Discovering Sanity

by Emma Janson

  Her heart pounded with excitement as she peered through the cracked bathroom door, eyes growing wide with the thrill of catching this secret moment. She could smell Buck’s intentions in the air, his desires swirling past her nose now. Sex addicts could sense when others felt desire just as accurately as if they had a glowing neon sign above their heads...not to mention that there was proof of his feelings in that single entry into a room. If it had been business related, he would have brought another orderly. She shook her head, then closed her eyes and inhaled the smell of Buck’s sex which had a faint scent of wet iron.

  She looked at the camera’s position and then, with one hand, held the door open an inch more so that she could stare more easily toward room 19. Her pulse beat in her ears as she slid her other hand down her lace panties and nestled her fingers between her folds. She began teasing and rubbing as she watched the stillness of the hallway and the door that hid so many indiscretions. Memories of her moment with Ignacio warmed her body as she recalled the finesse it had taken to pleasure her without penetration. Her imagination went wild as she fantasized over the things that were going on behind the door now. Belinda focused, and fully engulfed in the throes of her sexual addiction, she teased herself in anticipation of seeing Buck’s assumed afterglow.

  Never peeling her eyes from the door, she rubbed until her panties were soaked and visible shining lubrication glistened between her thighs. When the door to room 19 finally opened, she allowed herself to burst with orgasm. Just as expected, Buck exited the room disheveled, but smiling and relaxed. He took one step away from the door before patting his uniform pocket and then returning to room 19 to quietly knock. His deep voice mumbled as Belinda’s knees weakened. Buck waited in the hall for a moment more, and then she witnessed Ignacio handing him the master key and sharing a kiss in the archway. Belinda swirled her fingers again with different pressure and came again as she watched the two men kiss with an emotional passion. It was clear that their sensitive connection was much more than she’d given it credit for.

  *****

  The next morning, she tried to share the gossip with her boyfriend, but he was gone, dispersed from the body of Mr. Jenkins – who was engulfed in Bible study with Maggie Koontz. They were in their usual corner booth of the dining hall flipping through biblical pages. To make a scene, Belinda stomped her feet and waited for him to acknowledge her presence. Mr. Jenkins invited her to join the discussion of Ecclesiastes. Maggie, uncomfortable with the intrusion, reverted into silence for the duration.

  “No, I don’t want to join your stupid fucking study group. I want to speak to Samuel!” She was livid as she held her angry stare on Mr. Jenkins. Floating lights danced across his face as a burning heat intensified within her ears. Had her boyfriend been there, he would have grabbed her breasts without regard to other occupants in the dining room. She blinked profusely as she scanned this man’s face for any sign of him.

  After pushing his reading glasses onto the top of his head, Mr. Jenkins looked up from the word of God to address her in a very calm manner. “Told you a million times to stay away from me. Million times. You’re a godless woman…”

  Belinda rolled her eyes. “For shit’s sake, Mr. Jenkins. Blah blah, I’ve heard this speech a million times is what has happened a million times. I hate you. But we are all a big fucking family and I need to speak to my boyfriend!” She slapped her palms on the table in front of him, which flipped over his empty paper coffee cup.

  It was not her words that made him uneasy, but the wind from the force of her tantrum turning his Bible page unintentionally. He looked down, visibly upset now, and turned over a page to reset his Bible. She moved her face to within a foot from his to look him in the eyes, still in search of the man who loved her back. Extremely uncomfortable with her encroaching position, Mr. Jenkins backed into his chair as best he could even as the blast of strawberry-scented shampoo tickled past his face.

  “Ms. Beckler, I rebuke you. Step away or I’ll call Mr. Buck Lynn to escort you out.” He pushed his hand outward, making a motion as if he was parting the red sea without touching her.

  “You will do no such thing!” Without thinking, she swooped into his space, cupping his cheeks with her hands specifically to shout in his face. “Samuel, you listen to me and come the fuck out!”

  Mr. Jenkins squirmed and backed away, falling into his chair again. His glasses fell from his head to the dining room floor and spun on their spectacle glass a few times before stopping in the middle of a square tile. Mr. Jenkins grabbed Belinda’s hands to pry them from his face. “Don’t work that way, Ms. Beckler.” His strength pulled her tiny wrists from his aged cheeks without effort.

  “Fuck you, Mr. Jenkins, and fuck you, too, Magpie!” She viscously tugged at her blouse, causing one button to pop off and another to strain. She reached into her bra then to pull a breast out of the opening in the shirt. “You know I don’t need your Jiminy Cricket guilt trips, so just save it.” The vulgarity of her shaking the breast by her nipple satisfied her frustration. Her eyes were focused on Mr. Jenkins as she haphazardly returned it to the cup of her bra after another moment, but the floating lights intensified. “I’m in love with a crazy person! This is what I get. Jesus hates me! Don’t say a word, Maggie Cunts...I know what you are about to say.” Belinda closed her eyes tightly in an attempt to dim sparkling illuminations that shined all the brighter, the angrier she became.

  Mr. Jenkins was utterly appalled. He grabbed at his heart while inhaling deep breaths and suddenly there was an intense pain in his ear.

  Rather than become preachy, Maggie attempted to calm her lost soul with promises of trust and her ability to keep secrets.

  Mr. Jenkins scowled at Maggie and shook his head. “Oh no. I won’t stand for this insanity. You need your pills. I’m going to get Mr. Lynn.” He grabbed his glasses from the floor and stood up to leave.

  Belinda stepped aside as the body of her boyfriend pushed past her. She rubbed at her eyes, but it only rekindled the dancing embers obstructing her vision. The shell that walked away from her was void of the man she loved as he stomped away with his bowed legs.

  Maggie unexpectedly shouted, “The world needs more people who will listen! Sometimes you just need to listen, Mr. Jenkins! What happened to free fish?” Then she went quiet again. Mr. Jenkins looked over his shoulder to his friend. He wanted to return to her, but the situation was too much for him to handle.

  The open Bible made Belinda uneasy, so she closed the book and then pushed it onto the seat Mr. Jenkins had left open. After taking a seat, she nervously bit at the inside of her cheek and shook her leg up and down, which vibrated particles of salt on the table. “I’m not crazy; I’m just horny and I know sex. Ya know what I mean? I can smell it, and I smelled it the other night when Mr. Squeaky Clean Buck Lynn walked out of Ignacio’s room. Yep, you fucking heard me...Buck and Ignacio.” She canted her head to the side to emphasize the names, then flipped her golden locks behind her back. “What you got to say about that, church lady?” she yelled as she rubbed her eyes. Then she threw her hands in the air like she was giving up on being mad, giving up on Samuel, and submitting to relinquishing the information that was weighing her down.

  Maggie wanted to touch her cross necklace to rub at its golden texture, but it was missing, and instead was settling rather nicely at the bottom of her stomach.

  Belinda yelled, “Jesus Christ, you ate it, didn’t you? Your necklace! Your favorite necklace.” She gestured in the general area of where it should have hung.

  Maggie’s voice was small, as usual, and extremely distant. “I guess I did. If your sin is that you are...the way you are all the time, mine is that I am hungry all of the time.”

  Within the kitchen came a loud crash from a stack of pans that toppled over. Everyone looked to the commotion and a few patients set their silverware down to clap.

  Belinda returned her head to the table and shrugged. “Whatever helps you sleep at night. Call
it hunger if you want to, but you swallow nasty shit out of guilt. You are guilty about everything, for fuck’s sake!”

  As the clapping died, the servers began to talk about who’d knocked over the pans. They were nudging each other and laughing as they continued to serve food to patients and other staff members. It was as typical as any other facility that served food – except it wasn’t. Maggie, offended with the cursing and accusations, filled her thoughts with a healthy dose of reality. “And you sleep around to fill a void of self-love!” It was a guilty pleasure to express that in such a damning way, as it was not Christian-like to cast judgment. However, it made perfect sense.

  Belinda, compelled to push back on the edge of the table, was shocked. She felt she needed to brace herself from the imaginary blast of hate. She looked around and was comforted to see that no one in the lunch room had heard or cared. They were focused on the pans, the servers, and their own private conversations. The truth of it made Belinda unexpectedly laugh out loud as she slapped the table with one hand and wrapped her other arm around her stomach. Maggie did what she could to stifle her embarrassment.

