Max - Bey Deckard

1

The First Session

Monday, June 13th

“I wish you would stop doing that.” The words were spoken in a friendly tone, each syllable enunciated so precisely that they gave the impression of a foreign accent.

Crane frowned at the young man seated across from him in the oddly plushy bright-orange barrel chair. They were over half an hour into their first session, and he was still struggling to establish a rapport with this new patient. “Doing what?”

“Mimicking my posture to make me feel more at ease,” replied Max, and he drummed a few beats with his fingertips against his calf as he looked around in distaste at the small shabby office Crane shared with the other therapists at the psychology clinic.

Crane uncrossed his legs and sat back in the chair, discomfited. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

“S’aaall right.” This time it came out slow and drawled, and Crane found himself smiling. “It has the opposite effect on me,” Max explained with a shrug. “I’m intensely cognizant of you doing it.”

Crane chuckled. Cognizant. The crisp pronunciation was back. The way Max’s accent and speech patterns shifted constantly was fascinating.

“Okay, Max,” he said, nodding. “I’ll try my best to stop doing it. It’s my training, you know.”

“I know.” The reply was accompanied by a smile, but there was something slightly unsettling about it.

Crane looked down at his notes, just to take a moment to think. Relief. That’s what he felt. It was as if he’d gotten a pass because he’d given the right answer—like it would have been inexcusable had he been mimicking Max on purpose. Crane flipped over the scant info Max had provided on the clinic intake sheet, still pretending to read. For some reason, as they spoke, his mind kept slipping to the mafia movie he had seen that weekend with his wife, Mary. When he finally glanced up, Max looked amused.

“Sorry, I was just trying to get back to what we were talking about,” Crane said. They had been talking about what Max called his “ghost”, an imaginary friend that had been with him since childhood. “Can you tell me more about Eric?”

“Eddie.” There was a flicker of annoyance in Max’s dark eyes.

“Sorry. Eddie. Can you tell me more about him?” Crane couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt the need to apologize so often in a session. Then he wondered if Max even cared for his apologies.

“What do you want to know?” The finger drumming again.

It was one of three nervous tics that came over the young man whenever he was asked something uncomfortable. There was something odd about the tics though. Crane decided then to take note of them to see if they always happen in the same order. After putting two marks on the upper left-hand side of the page, he gestured with his pen. “What is he like? Is he like you?” Crane asked with interest.

“He’s not like me, no. We’re actually rather dissimilar.”

“In what way?”

A furrow appeared between Max’s dark brows as he thought. It was like he was mentally shuffling through his answers to give Crane the one of least importance, and he was reminded of that expression about holding cards close to one’s chest. Under “reason for seeking counselling” on the intake sheet, Max had written “taedium vitae”, which translated to “tired of life”. Crane was about to point out that Max was the one who had come to see him, not the other way around, when Max finally spoke up.

“He’s nicer. A little shy. Says I should be more serious… He’s a bit of a fucking pain in my ass sometimes, to be honest.” The words were followed by the cheerful, almost self-mocking laughter that always surprised Crane by how genuine it sounded.

“Would you call him a friend?”

“Yeah. But it’s more than that.” Max uncrossed his legs and leaned forward with his elbows on knees, stroking down over his mouth and jaw with one hand.

Crane made another mark on the paper, this time in the top-centre of the page. That’s tic number two. “More? Like you have a deeper relationship?”

Max nodded.

“Is there a sexual aspect to this relationship?” This time Max smirked before he nodded, and the answer didn’t surprise Crane. He wanted to ask more about the sex just because he was curious as to what exactly that entailed but decided against it.

The young man clasped his hands loosely so that they hung between his knees as he watched Crane, but he didn’t say anything else. Something about the