Nature of a Monster Nurture of a Man (Book Eight - ManxMan ManxManxWoman)

Chapter One

"Mr Hennessy?" She asked, lounging in her high-backed chair, legs crossed, knees visible below the hem of her dark grey pencil skirt.

She might have said nothing as he didn't hear her. At the very least, he did not respond immediately, causing her to raise her voice just a little.

"Daniel?" At least she stopped short of tapping her pen on the hard surface of her notepad as she'd had to do so many times in the past.

Daniel blinked, hearing her this time. The soft hum of the office building filled his ears again as he came back to reality.

"What were we talking about?" He had meant to ask that question within the safety of his own mind but instead found them easily flowing from his lips. Looking down at the fidget toy he had been playing with, he breathed in slowly, feeling his lungs expand and clearing his thoughts from the brain limbo he'd sent himself spiralling into. He sat up straighter and looked around the psychologist's office, feeling as though he had just awakened from a dream.

"I lost you for a moment." The familiar voice grounded him further, and Daniel stopped his momentary inspection of a potted fiddle-leaf fig to meet her calm gaze.

He couldn't admit to her that he shared her sentiment but about himself, which seemed much more worrying.

He paid her a brief smile of apology. "I don't mean to waste your valuable time." He glanced at his wristwatch in a gesture that was as meaningless as it was unnecessary, seeing as he wasn't entirely sure what time his session began.

"Is there something on your mind?" She asked. "If you'd like to talk about it?"

'So many things,' he had the presence of mind to keep to himself this time.

"I was just lost in thought." He said instead, immediately regretted not thinking of a better response. He realised this would likely lead to further questions, and he was already working on a response strategy.

How tedious it was to be him, sometimes.

"About?" She didn't disappoint.

"Truthfully?" He didn't actually know. He was thinking about Melissa and then Blake and their baby. His foolish step-sister and her baby. His mother, Dimitri. Jack. Not the least of all, Tyler. Daniel even spared a thought for the pitiful farmer he'd left to live out his lies only weeks ago. But the order in which he thought about these people or which threads connected from one to the next in his mind, he'd grown weary of moments ago, and then he'd wholly spaced out. He was so unnerved by doing so that it took him a moment to push away the feeling of dizziness.

"We were discussing your father," the psychologist provided when he failed to provide his 'truthfulness'. She flicked back to a previously filled page in her notebook. "You said he kept you from your mother, subscribing to the belief of an Oedipus complex."

"I was admiring your view," he promptly lied, speaking over her.

He didn't want to talk about his father anymore.

"Ok," she nodded, the look on her face saying not only did she not believe him but that she would also not press it.

They'd been seeing one another for the better part of a year now, and he'd already not agreed to continue seeing her because she knew when to push and when to stop.