mutters.

“It’s my leg,” you snap. “He looks down and mutters, ‘Brilliant. Now I’ve got a semi and nowhere to go.’ In front of people.”

Lando shrugs. “It was factual.”

“Earlier that weekend,” you say, “I stretched my arm and my tank top slipped a little. Not much. He looks away, then looks back, and says, ‘If she keeps moving like that I’m going to eat her out on the tyre trolley.’”

The therapist actually stares at him with her mouth open.

“The tyre guy quietly walked away,” you add. “His race engineer sighed into his headset and said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

Lando looks unbothered. “Honesty is important.”

You glare at him. “Then there’s the paddock. I walk past in a dress. Nothing extreme. Zip up the front, my legs out, normal. He’s walking with his trainer and says, like it’s small talk, ‘Bent her over the sim rig last week. Nearly dislocated my hip.’”

The therapist pinches the bridge of her nose.

“The trainer said, ‘We’re in public,’” you add. “Lando said, ‘And I’m in pain.’”

The therapist slowly turns to him. “And you said that during work?”

He shrugs. “It was relevant.”

You keep going. “Post-race. He’s sweaty and feeling himself because he just came P2. A journalist asks how he handles mental fatigue mid-race. Innocent question.”

Lando groans quietly.

“He says, ‘I think about something better.’ They ask, ‘Better like what?’ And he says, ‘Can’t say in front of my team.’ Everyone laughs. Then he adds, ‘Put it this way. She’s flexible and I’ve got a good memory.’ Zak put his head in his hands.”

The therapist stares at Lando like he’s radioactive.

You’re not done. “Then after qualifying, he’s on the mic alone. I’m not in the room. A reporter asks, ‘Is she your good luck charm?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, maybe. She gets me loosened up.’ Long pause. ‘Physically. Mentally. Whatever.’ Another pause. ‘That came out wrong.’ He looks toward the curtain like I’m there. I’m not. Then he goes, ‘Fuck.’ Directly into the mic.”

The therapist sets her pen down.

“And the brand video,” you say. “Rapid fire questions. They ask him, ‘What’s the last thing she said to you?’ Without thinking he goes, ‘Don’t come yet.’ I’m standing off-camera. I don’t move. The crew stops breathing.”

Lando clears his throat.

“And,” you continue, “the group interview. Multiple drivers. Someone asks if they believe in soulmates. He should say no. He knows he should say no. He looks at me, barely pulls the mic away, and says, ‘I was inside mine this morning.’ As if no one would hear him.”

The therapist actually flinches.

“Everyone heard it,” you say. “No one reacted. Carlos leaned over and whispered, ‘You are unbelievable.’ Charles looked away so he wouldn’t laugh.”

The therapist turns to Lando. “Is that all accurate?”

He sighs. “Yes.”

“And you don’t see an issue with any of that?”

He shrugs. “I see a few issues. They’re not all mine.”

You laugh under your breath. “Here we go.”

Lando finally looks at you properly. “You’ve spent ten minutes listing everything I’ve said. Do you want to tell her the things you say or should I?”

You feel your stomach drop. “You don’t have to repeat it.”

“I do,” he says. “Because you keep pretending I’m the only feral one here.”

He looks back at the therapist. “She says things during sex that are not normal. They sound like they came from some bloke’s search history. Straight filth. Just falls out of her mouth.”

You whisper, “Please stop.”

He doesn’t. “She’ll be gone. Completely gone. And she’ll say stuff like, ‘Fuck, keep going, I can feel you in my fucking guts, do it again, right there, don’t stop.’ No filter. No awareness. Just raw filth.”

The therapist looks down at her notes again.

“And then,” he says, “there are the ones that should never be said out loud. Ever. She once said, ‘Fuck me until my legs don’t work, fucking kill me, Lando.’ Just like that.”

The therapist stiffens.

“And she grabs me,” he adds, “pulls me closer, and it’s ‘Fuck, cum in me. I want you leaking out of me all day.’”

You put your hand over your face.

“She doesn’t remember half of it,” he says. “Because she’s too far gone.”

The therapist asks quietly, “Do you remember saying those things?”

You shrug. “Some of it.”

“And then there’s the baby one,” Lando says.

You look at him fast. “Stop.”

“She looked right at me,” he says, “and said, ‘I want to have your baby, Lando. Please.’”

The therapist’s eyes go wide.

He adds, out of pure spite, “And she said it in this pathetic little whiny voice.” He mimics you horribly. “‘Lando, please, I want your baby, please.’”

You smack his arm. “I did not sound like that.”

“You did,” he says.

The therapist looks like she wants a glass of wine.

“And outside of sex,” Lando goes on, “she’s worse. Because she doesn’t think. She’ll whisper things like, ‘Your cum is still leaking out of me,’ when we’re walking past fans.”

You shut your eyes.

“Or in the lift,” he says. “‘If you touched me right now I’d let you and they could all watch.’ Full lift. Engineers included.”

You pinch your forehead.

“And before a briefing,” he says, “she hugged me and whispered, ‘I am so wet, I can feel it on my thighs. I need your hands all over me or I will go insane.’ Then acted like nothing happened.”

You breathe out slowly. “You put your hands on me later.”

He stares. “That’s not the point.”

The therapist finally says, “So both of you struggle with boundaries. Especially in public.”

Lando laughs once under his breath. “That’s one way to put it.”

You cross your legs the other direction. “He likes all of it.”

He looks at you sideways. “Liking it and explaining it in therapy are two different things.”

She exhales slowly. “So. To summarise. Both of you use extremely explicit language. In private. In work settings. In public. Often without considering impact.”

Neither of you answers.

She tries another angle. “How did the two of you meet?”

You both answer at the same time, same flat tone.

“Work.”

There is a small silence. The air feels thick. Your chairs have inched closer together without either of you noticing. His knee is almost touching your leg now. His fingers are resting on the arm of his chair, close enough that they keep brushing the side of your hand when he moves.

The therapist looks at where your hands almost meet, then back at your faces, then down at her pad, where absolutely nothing she writes is going to fix this.