sToRy TyMe

-Dunno what it's called....Back Into This???
"Around noon, about a month ago I think…yeah, 'cause it was right after Memorial Day, this girl came to my house. I couldn't recall ever seeing her before in my life, but she looked extremely familiar, so familiar that I can still remember all the details of her pale, narrow face, her dark eyes, her raven hair, her black clothes, her hard, athletic body…" Robert's voice trailed off as he gazed out the window of Dr. Niemann's office.

"Her body?" asked the doctor.

"I'll get to that," said Robert. "I opened the front door…and we just stared at each other. We weren't sizing each other up or anything like that, just staring into each other's eyes. I felt something strong for this girl, and I think she felt it too."

"What did you feel?" interrupted Dr. Niemann.

"I don't know. She cast a spell on me. It was like, uh…all right, try this. Let's say there's some society where some higher power plans out the best way to set up your life. They assign your neighborhood, your pets, your friends, everything. This girl before me at the door, she was my assigned lover," Robert said.

Dr. Niemann scratched her pen on her legal pad in response.

Robert continued, "Neither of us said anything for the first five or ten minutes."

The doctor held up her hand while she scribbled the end of a sentence. Then she looked up and asked, "Why didn't you say anything?"

Robert's eyes drifted from hers to the window as he considered the question. He turned back and said, "In a word: stupor."

The doctor nodded, and her pen shot back to her paper.

"She spoke first," Robert continued. "'Invite me in,' she said. Just like that: telling, not asking.

"How did that make you feel?" asked Dr. Niemann.

"I liked it," answered Robert. "I didn't know what to do, so when she said that, I was like, 'Alright! A plan!' I didn't say anything. I just stood to the side, holding the door so she could get in. She walked in and went right to my room: through the foyer, down the hall, up the stairs, then down that hall…it's not an easy pathway, and she knew it just as well as me. She led me there, not looking back the whole time, just knowing I was right behind her. She walked through the doorway and stopped a couple feet inside the room. She was looking around at everything. Her eyes darted from my drawings on the wall, to my books, to the clothes on the floor."

"Why do you think she was doing this?" asked Dr. Niemann.

"She was exploring me," answered Robert, "by studying my room. I stood behind her in the doorway while she did this. I let her do it, 'cause I'm proud of my room, and I like how it reflects me. She just looked around like that for a few minutes…jittery, like a wild animal in a new cage. When she was done--"

"Stop there," the doctor interrupted. "She was done? Are you sure?"