Agoraphobia and Ecstasy Ch. 01-10

1

Perfect 72 degrees. Roughly 60 percent humidity. Sunlight streaming in the window, casting its long fingers to the exact point where the chair's wooden feet graced the cream Berber. The rhythmic tick, tick, tick, of the wall clock kept me company--per usual. Dr. Fox was always prompt, never making me wait more than a few minutes past my scheduled time. I glanced at the thick black hands on the Perigold, Howard Miller on the wall. Three minutes until my session.

Dr. Fox had been my counselor for the past three years, working in conjunction with the team of experts I'd amassed to treat my many varying psychoses. Dr. Haymer, the psychiatrist, had referred me to her after a great deal of therapy. Having told me his concern for my mental health, and knowing my propensity to become codependent, he felt I would be in better hands if I surrounded myself with several professionals. Dr. Evans, the hypnotherapist, had concurred, and thus I sat in this mauve and gold tomb of a room where I waited for the prim and proper Daphne Penelope Fox to escort me into her cave of melancholy, that being mostly the heaviness I carry with me at all times, not that of her making.

On the contrary, I'd always found Ms. Fox to be of the cheerful sort, happier than most, friendly, always smiling. At times I saw the face of my adoptive sister, Jessica Rose, her high cheek bones mirroring Ms. Fox's. Though Jessica was more a brunette like myself--that is, before the accident. And her eyes were ebony, so dark you could see the blackness of her soul in them, the soul that poisoned our family. No, Daphne's eyes were cerulean, the brightness of the spring sky condensed and positioned to look into my soul, my soul that was fragmented and skewed, a life bewildered by trauma and such circumstances someone my age should never have had to endure. No, Jessica and Daphne may have looked similar, but they were very different people.

The clock's ticks soothed me as I heard the door on the opposite side of Ms. Fox's office open and shut; the cursory sixty second interval between patients passing without incident, and then the knob on the door to the waiting area turned. The scent of strawberries and honey filtered into the room as Daphne opened the door. Her perfume and shampoo scents mixed into the perfectly pleasant aroma that was Dr. Fox. She said the perfume, the strawberry fields scent, had been one her own sister had worn for so long. And the honey a trick used by her grandmother to tame split ends.

She must have found it easy to relate to me in ways, with both of our siblings having found untimely deaths, though her sister had been taken by disease. Jessica had been lost to a disease as well, just not the bone cancer that took Daphne's loved one. The pain she'd shown in her expression and in her words when she told me the story several months back had knit our souls together in a most intricate way, the way a cobbler mends a shoe's sole back to the leather. You know after so long the threads will come loose and the cobbler will need to repair the shoe again, but for a time it becomes something you rely upon, something you trust in and is comfortable. That was the way I felt when I talked with Daphne--Dr. Fox.

"Kenji, would you like to come into my office now? We can get started." Her voice was calming, the way a nursery-school teacher speaks to a shy child who suffers from separation anxiety when their parent leaves them on the first day of school. But it wasn't just the tone she used when she spoke that comforted me; it was the way she said my name, Ken-ji, as if it were two names pronounced separately, but on her lips it reminded me of the voice I heard in my dreams sometimes when I dreamt of being a small child. The dreams that often had me paralyzed with terror, still the voice therein would soothe me and pull me back from the brink of shock.

I stood and straightened my pantlegs, pinching the crease down the front of each of them, making sure the fold was still crisp, a habit I found myself doing often, though I didn't know why. The tan polyester kept its shape fairly well, fitting loosely around my thighs and stretching down to dust the tops of my Doc Martin's. A slight tug on the hem of my Supima cotton cardigan and I was shuffling past the tiny frame of the petite but beautiful doctor, her cool hand patting my shoulder as I passed through the doorway into her office.

As usual, not a thing was out of place. Stapler on the corner of her desk, notepad with a fresh sheet of lined paper on the top, pen resting to the side at a perfect parallel to the pad. The silver MacBook she kept records on positioned to the side of the notepad, her iPhone in its rose gold case lying on top of the laptop. The curtains were wide open, giving a view of the city in all its grandeur. In a moment's time she'd shutter the view--my choice not hers. I felt intruded upon, as if the birds would eavesdrop and carry away my words into the wind where creatures of the night would learn my greatest fears and creep upon my bed while I slept, taunting me with my most terrifying memories.

