Based upon the song by musician Nick Cave.

[imgleft]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk205/unlike_you/Head_in_Hand_by_paradephoto.jpg[/imgleft]

Hi, my name is Adam. I’m forty-one years old and I’m still struggling to come to term with my sexuality, or at least my sexuality can’t come to terms with me.

I sound like one of my patients, but I’m not in that chair. Not today. Sometimes I wish I was; to sit and pour my heart out, for someone to nod and listen to my problems and to feel that release – that weight off my shoulders, I watch so many times at the end of the session. But I can’t gather the courage; I’m not so brave as to let a stranger know my innermost secrets, my darkest desires and my strongest thoughts. After more failed relationships then I can care to count, I’ve learned certain coping mechanisms to deal with my situation; forgive and forget. Those flickering, lingering flames of love should be long extinguished. Let them go. But who am I kidding? It doesn’t take a monkey to know that’s not easy. Someone in my profession is used to watching the consequences of un-attuned love. I’ve sat back and watched too many lives ruined by a lack of confidence. I used to watch and shake my head in regret. Now, I’ve long been worried I’ve become another one of them.

I chose psychology as my major, because I wanted to understand the human mind. But although I can pick holes, poke and prod at others, I can never understand my own. Four decades, and I’m still a lonely old man. The successes I’ve gained in my field mean little to the emptiness in my heart. The trophies and certificates in my office do little to ease the loneliness I feel at the end of the hard day, when I stand by the door and switch the lights off. I thought that maybe by helping other people, I could help myself – perhaps, grow as a person – but all I’ve learnt in my twenty eight years of practise is that some people are beyond help. I can’t help but think that maybe I’m one of them.

I’ve already seen two of my regular patients today; a twenty-seven year old man convinced his brother is missing, and a thirty-one woman whose lack of trust always sabotages her relationships. The first is a matter of trying to communicate with Alan outside of his head – to try and help him realise that he’s the only child from his family’s generation. It’s quite simple really; through a matter of loneliness and trauma which began during his adolescence, he created an imaginary friend to help burden the stress and pain experienced in his youth. The second is a more trickier situation; unwilling to co-operate, and dead set on the idea of her husband’s affair typical behaviour of all masculine culture, I have to somehow rebuild her shaken confidence to the point where she doesn’t need to question affection, but rather nurture it. I only wish coming up with a similar approach to my own dead-end lifestyle was as simple.

I hold my notebook in my hands, pen resting against the unruly paper as I prepare for my next appointment. I don’t know much about him yet as this will be our first session, but I’m very eager to learn more about his situation. From the telephone call I held with his mother, the most I can work out is that the sixteen year old may be suffering from symptoms of depression. Very workable at this age, I’m hoping that whatever his affliction might be it won’t be permanent. The telephone on my desk rings – shaking me out of my self pity and I hold the earpiece up in one swift motion. “Yes?”, I ask in a slightly startled voice.

“Neryn has arrived to see you.”, the sound of my sweet secretary’s voice replies.

“Send him in.”, I nod with understanding of the situation regardless of the fact no one can see me. It’s a bad habit I suppose, but a habit that doesn’t harm anyone.

Once the boy is seated, I lean forward on my chair and clasp my hands together. “Now, Neryn.”, I smile gently with a voice of patience. “Is there anything you’d like to talk to me about?”, I ask matter-of-factly, leaning backwards on my chair as I wait for his reply.

The boy simply stared at his new therapist with lifeless blue eyes. Dark hair hangs over his eyes, but not in any weird fashion; his hair is slightly long but well-trimmed. Neryn had always been a very smart young man, ever since he started school. He was reading by the age of three, and now he was an accelerated senior at the age of sixteen. His skin was pale from a lack of sports enjoyment, and he really only went outside at night to study the sky or spend time in the rain.

To be honest, the boy never really liked doing things everyone else did. He loved to write and read, spending hours a day in his room with a large book, one after another. His room was the only safe place in his house; his mother held three jobs and each one involved selling her body, and his older brother was just as bad, if not worse. The kitchen was yet another safe place, because he never let anyone in his kitchen. And nobody dared question what he cooked for dinner, either; he was volatile at the best of times, and would find himself yelling and throwing things if someone questioned his healthy tastes.

Today he was dressed in a black t-shirt, fitted to his body and bearing the logo for Tokio Hotel, with a black and white striped long-sleeved shirt beneath it. His pants were black and white Tripps, baggy and strung up with chains, straps and belts. He wore a belt, too, black and white studded leather. His shoes were simple; big black combat boots that looked too big for his tiny feet.

On top of being young, the boy was incredibly short; he barely made four foot eleven, and he didn't seem to be looking at a growth spurt any time soon. As he sighed and looked to the man before him, eyes coming into focus and letting that defiant fire flare in them, he licked his dry lips to try and help their separation to aid in his speech.

