Phobias

by Ryan Horvath

  He flipped to the register and went straight for the first page. Two different handwriting styles were on the paper. One was small, printed block letter made with a heavy hand and looked very much like a man’s writing to Tim. The other was a loopy cursive that Tim found difficult to read but that he also recognized as Heather’s mother’s since he once saw the woman’s writing before on a dry erase board in the kitchen.

  The first entry was for over nine months ago and Tim knew he was in luck. This register would have all the family spending on it since he met Heather. He saw the regular monthly utilities, the periodic trips to the grocery store, and the surprisingly reasonable mortgage payments. They shopped on Amazon, went to Target, and Walgreen’s was their pharmacy of choice.

  Tim continued to scan through the entries until he found the time around when he and Heather met. He noticed a pair of charges, one to Macy’s and one to Sacks, and remembered how decked out and alluring she looked on that one day she came into his office at the school. Her parents thought they paid for their daughter to get some new clothes and accessories probably to impress a boy at school, but now he knew they paid for those expensive things so Heather could look good for the new football coach. Tim remembered how mesmerizing Heather looked that day, how captivating she smelled from the perfume, and how flavorful she tasted from the soap and lotion she wore. He easily recalled when they connected physically. He couldn’t call that circumstance “lovemaking” because it had been so savage and animalistic but Tim would never deny it was the best sexual encounter he‘d experienced in his life so far. While he thought about driving into her and how intense it had felt to feel her muscles climax around his organ, he realized he should have a raging hard-on. But he didn’t. He was a broken man and reminded himself that that was the best s-exploit he would ever have because there would be no others. He would probably never get to feel the sensation of slipping into a woman again.

  He resisted the urge to get mad at Heather and cry so, instead, continued to scan the register. He found the day he’d been emasculated for good and, not long after, he noticed a new entry. In the father’s writing, it simply said:

  Dr.

  And the charge was for twenty-five dollars which Tim recognized as a common co-pay amount one would shell out to go see the doctor. At some point around the time Tim’s dick was put on hiatus, someone in the Cline household had seen a doctor.

  Then, a week later, the same entry in Mr. Cline’s penmanship. Eight days later, Tim found it again. Then six more days after that. Four times, essentially once a week, one of them went to the doctor. Tim bounced an eyebrow in excitement. If one is seeing a doctor that frequently but doesn’t appear to be suffering from any physical malady, then he or she is probably seeing a mental doctor. But which family member was going?

  Tim continued to dig into the financial record.

  The fifth time, he found something a little different. Mrs. Cline wrote the small abbreviation. And she’d added a bit more to it. Two more letters followed the others.

  JA

  “Dr. JA?” Tim said aloud in the pre-dawn. He pulled his lower lip behind his top teeth and furrowed his brow. He wondered if perhaps she’d been interrupted while writing the entry and had only written down the first 2 letters of a first name or a last name. He looked for the next similar entry. Mrs. Cline had written it again nine days later. Dr. JA.

  When Tim found the next occurrence, Mr. Cline this time, it was also written as Dr. JA.

  Tim didn’t believe that each of them could have been interrupted that many times on the same entry and no others. And that probably meant the letters JA were the doctor’s initials. Since both parents were writing checks at irregular times for each of them to be seen by a head shrink individually, the almost weekly occurrence could indicate they were taking Heather to a psychiatrist. Tim continued through the ledger until the end. The Clines wrote weekly checks to Dr. JA up until seven days before their daughter was taken. They were due for a payment but Tim was certain that, since Heather was gone, there would be no check to Dr. JA this week.

  Tim took that as a pretty strong lead. It wasn’t proof, but it was something to go on. This JA had to be the person Heather confided in. So either someone eavesdropped on these private conversations between Heather and her doctor, which Tim wanted to believe was unlikely; or the doctor blabbed to another person who wanted to exploit him and Heather, which Tim really couldn’t believe. Or perhaps Dr. JA was the one who started all of this. Tim found the last alternative the most plausible. He saw plenty of movies and read enough books in which the shrink or head doctor isn’t really much of a good guy. Tim never cared for head doctors himself. To him, if someone wanted to be into someone else’s head that much, then he must not be all that right in his own head.

