Chapter 43: A Friend In Need

Maureen's Office, The Runnels Building, Denver, Colorado...

The door to Maureen's office burst open as Hadrian Rawsone rushed his way inside looking to be a bit worse for wear in terms of his disheveled clothes and wild eyes. He appeared to have been sweating bullets as he sat in the empty chair he'd found in front of her desk unsure how he was going to explain the details of the morning he had. Maureen looked up from the paper she'd been reading on her desk with her dark rimmed glasses slumped toward the end of her nose and the straps to keep her glasses in one place along her ears. She wore an impressive black suit with comfortable fitting black shoes. Her eyes were keen and focused on the new arrival and the very minor details of how he looked when he came in.

"Hadrian?" asked Maureen with an arched brow as she sat down the paper and took off her glasses.

"Reen...I don't know what happened." he said sounding about as shaken as he looked. "One moment...I was trying to concentrate when the onset of a headache bid me to lie down and the next morning I awoke in a strange motel room with women I had never seen before."

Maureen couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Hadrian...do you remember driving at all?" she asked.

"No." replied Hadrian feeling quite sick about the whole thing. "I remember awakening with one of the women...."

Maureen sensed his hesitation and immediately turned to him.

"Hadrian I can't help you unless you are honest with me." she said. "It's the only way to get an effective treatment and to know what to look out for for future reference...you know that."

Hadrian nodded before taking a deep breath.

"There was a blonde woman, when I awoke she was riding me without protection and we were in the center of the motel bed with another young blonde...possibly her friend or sister.....who was sleeping beside us." admitted Hadrian feeling even more sick.

Maureen took note of the fact that he reeked of sex and sweat which further collaborated his story.

"That's not the worst part...I felt as if I had no real control over my body...and someone else had been in the driver seat so to speak." added Hadrian. "I could feel everything but I couldn't stop myself or speak...it was like my entire body was hijacked and I could only watch it from the side lines. "

Maureen seemed alarmed at this as she made a show of scribbling something down in her notebook which caught Hadrian off guard.

"What was that?" he asked recognizing the signs of being an accomplished therapist. "What did you just write down?"

Maureen sighed.

"Hadrian, I don't know how to tell you this aside from just getting on with it." she began. "You are suffering from an apparent onset of Dissociative Identity Disorder."

Hadrian looked at her confused for a moment before he burst out laughing. Maureen arched a brow at this unsure if this was Hadrian doing the laughing or someone else for a moment.

"Reen, I think I would know if I had D.I.D. last I checked I'm in the same line of work as you are." said Hadrian making light of her conclusion.

"Can you explain why you can't control the subconscious compulsion you have to constantly bed random blonde women?" asked Maureen.

"Head injury perhaps?" he asked. "Maybe I hit my head and that's why I can't remember anything."

"The blackouts?" asked Maureen. "Can you account for any of the missing days you seemed to have?"

Hadrian seemed offended that she would suggest such a thing.

"Maybe I'm over working again." he reasoned.

"Hadrian..." began Maureen.

"Do you realise what you are implying?" asked Hadrian annoyed. "For me to have Dissociative Identity Disorder....it would mean that I....no...it's got to be something else."

"You said yourself that you were forced into a sexual situation that you did not consent to willingly." said Maureen with a bit of concern in her tone.

Hadrian sighed at last conceding that Maureen may have had a point with her latest attempt at a diagnosis for whatever had been wrong with him.

"How does one...go about treating this...condition?" asked Hadrian unsure he wished to learn any more about what was becoming of him.

"There are anti anxiety meds to place you one, you still have to do some counseling, but you should be able to negate the shifting a bit until you fully understand why it keep occuring in the first place. " said Maureen attempting to smooth things over with him.

Hadrian sat back in the chair unsure if he wished to continue his session.

"Everything is going to be alright Hadrian." his dear friend assured him.

"That's easy for you to say." he replied. "There isn't someone else living in your head."

"Fair enough." replied Maureen with a smile. "But this condition is manageable and you can lead a normal life again, we just have to...figure out how to deal with it accordingly."

