Discovering Sanity

by Emma Janson

  *****

  During one of Ignacio’s initial welcoming group sessions that all patients were required to attend, Maggie was the first to begin the introductions. Proudly, she explained the dream that had led her to Northern Lights, a glowing smile on her face.

  Maggie, now twenty-six, kept her composure despite Belinda’s rude stomping of her feet. She clutched at her crucifix necklace as she wrapped up her story with a concluding statement about being lucky enough to spread the word of God.

  When it was the new guy’s turn to speak, he introduced himself and then rubbed his sprouting facial stubble to soothe his itchy new growth and spoke directly to Maggie. “I think the bird was a Magpie.” He looked around at all the eyes staring back at him with confusion. The room was silent with wondering where he was going with the comment. He continued, “In your dream, the bird is called a Magpie. It scavenges and hoards small items. I guess it chatters a lot or something, like a crow. I learned about it in college.”

  It was suddenly awkward and tense in the group. Everyone stared as Ignacio grew uncomfortable, wondering if he should have said anything at all. He’d never imagined that something like his knowledge of a bird would make everyone so uneasy.

  Belinda seized the opportunity to blast her semi-annoying voice into the still room. “That’s fucking hilarious. How fitting that God sent Maggie a hoarding, chattering crow!” She flipped her blonde hair behind her back and crossed her long athletic legs with a smug, close-lipped smile. Her eyelashes fluttered unnaturally.

  Ignacio felt terrible and tried to ease the tension with a calm tone as he addressed everyone in the room, making sure to hold a second’s worth of eye contact so they knew he was sincere. “That’s not what I said.” Then he stared down Belinda with scrunched eyebrows while he shook his head in disbelief at how she’d twisted his words.

  The gold cross pendant was Maggie’s only comfort. There were two tiny red gemstones at the tips of the arms, but she preferred touching the smooth center. She pulled a piece of gum from her pocket. Everyone stared at her to see if she was going to say anything, but she balled up the foil that surrounded the gum and shoved it into her pocket as if her intent was to trash it later.

  Ignacio tried to be apologetic to the group, “I didn’t mean it that way. I was just pointing out…”

  Belinda interrupted him as her ears began to burn, “That Magpie talks too much and hoards shit.” Then she laughed so loudly that it made the therapist’s eyes blink as he jerked his head back. After correcting her inappropriate behavior and regaining control of the room, he allowed the Mexican to have the floor again because, like Ignacio, he knew that the new patient’s words hadn’t been meant the way they’d been taken.

  Ignacio looked to the therapist for reassurance and a cue that it was acceptable for him to speak again. He finally addressed the room, “I apologize; it was just an observation. I didn’t mean…”

  Maggie folded and smashed her first stick of gum into her mouth. Ignacio’s voice trailed off as she closed her eyes to pray for him before she blurted out the inappropriate feelings in her heart. She fought the desire to violently rip the cross from her neck to eat it in front of everyone. Thankfully, Mr. Jenkins rushed into the room a bit disheveled, which distracted everyone at just the right time. She needed her Christian friend in that moment and God must have known.

  “I’m so sorry, everyone. ‘Parently my alter was having an argument with Buck Lynn again,” he said as he sat in an empty chair next to Maggie with a finger in his ear.

  The therapist looked at his watch while Mr. Jenkins jiggled his eared finger to stop the ringing inside.

  When the ringing subsided, he leaned over to Maggie to quietly ask, “Sister Koontz, you look lovely today. We still on for Bible study later?” His breath smelled of cigarettes – most certainly smoked somewhere by his alter and probably the reason he and Buck Lynn had shared choice words.

  Maggie relaxed to politely respond, “Brother Jenkins, I would love that, as usual.” Her hands dipped into her pocket to dig for the balled gum wrapper that had fallen into the deep corner. She just wanted to feel its jagged edges over her fingertips.

  The therapist resumed the session to give Ignacio an opportunity for a second self-introduction, which he reluctantly took.

  Meanwhile, Maggie rolled the jagged wrapper between her fingers as she fantasized about the foil – hard at first but getting softer, had it been nestled inside of her mouth like she desired. She thought deeply about how she would suck the remaining gum flavor from it without compromising its shape. Her tongue flicked around at her teeth and cheeks, pretending it was physically there in anticipation of her intent to do it later when no one was looking. She noticed more saliva building up in her mouth as she stared at Ignacio, portraying active listening, but intently focusing on her hidden oral activities and the foil ball in her pocket which she now gently rolled in mini-circles with the pad of her middle finger.

  The motion sent a rush up her hand and arm, then down the right side of her chest to the center of her body where it pulsed. Although she missed her husband terribly, their usual missionary style lovemaking didn’t allow for the thoughts that were currently flowing through her head. Defiling a stranger with no connections seemed less offensive than asking her husband to bite down on a huge ball of softened foil so that she could sit on it and ride his face. Ignacio was new and without guilty connections, so she projected onto him and imagined shoving a palm-sized ball of foil into his mouth to stop him from talking as the others faded to black.

  With freedom to imagine her fantasies, Maggie nudged him gently to the floor, where she saw herself lifting her ankle-length skirt, exposing dainty legs, and then squatting to take a polite seat on his face. She dreamed about how careful she would be while placing herself just right before she let her full body weight, which wasn’t much, rest there. After gyrating for quite some time and getting herself close to orgasm, she eventually stood over him to slap his moistened face, with her cross dangling uncomfortably close to his eyes. In an effort to breathe, he swallowed the ball. She smacked the other side of his face and he obediently stuck out his tongue to show her that it had indeed transformed itself into a shiny new metal tongue – hard and cold when forced to be, but flexible upon his command.

  She immediately scooted down and fitted his erect metal tongue inside of her, and rolled her hips with fierce intention. As she got closer to orgasm again, the shell of human flesh on Ignacio’s body became copper, platinum, and gold with silver-specked eyes. His clothing became tailored tinfoil as his hands shifted into delicately welded iron grates. She simply let her fantasy progress into sex with a metal man. She imagined many positions that she’d been too afraid to try with her husband. The dreamlike, robotic Ignacio continued to give her pleasure as her eyes began to water from her own self-gratifying thoughts that made her toes burn and the center of her body burst with satisfaction.

  A strange aftertaste of spearmint began to infiltrate her palette before she was stunned awake by the human flesh and bone of the real Ignacio, who was attempting to dig out an obstruction from her mouth.

  A wad of foil was packed to the back of her throat, but the sticks of gum the foil had once covered were tossed to the floor next to her seat.

  Mr. Jenkins pushed the stranger away from his friend. “Skuse me, she don’t know you, son. Mrs. Koontz, are you alright? Looks like you had an episode. Spit it out, Sister Koontz. That’s right, calmly...don’t choke.” He held his hand under her chin to catch whatever fell from her airway as he tapped her back.

  She pulled out pieces to set in his hand and then tried to push out the majority of it with her tongue. The therapist rushed over with a trash can just as Mr. Jenkins reached out to dump the wad of foil into it and then wiped the minted saliva onto his jeans. “You okay now? Breathe. You just kept shoving it in, Sister; it was like you wasn’t you anymore. What happened?”

  Belinda was quiet for once, sim
ply taking in the orgasm she knew Maggie had just experienced.

  BELINDA JAYNE BECKLER

  Belinda Jayne, nick-named B.J., was a Florida-born, blue-eyed beauty who was always a clean child. Her parents were boastful of how neat and orderly she kept things in her room at a young age. They never had a complaint when Belinda’s cleanliness transferred into self-initiated weekly chores around the house. Concern only developed when, as a young teenager, she let the weekly chores become daily tasks that lasted well into late school nights and prevented her from completing homework or engaging in normal social activities. Eventually, Belinda’s disorder got out of hand and it went much further than her just being a girl who liked a tidy home. If her parents hung a towel improperly or turned a Campbell’s soup label the wrong way, she would self-destruct – she’d rip out her hair, shave off an eyebrow, or burn her leg with a curling iron.

  In her senior year, instead of going to prom, Belinda began treatments with a doctor to dig up the potential issues which might have manifested themselves into such an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Her parents supported all aspects of getting their only daughter healthy again, and after nearly a year and a half of therapy, she was cleared to begin college in New York at the age of twenty.

  In college, she was a late entrance student due to issues with her disorder among other things. This had prevented her from starting school with her peers, but everyone felt that it was best for her to get a handle on her dysfunctional life before it affected her for good.

  Mr. and Mrs. Beckler were elated that their daughter’s disorder seemed to be under control after treatments, though, so it was a triumphant time for her parents. Each believed the young woman had subdued her OCD to a manageable level, even if it wasn’t a complete conquering. At least her life was functioning with some parallels to normalcy. For instance, she joined a debate team and took an interest in being an advocate for gay and women’s rights, speaking on the quad’s grass about equality for all and justice for hate crime victims. Within these activities, she made friends and a few enemies, which everyone agreed was healthy and completely on track with college life. She learned how to adjust to common turmoil in a positive way, which further developed her coping skills – and it showed in the way she finally began presenting herself to the world.

  In her second year of school, she met a boy who was a transfer from a nearby college, and together they fell in love. At twenty-two, she lost her virginity to him after a lovely date of wine and candles while everyone else was parading around in painted-on school colors, screaming for their home team to win the night’s football game. She was maturing into a beautiful young woman, strong-minded and headed in the right direction...but it only takes one link to break in an already weakened chain before the weight of the world crashes to the floor.

  That’s exactly what happened.

  Her boyfriend met another virgin, a freshman studying chemistry, and he courted her the same way he’d courted Belinda – with a gentle approach, trust, honest-seeming lies, and self-gratifying intent. The bastard chased innocence, simply enough; in college language, he was known as a ‘purity puncher’. The kind of asshole that sought women who’d held on to the most precious thing they could possibly give a lover...just so he could take it. This mind-boggling character threw Belinda into a whirlwind of sadness and self-destructive behaviors all over again. She had worked so hard to normalize her life and he destroyed it without blinking. To expose her vulnerability to him was not easy and when he crushed that trust, he crushed her. Only this time the folds of despair became much more permanent. Her parents noticed the dramatic changes even from their phone conversations, and decided to drive from Florida to New York to be with their daughter in her time of need.

  She appreciated her wonderful parents and how they’d handled her disorders over the years, so she was elated over their upcoming arrival and ecstatic to see them – despite her state of mind – until she heard the news from her uncle, that a tragic car accident somewhere in Georgia had taken her parents lives. This epic tragedy sent an already spiraling young woman straight to the depths of hell on earth. Cleaning and the desire to keep things orderly was a way for her to control her environment. She tried to revert to her old ways, but the more she tried to gain control of her world through cleaning, the further into depression she fell. In her darkest moment, she devised a plan to commit suicide by doing all the things she had refrained from trying in her youth.

  Her logic dictated that she would party like a rock star before she succumbed to her forever sleep. Although, when she told people about her plans, she omitted the death part since it would have snuffed the party vibe.

  Belinda meticulously set up a weekend where she could party with anyone via alcohol, pills, cocaine, and ecstasy. Word of mouth was enough to draw in a small crowd with serious intent, although lots of students had been bragging that they would be there. The seedy ones who actually showed up were comprised of everything from Goth kids to top scholarship students. She remembered most of it as things progressed, but by the 18th hour, things began to blur together. The next thing she knew, she was in the local hospital looking at her Uncle Tom through swollen slits around her encrusted eyes. “Am I dead?” she managed with a painfully swollen throat that far surpassed any common flu symptom she had ever known.

  “Did you intend to be?” her uncle asked.

