Keeping up appearances, I walked away slowly, to grab pen and pad from my desk after setting the timer on my watch. The couch groaned under his significant weight bearing down on it. Inhaling soundlessly as I bent over my desk, I stored up bravado to face the massive trouble in a handsome package. Taking too much time to do it would give away my angst. Displaying fear to a predator wasn’t an alternative.
Spinning around, I retraced my steps to the center of the room, deviating toward the barrel armchair across from him. With arms spread across the back of the couch and one foot resting on the opposite knee, his narrowed glare shadowed me. No, he was not happy with me contending back and forth with him for the upper hand. Intimidating everyone, with the exception of the judge that mandated he be here, explained why his feet were still on free ground as opposed to behind a locked door. All being well, he would not have access to the key.
Our introduction session took over an hour that did not go smoothly into the past. At the end, I hadn’t made Chad tell me anything concrete about himself. When I asked a question, he answered with one. He was more interested in my childhood than disclosing his own. The man was no simpleton, understood knowledge was power. The more I knew about him, the less challenging it would be to deal with him, which was nowhere near what he wanted out of therapy.
Unlucky for him, I could read between the lines like a pro and had techniques—well-crafted fabrications born from an intuition about a patient’s background—for extracting information. Mr. Lowell unwittingly revealed with a series of ‘me too’ and odd words like ‘stoked’ that his Californian childhood was traumatic with a neglectful, when not terrorizing his son, alcoholic father. His mother had skipped out on her family, probably to save herself. Bad parenting had bred a borderline psychopath who would never let himself feel powerless or accept being unwanted ever again.
It took a lot longer than it should have to learn his obsessive disorder boiled down to mommy issues. Mr. Lowell fixated on bending women who didn’t want him to his will simply because he needed to feel wanted, worthy. His compulsive disorder originated from not being taken care of by his father. Underneath Mr. Lowell’s bullying tactics, if you knew where to look, was a hurt human hurting other humans as he been hurt, psychologically. A human determined to repair the damage done to him with the unhealthiest of healing solutions. The man loved mind games more than anyone should.
I deposited the pad and pen on the ottoman next to my chair. “Mr. Lowell, I’m not the best person to help you. I do know the perfect doctor for you, though. Dr. Darrell Lambert works in this building too. I will send your file to him today so you can get started right away with him.”
No longer allowed to give me the runaround, Chad’s face hardened into a sneer. “Him? You’re tossing me away too like Dr. Laurent did?”
Most definitely mommy-issues.
I didn’t respond right away, making a show of getting more relaxed in my seat to give him time to calm down just a bit. “Dr. Laurent and I did not toss you away. We’re sending you to people we think have more experience and abilities to help you the most.”
Suffice it to say, he didn’t want the help. “Then, why have you two wasted my time and money with having me tell you ab
out myself if you’re just going to pass me along to the next quack?”
I let the insult slide, suspecting Mr. Lowell was more furious with having to go to a male doctor when he’d have been perfectly fine with making the rounds of all the female doctors here. “Let’s be honest with each other, Mr. Lowell.”
“Yes, let’s,” he snapped dryly.
“You haven’t told us anything about yourself really, have you? You’re not here to get better or to contribute to your healing. You’re here to fulfill a demand made by the jurisdiction system that you’ve ticked off. So, whose time do you think has really been wasted here?”
He sat up straight as an arrow on the couch, not loving being called out. “I didn’t waste your time, I confirmed what you wanted to know when you hit the jackpot.”
“Waiting for me to guess isn’t really telling me about yourself, is it? You could be confirming anything that is nowhere near the truth for all I know, and I would never know the difference.”
“Dr. Johnston, I’m really from California.”
“I know. No one else uses ‘stoked’ except Californians, but me having to glean information from you instead of you being upfront is not doing the work you need. You’re spinning your wheels until the judge says you’re done with the required number of sessions instead of working on your behavior in society.”
Mr. Lowell’s fingers burrowed into the cushions on each side of him. “My father really didn’t feed me regularly, pay the bills on time, and thought it was funny to come up from behind me and shove my head under the water when I was bathing. My mother really left when I was five.”
“But, you didn’t tell me that outright when I asked. You said ‘me too’ when I mentioned similar things I’d been through.” I hadn’t, but he didn’t need to know that. “If the doctor does more talking than the patient, then it’s therapy for the doctor, not the patient. “Mr. Lowell, you need someone you can open up to, to release that pain that keeps you up at night and makes you view women as targets to bully into submission. We’re human beings with feelings we have a right to feel about anyone.”
His face contorted with his escalating rage. When he leaped to his feet, I bet Eva wouldn’t think Mr. Lowell was so gorgeous right then. Forcing myself to stay seated, I clutched the emerald resting at the base of my neck. I knew what I was dealing with and wasn’t stupid. His flashing orbs tracked the path of my hand. Then, he grinned malevolently down at me. I had just made an enemy that even the devil should be careful around.
“You think that alarm hidden cleverly in the fake emerald will stop me from doing what I want to, to you, Dr. Johnston?”
“No,” I retorted coolly, “but you sure as hell wouldn’t get away with it. You’re in enough trouble as it is, though. Do you really need more? Should you decide you do, security is just at the end of the hall monitoring this session and waiting for one of these to go off.” I hoped so, anyway.
This floor’s guard, Mr. Jenkins, kept fit in his early forties and was an ex-cop. Sadly, he had a bad habit of filling up on chips and dip then dozing off in front of monitors for the cameras installed around the building as well.
Mr. Lowell placed one foot forward, then seemed to think better of coming closer. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
Incredibly so at this point.
“If I were, do you think I’d say yes so you could feed upon my fear? I didn’t start doing this yesterday, Mr. Lowell.” Bullies had to be faced even when sitting. Although, there was a fine line between facing them down and setting them off. Too much of challenging him would instigate the latter, so I let him keep the edge he had from hovering over me like a dark cloud.
Instantly, his expression relaxed into a deceptive calm. “Call me Chad.”
I didn’t know who he thought he was fooling with the sudden tranquility. “I think not, Mr. Lowell. It’s unprofessional. I will issue you a good day and ask that you look forward to a call from Dr. Lambert’s receptionist.” Mr. Lowell was a true bastard, but a bastard that needed psychological help pronto. Left to his own devices, he’d become a menace like no other on the world. “And please, for your sake, do the work you need to be emotionally steady when the woman that you’re truly looking to accept you comes around. Even if she doesn’t, happiness is still possible for you. All you have to do is show up here with Dr. Lambert and put in the effort.”
Harrumphing, Mr. Lowell quirked one side of his lips and roved his pupils over me once again. “I think I just found the one woman I will work my ass off to make truly accept me already.”