Dr O Vs The Shieldmaiden – Part Two

The Shieldmaiden is my Intimate Partner Primary Source. Dr O is one of the good doctors involved in my therapy. Dr O is jealous of The Shield Maiden. In order to understand the root of this jealousy, we need to go back in time…..

It was in the first few months of my engagement with the good doctors and it was a cold, sharp day in London. When I had risen, a fog shrouded the streets, chilly, damp and clinging to the city like a desperate Mid Range Narcissist issuing a Preventative Hoover. By the time I was making my way through the streets towards my early appointment with Dr O, the fog has dissipated and the morning sun was making its presence felt. The air remained cold, bringing out the array of gloves, scarves and hats turning all those around me into slabs of grey, dark brown and black. There was little colour, just stern faces staring out from beneath a knitted hat or an unsmiling mouth edging above a scarf wrapped about the neck.

I swapped the stern faces of the pedestrians on the cold street, for the solitary stern expression of Dr O as she sat reviewing her Book Of HG, before her.

“A long list,” she remarked.

At her request, I had detailed my various relationships, of an intimate nature and those who stained the status of primary source. The exalted, the idealised, the list of those who I selected to sit at my left hand. It had taken a little time to go through the list as I named each individual, stating their first names only, watching the pen of Dr O as she made a note of each individual, listed in order from the very first, Sarah, through to current, Jane. I waited until she had written each name down, each member of the Asylum of the Grotesque taken from their alcove in that chamber and brought to temporary life here in the consulting room of Dr O. Once a name had been committed to the paper of her book, I moved on to the next name, methodical, measured memories.

“I like to pack a lot in,” I replied by way of response to her observation.

Dr O continued to regard the list. She was assessing the list of names, the V, the K, the H, the As (a few of those) , the Es (couple of those as well) and the Ss, quite a number of Ss, though that did of course make sense. She was impressed by my prodigious endeavours, her comment of it being a long list bore testament to that.

“You remembered each of their names, in order and without correction or hesitation,” she remarked.

“Correct.”

“Do you regularly recite the list in order to ensure that you can recall it correctly?” she asked. Her tone suggested curiosity as opposed to judgement.

“No.”

She nodded, her lower lip emerging slightly. I noticed that her lip gloss was a little brighter day, moving more towards scarlet. Of course, she wanted me to notice. The scarlet harlot, well, accurately she would be the second scarlet harlot, Becky was the first Not Rebecca, not Becca, certainly not Becci, but Becky. At least she was Becky in the first six months and then for the final two months she became Rebecca, Becca and most often Becci.

“Do you think often about these individuals then, in order to recall them so accurately?” asked Dr O.

I knew she would be fascinated by this list of the IPPSs, who could fail to be. An array of exhibits from the asylum, traitors all of them. Nearly all.

“No. I put them from my mind,” I answered.

“Why is that?” she asked, “does.the list mean….” but Dr O halted herself. This was how I knew that Dr O was struggling to maintain that air of clear, clinical composure. She could not help but want to suggest the answer to me. Her air of superiority bubbling to the surface. She wanted to impress me and wanted to demonstrate that she was beginning to understand me and thus she would start to suggest an explanation for my behaviour, my views or an answer. So far, she had managed to rein herself in, halting her provision of the suggested answer as she fought to maintain an open-mind and not to lead me. Not that she could ever lead me. That is what I do. Question was, would I lead her up the garden path or lead her to enlightenment?

“Does the list mean?” I ventured. Let her be swiftly reminded of her failing, a little provocation so she knows who is control here.

“Sorry,” Ah there it was. Control.

“Sorry,” she said, “why do you put them from your mind?”

“They are irrelevant.”

“Why?”

“Because they do not matter.”

“Why do they not matter?” she asked.

“They are not important.”

“Why do you say they are not important?” Dr O pressed.

I knew she would keep going. I found her challenge amusing. I wanted to continue this little dance. Becky liked to dance. Becci wasn’t allowed to dance.

“They have no significance to me.” I responded.

“But they did once?” she said quickly.

I paused and looked at Dr O. She looked back at me. She was sat about a metre from me, not far at all. I could smell her fragrance. Clean Classic, I was certain of it. Had to be Clean Classic, most likely Simply Clean, I could discern the bergamot. An unpretentious day scent for her and very much in keeping with her hygienic and clean appearance. Hardly the most expensive of scents, but that did not matter. It fitted with the image and no doubt she had carefully considered that. She selected a linear scent so she would smell just as clean by the end of the day as she did now. Of course, she knew to dab and never rub. Y made the mistake of rubbing. Clown.