I sat on the lounge, the familiar smooth leather warm today, as if the previous patient had only just left it. It was an uncomfortable sensation, like sitting on a warm toilet seat in a public restroom--one sensation I would forever be disgusted by and one I would never experience again, choosing to contain my personal matters of the sort until I was safe at home. Daphne--Dr. Fox and I had had many a conversation about just such a topic, her insisting that my fear of warm toilet seats was not something I needed to worry about when sitting on her couch, several times proving the cleanliness of her furniture by spraying them down with cleaner and wiping them with a rag before I sat down.

She was good like that, to go the extra mile to make me feel comfortable in her office, as if she knew the only way my demons would come creeping out of my mouth and onto the pages of her notebook is if they felt comfortable to be themselves, cold toilet seat and all.

I tucked my hands beneath my armpits, crossing my arms over my chest, and fixed my gaze on the bookshelf along the wall across from her desk. Never a speck of dust. She was cleanly, the way my mother would have preferred I be, but I was not, at least not when my mother was alive. I counted the times I'd stared at the bookshelf with its volumes of psychological handbooks, professional journals, and a mix of knickknacks, perfectly arranged to showcase Daphne's tastes. A baseball signed by the 1946 Cubs team--not particularly special to most people, but knowing third baseman Stan Hack was a relative of the good doctor made it special to her. Beside that was a framed baseball card, Andy Pafko, signed by the man himself.

I never liked baseball much, but Daphne must have to display such trinkets on the shelf in her inner sanctum. I much preferred things that could be enjoyed with some amount of thought and activity. Watching grown men toss a ball around and whack it with a stick was something Jessica would have liked, not me. The evening paper had a sudoku puzzle on the back page every night. That is how I spent my time, but it was hardly something you'd have an autographed collection of. Men worshipping other men for trivial things was by far something I would never do, and besides, I could hit a ball with a stick as well as any of them if I had practiced as much as they did.

No, allowing my fingers to grace the ivory of a Steinway grand piano was far more precious to me than collecting useless material things with other men's names on them, even if they did have some sentimental relation to me. I had no need of material things; what I had need of was solace, connection--relationship. And thus my eye turned to the striking figure of the woman in front of me. She stood with hands on her knees, leaning forward, peering down at me. The deep V of her button-down silk top afforded a view of her breasts, but I didn't allow my eyes to take it in, focusing rather on the ruby shade of lipstick she had chosen when she'd prepared herself for work.

When Daphne did that, leaned down in front of me while wearing a low-cut top that showed every curve, the lace of her bra, the hint of a hardened nipple beneath the silky fabric, I was reminded very painfully that my attraction to the good doctor was dangerous. I was certain that other men would have taken their delights, ogling her like an object and going home to masturbate to images of her tits stored in their memories, banked for the occasion after having taken advantage of her carelessness. God forbid I look a little too long at the treasures tucked away inside her top. The things that would do to my body would have long-lasting repercussions, an erection that I'd not be able to hide, that nasty bit of precum that dribbled out into my boxers drying on the cotton fabric making them worthy of the incinerator. And if I got worked up to the point I needed release, well then I'd be stuck praying to whatever gods there were that I didn't have a wet dream because that was not a mess I wanted to clean up.

Her piercing eyes told me she'd caught me lost in my own world again and a frantic glance to the clock revealed it hadn't been as long as my racing heart told me it had. She clapped her hand before pulling her chair up closer to me, and then seating herself on it, her deep navy, fitted skirt stretching over her thighs as she crossed one leg over the other. The heels she wore seemed to be impractical, the spindly heel on them worn on the outsides as if she pronated too little as she walked. I noticed things like that often, the tiniest details not escaping my eye. Daphne and Dr. Haymer said it was hypervigilance, though I just thought myself to be observant.