"I suppose, if I must..." He sighed, "I got fired from my job at Papa Murphey's last night. And my mother bought me more inappropriate underwear. You see, Kitty doesn't like the fact that I'm not like her and Myke...I've taken a vow of celibacy until I hit the age of twenty. My brother is a whore and I end up doing all of his homework for him, because I don't want him to fail and be held back when his younger brother graduates in his stead. But at the same time, my mother works as a Hooters girl, a stripper, and a hooker all at once. She's hardly home, and when she is, she tries to force her lifestyle on me."

The boy seemed to have no problems whatsoever telling all of this to the male before him, and when he took a breath, he let his eyes scrutinize the other for any reaction, waiting to be able to continue.

I take a minute to take in the young boy before me; I could barely make out his eyes in hope of keeping eye contact for the body of his dark hair, a youthful fashion I recognised from some of my other patients. Darkened strands much like my own, although the vibrancy had begun to fade to grey. His taste in clothing was nothing peculiar to his generation however the style became lost on me. I wondered whether ‘Tokio Hotel’ was some kind of brand name, or whether it was genuinely a hotel in Tokyo. Grown up decades apart, the desire to advertise a company on your chest was as foreign to me as the opposite sex. He was certainly resemblance of my younger patients, whom for some peculiar reason wished to dress in dark colours to proclaim their sensitivity. I had grown accustomed to wearing suits myself, though whether out of profession or personal choice I couldn’t quite say.

I couldn’t help but notice how short the boy was for his age. I wondered whether this could be connected to his condition (a sign of stress?) and decided to jot it down into my notes to refer back to later. I found it funny, his choice of first words to me. ‘If I must…’ I almost wanted to point out that I wasn’t forcing him to. I liked to make my clients think of my office as a safe place; somewhere they could relax and take things at their own pace. I got the impression that it was the boy’s mother, rather then the boy himself who chose for him to come here. I wasn’t sure whether this was a sign of a good relationship or not. At least, I couldn’t attempt to work so out yet.

Listening to the boy, I nodded and waited for him to continue as he spoke about his recent loss of job and conflict with his mother. I had to sympathise with him; there came a point where a line of decency must be crossed and I certainly didn’t think buying your son inappropriate underwear was one of them. It was unusual to say the least that a son could speak so confidently and with ease about his mother’s sexual lifestyle but I was glad that he felt able to confide in me already. His own vow of celibacy wasn’t terribly unusual for teenagers his age; especially when they felt their security was being threatened. I waited for him to finish, before I spoke. “I see.”, I wrote down the details about his mother’s occupation because her sexually relaxed lifestyle seemed important. “And is your mother still with your father?”, I ask gently.

It may have seemed like an irrelevant question, but in fact knowing whether the boy had a father’s presence was as important as hearing about his thoughts himself. “Does he approve of your mother’s erratic lifestyle?”

"Pfft. I was an accident." Neryn replied with a roll of his eyes. "My father had my mother for one night, and she got pregnant. She didn't want to lose me, because she felt it was her calling to have a second kid. She decided that her gay best friend Leo would be my father, and I haven't seen him in seven years, ever since he moved off to Borneo with his ex." He sighed a little and rubbed at his temples, "So no, I have no father. It's just Kitty, Myke and I." He would never call his mother 'mom' if he didn't have to. Always by her first name. "And Kitty isn't even her real name. She started out as a Beatrice, but, of course, she brings up the question, 'who'd want to fuck a 'Beatrice'?'" He sighed even more exasperatedly, now. "I can't stand her on good days, and Myke is no better."

He paused a moment to collect himself before continuing, "The only good thing about Kitty's lifestyle is that she leaves it outside of our home. Myke is the total opposite. He brings his...'friends' home, has his naughty way with them...right next door to my bedroom, mind you, and then he goes the whole distance and makes sure to have sex in places that I openly walk into. Like the living room. I can't even go in there anymore to use the computer, I had to make mom by me a laptop for my room so that I could escape him. If I didn't lock the door on my room and physically beat him out of my kitchen every day, there wouldn't be a sacred room in the house! And you think I'm joking; if you got a good look at my brother, you'd see it, too. He just likes to convert people to his lifestyle, and he's upset he hasn't been able to get to me, yet. Him and Kitty are having a hard time with me, and the whole reason I'm here is because she thinks that you'll pound nonsensical jargon into my head and get me to obey every damned word that leaves her whore-mouth."

(( I am SO SORRY that took so long to reply to. I thought I had the thread subscribed, but it turns out I didn't. D8 If I don't reply for a long time, you're welcome to PM me. ))