Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Ch. 02

It's a funny old world.

If we are to believe what is written on the tin, Literotica is a source -- some would say the source -- of 'the hottest in erotic fiction and fantasy'. People come here in search of a bit of naughtiness. A peep into their neighbours' bedrooms (among other things).

But Literotica also has a Non-Erotic section, 'fiction without a sexual focus' -- as the lovely Laurel would have it. I recently took advantage of this Non-Erotic section to draw attention to the perils of concussion and the everyday struggles that some people have with OCD. (You can read about it here.)

I didn't expect many fun-seekers to be interested in George's trials and tribulations. But several were. And I hope that these dear readers will now speak to their workplace health and safety people and to the coaches and administrators of their favourite sports teams.

However, more than a few readers contacted me to ask what happened to George and Doris after they had finished eating the quiche. Perhaps these people thought that the quiche was like Alice's magic mushroom, capable of making the eater grow or shrink, depending on from which side they nibbled.

Anyway, here (in George's own words) is what happened next. I hope that it will satisfy the curiosity of the enquirers. And perhaps yours too.

When (and without really thinking) I told Doris that she had nice legs, she immediately turned to face me. Oh, bugger. Was she going to be angry? Or was she just going to be disappointed? I could understand if she was going to be angry. And, in some ways, it would be better if she was going to be angry. I certainly didn't want her to be disappointed. Not after all the good things that she had done for me. But then she pulled up her skirt. And she smiled. And I... yes... I just looked straight at her legs. I know that I shouldn't have. But I just couldn't help it.

Even after I started looking at them, I realised that I should look away. But I also knew that looking away wouldn't really solve the problem. I couldn't un-see what I had already seen. I couldn't un-see Doris's beautifully-toned naked thighs and the little inverted triangle of shiny red fabric peeping out just below her raised skirt. An inverted triangle with an indent at the inverted apex. And more than a hint of a defined crease. A camel toe.

Oh, god, did I just say camel toe? Or did I just think it. It was a near run thing. I quickly looked away. But it's surprising how much detail a brain can take in with just one quick glance. Well, it's surprising how much my brain could take in, anyway. Perhaps that, too, had something to do with my OCD tendency.

And then Doris allowed her skirt to return to its normal position. 'Right. Where were we?' she said with a cheeky little smile. And she turned her attention back to placing the precisely-cut quarters of quiche onto the plates and then adding a neat mound of coleslaw next to each portion of quiche. She was so precise with her moves that I could almost believe that I was watching a Michelin-starred chef on a TV cooking show.

'When you said that you suspected...,' I said.

'Suspected?'

'That I might have an OCD tendency.'

'Oh.' She nodded. 'That,' she said. And she smiled again.

I waited.

'Well... it takes one to know one, I suppose,' she said. 'Set a thief to catch a thief. Isn't that what they say? Not that I'm suggesting that you're a thief. But you know what I mean.'

I looked at how Doris had placed the quiche on the plates, and how she had then placed the plates on the kitchen table and, for the first time in a long time, I felt curiously happy.

'I like the fact that you understand that things don't have to be higgledy-piggledy,' I said. 'I like the way that you cut up the quiche. Neatly. It makes me sad when things are just jumbled up. Does it make you sad?'

'Sad?' She nodded. 'Sometimes. In fact, sometimes, it makes me fucking furious. But then I have to remind myself that people aren't jumbling things just to annoy me. People are doing what people do. It's my brain that has the problem. Not theirs.' And then she laughed again.

The quiche was very good. It was typical of La Boulangerie. All of their baked goods looked and tasted as if someone had made an effort. Even their most rustic loaves were rustic-by-design rather than just carelessly rustic.

'Now... the health and safety people,' Doris said, bringing us back the purpose of her visit. 'I think it would be best -- if you can't remember what happened -- to simply say that you can't remember what happened. And leave it at that. The health and safety people are not bad people. But they are sometimes under pressure to find fault where fault is, at best, elusive.'

'What about Sid?' I said. 'Won't he get into trouble.'

'Sid's not a bad person,' Doris said. 'He just doesn't like change. He likes the old ways of doing things. And, anyway, he'll be retiring in another year or so. After this little incident, Henry might even bring his retirement forward a little. As a reward for all Sid's years of hard work.' (Henry Osterman was the Managing Director of Hartwell Engineering. He was an accountant by training and relied heavily on people like Sid for their technical skills.) 'Henry is not unappreciative of what Sid does,' Doris said.

'I don't want to cause any trouble,' I told Doris. 'I'd be pretty stretched without my three days a week at the foundry. It's getting harder and harder to make a living as a writer. The internet was supposed to make it easy for every man and his dog to become a voracious reader. Nobody mentioned that neither the man nor his dog would be wanting to pay for what they read.'

'Your job's safe,' Doris said. 'But young Billy... he might need to pull his socks up.'

It was nice having lunch with Doris. It was almost like having a date. But then, when we had spoken about that which we needed to speak about, it was time for her to head back to Hartwell's.

'Thank you for coming,' I said. 'It was nice. We should do it again.' And then it occurred to me that she might not want to do it again. 'But only if you wanted to,' I added, hastily.

'Yes. That would be nice,' she said. 'Yes.' And she smiled and nodded.