  “So who is doctor JA?” he asked the night while he flipped the checkbook closed. An owl answered him with a mocking hoooo hoooo causing Tim to look for it up in the trees. “I’m going to need a phone,” he added.

  He looked down at himself and saw his shirt was dirtier because of the scuffle with the detective but he thought he was marginally presentable enough.

  Tim got up from the bench and moved on.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  Twenty minutes later, he was sitting at the counter on a twenty-four hour Perkins. A pair of glasses, one filled with orange juice and the other filled with milk, sat before him. The woman working the counter, a portly and sad looking individual with heavy eyeliner rings, looked startled when Tim first sat at the counter, probably due to his disheveled look, but Tim instantly put her at ease with his charming smile. He placed one of the one hundred dollar bills on the counter and set a coffee mug on it. Then he said, “Hey, I’ve got my shirt and shoes. I may be in boxers but they’re so long they’re practically board shorts.” He paused and added, “I’ve been remodeling my basement and worked into the night without realizing the time. Now, I’m famished and would love to get some breakfast before I get back to the work.” The woman nodded, probably more at the money than anything Tim said, but he knew he wasn’t going to get any trouble. She took his order and then brought his beverages. She brought him a steaming plate of scrambled eggs, link sausages, two pieces of thick French toast, and a bowl of mixed fruit, and she checked back. On each of her visits, she made sure the $100 was still under the coffee cup. Tim paid his bill and let her make change out of the hundred dollars she desperately wanted. His quick eye noticed her quick hand as she made his change from the cash drawer but dropped his hundred into her apron pocket. Tim didn’t care about her crime and gladly accepted his change. He would have tipped her one hundred percent but, since she had just helped herself to an eight hundred percent tip, he backed his down which left him more than enough small bills for what he’d need next. He slipped some of the money into his shoe with the bulk of the rest.

  Tim sipped on his juice and finished eating and waited.

  Soon, a young man, probably off to a construction or skilled labor job given how he was dressed, showed up and sat two stools away from Tim. They exchanged a nod and Tim had left some of his cash on the counter to stay visible. He saw that the young man noticed it and it also seemed to put the kid at ease.

  A few seconds later, as most people from his generation do, the kid pulled a smart phone from his pocket and ordered coffee while pushing in his unlock code. Tim watched from the corner of his eye as the kid scrolled through some stuff on the internet before shutting the browser down and setting the phone on the counter.

  Tim took that as his opportunity. He said, “Excuse me,” slid a twenty across the counter, and asked the kid if he could borrow his phone for no more than ten minutes. The kid eyed the money but didn’t hesitate. He agreed to the exchange and snatched Tim’s cash. Knowing his breakfast was paid for by someone else, the kid ordered big.

  Tim pulled up the internet browser the kid used with his phone. He started to key in letters for Google and with the g, the autofill history function revealed the kid wa
s into gay porn. Tim didn’t care about any of that. He got to the search page and typed in “Dr. JA Minneapolis” but too many answers came back. He added “psychiatrist” and that narrowed the search. There were numerous Jacks, a pair of Janelles, a Judy, a Jacob, an abundance of Johns of course, but Tim was looking for initials, and there was only one psychiatrist with the initials JA in the search.

  “Justin Andrews,” he whispered. His heart sped up as the name spilled out, and a nervous sweat came out from under his arms. He did a new search for the doctor by his full name. He was rewarded with a picture of the man. And he recognized him. He saw him earlier in the night. Tim pulled up the county property records site and keyed in an address many people in this misadventure had visited tonight. It was the house he saw the detective and his group at. And, sure enough, it was listed as belonging to Dr. Justin Andrews. If the detective and his group were interested in Andrews and Heather had been seeing him as a patient, well, Tim thought, that was too much of a coincidence. His heart thundered.

  Just then, the phone sprang to life with vibration and a chirping ringtone causing Tim to nearly drop it.

