Sanity's Only Skin Deep

by Adam Aust

VIII

  “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” she said the next evening as she wrapped her arms around Maury and squeezed.

  “Of course, of course,” he said with a gentle drawl, holding her by the elbows at arm’s length, searching her face. “Come on back and let’s chat.” He encouraged her forward with his hand on the small of her back after she kicked off her shoes.

  Maury took his usual position on the couch, but Sarah sat erect on the edge of the brown recliner, speaking directly at him instead of floating her thoughts aimlessly into the ether like usual. “I think I might be losing it,” she said. “I’m scared out of my mind and I don’t know what to do, but I think I have to try something different.”

  “Please slow down, Sarah. I know you have a lot on your mind, but let’s take things one at a time. It will be easier that way.”

  His voice trickled gently into her mind, already starting to soothe her. He was such a calming presence. I really hope I don’t have to stop coming to him. “OK,” she said, and took a deep breath before she continued. “After we talked over the phone about my memory issues, I wasn’t worried about them anymore. But my family still was. My father in particular. He arranged for me to see another psychiatrist so I could get a second opinion.” She paused, scanning Maury’s face, worried he might be offended. But when she saw no reaction, she continued: “And when I went to this doc, I saw all these scars on my legs for the first time. I mean, I saw them before, I guess, but I didn’t register them for what they were. This doc made me really see. It was fucking terrifying.”

  “What you’re describing,” Maury offered, “is more or less a form of cognitive dissonance. Not uncommon, but it’s interesting that you would have it, since you seem to be very aware of your cutting behavior after the fact. Now that I know about it, though, we can start addressing in our sessions.”

  Sarah sighed, folding her hands in her lap. “The doctor also told me that my memory issues were not a small side effect; they could be more serious. I might even have multiple personality disorder. And, based on the appearance of my scars, he thinks my cutting only began three years ago or so.” She paused again, to see if Maury would react, but she saw no reflexive response. She let the silence linger, hoping to draw information from him, but she grew impatient and went on: “That means I just started cutting myself recently. Maybe even after I started coming to you. I have no memory of that. And I have no memory of how or why I even started coming to you in the first place. My memory must be worse than I thought, and I have no idea how to fix it, or how to even figure out what memories are . . . off.” Warm liquid flooded her eyes. “I’m losing my grip on reality, Maury. I don’t know what to do.” Tears spilled over her eyelids onto her cheeks. She bowed her head and sobbed.

  Maury slid to the end of the couch nearest Sarah and caressed her shoulder, handing her a clean handkerchief. “I remember that you were referred to me by a friend, if that helps. Though I can’t remember her name offhand. Someone you met through a roommate. And you came to me because you were cutting yourself and you were afraid. So, we know your issues started before you came to me.” She looked up with red-splotched cheeks and trickles of clear mucus peeking out of both nostrils, which she swatted away with the cloth.

  “OK,” he said, leaning back into the couch, re-crossing his legs and refolding his hands. “I need you to at least relax for me, so we can have a more productive conversation.”

  “Not sure that’s an option right now.”

  “You could start by laying back in the chair, putting your feet up, and trying to get your breathing under control,” he said slowly, raising his eyebrows.

  Sighing again, she looked behind her, pulled the lever for the footrest, and fell back into the welcoming leather, her weight redistributing across the cushions. Thank god he’s so understanding. She was still sniffling and breathing erratically.

  “Close your eyes for a second and focus on your breath,” Maury said. “In through your nose, out through your mouth. Nice and easy. In and out. Give it a minute or so.”

  She felt herself relaxing, her roiling mind beginning to calm. Hearing Maury’s voice was a comfort of its own, a beacon of peace amidst the turmoil of her thoughts. It felt good just to listen.

  “Starting to feel better now?” he asked. She nodded, not wanting to open her mouth and ruin the feeling. “Good,” he continued. “Just give it another minute. Breathe in and out. Feel the tension float away as you exhale. Let yourself relax.”

  He was right. This was helping. Her thoughts were clearer. She knew exactly what she wanted to say, what she was worried about, what she wanted to ask. It would be much easier this way. He was always right.

  “Feel the cushions hug your body, the headrest cradle your head. As you relax, your thoughts will line up, organized and ready to volunteer for discussion.”

  Being ensconced in the chair felt amazing. Why didn’t she buy one of these for her apartment? Or her office? If only she could bring Maury with her everywhere, too. Her mind hadn’t been this clear in days.

  Thirty seconds, maybe a minute later, her breathing was normal, rhythmic. Concentrating on its regular pattern and feeling her chest gently rise and fall was helping, too. She would be ready to talk soon. Just another minute or so.

  “Looks like you’re getting there. Good. Now just follow my voice the rest of the way down . . .”

  A worried thought skipped across a distant part of her mind, a glimmer in the darkness. But it was fleeting, and faint, and far too weak to distract her from the moment. Maury was right. This was the solution. This is what would make her feel better. He was right. He was always right. She knew she should listen to him, whatever he said.

  “When I snap my fingers you will be totally relaxed . . .”

