Legerdemain (Closed)

Warning: This thread will be extreme, in virtually every sense of the word. Please read with caution.



The house was simple, a single story that consisted of three bedrooms, one of which had been converted into an office, a den with a fireplace that did not get nearly the use it used to, and a large, wooded back yard. Much of the lot the house sat on was wooded as well, trees tall and old that kept it shaded and cool in the summers, and caught some amount of snow in the winter, keeping it from piling up on the tilted roof. The street was long and quiet, the homes spread out enough that residents rarely had to interact with their neighbors if they didn't desire to. He had attended the occasional back yard BBQ in his time there, but would not go so far as to call any of the people he spoke with their friends. In truth, he rarely thought of them at all.

Every morning, weekday or weekend, his alarm would sound at 5:30. For much of the year, this was before the sun had even begun to brighten the horizon. He would leave the warmth of his bed, naked in the still darkness, and dress quickly and quietly. There was no one there to wake, but quiet was his nature. The course he ran changed rarely, a circle through the neighborhood that totaled just over five miles by the time he returned to his front door. In winter, his breath was stark in the darkness, white fog against the black. He ran without music, preferring instead to empty his mind - of plans, thoughts, conscience. He was a body, then, ligaments and muscles, bones and cartilage all working together. An extraordinary machine.

He would shower, the water hot, steam filling the room of marble and glass. Wearing only a pair of boxer briefs, he would eat a breakfast of steel cut oats with sliced, fresh fruit mixed in, while he stood and stared out the back window. He watched the world come to life, well after he already had. A cup of Irish Breakfast black tea would follow, strong with only a splash of milk to cut the sharpness of the tannins, and both cup and bowl would be in a rack beside the sink, drying, as he dressed for the day.

His suits were expensive, a luxury he allowed himself. Pressed shirts, silk ties, the bottom of his walk-in closet lined with shoes that would compliment anything he might decide to wear. He was simple and professional today, the suit a deep, rich blue that brought out the sharpness of his blue eyes. His tie was red, like a strip of blood down the center of his chest, the shirt beneath it a pure white. Reading glasses were tucked into the inner pocket of his jacket, and two hours after he'd first risen from sleep, he was lifting his briefcase off the desk in his study and stepping out his front door.

His car was nice, but not flashy, sleek and quiet without pulling attention to itself. A comet, instead of a black hole. He slipped through the early morning traffic along with the rush of others headed to offices and job sites, moving with and among people without ever really being seen. It was how he preferred it.

The building containing his office was short and squat. Only six floors tall, it was wider than it was long, the facade a collection of concrete and tinted glass. He parked in a corner of the lot, some distance from the door, and made his way to the building without taking off his sunglasses or attempting to greet anyone else that was walking in at the same time. Inside, the lobby bustled with early morning activity. There was no receptionist, the offices contained within were, instead, a collection of individuals and businesses that leased out office space, joined together by a common building but not a common cause.

The wait for an elevator always felt like the longest part of his morning commute, and were he not in a suit and conducting business for the rest of the day he would happily take the stairs. Instead, he waited in line as the each elevator departed with a full car and returned some time later with an empty one, it's contents spilled out across the floors. His offices were on the top floor, in the back corner, and it was nearly a full twenty minutes from the time he'd stepped into the building to the time he rounded the final corner in the labyrinthine hallway, his shoes whispering across the carpet. It was strangely silent back there after the chaos of the lobby, a fact he was both aware of and paid extra for. The last two doors in the hall were his, the offices connected by an inner door that had allowed him to turn one into a waiting room. He paused before this first door, as nondescript as all the others he'd passed on the floor save for the unique bronze nameplate fastened to it, which read Dr. Alexander Ramsey in carved, dark letters. A quick turn of the key unlocked the door so patients could enter, and then he moved down to the next door, which was marked with a plate that simply said PRIVATE in bold, capital letters.

He entered his office, closing the door behind him.

Setting his briefcase down on the desk, he unbuttoned his jacket and shrugged it off, then hung it on the coat rack he kept behind the door. Opening the briefcase then, he removed a laptop and tablet, setting each on the desk in front of him. The laptop, encrypted and password protected, contained all his patient files and notes, and was backed up nightly on the computer in his home. The tablet was what he used to take notes while with patients, the software quickly and easily converting his handwriting from the stylus into easily readable text. He found it quicker and easier than dealing with legal pads and pens or pencils. Streamlined and simple. Closing the briefcase, he set it aside and opened the laptop.

His first appointment was due within the hour, a woman named Jocelyn that he had thus far communicated with only through e-mail. He was unsure how she'd found him - referral from another doctor, a search through her insurance database, a simple internet search, a recommendation from a friend, the possibilities were nearly endless - and so finding out that information would be the first order of business when she arrived. But, until then, he opened the browser on the laptop and plugged her name into Google, to see what came spilling out. There were times that researching a person ahead of time had proved useful, and while unorthodox, it had proved to be a useful tool for him.

On the other side of his office door, the waiting room was a simple square room, with chairs along three of the walls. In two of the corners, between chairs, were small tables with stacked clipboards and the necessary paperwork for all new clients. A small sign of the wall instructed new patients to fill out the paperwork, and to push a button beside the door to inform him that they had arrived for their appointment. The button would send an alert to his tablet, informing him that the next patient was there, letting the whole process play out without the client he was currently sitting with being aware in the slightest. He operated efficiently and in silence.