"Kenji," she said, placing her notepad on her lap and clicking the pen in her left hand to life. "How was your week?" Her smile softened a bit, the glint in her eye catching my attention. I very much enjoyed the tiny bit of light her eyes reflected, often catching myself staring at her for longer than is appropriate, the way a silent seizure grips you and makes you fade off into a dazed sort of feeling and then you catch yourself and glance around hoping no one noticed you. But she always noticed.

"My week," I stuttered, peeling my eyes from hers. I shivered, not because I was cold but because I found it difficult to express myself verbally. If only Dr. Fox would have allowed me to keep using my iPad to communicate the way we had when we first started therapy. I would type into the message app what I had to say, and she would speak to me after reading my message. Speaking was hard, but writing came easy, which is how I landed my job at the Tribune. "My week," I repeated, searching my brain for words I knew wouldn't come.

"Yes, Kenji. Your week. How was it? Did you have any episodes? How did the appointment with Evans go?"

"Evans?" The hypnotherapist. The guy was not as patient as Haymer or Daphne, often rushing me out of his office in a huff because I was unresponsive to his attempts to hypnotize me. I never understood how that was my fault anyway. If he were any good at his job it would work, wouldn't it? "Not well." I gathered the saliva that pooled up inside my cheeks and swallowed it nervously, wishing I'd gotten a cup of tea to bring with me, or a soda, anything to be a distraction for the nerves making my mouth water so horribly.

"Tell me about your sleep this week. Any nightmares?"

Daphne scrawled something on the notepad. It was still strange to see someone writing with their left hand, and the way her fingers held the pen, shining French tips making her petite fingers so elegant, made me feel so inferior to her. My mother would turn over in her grave if I expressed that, that a woman made me feel intimidated, and not even by anything she said or did, simply by the way she held a pen.

"Nightmares? No, not this week."

"Good," she said, scribbling something down on the pad again.

When she shifted in her seat her skirt rode up ever so slightly, and I turned my eyes away, looking down to my knees where my pantlegs had relaxed, stretching over my leg instead of keeping their crease. I yanked my hands from my armpits and pinched at the pants feverishly for a moment before realizing it was pointless, my pants would not maintain a crease while I was seated, something I'd tried repeatedly to teach myself, but the urge to keep that crease sharp never left me no matter how many times I pinched the damn pants and they refused to straighten up. The problem was, with my dick swelling the way it did when she wore that skirt, I found it very difficult to even concentrate, let alone keep my pants creased.

My mind would wander, imagining Dr. Fox's fingers toying with the hem of her skirt, inching it upward until the lace trim of her panties peeked out. I stared at those fingers, willing them to expose her flesh to me, bunch the skirt up around her hips and spread her legs, dip into the silky fabric covering her lady parts and push it aside. The thought roused my dick further, and I shifted uncomfortably, but still my mind toyed with me. I was lost in that damn fantasy, Daphne fingering herself, her soft folds slick with moisture I could never touch but fuck if I didn't want to feel our bodies connect anyway. I'd boil myself in acid to clean that mess up, but I'd enjoy the release thoroughly first.

"What about your homework? Did you do what I asked you to do?"

I snapped out of it, heat in my cheeks as I avoided her gaze as if she could read my mind and see the dirty thoughts I had. My hands returned to their safe zone beneath my arms, and I rocked gently, a comforting action I took when I felt nervous. Daphne told me even at our first appointment that it was okay for me to do it if it helped me feel safer. Leaving the house was hard enough but sitting in such a tiny room with a such a powerful woman left me feeling like I was a mouse in a cat's cage. Still it was not as bad as it had been when we first started our sessions.

"My homework?" I'm sure she was annoyed by the fact that every one of her questions was returned with one of my own repeating what she'd asked, another annoying trait I had which I'm certain had she just been a beautiful woman on the street and not one being paid to listen to me would irritate her and make her run away laughing or shuddering over my social awkwardness.

"Yes. Did you go to the post office like we discussed? Get out of your house and interact in the real world?" Her sincere look of concern chipped away at my anxieties but not enough to get my wayward hands out of my armpits and relaxing.

"No."

