Toby sat in the waiting area in the most practical seat — comfortable, balanced distance between the receptionist area and the hallway towards my office. He sat with his legs apart shaking restlessly, elbows on his thighs, and head down. His attire was casual: jeans and a t-shirt. His hair brown and messy, hairy face, though not quite a beard.
"Hi, Toby." He looked up with a smile and stood, shaking my hand, then followed me down the hall and upstairs, not bothering to make polite conversation. We entered my office and he sat across from me. "What brings you here today?"
"I'm caught between my friend, my morals, my sexual desires, and my depression."
I nodded, urging him to continue.
He sighed, shaking his head. "I don't know where to begin. It's so much. I'm mad that she told me to begin with. And that I fell for her when my gut told me that she was bad news. But I was intrigued by her beauty."
"Maybe you could begin by telling me who 'she' is?"
"Oh, right. Chloe. A friend of a friend. A 26 year old Siren. So desirable. Able to mold herself into whomever you want her to be, while simultaneously ripping everything else out from under you. A professional con artist. Those blue eyes can seduce an asexual. Her aura piqued my curiosity from the moment we met. Something abstract I couldn't put my finger on.
"Freud had it right on this one — she does actually remind me of my mom. That manipulation, the pouty face. It's sick to think about, and I definitely didn't notice it at first. I'm glad this shit stays subconscious. My mom used to always get verbally attacked by everyone else in the room, and I jumped to her side to protect her, even though most of the time she was actually the one in the wrong. It felt like she was treated unfairly, ganged up against because of her vindictiveness, which she probably deserved, but I chose to only remember her good moments. That's what I needed to do to survive.
"The art. That's what I noticed first. Chloe has that same vibe... the artist vibe. The chaos, free spiritedness. The resilience. She's easy to idealize.
"I'm sure she's using me and tricking me. I used to fight my mom's battles for her until I was old enough to realize what was actually going on. By then my alcoholic father had disappeared, my sisters were both hormonal, and my mom fell into a dark depression, leaving me as peacekeeper between them. I function with logic, which doesn't really work for teen girls. I learned to be a manipulator myself, to play with their emotions so that they'd shut the fuck up.
"It's awful, and I don't agree with this now, but there was a time when I just resorted to spanking them. I always had an interest in it, and even though my fantasies didn't include actually spanking my sisters, at some point they became so fucking annoying that it was the only thing to shut them up. And as you can see, I'm not that big of a guy, so it really took a lot of that manipulation stuff, too.
"You don't look shocked, or like you think I'm a terrible person."
"I mean... there's a reason I don't have kids... There would def be a point that I get arrested for child abuse...."
Toby gave a polite chuckle. "Spankings don't actually work most of the time, but the rush was enough to block my objectivity, so I believed they were working. My sisters fought less, at least they didn't as much around me. But looking back, probably my mom started doing better around the same time. Someone from child services came to our house and since we were older, they only gave my mom a good scare and referral to a psychiatrist." He paused and leaned back in the chair, gazing out of the window. Then his eyes darted back to me. "It didn't last, in case you're wondering. She took meds for a little while, long enough to get my oldest sister a drivers license, and then guess who came back into the picture?"
I raised my eyebrows curiously.
"Oh come on, you know this one — dear ol' dad! Found Jesus, alcoholics anonymous, and ready to be accepted with open arms. And she fell for it, the lie that he was a changed man. Within a few weeks they were back to fighting again, he'd relapsed, and she started abusing xanax. I took care of my younger sister, a total emo kid, by the way. Just like that last client you were with. She was probably closer to your usual demographic than I am."
I blinked, uncomfortable at his direct observations.
"Anyway. She was also going through a rough time and became my project. If I could focus on 'fixing her' then even though I couldn't do anything about all the other shit going on in our lives, at least I could help her. That's when I got into psychology. I've always been a quick learner. Psych was a breeze. But therapy wasn't my thing... I'm just not as good at listening to emotional stuff."
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