Glancing at the time in the corner of his computer's screen, he paused in his research to power on the tablet, and connect it to the office's WiFi. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to his research into his first patient, and waited for her arrival.

OOC: He is not even kidding. This story's going to be awful, and not by accident. You've been warned - twice.


Her alarm went off before the sun was up, before the cat was up. She groaned, nerves still thrumming with adrenaline at the shock of the rude awakening, and as she rolled onto her side to hit the snooze button, Max adjusted his double-pawed footing so as not to lose his warm place in the hollow of her chest. As they settled back into the comforting darkness, she heard him smack his gums on a yawn, and then his sleepy, questioning, "Mrrrrowr?"

Her heart was still thumping under his furry, purry weight, and she rocked him in a deep inhale and exhale. No, she didn't see the point in being up so early, either.

"I don't want to do this," she murmured at the ceiling.

She'd fallen into the bad habit of talking to herself when she was alone - which was most of the time. It was something crazy people did. So she'd got a cat.

You're an adult. If you really don't want to do this, you don't have to. No one can make you.

No one can make you do anything you don't want to do.

She grunted softly at that. "Except when they can..." she whispered.

And that was at the heart of the matter, wasn't it?

Max was settling in, kneading her gently with his paws until she could just feel the prick of his claws through the thick blanket, his persuasive purring a loud rumble in her ears: Isn't it nice, here? It's warm and dark and cozy, here. There's no need to go anywhere, today. Everything is nice and safe and predictable, here. Stay here with me - we'll sleep until the sun is hot and high in the sky...or until I put my paws on your face to let you know I'm hungry.

It was so tempting. She could feel the fatigue, achey in her limbs - she hadn't slept well in weeks. Her best sleep always seemed to come in the hours just after sunrise, when sheer exhaustion clouded her busy mind in a merciful white, dreamless fog. She needed sleep, was all. It would do her a world of good. Just forget the appointment, then - no one could make her go - sleep through today, and then, tomorrow -

Tomorrow will be just the same.

A different voice now - didn't everyone hear voices in their heads? Didn't they?

This one was her best friend's, blunt, repeating what he'd said to her less than a month ago.

Do you know what will happen, if you don't get help for this?

Nothing.

Jocelyn groaned again, turning over, abruptly toppling the cat to muffle her face in the pillow. "Fiiiine, I knooow..."

You can't go on like this.

She sighed and pushed herself up to sitting, muttering angrily to the empty room, "I'm up. Shut up."

The alarm blared again as her five-minute snooze ran out, and she slapped it viciously.

"And you can fuck off, too."


In the kitchen, she put the coffee on in her one-cup coffee maker, and poured Max some extra kibble, by way of apology. It spilled over the rim of his dish and onto the floor, but what did it matter? He'd get it.

She supposed she ought to shower. She couldn't remember when she'd showered last.

Quickly, ahead of her beating heart, she stopped at the front door. Tried the knob and felt it balk firmly in her grip. Thumbed the deadbolt reflexively, feeling it slide open and then slide home again with a solid thump. She needed to feel it between her fingers and in her hands. She made herself breathe, told herself this was what relief felt like.

She locked the bathroom door too, and undressed quickly, not looking at herself. She turned the water on as hot as she could stand, and stepped into the spray with a gasp, and then stepped deeper. It felt like acid on her skin. She closed her eyes. She would not touch herself today, not even to wash. Just let the harsh hot jets boil her alive as she remembered her last conversation with Michael.

"All men are potential rapists. Just, some of you choose not to be."

His eyes, his mouth, when she'd said that. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter and turned her face into the spray, feeling it scalding hot on her cheeks.

After a long moment, he'd answered quietly: "That offends me. That hurts me. You don't really believe that."

Her jaw had hardened even as her eyes had stung with tears, looking back at him. "You could do it. You have a penis that gets hard. You are stronger than most women - and some men. You could fuck almost anyone you wanted to."

And he had taken her hand and held it tightly, though she'd tried to pull away. "Joce. Please. Talk to someone."

That was enough. She turned the water off and whisked the curtain aside - opaque plastic curtain, after a panic attack in the shower - so many little changes she didn't like to acknowledge.

Back in the bedroom, she applied some deodorant and dressed herself in baggy black sweatpants, a loose t-shirt, and an oversized grey hoodie - careless choices, one would think, looking at her, but actually, she had thinned out her wardrobe with great care. She brushed her hair and left it to air dry. Slathered some moisturizer on her face, took the time to brush her teeth, but no makeup.

Sliding into a chair at the breakfast nook with her mug of coffee, she auto-dialed a taxi. She'd sold her car two months ago, and public transportation was out of the question.

Max wove his mackarel-striped body in figure eights between her ankles as she fished one of several plastic bottles out of an empty flower pot next to the toaster, and shook two tiny pills into her palm. Pinching them up, she placed them under her tongue and held them firmly as she swallowed a bitter gulp of black brew.

"It'll be the same as the last time," she mumbled around her tongue.

Max paused, looked up at her with his bright yellow eyes, purring loudly, and took it as his cue to spring up into her lap. Stay with me, then. Look - you can't go now, I'm in your lap...

She scratched him under the jaw until his eyes closed appreciatively, but then tipped him gently back onto the floor. His tail twitched moodily as he stalked away without a second look back.