It was the truth. My fear of leaving my house kept me hiding. It wasn't always this way, and often I found mud on my boots at strange times even when I didn't remember leaving the house. Daphne thought perhaps I had instances of sleep walking--or worse, delusions. She expressed her concern that I was imagining things and my subconscious brain was taking over. Dr. Haymer toyed with a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder at one point but scrapped that for the sleep walking theory. I didn't care one way or the other what the diagnosis was, I just wanted to fulfill my court-appointed therapy requirements and be left alone. So no, I hadn't done my homework because I would rather have just lain in bed all day and not been bothered by people outside my bedroom.

"Kenji, we talked about this. If you don't do the homework, you won't get better."

My Adam's apple bobbed when I swallowed again. I could feel it in my neck, like the hunk of fruit that had cursed mankind on this god-forsaken planet. Daphne didn't see my hands slowly clench into fists because wisely I kept them buried in my armpits, my palms sweaty. She droned on about my treatment and the judge's orders, the way I would recover, and if I would be able to live a normal life, but what was normal anyway? And why should my normal have to look anything like any other person's normal. How was it any more normal to get in your car and drive to a grocery store to purchase food than to use the grocery delivery service to have your food dropped on your step? It wasn't like it was still the sixties where Holly Homemaker kept house while her husband brought home the bacon.

I didn't say much for the rest of the appointment. When Dr. Fox got on one of her kicks like this it was best to take the verbal lashing with patience and find a safe place inside my mind where I could relax. She was right; from time to time it was nice to leave my bedroom, even if it was only to drive across town to sit here and be lectured, though the outdoors still brought me so much anxiety I had to park in my garage with the door shut before I would even open my car door. Luckily enough for me, the building where Daphne had her office had a parking garage beneath it, so to do therapy with her meant never having to walk under the vastness of the sky above.

Dr. Haymer's office was quite a bit more terrifying, but we'd worked out a system that helped me feel more comfortable, alternating telehealth calls with in-office visits and carrying a handicap card so I could park directly in front of the building.

"Are you listening to me?" Daphne snapped, and my eyes jerked to her face which was glistening with perspiration. When she was angry or even slightly upset her eyes glistened all the more, drawing me into the depth of them, making me wander what lurked inside her mind. A strand of her sandy hair fell across her face and she brushed it aside, pursing her rouged lips with the same frustration etched on her brow. I was a disappointment, a colossal waste of her time, and I knew it. I knew my mental conditions would never be cured by sitting and talking no matter what Haymer said. I needed the drugs he prescribed, not some jibber-jabber about past sins.

I blinked hard, preparing to endure the next forty-six minutes and thirteen seconds until the chime on Daphne's cell phone announced the end of the session.

2

Clicking the lock button on my key fob I jammed my car keys back into my purse, the bundle of random office and home keys jingling as they danced in my hand. I swore out loud when my hair fell in my face for the umpteenth time, me having made the very poor choice to turn my once very long hair into a shoulder-length bob with no way of tying it back. A very poor choice indeed. I blew at the crazy stray hairs as I hefted my briefcase, purse, and phone in one hand and my laptop bag, my grey sport jacket, and a half-drunk bottle of iced tea in the other.

My Louis Vuitton heels clicked on the garage floor as I maneuvered around my car, a fire-engine-red BMW purchased for me by the strange man who stalked me in medical school, who tried to make me his or convince me I would never be happy without him by purchasing expensive and lavish gifts for me. I remembered him monthly when my student loan bill came in, wishing I'd had the forethought at the time of his wooing and luring to convince him to pay for my schooling, though the car was very nice, and I did enjoy the heated leather seats when it got cold out. Still, his attempts to cajole me into being his had failed because I was not one to be controlled or wooed.

The garage door started to close the moment I nudged the button with my elbow, the silk top I'd chosen snagging on a rough bit of plastic on the casing of the button. I heard it tear and gritted my teeth in anger, refusing to look at it as I wedged the tea bottle under my chin and typed in the code to disarm the alarm and unlock the door, pushing my way into the house and using my foot to shut the door behind me. Kicking my heels off as I walked, I shuffled across the deep pile carpet to the sofa and unloaded my arms of their weights, leaving everything I had been carrying in a heap on the cushions. It had been a long day, and I was exhausted, nearly following my items downward onto the sofa.