  Everything would be perfect soon. After the snap she’d be there, in that peaceful, frictionless expanse of subconsciousness. Maury would figure everything out while she was there. He always did.

  She could feel her emotions slip away like a silk robe sliding off her shoulders.

  Snap.

  Maury stared for a moment, scrutinizing his patient, ensuring the hypnosis had worked. “Sarah, I need you to tell me exactly what you told your sister and father and this other psychiatrist about our sessions together and about your condition. Start from the beginning, from the first time you remember telling anyone about me. Don’t leave out any detail.”

  With a flat, monotone delivery, Sarah reported everything she had retained. Maury listened intently. “Sarah, do you think you could keep coming to me, but keep it a secret from your family?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’d like that very much. We’ll need to do something about this Dr. Margolis, though, to keep him from investigating too deeply. I don’t want anything interfering with our arrangement. Things have worked out so well for both of us, wouldn’t you say? You don’t want to lose the feeling you get from coming to me, do you, Sarah?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t want you to lose that either. And I certainly don’t want to lose a patient of your . . . quality. Why don’t we head to the back room, and I’ll come up with a plan for how to proceed.”

  Sarah rose and walked out of the den and down the hall to a closed door next to the bathroom. She stood in front of it, waiting for Maury to hand her the key for the exterior padlock.

  Key in hand, Sarah popped the lock, swung the door open, and flicked on the overhead fluorescent tubes. The floor was covered in a waterproof, black plastic material that had the consistency of a bathmat. An industrial-looking, stainless-steel table was pressed against the far wall next to a white, floor-mounted dentist’s light. To the right, against the adjacent wall, was a smaller stainless-steel table with a small autoclave, surgical instruments, and disinfectants neatly organized on top of it. Next to that was a small, black refrigerator.

  “Prepare the table, Sarah.”

  She grabbed a roll of black plastic material from a she
lf under the big table, cut a large swath of it, and covered the table, securing the plastic to the table’s four corners with steel clips. She then grabbed a spray bottle of disinfectant from the smaller table and spritzed the plastic covering, replacing the bottle where she’d found it when she finished.

  Slowly and deliberately, she removed and folded her clothes, and placed them on a shelf built into the underside of the large table. She lay supine on the disinfected surface and waited for Maury.

  He slid his hands into a pair of purple latex gloves and said, “Please lay on your right side, Sarah.” She rolled over as commanded, and Maury smeared her left glute and the back of her left thigh with a viscous disinfectant. He then removed a metal basket of sterilized surgical tools from the autoclave and placed it and a small clear-plastic food container next to Sarah on the table. With a black magic marker, he wrote the initials “S.E.” on the container.

  After swinging the dentist’s light over Sarah’s body, Maury admired and caressed her exposed, meaty flesh, then squeezed a handful of her backside in his gloved hand. “I’m going to need a little more than normal today, Sarah, since it will probably be a while before we see each other again.” He leaned down next to her ear and whispered, “I want you to know that I’ve never had a patient as perfect as you. There’s a sweetness to you I couldn’t possibly describe. Something subtle and complex. God is it complex. I stay up nights thinking about it sometimes, craving your taste. That’s how incredible you are.”

  He kissed her nape, rose, and retrieved a scalpel from the basket. He traced the flat side of the knife gently over the curve of her rump, settling the blade on the outer and lower part of her glute and turning it upright. Blood trickled out as he started to cut; it flowed silently over her backside, down the cleft between her legs, and onto the table as he completed the perimeter of a two-inch-by-three-inch rectangle. He was salivating copiously. “You’re doing great, Sarah. You don’t feel anything. Just a little pinch of the skin. But it will be worth it for how you will feel later. Just like always.”

  He blotted the incisions, and made sure they connected at the corners, then pinched and secured one side of the bloody polygon with forceps from the basket. He sliced under the skin toward the wound’s center with smooth strokes of the scalpel, folding the slab back incrementally as it separated from her body. Sarah didn’t flinch, her ribs lifted and fell in normal cadence, as if she were laid out on her couch watching the news. Her blood flowed steadily onto the table.

  As he pulled the forceps away, he admired the excised patch of her backside—mostly skin and fat, but also a thin steak of marbled flesh, all of which, when rinsed and chilled, would resemble a section of raw pork belly—then placed it gingerly in the clear plastic container. He carefully washed and dressed her wound, then cut another section from the back of her left thigh. “Just one more, Sarah, to make sure I don’t forget you while you’re gone. I am already so excited for you to come back. Not as excited as I am to sample what you’ve just given me,” he said, smiling a warm, thankful smile as he considered the ways he could prepare and consume this morsel, “but excited all the same.”

  When he finished dressing the second wound, Maury had Sarah clean herself and the table and then get dressed while he wiped his instruments and put them in the autoclave to be sterilized again. Maury also put the plastic container with Sarah’s flesh in it in the fridge next to two similar receptacles labeled “D.H.” and “R.M.”

  “Let’s go back to the den now,” Maury said, “where we can finish our conversation, and I can make sure you’re floating by the time you leave here. Fair’s fair, isn’t it my sweetness?”

