Nightmares and Other Therapy by D. W. Carver

Author:D. W. Carver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 9781629290478, Damnation Books, horror, thriller, DW Carver, young love, depression, blackmail, violence, mental hospital, book shop, nightmares, therapy
Publisher: Damnation Books LLC
Published: 2013-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Michael stood at his window to watch Laura leave for school on Wednesday morning. She looked up from her gate and he stepped back out of sight. Then she stopped directly opposite on the far pavement and lifted her head towards him. He could see her mouth forming words that looked as if they included “sorry” several times and then Mrs. Denby was on the front step, calling out something Michael couldn’t understand, but the tone said it all. Laura flashed a glance back at her mother then hurried on. Mrs. Denby looked up at his window, tossed her head and went back inside, slamming the front door.

He gave Laura two minutes and then followed. She looked back once and stopped, but he stopped too and she didn’t try again. He followed her home that afternoon and did both journeys on Thursday and Friday, but she made no further attempt to contact him. It was a miserable time.

Michael could see from the way she held her shoulders: memories of many years watching her, that Laura was unhappy too. Any hope of talking about it died on Thursday when Mrs. Denby let his mother know he was not welcome in their house and should not contact Laura again until he “recovered”. On Friday evening, his father told him that Mister Denby had come over and said that if he continued to follow Laura, the police would be informed. The way he offered the news held no concern for his son and Michael trudged upstairs, knowing he was in for a long and lonely spring.

On Tuesday, it grew worse. Much as he hated the idea of attending Ralow’s clinic, the thought of a six month committal frightened him more. He decided there was no choice but within a few minutes of the group starting, the prospect of six months in hospital didn’t look that bad as an alternative.

Ralow sat at the open end of a horseshoe shape of chairs, painfully casual in a cardigan, checked shirt and pressed jeans, and began with a series of embarrassing “getting to know you” exercises. The first involved two-minute chats with the person sitting next chair to the right then the listeners repeating this as a mini-biography to the rest of the group.

Hortan had pushed a smaller man out of his chair to sit next to Michael at the start of the session and then forced him to listen to a history of his life that was mostly violence interspersed with pornographic details about sodomy he had performed on both willing and unwilling partners. When Michael tried to repeat the salvageable parts, Ralow’s response flowed over him full of contempt and ended with an enquiry about Michael’s short-term memory and if perhaps he had bumped his head recently. The other men quickly picked up that Michael was fair game and the rest of the morning became an exercise in facilitated bullying.

At the coffee break, Michael tried to talk to Hortan but had to stand and

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