Hadrian sighed not at all liking the idea that something of this magnitude had been wrong with him but he'd been pleased to finally have an answer as to what was truly ailing him.

"Fine." he said resolving himself to accepting her diagnosis. "Where do we start?"

"Well...how about at the beginning?" asked Maureen softly. "What can you tell me about your childhood?"

Hadrian looked at her for a moment before sighing and taking a seat on the oddly inviting sofa. He knew this was going to be a long session and felt that if he was going to be traveling down memory lane...well as far as he knew, then he needed to at least be comfortable during the trip.

Maureen moved from her desk toward the seat he vacated to lie back on the sofa.

Hadrian appeared to be comfortable enough by the time she sat down so they began the session in ernest.

"Where were you born?" asked Maureen deciding to go with a bit of standardized questions.

"Frankford Montana." replied Hadrian. "Didn't really care too much for the place being as isolated as I was back then."

"Were you an only child?" asked Maureen.

"No." replied Hadrian. "I had a brother I think, they spoke about him dying a lot and fought about it."

"Was he older or younger than you?" asked Maureen with an arched brow.

"Don't remember." replied Hadrian. "They didn't like talking about him and they liked me knowing about it even less."

"Your parents sound like a pleasant bunch." she said feeling a bit sorry for her dear friend.

"You've met Colin Victor Rawsone, he's your patient known currently as Colin Winters." said Hadrian with a bit of annoyance in his tone. "As for Mother, she died when I was sixteen when our house caught on fire."

Maureen seemed shocked by this news.

"I never knew your mother died in a fire," she said.

"Not something one brings up in conversation, I doubt Collin even knew about it, he was so busy not being a part of the family and all," replied Hadrian the bitterness in his tone not letting up in the least.

"What can you tell me about your mother?" asked Maureen, curious as she was trying to see where to start with her treatment.

"She was beautiful, she had the most elegant features," said Hadrian his tone taking on a bit of admiration. "She walked with poise and grace, dressed in the finest dresses and robes money could buy and we had a lot of it, at the time with Collin being a well sought after surgeon."

"She sounds almost too good to be true," said Maureen slightly impressed by the description of her best friend's mother.

"Oh she was..." replied Hadrian in something akin to dream-like admiration. "She had hair like golden yarn always in thick curls that reached down her back and covered her ears....her eyes were blue like ocean water and she had the smoothest porcelain skin."

Hadrian seemed to be falling away from everything current as he began his trip down memory lane.

"What was her name?" asked Maureen scribbling away on her notepad.

"Mildred," replied Hadrian feeling his heart start racing as he continued to see the images of his mother flash before him. "Mildred Daphne Rawsone."

"What else can you tell me about your mother?" asked Maureen still scribbling in her notebook.

"She liked the color pink," replied Hadrian. "Lots and lots of pink."

"Anything else?" asked Maureen.

"I...I ..." began Hadrian feeling an odd sense of arousal as the images of the woman that flooded his mind began stripping before his very eyes, dropping the hot pink night gown from her body in full view of his gaze.

Any further discussion was ended when a knock at her door interrupted the session.

Hadrian took a few moments to gather his thoughts and climbed off the sofa. Maureen answered the door and was surprised to see her current patient, Colin Winters on the other end of it.

"Uh...Colin could you give us a moment." began Maureen only for Hadrian who had been quite uncomfortable to cut her off.

"That's alright Sis, I'll return another time," he said feeling the urge to nearly bolt after the images got the better of him. "We'll pick this up at a later date."

"Well don't you at least want to schedule?" asked Maureen.

"No," replied Hadrian. "It's fine I'll walk in."

He took his leave of her and Colin, his movements swift and his stomach in knots as he exited the office. As he moved toward the main entrance to leave the building, he got a sudden headache and opted to take a breath before heading down to the parking garage to retrieve his car and head home.

While he initially agreed to the sessions to get to the bottom of his sleepwalking, he had begun to feel as if his investigation and Maureen's insistence on finding the root of his problems had unintentionally kicked up a hornet's nest of sorts when it came to his memories.