"Do this for me," Michael had said.

She drained the last of her coffee and went to the window to watch for the cab. Sometimes they couldn't find the place. Sometimes it was hard to tell there was a house back here, at all.

The last one had been seeing Michael's fiancé for work-related stress. She was really good, he promised. Jocelyn had gone to see her on a Thursday afternoon, her first time out of the house in weeks. The therapist had dismissed her choked narrative without hearing the whole story - the details were unimportant, she said. She'd spent a good part of the hour teaching Jocelyn deep-breathing exercises. She tried them again half-heartedly now, trying to settle her nerves.

Close your eyes. Deep inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth, and on the exhale, say the words aloud: "Let goooo..."

Jocelyn had opened her eyes and frowned at her. "That's silly, though."

The therapist had smiled and insisted, "Again. Once more - deep breath, do it with me -"

"No. I-I'm not. Going to do that. That's silly. This is not what I need."

The therapist had pressed her lips together on her smile and simply looked hard at Jocelyn for a moment. Then, reaching for a pad of paper and a pen:

"I think I know who you should talk to."

An impatient beep jolted her out of her thoughts, and she waved hurriedly at the cabbie as he emerged through the trees at the end of the long unpaved driveway. She swept up her purse and her keys, calling over her shoulder, "Be good, Max!"

Stopping on the stoop to lock the door - close it - try it - try it again before she could allow herself to trot down the walk to the waiting taxi. She didn't smile at the driver as he turned to greet her, and she spoke up as she gave him the address, to make sure he heard it correctly. The cars this company sent were often outfitted with safety barriers between driver and passenger, as this one was. She liked that about them.

She fell silent, watching anxiously until she was confident that he was headed in the right direction, and then sat back, trying to relax.

You can walk out.

He's there to help you.

If it's not working, if he's creepy at all -

Give it a chance.

you can walk out. Go back home and lock the door. Crawl back into bed and stay there -

- for the rest of your life?

She leaned forward, putting her face in her hands. Closing her eyes and shaking her head.

It's been six months, Joce. When do you want to start living again?

Let goooo...

She sat up again, stone-faced. "Fine. Fine. I'll give him a chance."

The driver's gaze flickered to the rear-view mirror. "I'm - sorry, miss?"

She sighed and hugged her purse tightly to her chest. "Nothing. Sorry."


She hated the city, now. She had lived downtown for two years, and once, the constant activity had excited her. Now, the rush of people on the sidewalks - even at this hour, when most of them should have had places to be - intimidated her. Everyone seemed so deliberate, in such a hurry, and she couldn't possibly know their intentions, their motivations, their secret desires. Any one of them might be - anyone. Women and men in their smart business attire - and here she was, in her rumpled sweats stippled with cat hair. She didn't belong here, anymore. Even the bright glare of sunshine off the windows seemed indifferently hostile and unwelcoming.

She could feel the tightness in her chest as the car pulled up to the curb and she stuffed the money through the two-inch slot in the bullet-proof plastic. The air seemed different, as she stepped onto the pavement, and she stopped and made herself breathe slowly and deeply again. She would be fine. She had as much right to be here as anyone else, she had -

She had an appointment to keep.

For the first time, the thought was strengthening. She strode up to the entrance of the building with renewed confidence. He was expecting her.

The elevator presented the next problem. There was a crowd - half a dozen, maybe more people already waiting, and she felt her face droop in dismay as she watched them all cram inside, the moment the doors opened. She hesitated just a moment as they stared back at her expectantly. Sixth floor - she could take the stairs...no, she couldn't take the stairs. Crime happened in stairwells. She stepped across the threshold and squeezed into the corner, trying to make herself as small as possible. Held her breath until it came to her floor.

She was the only one to exit on six, and she tripped out of the box gasping for breath as the doors sealed behind her, and she heard the car make its descent, abandoning her.

It was quiet here, and empty. Her anxiety levels dropped almost immediately as she began to move down the hallway of closed doors. She tensed as she glanced in passing at each one, bracing herself for it to open, for someone to charge into the hall and demand to know what she was doing here - but it never happened. She let her fingertips trail lightly across the wall, looking ahead of her now with a growing certainty that his would be the last door. No need for anyone to come this far unless they had business with him. She could appreciate it.

When she came to the door with his name on it, she paused. Knocked briefly, just in case, then turned the knob when no prompt came from within. She stepped into a well-lit, absolutely empty room. Jocelyn stopped just inside for a moment, glancing around uncertainly until she saw the sign. No receptionist, then - no gatekeeper, no unnecessary middle-person - she could appreciate that, too. She sat down shakily and pulled one of the clipboards onto her lap.

The questions were fairly standard and came as no surprise, especially as she'd filled out a similar form just a few weeks ago. Jocelyn found herself glancing up from the page more and more frequently, to blink watchfully at the closed door across from her chair. He didn't emerge.

When she'd completed the forms, she rose and crossed the room in three long strides and extended her index finger - but stopped, just before it touched the button. She was holding her breath again, and she made herself exhale before she thrust her finger forward and pressed it to the button until her fingertip turned white. She fully expected to hear a buzz or a bell of some sort, sounding through the closed door - but there wasn't anything. It took her a moment to realize she'd been holding the button down much longer than necessary, and she jerked her hand away, watching the door.