  “Yes.”

  In the den, Sarah settled back into the brown recliner, positioning herself just as she had been when she descended into her trance. Maury took his usual spot on the couch. “You’re feeling very comfortable now, Sarah. Much better than when you first arrived. That chair is the most comfortable thing you’ve ever experienced.” Her mouth curved upward and she exhaled in bliss. The leather was impossibly soft, her muscles carried no tension at all, and her mind was finally at ease, like she had been lounging on a tropical beach for weeks, far from the stresses of life.

  “When you leave here today, you will continue to feel relaxed and in control. You will associate this feeling with our sessions, which you will miss terribly after you decide to discontinue them today. You won’t notice today’s wounds for two weeks—just before the next appointment you will set with Dr. Margolis, who you’ll decide to start seeing in my stead. He won’t find any evidence that you have multiple personality disorder because you don’t have it, Sarah. But while you’re seeing him, you will cut yourself twice per week—just crude slashes, I wouldn’t want you doing anything more serious outside the proper environment—but you will cut yourself at work, which will worry you greatly.

  “After a few counseling sessions with the good doctor, you’ll decide his conventional therapy isn’t working. In fact, you’ll realize that your cutting has gotten worse and has started interfering with your livelihood, which you won’t allow to continue.

  “You’ll remember that you were making great strides in our sessions, and that when you were coming to me, you were performing the best you ever had at work. I’ll have Dawn and Rachel remind you of this, too—you should continue to communicate with them, by the way.

  “So, you’ll stop seeing Dr. Margolis and come back to me. You won’t tell your family that you’ve come back, though. You’ll tell them you’re seeing my colleague Martin Stanwick at Columbia. He has the reputation and credentials to impress your family and stop them from questioning any diagnoses you tell them about.

  “Now, when I snap my fingers, you will gradually wake from your trance, feeling fantastic yet somewhat guilty that you have to tell me you can’t see me anymore. You’ll remember an hour-long conversation we just had about how you should proceed. I will understand that you need to stop seeing me, and I will wish you well. You’ll remember how understanding and gentle I was with you, and you’ll shed a few tears as we hug and part ways. But as you leave, you’ll realize you’ve made the right choice, both for you and your family. And by the time your taxi pulls away, you’ll feel a firm resolve that you did the right thing, and that although the future is uncertain, you know you can handle it if you take things one step at a time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.

  “Did you get all that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He paused to take a breath, then looked at her. “See you soon, Sarah. I’ll be thinking of you.” He lifted his right hand, and snapped his fingers, leaving his hand raised for an extended moment before letting it fall gently to his lap.

  Sarah opened her eyes and let out a long, moaning breath, as if she’d just awakened from an especially restful nap. Her head rolled to the right and she caught sight of Maury, plain-faced as always. “Sorry,” she said. “I totally lost my train of thought. What were you saying?”

  “I was just noting that our time’s about up, and I was wondering what you’ve decided to do.”

  She sat up, digging her heels into the footrest to push it back into the chair. She hated to do it, especially with how good she felt now, but there was no other choice. This would be best for her and her family. “I have to stop seeing you, Maury. I owe it to myself to try something different. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m disappointed, obviously. You’ve been such a great patient. But I understand.” He stood and held an open hand toward the entryway of the den, and Sarah walked out toward the front.

  She slipped into her shoes and looked back up at her now-former counselor, who regarded her with that warm, grandfatherly countenance of his. I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone as gentle and understanding as Maury, she thought, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She extended her arms for a final hug and he reciprocated, leaning forward to embrace her one last time. “Thanks for everything, Maury. I mean it,” she said.
<
br />   “Just doing my job,” he said, winking. “Take care, Sarah. I’ll miss you.”

  “Miss you, too, Maury. Goodbye.”

  Stepping out onto 10th Street, Sarah wiped the last tears from her eyes and saw a taxi headed toward First Avenue. She marched into the street and threw her hand up to hail it. She still had a lot to work on, she knew, but today was a key first step.

  The cab stopped in front of her and she opened the door, pausing to look back at the building that had given her so many fond memories. That chair, that soothing voice, that feeling I get leaving this place. I’ll miss you, Maury. She jumped in the backseat and drew the door shut, announcing the cross streets of her apartment for the driver. As the taxi pulled away and Maury faded into her past, Sarah rolled down her window and stared into the unwritten openness of the future. A confidence overtook her as the breeze flowed through her hair. For the first time in a long time, she knew she’d done the right thing. Things will get better in time, she thought. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

  Like what you read? Please consider leaving a review wherever you picked up your copy of Sanity’s Only Skin Deep. Honest reviews help potential readers decide whether a book is right for them. The more honest commentary there is about Sanity’s Only Skin Deep, the better it is for the book’s potential readers. Just a sentence or two (or even just a star rating) from each reader can be enormously helpful.

  Read on for an excerpt from Adam Aust’s A Glitch in the System, available now at your favorite ebook retailer.

  25

  KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .