PSYCHO: a short story series

INTRODUCTION

“Dr. Fairway, I’m so sick of her always interrupting!”

.....“Well if you weren’t so got-damned long-winded someone else would have an opportunity to speak.”

.....“Oh shet up you twisted, nympho-maniacal whore!”

.....“Whore? Chic please, I know you of all people up in here did not just call me a whore!”

..... “Ladies, ladies…please calm down. Now look, we’ve been making some progress here but we cannot continue to better ourselves if you guys are going to continuously attack one another every couple of minutes. Now this is supposed to be a safe haven…a place to share our deepest thoughts and afflictions. We are family right now, let’s not forget that.”

.....Silence covers the room out of respect for my request and me but I know they’re still mentally bickering and slicing into each others ego’s without allowing one word to part ways with their lips. I can tell from the icy glares being passed across the room.

.....My name is Nicollet Madison Fairway – Dr. Nicollet Madison Fairway Ph.D. I began my career in psychiatry but eventually moved on to the field of psychotherapy. After many years of talking rich, bored, and lonely housewives down from a ledge I decided I really needed a change…a greater challenge.

.....I discovered there was a void in the world of psychoanalysis…an entire group being underserved if they were being served at all. I would fill that void. And so I did it. I referred my wealthy clients to under-worked and desperate colleagues and revitalized my entire business plan. Added more chairs, rented a loft in the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago, got some plants, healing music, sandlewood incense, a refrigerator stocked with drinks and snacks and got to work reading books.

..... I studied hard for two months, living comfortably off of my savings, before I was ready to serve. I put the word out there…the word that I was looking for new clients, very specific clients. I hadn’t expected to receive such a turn out…though I should have suspected. People everywhere were referring clients my way. I had clients flying in from cities all across the country just to take advantage of my services. It was almost too much.

.....But I’m not a quitter and I never back down from a challenge – any challenge. And so, I scaled down my private client list to a few women who I thought needed me the most…trained a few other doctors in my field and charged them a small fee to use my name and what has been dubbed The Fairway Method. Offices boasting my name have been opened all over. There are three in Chicago alone. One in Miami, two in Los Angeles, and a suite in Minneapolis, just to name a few.

.....This has been a very lucrative endeavor for me but more importantly, I have an opportunity to truly help those less fortunate…those without a voice of their own…the underrepresented of society. The most beloved, most abhorred, most beleaguered. No, I’m not talking about celebrities…I’m talking about fictional characters. That’s right, fictional characters. They are the ones that need help the most.

.....And I’ve helped so many of them. I hate to drop names but remember Arizona from Eric Jerome Dickeys’ Thieves Paradise, Sleeping with Strangers, and Waking with Enemies? Former client. And what about Omar Tyree’s Fly Girl? Yea, she grew up and let me tell you, sister girl had some issues. Oh, and Zola Norwood from E Lynn Harris’ A Love of My Own, she’s walked through these doors a time or two…but I um, I can’t help her. Too many problems…too many problems.

.....You’ve got to understand, life is hard on a fictional character. I mean seriously people, think about it. What if your entire existence was summed in a three part discovery – build up, plot, and conclusion. You’ve done more, seen more, feel more. Hell, you’re people too but that’s all the world sees you as…momentary entertainment. The sole purpose of your creation is for the enjoyment of man. Your life, peeked into, picked apart, and when it’s over, discarded, stuck back on a shelf to be displayed for all to see – if you’re lucky. If you’re not, passed down like last years fashions, sold to the highest bidder at book buybacks, or stuffed in a trunk in the corner of a smelly basement never to be heard from again.

.....I give them their voice again. Allow them to be free and express themselves. To once more be alive. I only serve female clients, I leave the men to the men.  And I don’t typically do one-on-ones, not right away anyhow. I find it’s better for them once they understand that there are others who have had the same experiences they have. Group therapy, sort of like AA but more pleasant.

.....Six weeks with me and the group.

.....Three more weeks. Two sessions. Four in session A, four in session B.

.....After that three weeks of individual visits to clean up those lose ends.

.....Twelve full weeks of therapy, that’s The Fairway Method.

.....My track record is nearly flawless (Zola Norwood ruined that perfection for me). I’ve all but cured Winter Santiaga from Sister Souljah’s Coldest Winter Ever. For all that she’s experienced, she is truly a testimony in and of herself. And let me not leave out sex addict Zoe Reynard from Zane’s Addicted. I hope she hasn’t fallen off the Queen-size mattress. Oh and Freda from Terry McMillan’s Mama. She was my most intimate client. I connected greatly to her story. We still keep in touch to this day.

.....But now I face a brand new set of challenges in my latest experiment with healing my clients. I’ve taken on the challenge of creating a group of characters all of the same mind. The questions I pondered were what sort of issues would they have in common? Will they connect better because they are born of the same creative mind? Is it easier…faster to recovery that way?

.....So far we’ve been in session for a week and well, (gulp) I’m beginning to think that maybe I made a mistake. I mean, who knew that putting a group of characters all developed from the same place, would bring such drama? Which begs a new question, is it the characters or is it the author that has the issues?

.....I suppose I should introduce you to my present group of women, all from the mind of author Miki Starr Martin:
.....To my right is Zella Dora Frazier from the self-titled Zella Dora. She may be the sanest of them all except, she suffers from bouts of…umm…fantasizing about her parents having…sex. Yes, you read correctly. Her parents…having sex.

.....Beside Zella is Erika Curtis of Well Runs Dry. She’s the one that’s been accused of being a “twisted nympho-maniacal whore”. That may be a little exaggerated though she does tend to have various sex partners to serve very specific and varied purposes. Okay, maybe slightly nympho-ish.

.....Across from her, locking gazes and clenching fists, is Ade Wyett of Broken Promises. Self professed diva who does not get along with Erika because they are so much alike. I’m working to get her to invite her teen daughter who she basically abandoned when she was two, Kenya to a private session but she doesn’t seem to get along with her either. But Ade doesn’t get along with most including the woman to her immediate left, Graciela DiLaura also of Broken Promises.

.....Gracie and Ade have a very stressed relationship with bad blood shared between them ever since Ade slept with Gracie’s man and baby’s daddy – ahem, I mean, child’s father Kenny when they were fresh out of high school. Prior to that they were best friends, like sisters.

.....Next to her is Ayinde Domonique Phelan of Zella Dora. Troubled girl battling to stay clear of an addiction to drugs and alcohol, a dependence on her friend Zella and a seemingly impenetrable need to have a man in her life – namely a man named Marcus who I’ve never met but haven’t heard very flattering things about.

.....And to my left is Anesia Marie Hawkins…I mean Jackson…I mean…well, I don’t know who the hell she is anymore. She was about to marry her husband JT and he walked out on her, leaving her at the alter which left her twisted and confused and giving her virginity to a guy she met in New York when she ran away from Minneapolis, except she wasn’t actually a virgin because she’d had one partner prior, but then she came back and eloped with JT and they moved in together but then…sigh. Oh if you want to know the rest read the book. It’s much too complicated for me to try to explain.

.....Who we’re missing today is Lydia Washington (thank goodness!) of Well Runs Dry. Anesia’s cousin and though I believe she really needs therapy, I think she only comes to put Anesia on the spot. If she doesn’t take this seriously and misses one more session (which I hope she does) I’m going to drop her.

.....And lastly Umifemilola Sahlemariam Brown of Zella Dora. Her couple’s therapy conflicts with our group therapy. Today should be the last time. I am hoping to be able to convince Zella and Lola to look one another in the eye again before our time ends.

.....So that’s the group and those are the women and some of the issues that I have to deal with this 2009. Feel free to sit in on future sessions, offer up advice for me to share with the client of your choosing, or whatever you like. May I suggest however, that you research a little bit of the background before you judge too harshly. Reference material can be found at: The Miki Starr Bookshelf

See you in session!

Dr. Nicollet Madison Fairway

Read Psycho episode 1.

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For background reference material, please visit The Miki Starr Bookshelf.