by Jon Jacks
She pauses, letting Iain fully absorb what she’s saying.
Yes, he’s sorry now; but only because I made the first move.
Only, I suppose, because Lamia provided me with something like a love potion. Or, at least, something that gave me the confidence to approach him.
‘You’re analysing all this as if it’s really happening,’ Dave warns me with a reproachful frown.
‘Now, I must admit,’ Lamia says, her voice suddenly more conciliatory, ‘I am a little confused as to why you’re both here. Because of, course, you are both here. And, as my potion obviously worked, Iain, I can only assume that it’s you who’s suffering the problem you’ve come to see me about.’
Iain opens his mouth, as if about to say something.
He closes it, unsure, ashamed.
‘Iain?’ Lamia says it with an unmistakable undertone of, ‘You have something you wish to say?’
Iain still sits there, not wanting to speak.
‘You’re a beautiful couple,’ Lamia persists cajolingly.
‘That’s some subconscious you’ve got there,’ Dave whispers.
‘Why should there be any problems between you? Problems you obviously think I might be able to help you with.’
‘Because…because she’s not who I thought she was!’ Iain blurts it out like it’s an unfortunate, uncontrollable sneeze.
‘Not who you thought she was?’
Lamia pretends to study me closely.
‘Well, I’m sure that’s the Stephanie who came to see me, Iain,’ she says archly.
Leaning across the desk towards me, she adds in a theatrical whisper, ‘You are Stephanie, aren’t you?’
No no! It’s not me, I want to scream.
‘Yes, yes, of course it’s me,’ I say.
‘There you are Iain; it is Stephanie! How can there possibly be a problem?’
‘She…she humiliates me. Makes me fight for her.’
Iain forces it out as if it’s a humiliating admission in its own right.
‘Humiliates you? Makes you fight? I can’t see how she could make you fight, Iain.’
‘She’s good, oh yes she’s good,’ Dave whispers to me in admiration of Lamia’s way with words.
‘Only you can make yourself fight, Iain! As for humiliating you; I’m sure you’re the envy of many a boy for having such a beautiful girlfriend.’
‘Wow, Steph, I wish my subconscious was so flattering,’ Jassy giggles.
‘Yes,’ Iain says, ‘everything seems perfect.’
‘Seems?’
Iain withdraws his hand from mine.
He clasps his hands together in his lap. He droops his head, like he’s preparing himself to say something.
‘On the outside, it all seems perfect.’
‘Outside?’
Iain doesn’t notice, but Lamia glances at me anxiously.
‘There’s something not right…like there’s something nasty inside her.’
Inside her?
Does he mean me?
Am I the nasty thing he can sense inside her?
*
Chapter 20
‘You’re not inside her, Steph!’ Jassy points out.
‘You are her,’ Dave adds helpfully.
‘But I feel like I’m inside her!’
‘It’s a dream, remember?’
‘You weren’t talking about it like that a moment ago!’
‘We were coming to the conclusion, I think, that’s it’s just an admonishing subconscious!’
‘With lashings of flattery thrown in to make the pill easier to swallow.’
I’m crying – not me, the girl on the seat.
‘I should think so too,’ says Jassy. ‘Poor girl!’
Lamia has rushed round from behind her desk to comfort me – the me on the seat.
‘Iain, how can you say such a thing? This poor, poor girl, who suffered so long waiting for you! Who took the trouble to visit me to help her win you around! And this is how you repay her; by calling her a nasty person inside?’
An embarrassed Iain sidles across his chair, moving closer to me, putting a caring arm around me.
I lean against him, weeping.
‘Sorry, sorry!’ Iain’s almost weeping himself. ‘I don’t know why I said that, I really don’t. I don’t know why I think that!’
Lamia steps back slightly.
‘Mr Sinclair, perhaps it’s not my help you require, but a psychiatrist’s!’