After Doris had gone, I felt sad. I don't know why. Perhaps, as Marion had suggested, I was simply sad that I was sad. Sad that I couldn't concentrate. I tried to cheer myself up by watching some Ricky Gervais clips on YouTube. But that didn't work.

The thing about Ricky Gervais's humour is that when you're in a good mood, it's very funny. But when you're feeling a bit down, then most of what he says is just... well... so true. And it's rather depressing. Like his Act of God sketch, with God telling the insurance company that the tree falling on a certain person's car at a certain time and place couldn't have been an Act of God. 'I was off in Africa giving AIDS to babies on that particular day,' God tells the insurance guys. The audience at The Apollo roared with laughter. But I just felt sad.

In the end, I went and lay on my bed. I didn't expect to be able to sleep. But I did. No sooner had my head hit the pillow than I was trying to find where I had left my car. I often have dreams in which I can't find my car. I don't know why.

And then I was back at the hospital. Again, I have no idea why. Doris was sitting in a waiting area just inside the main entrance. 'Oh, good,' she said. 'You're here. I was beginning to worry that something had happened to you.'

'It did,' I said. 'That thing hit me.' (I couldn't remember what 'that thing' was called.) 'At least that's what everybody says happened.'

'Oh? Really? I didn't know that,' she said. Then she took me by the hand and led me down a long corridor. There were doors off each side of the corridor and it seemed that every door was different. I wondered if the doors might have come from an architectural salvage yard.

'We're looking for Room 36,' Doris said. It was only then that I realised that she wasn't wearing any trousers. She was wearing a Mediterranean blue scrubs top. But, from the waist down... nothing. 'Ah, here we are,' she said. And she pushed open the door to Room 36.

On one side of the room, and facing the wall, Marion, the neurologist, was sitting at her desk, just as she had been when I went to see her up on the seventh floor. And, like Doris, she was naked from the waist down. 'You found us then,' Marion said. 'That's a good start. So... how are your dreams going?'

'Still weird,' I told her. And then I woke up.

Later, the chap from the health and safety people phoned to see if we could get together. As Doris and I had agreed, I told him that there was probably not much point. 'I can't remember anything. Not a thing.'

'Nothing?'

'Not really,' I said.

'Not even a little bit?'

'Not even a little bit. It's all just... a blank.'

'Oh, well,' he said, 'if you do remember anything....' And he gave me his phone number.

Rufus phoned the following morning. 'Oh, good. You're there. I wasn't sure if today was one of your foundry days,' he said. I told him that I had had a bit of an accident and I was having a few days off from the foundry. 'Perfect,' he said.

'You're welcome,' I felt like saying.

'I need some words,' Rufus said. 'Content for a website. For some architects. They have written some stuff themselves, but it's deadly dull. It needs a bit of snap, crackle and pop. I'll email you the details.'

When I had woken up that morning, I had wondered if I should attempt to get back to my novel-in-progress. But maybe putting a bit of snap into some web content for a firm of architects would be easier on my battered brain. 'OK,' I said.

I quite like Rufus. But the inside of his head must be a bit like a particularly disorganised corner of a very disorganised junkyard. His email was in several different parts. Each in a different typeface. Several with attachments. There were even attachments to some of the attachments. I spent the first half hour just getting things into some sort of order.

Once I had things a bit more sorted out, I set about rearranging the words into something that I thought would catch-and-keep the readers. When I had finished, I emailed the file back to Rufus and went and made a pot of tea. (I don't think that tea tastes the same if you don't make it in a pot and then turn the pot three times in an anticlockwise direction.) Rufus phoned about fifteen minutes later.

'This accident,' Rufus said. 'What happened? Did you forget to mind the gap?'

'It was at the foundry,' I told him. ' A bit of the kit came loose' (I still couldn't remember what the particular piece of kit was called) 'and hit me on the head. Knocked me out. At least that's what the others said happened. I don't really remember anything about it. One moment I was getting ready to tip the bucket, the next I was in the hospital.'

'Well, it certainly seems to have done the trick,' Rufus said. 'This copy is terrific. Punchy. Edgy. Slightly weird. Yet right on the money. We might even win a gong with this.'

'It's OK?'

'Oh, better than OK,' Rufus said. 'I'm serious. Clear a space on your mantelpiece for a stubby gold pencil. You're a fucking genius, you are.'

Doris phoned later. 'I know you are not supposed to be drinking,' she said. 'But I wondered if you felt like meeting me at The Parrot. They do really good mocktails. You can hardly tell them from the real thing.'

'Yeah. That would be nice,' I told her. 'Give me a time.'

'Five-thirty? I'll try and get away a bit early.'

As Doris and I sat in the little courtyard at The Parrot, sipping our Nojitos laden with lime segments and mint, I told her about doing the job for Rufus.

'OK?'

'Yeah. He reckons that I should make a booking to get a bang on the head every week,' I told her.

Doris was not amused. 'Tell him that you'll be right behind him in the queue,' she suggested. 'It's high time that people started taking concussion seriously.'

And then -- and I don't know why -- I said: 'You're wearing trousers today.'

Doris laughed. 'Yes. I am,' she said. 'But don't worry, they can come off the moment that we get back to your place.'