The knob turned slowly, easily, as if he wasn't in any real hurry, and swung inward, revealing the man behind it gradually. Jocelyn could feel her face, tight and pinched on her strained expression, but couldn't relax her features. She could feel the clipboard growing heavy in her hand, threatening to tremble, and she clapped it hard against her thigh.

An internet search before the appointment had not resulted in any photos of him, and she was...unprepared. He was young. Handsome. Smiling as he stepped forward and said her name and then held the door open for her to enter. Did not offer his hand to shake, as if he sensed she had issues with being touched.

And she was going to tell him - him...everything?

She followed his directing arm to the chair across from his desk, and sat down, keeping her eyes on the clipboard in her lap as she heard him close the door and walk back around to his seat. It was confusing to look at him. She frowned at nothing and wondered again if she could do this, but when she heard the friction of fabric as he sat down, she made herself look up into his face.

Made herself smile. "Thank you. For seeing me."

She didn't have to do this.

No one can make you.

Whatever he chose to say in the next thirty seconds would determine whether she stayed to listen to more - or walked straight back out that door, went back to her little house and resigned herself to life as the crazy cat lady.

There was surprisingly little information on her to be found in his search. It was possible she'd put her social media accounts under a different name - a trick virtually every teacher he knew had used to hide their posts a little better from tech-savvy students - and without knowing what it was his chances of finding anything were already slim to begin with. Plugging her name into Google yielded only a little more, and most of it old and fairly useless. His sharp eyes narrowed, a slight frown creasing his features as he clicked through the few links that seemed in any way related to her and skimmed through him. There was truly little.

Switching back to his e-mail client, he double checked that he had the spelling of her name correct, and that a simple typo wasn't to blame for the lack of web presence. Confirming that he had it correct - or at least how it had been spelled in the appointment request - he was left with one of only a few possibilities: Either she just wasn't someone that cared much about technology and social media, she did but had simply used a different name, or she had done her best to scrub as much of her presence from the internet as she could. The first two were relatively boring, in the grand scheme of things.

Secretly, he hoped it was the last option. It would mean she had reason to not want her presence on the web. It would mean she had a reason to want to hide. It would make her interesting.

The sound of the door opening into the waiting room took his attention then, and he closed the browser and then the lid of the laptop, and set it aside on his desk. Rising from his chair, he took his suit jacket from where it hung and slipped it on, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt and straightening his tie after. The alert popped up on his tablet shortly after, and he dismissed it and bent to open the door of the small fridge behind his desk. Pulling out two small bottles of water, he set one on the table in front of the chair where she'd sit, then the other on the small table next to his seat.

Crossing then to the door, he pulled the door open with a casual air - he'd learned fairly quickly that opening the door swiftly could startle people on the other side, and when dealing with patients with anxiety or frayed nerves, it was not exactly ideal.

She was waiting on the other side, and despite her dress and the somewhat unkempt nature of her appearance, it was her eyes that he noticed first. They caught him off guard, paused him for a moment, and when he regained himself he smiled at her slightly: welcoming, but not pushy, warm but not forceful, pleasant but void of aggression.

"Miss Rees, please come in."

He stepped aside to let her pass, then closed the door quietly behind her.

"Feel free to have a seat," he said, indicating her spot with a wave of his hand. With his back to her, he lifted the tablet off his desk and then turned to lower himself into the seat across from her. The tablet sat on his lap, screen darkened, and from the interior pocket of his jacket he pulled his reading glass. Leaving the arms of them folded, he set them down on the face of the tablet, and loosely clasped his hands over them. His eyes, a shade of blue not far off of hers, remained on hers, steady and warm, unafraid in the face of whatever she needed to unspool for him.

"You can just leave the clipboard on the table there, I'll collect it when we're done. And feel free to take the water, if you need a drink at any point. Or take it with you, if you'd like. No extra charge."

His smile broadened slightly, briefly, at the therapists version of a joke, before his features returned to a more neutral, open state.

"So, I'm Dr. Ramsey, as you're aware," he said, shifting gears, his tone taking on a slightly more professional tone. "I know you didn't really spell out why you wanted to see me today in your appointment request - which is perfectly fine, and we'll get to that - but I wanted to just give you an idea of how I work, and what to expect from our sessions, should you decide you'd like to continue them.

"First, know that what you say here is strictly confidential. I cannot and will not share with anyone else, not even colleagues, what you tell me here. Think of it as confession, without all the trappings of religion surrounding it. I'll be taking notes occasionally here," he said, tapping the tablet with his fingers," but that is only so I can look back on them later and remember things we've discussed. It is secured, as well, password protected and encrypted, so the notes are safer than if they were on paper. I'll always be listening while we are talking, even if I am writing as you speak.

"Now obviously you're here for some help, and I am here to help you. Almost universally that means we'll be talking about uncomfortable, emotional, and possibly traumatic things. I know that these are things few people enjoy talking about, but sometimes it's necessary to say them out loud, to another person, and receive some help in dealing with the thoughts and events that have you here today. Because of that, I may ask you some prompting and probing questions, and look for you to expound on thoughts or feelings you have.

"You're not always going to like he," he said with a slight shake of the head, keeping his gaze steady on her as he continued, "And you may not always like me for the questions I ask. But everything is designed to help you work out and work through things. To that end, we may occasionally give you a goal for the week, something to work on until your next appointment. If, for example, you are having trouble leaving your house, we may have you just walk out to the end of your driveway and back every day for a week. Little steps to start you moving in the right direction."