‘No no,’ I say, weeping in my chair, in Iain’s comforting arms. ‘I don’t think a psychiatrist’s the answer. I think it’s that Iain doesn’t really love me–’
‘Steph, that’s not true, I d–’
‘He just likes to show me off! He lusts after me!’
‘Steph! Of course I love you!’
‘I must admit, Iain,’ Lamia says sternly, ‘from what I’ve heard today, it doesn’t seem as if you do love her.’
‘But I do love her! I’ve always loved her!’
Always loved her?
He’s always loved me?
‘Always loved her?’ Lamia asks suspiciously.
Iain’s head ashamedly droops low once more.
He didn’t notice, once again, that Lamia and I swap strangely conspiratorial looks.
How can he have always loved me?
He never said anything.
‘Why didn’t you ever say anything, Iain,’ I ask from my chair, ‘if you’d always loved me?’
Iain grimaces. Like even now, he still wants to hold back from finally admitting something he’s kept hidden for so long.
‘Yes, Iain,’ Lamia coaxes, ‘why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I loved her, loved her so much it hurt. I wanted to tell her, to ask her out; but I never knew what to say whenever I was around her. I always made a fool of myself, I was so nervous. I’d blurt it out all wrong, I knew I would, and she’d laugh, and everyone would laugh!’
How long have I wanted to hear Iain say that?
But what am I saying?
This is just a dream isn’t it?
‘Or a flashback.’
‘Or your subconscious.’
Jassy and Dave grin supportively.
‘Then how did you ever expect to be together, Iain,’ Lamia asks, ‘if you weren’t prepared to say anything?’
‘Can’t you imagine how much it would have hurt me if she’d turned me down?’ Iain says. ‘Better, I thought, to live in hope that she also secretly loved me, than to suddenly have everything all dashed to pieces. I just hoped that, somehow, we’d just sort of be almost naturally drawn together; that that’s how it would work out if we both loved each other.’
‘Seems like you didn’t need that love potion after all,’ Jassy says, nudging me playfully. ‘A foregone conclusion eh?’
‘That’s if Steph actually did visit our Miss Morticia here,’ Dave adds, somewhat breaking the magic of what I’m hearing.
‘But you would never have come together, would you Iain,’ Lamia points out, ‘if you were both just relying on things happening by chance? So, ironically, even though you were both in love with each other, you could never realise that love until Stephanie here came to me for my love potion? I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Tristian and Isolde? No?’
‘Hmn, moot point,’ Jassy hisses defensively. ‘Tristian and Isolde blamed their doomed love on the potion they’d both mistakenly taken. But they were really naturally drawn to each other.’
‘So,’ Iain says hopefully, ‘your potions do work? They are potions?’
Even as he spoke, Lamia had been making her way over to a large cabinet that, when pulled open, revealed a multitude of old-style stoppered medicine bottles.
‘Yes, they are potions.’
‘Are they safe?’
Iain watches nervously as Lamia deftly pours out and mixes a number of both crystalline and liquid ingredi
ents.
‘Does Stephanie look in any way ill to you?’
Iain glances at me. His smile is uncertain, yet he shakes his head, says, ‘No, she looks fine.’
There a hint of doubt in the word looks.
‘She seems different,’ he adds.
‘Only to you Iain, only to you.’
Lamia still has her back to them as she continues her swift, skilful mixing of the potion.
‘And that’s because she’s now confident, assured. How is she regarded at school now; is she more popular, or less?’
‘More; much more.’
He says it, I think, with bitterness.
‘I couldn’t fail to notice the bitterness there Iain,’ Lamia says with a low chuckle. ‘As I suspected, it’s jealously you’re suffering from; the resentment, too, that power has slipped out of your hands into Stephanie’s.’
She gracefully walks back from the cabinet, holding a glass of the potion in her hand.
I’m a little disappointed that it isn’t steaming, as you’d expect a magical potion to be. It isn’t even fizzing.
It looks like milk.
‘I can cure you; I can make you happy one more.’
She hands Iain the potion.