  After catching her breath, Belinda said, “Shit. We have it all figured out, don’t we? Guess we don’t need to be in a loony bin anymore.” She acted like she was speaking to the owner of the facility then: “Uh, Mr. Reed, we don’t need to be here anymore because we just realized that we are self-loathing women...I for one use sucking dick to fill a void, and she eats weird shit in lieu of dealing with her guilt. It’s all oral. Are there pills for that?” She giggled just a little too hard at her own joke.

  Without understanding, the only thing Maggie could do was remain quiet. Belinda laughed harder because they were having a moment together for the first time, but mostly because she thought Maggie was such a dumb bitch.

  *****

  Walking briskly, just the best he could with his bowed legs, Mr. Jenkins thought about the young blonde woman who had been harassing and stalking him. The hallways at Northern Lights were long with French-tiled floors, but the Reeds had taken the time to lay beautiful carpet runners for noise reduction when they’d transformed the mansion into an institution. The calmness of it helped. Although angry over the abuse he’d taken from Belinda, Mr. Jenkins looked down as he walked over its plush weave to appreciate the patterned design as it moved under his feet. It seemed to take his mind off Belinda. The thought of sleeping with a woman other than his beloved wife, even though she’d run off with some white guy from Tulsa, was repulsive – especially Ms. Beckler, who disgusted him with her loose history. What made the situation worse was his inability to recall anything about her other than a flash memory of her nipples and his penis nestled between them. He asked Jesus to forgive him in so many of his nightly prayers, but thanks to his alter’s relationship, this was the violating memory he had of a woman he barely knew.

  With a fast and angry pace, he felt the carpet pattern and colors blend together as his vision began to blur. As he headed to the far corner of Northern Lights, a familiar chain of events began to happen that he desperately wanted to stop.

  He pressed at his ear with the palm of his hand. “No. No. Stay back,” he said as he walked faster to get to Mr. Lynn. His head hung low as he stomped forward like a horse-worn gunslinger disheveled from the desert sun. “Devil. I rebuke you.” He shook his head to refocus and tried hard to stand proud and straight. While blinking frantically, Mr. Jenkins reached out in front of him to steady his wobbling legs. Shooting points of light floated around the hallway like angry summer lightning bugs. A burning sensation warmed the insides of his ears then, which muffled Ute Schmidt’s voice asking if he was okay. “In the name of Jesus…” he began, but he never finished.

  An edgy voice mumbled back, “Jesus ain’t got nothing to do with this.”

  Mr. Jenkins turned the corner, looking up to another hall that looked the same as the one he’d just traveled. At the end of it was a modern double glass door that was monitored and locked by an electronic security system. It was out of place for the architecture and period style mansion, but had been custom-ordered by Mr. and Mrs. Reed. Beyond that was a locked second door with a simple key entry, the door marked ‘Clinical Staff Only’. Mr. Jenkins called out for someone to help him as he fought back the urge to sleep. He was angry about something. He tried to remember what it was as he pushed forward, his feet heavy and tired.

  The elderly plump German woman with euphoria giggled as she ran down the hall, whipping past him toward the secured glass in an effort to help him seek aid. She banged on the glass and pushed the emergency button nearby while laughing and looking back down the hall to Mr. Jenkins, who was trying to steady himself. Ute shouted for help through laughter and a thick German accent, but Mr. Jenkins’s world was fading away while his alter intrusively pushed his way in.

  “We have to work together, motherfucker. Don’t you get it?” Samuel’s voice was piercing and stern as it pushed its way up and out of Mr. Jenkins’s vocal cords. “Your harlot ex-wife is off sucking white dick in buffalo country. She ruined your life, nigga, but we got our own white pussy now, man, so it’s all good!”

  Ute, witnessing this self-conversation from just 30 feet away, laughed harder and prepped herself to take a seat because she was utterly out of breath. “Someone is coming! Whooo, und zey sink I’m crazy.” She gave an unseen, dismissive wave to the black man talking to himself down the hall before she crossed her arms over her huge sagging breasts and slid down the door to sit on the floor against the glass barrier.