Pausing then, he lifted the reading glasses off the face of the tablet and set them on the arm of the chair he was sitting in, the earpieces still folded in. Turning on the screen, he opened his note app and pulled the stylus free, writing her name in at the top. Pausing then, he looked up to her, his smile relaxed and pleasant once more.

"So.. would you prefer Jocelyn, or Miss Rees? Either works for me, whatever you're comfortable with," he finished with a nod, then continued, "Why don't you tell me what brings you in to see me today?"

Her face crinkled in the approximation of a smile. It felt like something stiff with disuse, loosening just a fraction. He wasn't so full of himself, then, that he couldn't make a corny joke. She set the clipboard down on the table and took a bottle of water to hold in her lap.

As he began to speak, she listened absently - enough to be able to nod in the right places - but took the opportunity to look at him. Size him up. He was very good-looking. He was probably the sort of guy who'd never had any trouble meeting women, dating women, getting them into bed. Jocelyn's lips twitched and twisted as she fought a...smirk? Wondering suddenly how many women he must have slept with, in his life. Was he married? Her gaze dropped to the fingers he drummed on the tablet in his lap. No ring, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Was he a cheater? She glanced up again at the smooth, clean, untroubled lines of his face. He could probably get away with it. What else could he get away with? Had he ever -

"...I'll always be listening while we are talking, even if I am writing as you speak."

She felt her cheeks flush slightly as she nodded at that, blinking back at him and his genial gaze. He was trying to assure her that he would remain attentive, and she was off daydreaming about his sex life. She resolved to pay more attention, stop with the speculation.

He might not be any of those things.

He can't help his pretty face, any more than...anyone else can.

He's a - a - Dr. Ramsey, so a psychiatrist - he's devoted his career to helping fucked-up headcases like...oh, I don't know. No one in particular comes to mind.

Give him a chance.

She bit her lips to keep from muttering, I am.

And through it all, as he spoke he looked back at her openly, as if he knew he was being appraised, as if he expected it - or at least didn't mind.

"...you may not always like me for the questions I ask," he was saying, and she nodded and looked down, fiddling with the water bottle in her lap. She was listening. She was glad to hear him acknowledge that. It meant she wouldn't have to monitor herself - maybe she could be honest with him, and react honestly, even if she was angry or upset - though she wondered what questions he might ask about her experiences, that he expected to make her angry.

He spoke of goals, weekly assignments, and Jocelyn felt herself fidgeting in the chair, but she nodded again. She didn't want to leave her comfort zone - she'd spent months cocooning herself, making her home and her routines the safest place in her world - and even now, nothing was guaranteed. Change would ruin everything. Change would open her up to the terrifying unknown.

Do you know what will happen, if you don't get help for this?

Nothing.

She clenched her jaw on a snarky response, and nodded again as Dr. Ramsey stopped speaking to allow her to digest everything he'd said. She understood. Progress was never comfortable. To be reborn as a butterfly, a caterpillar dissolves completely inside its chrysalis, into a soup of cells that will divide again and rearrange to form the beautiful, delicate creature that is to emerge. If Jocelyn wanted to evolve, she must expect to break down. Dr. Ramsey was offering it to her in baby steps.

She allowed herself a tiny smile. She liked him well enough. He wasn't promising that it would be easy, and she appreciated his honest approach, in that regard.

In his brief pause, she spoke up quietly, "Jocelyn...is okay."

Her lashes fluttered as she fought another absurd little smirk - the thought occurred to her that it sounded like some kind of spoken affirmation the previous therapist would have had her make, as a confidence-building exercise. She cleared her throat and tried to get her face under control. He was going to think she was a real nutcase, at this rate.

"Why don't you tell me what brings you in to see me today?"

And now her smile faded and her stomach tightened up. Although she thought she liked him and had a good feeling about him, the sentiments made her more anxious than when she'd stepped in here, not less. It meant that she was opening up to the idea of talking to him, exploring - everything, with him. All of it. And it was going to be painful, it was going to be wretched, it was going to suck. She was afraid. She looked up at him - she so wanted to trust him to bring her safely out the other side.

"I - "

In that moment, she almost told him everything.

Let go...

She flinched. If she started to tell him, if he cut her off and told her it wasn't important, dismissed it all as something she should just start getting over, gave her some quick fix - was that what he had in mind, with his weekly assignments?

She felt herself faltering, her voice dried up in her throat. She stopped and fumbled with the water bottle, struggling to get the tight cap unscrewed. To his credit, he only waited - didn't insist on helping with his man-muscles.

She nodded to herself briefly as she swallowed a gulp of cool water, deciding, and then took an extra few seconds to re-cap the bottle so it wouldn't spill. It was her time to waste, she reminded herself.

"I - I'm not sleeping," she murmured, and then paused to let out a long breath. It was the truth - it wasn't all of it, not even close, but - it was a place to start.

He was waiting for her to say more, but he didn't look impatient. After a moment, she shrugged and continued, "My doctor gave me some pills -"

All the pills, everywhere.

"- but...I don't like to take them."

I'm afraid of sleeping too soundly. What I might wake up to.

"They make the...the nightmares a lot worse. I guess - really, the nightmares are the problem. I guess I...it's not that I can't sleep, it's that I - I'm afraid to go to sleep."

