The Vacuum

Part 15

The prescribed therapist office was always like this. Dark wood, lots of books, soothing stock photos of landscapes that she was sure she could have done a better job on, plushy chairs and calming scents. She was used to it by now, this was the fourth one she had been to. In truth, she thought they all looked the same too. Their hair was well done and their clothes tailored to fit their body perfectly. Today it was a woman that she had seen twice before. She looked at her with big brown eyes that had a practiced scene of sympathy, presumably for the ongoing madness that her current patient was succumbing to.

"It's a cave." She told her bluntly.

The therapist nodded softly at her, partially gray hair swaying over her shoulders. "Is it the cave that you hid in?" She asked.

"No."

"How about this one?" Dr. Hethor asked her with a kind voice as she flipped to the next picture in the catalog.

She looked at it, her green eyes darting over the glossy finish of the picture of a semi cartoon man holding a gun. "A man with a gun." She told her leaning back in the chair.

"Does he look familiar to you?" The good doctor asked, waiting for Alex to describe the man as one of her attackers.

For a moment she was tempted to make something up; give the woman what she wanted. She could cut this hour long session short with a miraculous break through. Toby was out with his 'friend' Maggie so he wouldn't be able to pick her up but she could walk the streets, seeing things in the ally from another world far away...she would ignore them. She always did.

"He's a cartoon." She said instead bluntly, eyes darting up to the unseen man standing beside the bookshelves, his worn, grey, hand me down clothing falling on his form. He was looking right at her, brown eyes glimmering with all of the pain he could make her suffer and succumb to. Her eyes darted back to the therapist. "I just see people that aren't there. I'm not crazy."

"Of course, you're not Alexandra..."She reached out the pat the younger woman's knee but withdrew her hand as though she thought it would set a psychotic break into action. "It just won't do for you to repress what you've been through. That's why you're still having night terrors."

Alex nodded slowly, even though she didn't agree. She wasn't repressing anything. She saw them all the time when she was awake.

The doctor sighed and put the book back on the table as Alex's eyes darted back up to find the phantom standing right behind her, moving to tie a dingy gag around her doctor's mouth. She tilted her head to the side at him.

Rape or torture?

"I'm going to prescribe more antipsychotics and increase your dosage of sleeping medication." The doctor said, making her eyes snap back to her. "I also think I am going to refer you to an alternative colleague of mine."

Alex slowly opened her eyes in the darkness of her room, blinking them a few times before looking around. No Mac tonight...probably a good thing. Her body was sore after the past week. He came to her when he liked, which was turning out to be damn near all the time. At first, she had started to worry about it. What if she wanted some and she couldn't find the bastard? That obviously wouldn't happen. He wanted it all the time and she loved it. She'd woken up last night to him in her room, watching her.

"You were having a nightmare." He grunted as he pulled at his thick leather belt. "Thrashing around like a fish caught on a line."

Alex had looked at him through squinted eyes. "I'm having one now." She muttered, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with a little smile at her own joke.