‘Drink,’ she orders.
Iain gives me an edgy glance.
‘You’re sure it’s safe?’ he asks me.
I nod, smile.
‘Course it’s safe; I wouldn’t bring you here, would I, if I didn’t think it was?’
Iain still hesitates. The glass shakes slightly in his hand.
‘Please Iain,’ I plead. ‘It’s the only way we can be truly happy!’
He brings the glass up to his lips.
He tries it with a sip.
I smile, urging him on.
He drinks more.
He drains the glass.
Lamia takes the empty glass from him.
‘It will make you feel drowsy for a while, perhaps even send you briefly to sleep; but don’t worry, this is all perfectly natural.’
‘Sleep?’
Iain already sounds dazed. Anxious too.
‘It’s all perfectly normal.’ Lamia’s voice is professional, reassuring.
‘I’m tired, very tir…’
He’s slouching slightly in his seat.
He smiles, a child-like smile, a sleepy smile.
He drifts off, mumbling as if a little drunk.
He slumps limply in his chair.
‘He’s asleep?’ Lamia asks me.
I nod.
And then we both laugh.
*
Chapter 21
Why are we laughing?
Poor Iain!
As I rise up from my seat, Lamia throws her arms around me and hugs me closely, lovingly.
‘It’s so good to see you again Panthia!’
Panthia?
‘Mother!’ I say.
Mother?
‘Wow, your subconscious is really playing games now Steph,’ Dave says with an amused chuckle. ‘Just how many deep-rooted problems have you got circulating around in that mind of yours?’
Lamia and I pull apart with affectionate smiles.
Lamia glares at Iain with obvious disgust.
‘It’s a good thing you worked out he’d been in love with her after all,’ she says, taking my hand tenderly. ‘It could have caused complications.’
‘I haven’t felt anything odd though,’ I say. ‘I don’t think it’s had any effect.’
Lamia draws me close again, standing directly in front of me.
She taller than me. It could be the killer high heels she’s wearing.
‘It’s still wiser to check,’ she says, locking eyes with mine.
Wow!
Seeing her eyes like this is really unnerving.
They’re wide, unblinking.
They really are like deep pools of sparkling water.
‘Are you there Stephanie?’ She says it kindly. ‘I know you’re in there somewhere dear; so please make yourself known to me!’
*
What’s going on?
How does she know I’m here?
‘She doesn’t really know you’re here, because she doesn’t really exist, remember Steph?’ Dave explains.
‘If it really is your subconscious we’re tapping into here, it obviously knows you’re watching everything,’ Jassy agrees. ‘Although what Freud would make of it, I’ve no idea.’
‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ Lamia trills creepily.
Thankfully, she pulls away from me once more.
Those eyes were weirdly hypnotic, like they really were capable of drawing me out.
Like you skewer out a winkle from its shell!
‘Are you sure you haven’t felt her trying to regain some form of control?’ Lamia asks me.
‘I’m sure of it,’ I reply. ‘She’s still safely locked away where she should be. Well, ever since lover boy here was ensnared of course.’
I giggle wickedly.
‘Hmn, not as ensnared as he should have been, obviously.’
Lamia observes the sleeping Iain intently, a new sense of admiration in her voice.
‘He was not only in love with the real Stephanie, but he’s retained that love for her despite your undoubted charms my dear.’
She turns back to me, looking me up and down with undisguised approval.
‘You’ve made so much more of her too! He’s a fool to want the old Stephanie back.’
‘Hmn, but we know men can be like that, unfortunately. Completely predictable normally; but obtuse when you least expect it!’
‘An obtuseness that, in this case, could mean our poor little Stephanie isn’t as self-contained as she should be.’
She takes me by the arms, pulls me back towards her yet again.
‘Now, let’s try it again shall we?’
Her eyes lock on mine once more.
‘Stephanie; I know where you are,’ she says. ‘You’re a student at Heartache High, aren’t you dear?’
*
Chapter 22
She knows about Heartache High!