Her face creaked on that rusty smile again, and she felt a bit sheepish. Just a girl and her kitty, hiding away in her room from the big, bad world - and now she was willing to spend $150 an hour to tell him all about her bad dreams. But if he only knew, if he could only get inside her head - for just one night...

He was waiting, he was listening. Jocelyn let out another shaky breath. If she told him about the dreams, she would be opening a door she'd been keeping tightly closed inside her - every day, she threw herself against the door, hurting herself, just to keep it closed. She thought again of the caterpillar in its cocoon. She wondered if it retained an awareness, all the way through - if it could feel it, the moment its body collapsed into amorphous goo. Or was it more of a steady burn - the enzymes - a constant, relentless wearing away?

She heard herself speaking before realizing she'd decided to tell him.

"It's always the same. I know what's going to happen, but I can't stop it. And I never get used to it - it's always as horrifying as it was, the first time. And I can't wake up - I never wake up until it's played out to the end.

"There's a man in my house. I can't see him, but I know it's a man. It starts out that somehow I am seeing my house as he would see it. It's dark - it's always the middle of the night, and I can see what he sees, moving through my house.

"I don't know how he gets in, so I can't - can't ever be sure that I've done enough, before I go to bed. He's in my kitchen, and he stops at the knife block. He takes one of my knives - the little one that I use to peel apples.

"He stops in the doorway to my bedroom to just - look at me. He thinks I'm sleeping, but I've been awake for some time, listening to him moving around my house. When he steps into the room, he can see that my eyes are open...but I can't move, and I can't scream. And I hear him chuckle then, because it's going to be so easy for him.

"I feel him climb on top of me and pull the blankets down. He has the knife - he doesn't need it, but he uses it anyway, to cut off my clothes. I can't move or make a sound, but I can feel everything - the tip of the knife grazing my skin, and the tug and tear of my pajamas. And I can cry. It's all I can do, just look up at him and cry. And I can never see his face. I don't know who it is - maybe it's a stranger, maybe it's someone I know...it could be my best friend, it could be -"

you

Her lashes dropped guiltily away from his direct gaze, and she shook her head slightly.

"Could be anyone. I feel his hands on my bare skin - everywhere, all over - and I can't stop him. He puts his fingers -"

inside me

"- everywhere. Then he takes his, um - takes his penis o-out -"

Am I really telling him this?

She cleared her throat, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks. "And he - he puts it inside me. He rapes me. In my bed."

It hurts.

"And I can't - stop him. I can't scream. And he's so excited, he's enjoying it so much, I can feel him on top of me, how he moves..."

In her lap, her fingers were working anxiously at the cap on the water bottle again, but this time she couldn't get it unscrewed. Her breaths were becoming shallow and rapid and she spoke in short stuccato bursts now, trying to get to the end of it.

"He - he puts his hands around my neck. While he's doing it. And squeezes. And I know - he doesn't say it, but I know he wants to kill me. To feel me dying."

On his cock.

"I can't breathe. Most of the time, I wake up just as he - he ejaculates, and he squeezes the hardest - I wake up gasping..."

Those are the good dreams.

"Sometimes...it doesn't end there. He - finishes, and lets me go. And as I'm gasping for breath in my dream, he picks up the knife -"

Jocelyn covered her eyes with one hand. She couldn't tell him. White-knuckled on the cap, the water bottle came undone suddenly and spilled into her lap. Her hand was shaking as she brought it to her lips as an excuse to stop.

She made herself inhale, exhale. She made herself look at him as she muttered, "I wake up, and I've been crying in my sleep. At first, I think the wetness - in my hair and on my neck - is my blood."

She set the water bottle down on the table and uncoiled one leg out from under her, setting both feet on the floor, pressing her knees together. Shrugged. Hugged her arms around herself. Looked up at him.

"So I don't - I don't sleep much, anymore. A few hours, in the mornings. When I can feel the sun on my face. I don't dream, then.

"But it's not - good. I know it's not normal. My - my friend said I should talk to someone."

Jocelyn couldn't stop the humorless little smirk playing on her lips, this time. "Lucky you, huh?"

Jocelyn Rees, he'd written on the top line of the virtual notepad, and then underlined Jocelyn when she told him it would be fine to address her as such. Resting the side of his hand on the screen, then, he watched her with naked eyes as she began to speak, though clearly she was hesitant to let go of whatever it was that had sent her to him. This was a strange and crucial time with a new patient, something that was really more art than science. Some needed a little push, a prompt to get the words flowing. Others reacted badly to such a tactic, slowed themselves off even more than before. They needed air, and room to move.

She had, he guessed, been to more than one therapist about this same issue. Prompting for more, asking probing questions, was the more typical and natural of the two ways to go about getting the ball rolling, and he suspected she'd had that. Probably more than once. It felt unnatural to watch someone struggle for words in front of you and not try to help them through it, but some hurdles had to be crossed without any assistance. They had to know that they could do it on their own, and the next one wouldn't be so daunting when it was arrived upon.

In short order, she proved her ability to push past the block and begin telling him the reason why she was here. Not sleeping. Not taking pills.

Nightmares.

His brows lifted at this, a little spike in interest, and with his empty hand he lifted the reading glasses off the arm of the chair and unfolded the arms, then slipped them on. Under the line where her name had been scribbled, the software automatically translating it into a standard typeface, he began to write quick notes, short phrases that would remind him of the pertinent information in what she was telling him. Then came mention of the man.