  Belinda turned her head away from him as best she could to avoid answering the question, but it was just like admitting her plan – as if she had screamed ‘yes’ at the top of her lungs in response to his question.

  “I’m really sorry about everything, Belinda. But I’m here for you and, when you are released, you can stay with me for a while.”

  She was embarrassed at first; however, during her few days of recovery in the hospital, she realized that cleaning didn’t give her the control she needed in her life...but the sex did. She would always have control over her own body, she realized.

  At twenty-two, Belinda Jayne Beckler transitioned almost completely from one disorder to another. Her case was highly unusual, as a result, and she required specialized care. Luckily, Uncle Tom was a wealthy businessman who lived about an hour from the college she’d been attending. He’d been around when she was a child, but when he’d made it big, he’d moved. Belinda had been thirteen when the yearly Christmas visits had become the only time of year when she saw him. They were familiar with each other enough to be comfortable, but estranged enough for them to each carry their own sense of uneasiness when she brought all her belongings to his luxurious home.

  In an attempt to continue treatments for Belinda, Tom hired a specialist so that she could cope with the loss of her virginity, her first love, and of course her parents’ untimely deaths. The therapist conducted home visits three times a week while Tom was at work.

  Tom also scheduled his longtime maid and landscaper to come in on the days when Belinda was not with the therapist, just to keep an eye on his fragile niece while they worked. He didn’t want to take the place of her parents, but he tried so hard to help her in any way that he could. His heart had always been huge, and he wanted to spare no expense when it came to her welfare. No child deserved to go through what she had been through.

  For B.J., the whole situation worked out perfectly, if not in the way that Uncle Tom had intended.

  The landscaper, a Polish guy in his fifties, was a closeted transsexual. Belinda keyed in on his sexual vulnerability and began giving him genuine presents of women’s clothing. She encouraged him to wear them for her during their Tuesday and Saturday rendezvous in the tool shed.

  The maid, a pudgy and insecure woman around thirty-two years old who also befriended Belinda, confessed that she was a virgin because she hadn’t met the right man. During their heart-felt conversations on the maid’s breaks, Belinda shared her woes of losing her virginity to the purity puncher in college. Once a sense of trust was established between them, the maid gave in to gentle touches an
d tender lovemaking on a piano that Uncle Tom never played.

  Having sex with the maid and the landscaper allowed Belinda control over her body again and gave her a power she’d been told she had to regain by her bald therapist. He was astounded when Belinda intentionally confessed her inappropriate behavior to deliberately see his pants swell – as confirmation of her newfound power. When he clearly explained that this wasn’t what he’d meant by her getting control over her body, she went into full seduction mode.

  He who had been loyal to his high school sweetheart began a sexual affair with Belinda – after much coaxing from his patient. Guilt-ridden, though not enough to end it, he eventually allowed this to continue. When her typical week was finally full of sexual adventures, she began to show improvement. Her Uncle was clueless, but impressed and very happy with her six month stay as they began to develop a closer relationship. But when the Christmas holiday approached, Uncle Tom’s staff invites to a party made for a very sticky situation.

  When the landscaper unexpectedly brought his new fiancé, Belinda was crushed. She tried to sabotage their relationship by informing the woman that her future husband wore woman’s clothing. But the woman wasn’t thwarted by this, and simply giggled as she stuffed another piece of summer sausage into her mouth. Unbelievably, she winked. “I know. It’s kind of kinky, right? I love it,” she said.

  Moments later, the maid arrived alone, and Belinda immediately took her coat, courteously rushed through introductions, and latched on to her arm as if they were best friends. The maid looked amazing and was happy to see her. Together, they walked to the library unaccompanied, and this was where Belinda tried to engage in a quickie, but the maid shyly allowed only one sweet kiss before telling her friend that she’d finally met someone. Belinda pretended to be happy, but she was seething in anger. Adding fuel to her fire, the maid’s boyfriend arrived moments later. When there was a free moment, Belinda pulled him aside to maliciously exploit the virgin’s truth while everyone poured drinks in the front room.