Oliver Stark - American Devil

He lit another cigarette. Was this as far as he had come in his life? From an overeager sexual teen to an overeager sexual mid-lifer? Maybe Freud was right. Sex was about it, really. All else was footnotes. He was a prize jerk. His wife was the one thing in his life not open to his child-like whims. Without her, he’d fucking die — he knew it.

A buzzer screeched on his desk. He leaned back and pressed the intercom.

‘Go ahead, Keren.’

Outside his office, his receptionist smiled up at the tall gentleman in the lobby. He smiled back, nervous and twitchy. She could tell he wasn’t used to coming to see a therapist.

‘Your ten o’clock, Dr Fox.’

‘Well, send him in,’ said Marty with a mock Southern accent. He hadn’t ever bagged his secretary and now it didn’t look as though he would. His world was turning from a land of endless opportunity to a sad landscape of things he couldn’t have. There was silence on the other end of the intercom.

Marty stood up. God, he hated clients. He wanted to drown them all. He often sat there listening to their long rambling self-indulgent diatribes imagining terrible fates for them. He pulled Nick’s file out of his in-tray and opened it.

‘Oh, yeah, Mr Nick Smith, the fantasist! Lucky me.’

As a rule, Marty preferred female clients; at least he could distract himself from their tedious problems by imagining some sordid sexual adventure. Not so with Nick with his little domestic issues and his fake surname. The tall gentleman entered. He was wearing a smart black suit. They’d had two previous sessions and were yet to feel comfortable with each other.

‘How you been, Nick?’

Nick looked up. ‘I’ve not been feeling so good, Doctor.’ He sat down heavily in the leather chair. He fidgeted with his hands as he stared out of the window in silence. It wasn’t easy for him to be there at all, really. He felt a sense of betrayal as well as fear, but he wanted to get down to business. He wanted to know what was happening to him. His visions and dreams were so vivid they terrified him. ‘Will you sit down, Doctor? I don’t know where I am. I’m feeling down and confused. I need your help.’

‘I like to float, Nick. I need to keep my mind active.’

‘Please sit down.’

Marty hadn’t heard this tone before. It was different. Military almost. He looked at his client. ‘Okay, Nick, you’re feeling fragile. That’s no problem. I’ll sit down for you. So, last week we touched on a problem you felt you have with women. Your wife and you have been having some domestic issues. You want to pick it up at that point?’

‘I have a problem respecting women. I know that.’

‘I do too, Nick.’

‘Not like me,’ said Nick.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ smiled Marty.

‘I’m very sure, but that’s not what I want to talk about.’

The two men looked at each other. Marty decided to let the guy twist himself up in his little world of self-importance if that’s what he wanted. The only psychological cure Marty ever really believed in was not taking yourself so goddamn seriously — but his jokes were never appreciated. Clients wanted to know that even the colour of their shit was psychologically relevant and pertinent to their current position in the world. ‘Go on, Nick, I’m listening,’ he said, smooth as silk.

‘I woke up in my car. I’d passed out again like I said happened before. I get this drumming in my head like I’m dying and then I just feel my brain squeezing tighter and tighter. The pain is too much, I guess. It’s killing me.’

‘You had this checked out with a doctor?’

‘You’re my doctor.’

‘I mean a medical doctor.’

‘No. Got no insurance or nothing like that.’

‘You have intense pain and then you black out?’

‘Yeah. Pain and white lights all across my eyes.’

‘How often do you pass out?’

‘Been happening for years but it’s worse now, I think. I can’t remember too well any more. I just don’t seem to remember much for long. I really can’t. I just feel drained. Look at me.’

Marty looked. Nick’s skin was pale and his eyes were sunken. He looked like he’d had a few rough weeks. ‘What started it? Do you remember that?’

‘Listen, Doctor, I haven’t even told Dee this, but I lost my job. They locked me out of the office, left my things in a box on the sidewalk. A woman was staring from the window. She was wearing pink. I dropped the box on the way to the car. She was laughing.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘About a month ago.’

‘Found nothing else?’

‘Not a thing. I’ve just been wandering around, driving my car, waiting. Then I got into arguments with Dee.’

‘What kind?’

‘I love Dee. I love my kids, but I wasn’t nice to her. I’m so sorry. I was so sorry. I told her about a hundred times, but she still looks at me strange.’

‘What happened with Dee?’

‘I hurt her, Doctor. I think I really hurt her.’

‘Why?’

‘I get the feeling she doesn’t love me.’

‘You feel pretty bad about it?’

‘Yeah, then I have to go out and drive and wait. I wait until she’s asleep, but sometimes I bring her presents. She likes the presents I bring her. She likes pretty things.’

‘You have bad dreams again?’

‘I dreamed of Bethany again.’

‘Your sister?’

‘She wasn’t my real sister, Doctor. I was fostered. She was nice to me but I never was part of that family. Bethany was so beautiful, though, she’d make me ache just to look at her. In the dream I was still just a boy.’

‘What happened?’ said Marty.

‘I watched her crossing the meadow again, her little frock blowing in the breeze. I remember that dress so clearly. Strawberry pattern all over it. She was such a perfect thing.’

Marty nodded. His own daughter was fifteen and a money-hungry, promiscuous little rock monster who left condoms on her bedroom floor to show Mom and Dad how mature she was. Still, if purity and innocence was Nick’s ideal then yeah, if the archetype works for you, run with it. ‘What happened this time?’

‘I was being beaten as I watched her. Held upside down and beaten.’

‘Who beat you?’

‘A man. Her father, I think.’

‘What for?’

‘Looking at his girl.’

‘He didn’t like you looking or you looked with your hands?’

Nick stared, fierce and unnerving.

‘What did I say?’ Marty asked.

‘I didn’t ever touch her, I told him I didn’t. I never did.’

Marty squinted. ‘Sure you didn’t. I’m just searching around. I need to find out why you’re fixated on Bethany.’

Nick rose to his feet. ‘Leave her alone. No one touched her. You gotta try to help me.’

‘I don’t get your problem, Nick. You want to stop the dreams or stop hurting your wife?’

‘I want my life back, Doctor Fox.’

Marty paused and looked up. ‘How so?’

‘I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m falling apart. I think about killing her.’

‘Your wife?’

‘Yeah, Dee. I think about it a lot.’

‘You want to kill her?’

‘Sometimes I can’t think of anything else. Sometimes I see Dee’s body all bloody and cut all over the floor.’

‘In your dreams, right?’

‘Not dreams like that, no. I daydream about it.’ Nick paused and stared towards the window. ‘But I get excited when I’m imagining it. I’m sick, Doctor. I’m so sick it scares me. I ain’t going to go home any more, in case I hurt them. I love them. I love my two kids. I love Dee, but I told her to hide all the knives in the house, put them away so I couldn’t get to them. If I find one, I don’t know if I can stop myself.’