A crease of his brow followed, and his chin lifted. He looked at her through the glasses, watching her face more closely now as she described the man. She still needed the space to move, room to work around all the blocks she'd put up to keep this hidden from people - maybe from herself, as well, though that was clearly not working well - and he was the picture of silent attention, simply watching and waiting. She was trusting him, following him step by hesitant step, and he wasn't going to do anything just yet to put that trust to the test.

It was a few moments of speaking before she let her gaze drop away, and he nodded to himself slightly. There was a thought there, something that went unsaid, and he let it pass. There was more to this dream, more to the things that were living inside her head, and he could circle back with her for the stray bits later. She was letting things flow now, the words coming more freely despite the hesitation on some of the details. The story was spilling out for him, soaking into the furniture and the bookcases, becoming a part of the books that sat on them, one of the many sordid and terrible tails that remained invisible between the printed letters.

Looking down, he began to write quick notes again, glancing up occasionally as she continued on. He noticed some color forming in her cheeks - not quite a blush, but not quite not a blush, either. Her voice had changed, her posture and the movement of her fingers, and again he paused in his writing and just watched her. Took in her panic and fear. Both, he suspected, at the images and at telling him of them. He wondered which one was making her more nervous right now. Was it fear of giving this all to someone else, letting them share in these things in her head that made her fingers unable to work a cap?

Looking down, he nodded slightly, a silent acknowledgement that he was still listening as more notes were entered into the tablet, as the file on Jocelyn Rees grew longer and more... intriguing. It was one he'd be reading back over later, a conversation he knew he'd be reliving later. More than once, probably.

"...is my blood." And he gave another slight nod, hearing but not yet reacting, letting the information wash over him. The stylus continue over the surface of the pad, quick and smooth strokes, the recording of more information. Finally, as she finished up - not normal indeed, he thought - the stylus was lifted off the glass and left trapped over his thumb and between his fingers. His glasses were moved and returned to the arm of the chair he sat in. Pushing a button on the side of the device, he darkened the screen, and laid an arm over the face of it.

Shifting in his chair, he sat forward, the reply to her question merely a bit of a smile and a short nod. Lucky him, yes.

Yes. Lucky him.

Swiping his tongue across his lips to wet them, he spoke for the first time since she'd begun. The time for passive listening had found an end, and now it was prodding that was necessary. There was more in her, dark and lurking things in her head that she'd not bothered to lay out for him. And he was going to root them out.

"Jocelyn," he began, his voice low and even, calm in the quiet of the room. The quiet of this end of the building. "I think... what you've just described is rather disturbing. We can both agree on that, I think. But I think it's all a symptom, and not the disease, if you will. You're telling me about the coughing and sore throat, but I don't think you've touched on the virus that's causing it. The real issue here."

He paused. Swallowed. Focused his gaze on her, steady and even.

"Were you raped recently, Jocelyn?"

A wince twisted her features - so fleeting as to be almost imperceptible - but he was watching her so closely. She felt her whole body stiffening in the chair, felt her jaw harden to the point of discomfort. She made herself relax, and found herself smirking at him again. Her voice was barely more than a whisper as she leaned back into the chair and looked at him.

"Now, why...would you immediately think it's something like that?"

Men do. Men have sex and violence on the brain. Constantly.

Will you stop? It is his job to read between the lines. To say what you're not saying.

The "tough love" voice in her head was always Michael's.

She lowered her head, letting her hair fall in soft waves across her cheeks, ashamed of her unhelpful response to his question. Still.

Without looking up from the carpet, she muttered lifelessly, "No. Not recently. Six months ago. Ages and ages."

She could feel her chest rising and falling, faster and faster. She did not want to talk about this.

Then why are you here?

Not now.

If not now -

Shut up, already!

She shook her head slightly, a wavering curtain of hair concealing her face. She parted her lips on a breath, tried to form the words - and couldn't.

I can't.

This time, there was no answering voice.

Her heart was pounding - was she going to have a panic attack, here and now, before she told him anything at all? She made herself take several deep breaths, until she could be sure she was getting enough air.

Through all of it, he just waited - not pushing her, but neither did he back down - revoke the question, let her address it another day.

Her lungs ached in her chest. She stole a glance up into his face - those patient blue eyes. She clasped her hands in her lap - white-knuckled, too tight - and opened her mouth again, and this time -

"You - probably saw it. In the paper. The...attack, on the girl on the LRT. Last fall. That - that was me."

She let out a breath in a long, shaky sigh. Her voice warbled slightly with the strain of her emotions as she struggled to continue.

"Uh...I was...coming home late. From the university - some project. I had roommates then. I could never get anything done, at home. It was the last train. I almost - almost missed it - I had to run. I would've had to take a cab. It would've cost a fortune."

She allowed herself a brief, bitter chuckle. "But I made it."

Another long silence. She felt cold, and hugged herself hard in the chair. She didn't want to tell him. How was this helping? What could he possibly say, to make it better?

"I -" she began again, and in the pause her gaze shifted focus - her eyes had a faraway, troubled look to them as she remembered the night.

"The cars were almost all empty. I used to like that, about riding that time of night. I should have - I should have found a car with more people in it, but I - I used to like to sit alone in a car all to myself - the quiet - I didn't have to talk to anyone or - or anything. I could just zone out until it got to my stop."

