Dr. Arthur Lenormand opened the door to his office. “Oh, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
Mike raised his head defiantly. “Yeah, well, I didn’t think I’d ever be doing this, either.”
Lenormand showed him into the other room. He switched on the white noise machine as he entered. “What’s that for?” asked Mike.
“So no one outside can hear us inside. They can’t hear the exact words that are being said, but if you yell, they can hear that you’re yelling, not what you’re saying.”
“Oh. Oh, all right.” Mike looked around the room. There was a couch and two chairs. “Sit anywhere?”
“Usually the couch.”
“Do I lay on it?”
“If you like.”
“Not really.”
“Then go ahead and sit.”
Mike sat down, his butt on the edge of the seat, his feet flat on the floor. He rested his arms on his thighs as Lenormand sat in the chair across from him. “So. What are you here for today?”
Mike looked around the office. The walls were painted a light purple with white trim. The couch was gray with red accents, with matching chairs. “You need pictures on the walls.”
Lenormand looked around at the walls. “I need something, but not necessarily pictures. Is that what you’re here for? Interior decorating?”
“No.” he looked down at his hands, and noticed that he had them clenched into fists. He forced himself to relax. “There’s this guy, right?”
“Right,” said Lenormand.
“And he’s…he knows me. He knows what I want. He can disarm me. Scott knows about him. He doesn’t mind that I see him. But…he talked me into doing something that I shouldn’t have done.”
Lenormand leaned forward. “Why don’t you start from the end? What did you do?”
“I slept with some of the guys. I had a rule, but…I broke it about a year ago, and I’ve slept with some of the guys.”
“On the team.”
“Yeah.”
“Is that wrong?”
Mike looked up at Lenormand. “Huh?”
“I said, is that wrong.”
“You don’t think it’s wrong?”
“Did you hurt anyone?”
“Yeah.”
“Then that’s the part that’s probably ‘wrong’.”
“He forgave me.”
“Okay, then I don’t see the issue.”
“I wasn’t very sincere.”
“Ah.” Lenormand sat back. “How about we start from the beginning.”
Mike started, “I joined the Circle of Thorns…”
He got up to meeting Scott when Lenormand finally had to stop him. “I’m sorry, but we only had an hour.”
“I could keep going.”
“Yes, but I can’t. Active listening takes a lot out of me.”
“Oh. Oh, I didn’t think that–”
Lenormand smiled. “You pay me to work, and that’s what I do. Do you want to come back tomorrow and we can pick up from where you left off?”
“It’ll take a while.”
“We’ll take as long as we need. As long as I have a day’s break between, how’s that?”
Mike got up. “Yeah. Okay.” Lenormand also rose. “Don’t tell Scott or anybody I came here.”
“I understand. It’s up to you to keep the place of where you left off. Unless you want to talk about something else.”
Mike nodded. “We’ll see.” He tossed a ring onto the floor and jumped through it. The ring closed up around him and disappeared.