I considered commenting on her scent but that was too obvious. She would see that as deflection and I was better than that. I decided I would answer her question but I would not give her what she wanted. I wanted to ascertain just how engaged she was. Not in terms of her dedication to unravelling the mysteries of HG, Lord no, she was hooked on that, that was easy. No, instead, I wanted her to be engaged beyond the professional. Ensnaring her professionally was the simplest of tasks and hardly the mark of one such as I to stop there. No, I wanted, needed? No, wanted her to engage with me. To want me. Not what she thought I was, but what she learned I am.

“They had some significance, that has to be right, ” I replied, “after all, I would not have chosen them would I?”

“Would you not have done so?”

“No. I would not have done so,” I answered slowly.

“So, they were all significant. To begin with.”

“To begin with.”

“And now they are irrelevant?” she returned to the question.

“Yes, they are irrelevant.”

“Why are they irrelevant?” Round and round we go. Easy.

I was about to continue the merry-go-round but then Dr O jumped in. No respecter of boundaries is Dr O, as shall be demonstrated.

“Or perhaps you do not know?” she asked, tilting her head slightly. I saw in her eyes that she felt that she had landed a blow by believing that I would react to her challenging my omniscient nature. Nice try Dr O.

“I know.” But I am not adding anything more. You need to ask. Signal to me that control remains with me.

I fall silent. She remains silent. She looks at me. I stare back and offer nothing but the emptiness. Let her look upon oblivion. For a moment.

It works and she glances down at the list with a slight shift in her seat, before she looks back up.

“How do you know they are irrelevant?” she asks. Thank you, control remains mine so now she can have an answer.

“They are of no use to me, therefore they become irrelevant. Prior to that they were of use to me, therefore they had relevance,” I explain. Dr O makes a note.

“I see,” she comments, “and it is you that determines that they are irrelevant, they do not make that decision?” she asks.

“Correct.”

“So you deemed them irrelevant because they become of no use to you.”

I nod. Her questioning has picked up pace now, she feels like she is getting somewhere and it is affecting her pacing.

“So once they become irrelevant you cast them to one side?”

“Disengage from them.” I correct her.

“Disengage them then,” she adjusts her terminology.

“That is right,” I confirm. I wonder if she will seek clarification about this. I expect her to, she is interested.

“Always?” she asks. Excellent, she has not disappointed. Unlike those in the asylum, on the list.

“Not always.”

“Not always?” she repeats my comment. She is buying herself time to think of her next question. Schoolgirl. I will hep her out. It is a good day, I had refused an invitation of Matrinarc earlier so I can afford some largesse for the good Dr O.

“Nearly always I deem them irrelevant and disengage from them, but very occasionally, very occasionally, they might make themselves irrelevant without me disengaging from them.”

“By leaving you?” she asks. Well done Dr O. Bitch.

“Yes.”

“How many left you?”

“Tried to leave or actually left?”

“Actually left?”

“Actually left and returned?” I queried.

“No, actually left and never returned.”

“Three,” I say immediately.

Dr O nods as if she knew this already. She did not. She makes another note.

“So, the The Three That Got Away ?”

“You could describe them that way, yes.”

“Are they relevant?” she asks. I can feel my irritation rising now as the memory of those three traitors flares inside my mind. Time to stamp it out.

“No, they are not.”

“Why is that? Surely they remain relevant because they escaped you?” she presses.

“Their escape and failure to return makes them irrelevant.” I say clearly.

“You deem them irrelevant?”

” I do so because they are.”

Dr O pauses and makes another note.

“Do you ever think about them?” she asks.

We are not going there.

“No, save when someone or something has to remind me of them, otherwise, no, they do not invade my consciousness.”

“How easy is it to keep them from your mind?” she asks.

“Very simple. I am about the here and now, not the past, certainly not the past. I am much more interested in the present since that is where we are and that is what we can deal with. Don’t you agree?”

Dr O ignores my question. I stifle a smile because I know she will now want to embrace the present.

“And,” she hesitates for effect as she looks down the list, pretending that she does not know who the current girlfriend actually is, such a giveaway. She is interested. Excellent, “the present is….Jane?”

“No.”

“No?” More buying of time.

“Well, she is around, she is alive and breathing, she is the current girlfriend, but I do not regard her as the immediate present.”

“You do not? Since when has she not been your present?”

“Since I began talking to you,” I reply. Dr O simply nods. There is no dismissive response, no rejection of the suggestion but instead acceptance and that acceptance is underlined by the fact she writes down what I have just said to her. It was then, back then, those years ago, with Jane in devaluation, that the commencement of the interest of Dr O was first established. The seeds of envy were broadcast in that consulting room, that cold, cold November day and they fell on fertile ground. Clean, fertile ground.

I knew then, that something would grow and grow it did.

(To learn more about the Three That Got Away use the link and gain inside knowledge about some of the missing denizens of the Asylum of the Grotesque.)