She shifted restlessly in the chair. Crossed her leg over her knee, then uncrossed it again. Reached for the water bottle, then put it down again.

She looked back at him, waiting for her to continue, and she shrugged hard, as if slightly annoyed by his patience.

"I had earphones in. You know, they said something about it, in the article - to not have your earphones in, to stay alert. And to sit in cars with several other people - or if not, to sit up near the front, so you can attract the attention of the conductor. The article wasn't about me - didn't print my name, just 'the victim' - didn't say what happened, just 'a violent assault,' and 'held at gunpoint.' My story became a warning. To other women. How not to get raped on the train."

Jocelyn was trembling with anger as she spat this last, and made herself stop and reach again for the water bottle, trying to calm down. Easier, of course, to get swept up in her anger. After another cool gulp, she nodded at Dr. Ramsey, surprised to feel the sting of tears in her eyes.

"Everything I did wrong, that night. That's what they wrote about. Not - not all the things he did wrong. To me. That were wrong. It's sick."

She shook her head, blinking fast, and cleared her throat. "He got away - do you remember reading about it? They never caught him. He's still out there. So I guess it's good, that they're telling other girls how to keep safe."

She smirked at him again, snorted a little laugh. He was so quiet, listening.

"Right?"

His eyes were quick in their movements, a flickering glance away from the reaction on her face to the stiffening of her spine, the way her toes flexed in her shoes, flexing her calves. He saw her poster shift and change, a reaction she was fighting to regain control of. He knew the answer already, could see it as clear as if her cheek was turning red from a slap to the face, but she needed to say it.

He wanted her to say it.

The first thing she said was ignored entirely, as if she hadn't even drawn in the breath to utter the question, and instead he continued to watch her calmly, waiting for the acknowledgment of what they, both, now knew. She looked down, her hair almost a curtain blocking his view of her face, but still he waited. It was a hard thing to say out loud, to make it a real thing to a virtual stranger, despite the air of a doctor/patient relationship that stirred between them.

No, she said first, and he was about to interject, to press the matter further, when she continued on and filled in the details. His head nodded slightly then, an acknowledgment of her statement that she likely didn't even see with her eyes firmly fixed on the carpet beneath them. Still, his eyes flickered, dancing around her frame like a hummingbird, catching shifts in posture, changes in the tension of her muscles, the rhythm of her chest rising and falling. She wasn't doing well, wasn't handling the moment well, but he wasn't tempted to throw her a lifeline, open up an escape hatch in the stretching silence for her. She needed to live it, walk through it, and see that she was still alive on the other side. She needed to experience it, and know that she survived the experience.

His eyes were cool and even when their gaze met again, when she ventured a look up at him, and still he continued to wait for her to speak further. His patience, she would quickly learn, was almost unending. He had every confidence it could outlast hers without much trouble, a certainty that was only strengthened by her reaction now. He was outside of this all, above it, while she was still being battered about in the foaming water, thrown into the rocks anew night after night. She was no match for him.

At last, when she's finished her trip through pain and grief and anger and looking ironically at the silver lining, he nodded, and sat back in his chair. The leather under him creaked mutely as his weight against it changed. He left the screen of the tablet dark, his reflection unseen in the glass on the front, a strange and twisted looking face moving in sync with his.

"It is good, yes," he said finally, his voice warm and deep in the room for the first time in a long series of minutes. "But we can leave that to other people to be happy about. Your time here isn't about what's good for other people, or what's being done to keep them safe. It's about what happened to you, and how it's effecting you."

There was a clock on the table in the corner, between the chair she sat in and the far wall, and his eyes swept over it as he shifted his body again, leaning forward as he lowered his voice.

"You call it 'not recently,' but your mind doesn't know that. You're still living it, still stuck in that moment. Your mind may have changed the setting, exchanged a train car for your bedroom, but it doesn't change what's still happening. You haven't dealt with this, and you have to if you want this to end. I..."

He paused, watching her for a moment, his eyes focused on her face, as if considering his next words carefully.

"I can help you, Jocelyn, but it won't be easy. And it won't be pleasant. There is no quick fix, but there is a fix. I'd like to try a technique with you, called 'flooding.' It's also called 'exposure therapy,' you may have heard of it. I'll talk you through it at your next session-"

The idea that there may not be a next session was not even considered. He was giving her no easy means of escape.

"-and we'll begin with it then. I want you to see me at the same time next week. First thing in the morning, so you won't have to wait, or encounter any other patients as you leave. Lastly."

He rose from his seat then, placing the tablet on the seat cushion behind him, and crossed to one of the bookshelves against the far wall. From it, he withdrew a notebook with a black and white cover, the pages inside blank and virgin. Returning to stand in front of her, he held out the book for her.

"I'd like you to start a dream journal. Whenever you wake up from a dream, good or bad, whatever happened in it, however realistic or surreal, I'd like you to write it down. As much as you can remember, even if it seems silly or unimportant. Bring it with you for each appointment. It will be another important tool in helping you move on from this."

He smiled then, warm and light, already putting some distance between what she'd uncoiled for him and this time now, when she had to go out and face the world. He nodded when she took the notebook from him, and then moved from in front of her to open the door to the waiting room, which remained empty.

"Same time next week, Jocelyn. It was good that you came, even if it doesn't feel like it yet. This is the first step on a new life for you."