  “Don’t do this to me, Samuel. I’m a God-fearing man. Leave me alone. Quit using my body for foul acts,” Mr. Jenkins pleaded and slapped at his head.

  “Quit being a bitch!” Samuel growled just before a Hispanic person jumped out of an intersecting hallway to block his path.

  “Who’s the bitch now?” Ignacio yelled as he swung his fist, which was aimed at Samuel’s cheek. It contacted his left ear instead, causing him to swirl and lose balance with an instant ringing in his head. He bent awkwardly sideways as he fell to the floor.

  Ute, in as much shock as Mr. Jenkins, lifted her hands in the air as if she was a fan in a baseball stadium witnessing the World Series. She never got up from her seated position, though, as she was too old for such reflexes anyway. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her belly and let herself tilt onto the floor in hysterics.

  Samuel seemed to disperse with the blow. What was left was a bewildered sixty-two-year-old, bow-legged man with a bleeding ear who was lying near the baseboards of the clinical wing. Ignacio backed down the adjoining hallway with a sway in his hips. As he ran his fingers through his hair, he gave a warning in a voice that was much higher than his own, “Leave my fucking son alone, pinche!”

  Ute was confused, and didn’t make a sound of response for the first time in her life.

  Mr. Jenkins closed his eyes and prayed through the pain of his throbbing ear. For a split second, he wanted Samuel to come back so that he could deal with this; after all, he was the stronger personality. Sometimes, he thought his alter was someone he wished he could be. Then an image of Belinda’s breasts flashed across his eyes. This revolting picture reminded him that he and his alternate personality would always be two different people.

  BUSINESS

  Mrs. Jill Reed’s office, filled with books and antiques, had a cozy feel and was decorated intentionally to seem inviting for potential clients. Every move she’d made over the past eleven years, while running Northern Lights, had been made from a business and marketing perspective. She genuinely cared about the clients, too, if not to the extent she presented – and there were concrete reasons for her strategies. She knew that personal investment in client history was not her job. Her job was to provide optimal care in a premium facility – the first of its kind. It was easier and much more efficient to hide behind the walls of being a businesswoman. Additionally, the mental health issues that plagued her own family history would interfere with the go
als of the Northern Lights mission, to provide alternative therapies for optimal living. She couldn’t risk bonding with anyone involved, for fear it would derail the entire operation. And so, her logical brain usually concerned itself with the financial aspects of running the business and nothing more.

  Jack, her husband, just wanted to run a successful vineyard. This was how he pushed their history with mental illness out of his daily life. To be honest, he didn’t care how it was taken care of, so he let his business-savvy wife hold the reins on the numbers as long as he could get his hands dirty, profit from the enterprise, and forget.

  They hadn’t exactly set out to run a business this way, but the couple was hardened by the fact that they had to be, and because some of their clientele were bull-shitters. Point blank. Anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorders, and depression were merely secondary diagnoses in a long list for most of their long-term patients. The others just wanted to stay in the mansion and vent about a recent divorce, but this paid bills. The Reeds justified their strict financial policies and liberal methods of therapy as ways to scam the scammers. Unfortunately, within their facility, there were a dozen or so seriously ill patients with disorders ranging from Anorexia to Psychosis. Some of them had been to the restricted far corner otherwise known as the clinical wing – the wing that everyone knew of but conveniently forgot existed. Regardless, none of these people were criminally insane or a danger to others...if they were contained and undergoing treatment. Samuel was the first aggressive patient who’d spent time there.

  For years, the biggest asset to Northern Lights had been the Schmidt twins, sponsored by the German government in exchange for surveillance footage and notes on their rare disorder. Never mind how strange and fishy the whole situation was; Jack and Jill Reed were getting paid to house two very hard workers. By managing their disorder, the couple was getting paid for free labor. Only in recent years had the twins slowed down – with the help of age and very strong pills. The monetary value in the twins living at the facility was in the fact that their stay was paying most of the bills.