Into You

Chapter 25

"Oh no, no milk and no sugar. I'm afraid I only ever drink herbal teas and I only drink them neat," she interrupted heading for the door. "Good for the constitution they are; I won't take no for an answer..."

Her voice tailed off slightly as she heard her walk up the stairs and back into the main part of the house. "Go on and sit down, Lauren," she called down, "we don't stand on ceremony here. I won't be long."

She walked into the room, standing by a wall and staring out of the basement window at the neat little garden she'd walked through. Business must be good for Joanna "not hung up on names" Foster; you don't own or rent a place like this unless you're making a fucking fortune, especially with this level of décor. This place must be worth a fortune at current prices. She doubted she'd be able to afford to rent her basement.

She looked around the room once more, searching for information about Joanna Foster. She thought about their introduction for a second. Is it Dr. Foster? Counsellor Foster? Fuck, she doesn't know anything about who this woman is or what qualifications she has to do this sort of thing. She could just be some mad old woman who's convinced the Cabellos to part with their cash; one more 'bohemian faith healer' quack. Fuck knows she'd seen enough of those losers growing up. She'd seen a few of the fucking parasites come crawling around her mom when she was ill as well.

"Tea's up!" came a voice from behind her and she heard footsteps on the stairs and the jingling of cups. She turned to watch Joanna wandering in with a bone china tea set on a plastic tray.

"Look, I, erm...I don't really know what I'm doing here." she said as Joanna poured a cup of what looked like anemic piss and handed it to her.

"You're here to help yourself, Lauren. I'm here to assist you in doing that."

"Yeah, but..." she started. She didn't get far before the counsellor waved her into the chair and started speaking, cutting across her objections.

"Lauren, sit down please, just for a second. I'm not here to make you do anything you don't want to. I got a call from an old friend and a valued client of mine and I created a slot in my schedule so we could meet. Now, to let you know where we stand. I haven't spoken to Sinu about anything other than your appearance and that was only so I would know you when you arrived; and I will not ever discuss anything we talk about with anyone else, even with your permission. To ease the concerns you obviously have, I have formal qualifications in Psychology, Psychotherapy and counselling. I'm a master practitioner of NLP, that's Neuro-Linguistic Programming for the layman but that's totally unimportant; and I'm also a fully qualified hypnotherapist and Time Line Therapist. I'm a little bit radical in that regard and I firmly believe in the balance of new and old. I think that, despite my years, I'm open enough to see that 'whatever works' is a useful practice for a modern counsellor, and that is what I do in my sessions, anything that works to help you."

She smiled and paused for breath, "I only tell you this because you seem to doubt my ability to help you."

"I'm sorry," she asked confused. "Just how do you work that out?"

"Lauren, it's part of my job to study people and that's what I've been doing since you arrived. I know, for example, that you're not at all sure you want to be here. I know that because you sat outside for sixteen minutes and twenty seconds. I know there is someone out there who wants you to be here because you practically abandoned that car of yours after I saw you take a phone call. You didn't think I'm qualified because you stared at the brass plate on my wall outside and frowned because it only has my name and title, and as soon as you walked into this room, you did two things."

"and what might they be?" she asked perhaps a little sarcastically. It's actually purely a defensive measure; the woman is worryingly observant.

"Well, the first thing you did when you walked in was look for escape routes. You checked this door, the door to my private study over there and then the window. It was also interesting that when I came down, you were stood near the window but not in line with it, almost as if you didn't want to be exposed to the outside. From that, I deduce that you're ex-military, and you've seen combat."