‘Sure she would, if she’s a construct of your subconscious!’ Dave says. ‘You’re reading too much into a lot of this.’
‘Isn’t that what a psychiatrist has to do with subconscious thoughts though Dave?’ Jassy says. ‘Read a meaning into them, interpret them?’
‘I don’t think any psychiatrist could interpret these thoughts accurately!’
I feel like Lamia can see me.
Feel like her never-wavering eyes are actually locked onto me, the student at Heartache High, rather than onto the eyes of the me back in that room.
‘Don’t you enjoy it there dear?’ Lamia asks mischievously. ‘I mean, all those people there, all just like you? All those things you have in common? All those things you can share and discuss? You’re all of one mind, aren’t you?’
She chuckles.
‘Why are you looking at me like that Stephanie? That strange, bewildered stare! Shouldn’t you be thanking me – and of course, my beautiful, irresistible daughter – for helping you enrol at the wonderful Heartache High?’
She raises a hand to her right eye, completely covering it.
Phew!
It’s one heck of a relief not having both probing eyes staring at me.
She pulls her hand away; leaving behind nothing but a blank, blood-red socket.
*
Chapter 23
‘What?’ gasps Jassy. ‘She’s pulled her eye out?’
‘There, see!’ Dave announces triumphantly. ‘It’s got to be all in your
mind!’
‘It could still be a flashback,’ Jassy insists, ‘with dream-like touches added by your mind.’
I’m not really listening to them.
Lamia has brought her hand up to her other eye.
When she pulls it way, she leaves another gaping eye socket.
It’s even worse staring back at these than it was staring back at her mesmerising eyes.
I want to jump back in shock.
But the me in the room remains where I am, unperturbed by Lamia’s cool removal of her eyes.
‘Wait,’ Jassy says, ‘there was something about Lamia being able to remove her eyes! Yes, it was a gift–’
‘A gift?’ Dave sounds aghast. ‘Removing your eyes is a gift?’
‘Something – I can’t quite remember every detail – about it being a gift from Zeus.’
‘Wow, remind me not to include Zeus on my Christmas list, okay?’
‘No, no; it was a gift! She no longer had to endlessly see her children being killed, as she’d originally been condemned to do.’
‘Oh well; that’s all right then,’ Dave says sarcastically.
‘But why take them out now?’ Jassy wonders. ‘Why now, when Steph felt she was being drawn out by her probing eyes?’
‘Hmn, are we making the mistake of trying to read too much into dreams and visions once again?’
Despite removing her eyes, Lamia is still standing directly opposite me, her eyeless sockets as locked onto my own eyes as they had ever been.
‘Yes, she’s definitely there, Panthia,’ Lamia declares assuredly. ‘Our precious little Stephanie is actually watching us right at this very moment.’
*
‘Why not talk to her?’ Dave suggests. ‘It’s your mind controlling all this, obviously; so you should be able to say something back.’
‘I don’t think it is; I don’t think it is my mind. It all seems so real. I don’t think I have any control over it.’
I say it to Dave hoping that, somehow, it comes out of my mouth in that Soho room.
Nothing comes out.
‘I can help you, Stephanie.’
Lamia’s tone is wheedling, yet somehow also untrustworthy.
‘All this is just adding to your pain, being able to see all this, isn’t it? Don’t you want to retreat back into your comfort zone? Didn’t you hide away there in the first place to avoid a painful reality?’
She brings both hands up to her face. When she removes them, her eyes are back in place.
They seem more intense, brighter, than ever.
‘You’re so lucky that we know you’re still there dear. It could have been oh so painful for you, wouldn’t it, to watch as my gorgeous, ravenous Panthia slowly fed off Iain’s love for her.’
She steps away at last.
A sense of relief floods through me, as if I’d been rooted to the spot under her penetrating gaze.
‘Not to worry though, my dear.’
Lamia moves towards Iain, rubbing her hand through his tousled hair almost affectionately.