  “Oh, sorry, man,” the kid said reaching for the phone. “It’s probably my… girlfriend.”

  Tim hesitantly handed the phone over but could see the UNKNOWN on the caller ID. He was pretty sure it wasn’t the kid’s girlfriend.

  “Hello?” the kid said into the phone after he put it to his ear. His brow furrowed. “Who is this?” he asked. A second later, he went pale and looked at Tim. “Did you make a call?” he asked.

  Baffled, Tim shook his head.

  “He wants to talk to you,” the kid said. “And keep the fuckin’ phone. It ain’t worth getting my balls cut off.” The kid handed the phone back to Tim. Tim could see the kid’s hands were shaking. Whatever had been said on the phone scared the shit out of the kid.

  Tim took the phone without saying anything and watched as the kid left the counter and took off through the door without his breakfast. He moved the phone to his ear.

  “Hello, Mr. Star,” the voice said.

  It was the bastard who started this.

  “Having fun yet?” the voice goaded.

  “How… how did you do that?” Tim stammered.

  “I’m omnipotent. That’s omnipotent, not impotent, which you’re familiar with,” Miedo said and giggled. “There’s very little I can’t do. Tapping into a cell phone is easy.”

  “Are you… are you… Justin… Justin Andrews?” Tim shakily asked.

  The other end of the line was silent. Tim didn’t sense shock at the name. He sensed cunning and calculation.

  “You’ll have to come find out, Mr. Star,” Miedo said. Taunt was obvious in his voice.

  “Don’t call me that!” Tim said, a little too loudly for the early hour.

  “I’ll call you whatever I fucking want to, you limp-dicked, cradle-robbing, plop of cow shit,” Miedo returned. No anger in his voice, just confidence.

  “What do you want?” Tim said.

  “Well, I want you to have a phone since you lost yours back at your house,” Miedo returned. “Told that kid if he didn’t give you his and get the fuck out of there, I’d cut his cock-gobbling queer balls off and shove them down his daddy’s throat.”

  Now Tim knew why the kid got so spooked. He also knew Miedo was right: he was omnipotent. Tim turned and looked out the windows. He felt powerless.

  “Not there, Mr. Star,” Miedo said. “But I can definitely see you.”

  Tim shuddered and repeated, “What do you want?”

  “It’s all coming together nicely now,” Miedo said. “Are you having fun, Mr. Star?” A hesitation before a very commanding, “Answer the question.”

  Tim thought there was really only one right answer. “Yeah,” he said. “Having a real blast.” He wiped sweat from his brow.

  “Good,” Miedo said. “I am too. Calvin Vale is scared shitless. I can only imagine what’s going on in his mind. It gives me a hard-on to think about it. His fear tastes delicious. So does your precious Heather’s. It truly was sad you missed her undoing. Their combined fear tasted… intoxicating.”

  “You… monster. You were a doctor,” Tim said into the phone loudly, but not loud enough to draw any attention.

  Miedo ignored this. “Finish your juice, Mr. Star. And then take the phone and keep coming west if you ever want to see Heather again. I’m sure we’ll talk again soon.”

  The line went dead.

  Tim looked around. If Miedo was Dr. Andrews, he wasn’t in here. But he was watching from somewhere. Tim did what he was told and swallowed the last of his juice. He left the restaurant and headed west.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  Miedo smiled as he watched Mr. Star leave the restaurant through the hijacked security camera.

  His body shook back and forth in his chair.

  From close by, Calvin groaned.

  From farther away, Heather wailed.

  Miedo looked at the clock and saw it was just shy of 5:00 AM.

  His smile grew as he knew today was going to be a great day.

  He inhaled the smell of the fear coming from his captives. He hadn’t lied to Mr. Star. It truly did give him a hard-on.

  ~~25~~

  After hanging up with Mr. Star, Miedo had some work to do; some final preparations to make. He hadn’t lied to the pathetic bent-dick coach. Things were coming together quite nicely. The Wild Card and Detective Dip-Shit had their photo. They didn’t know it was a photo of this place and would draw them to it. The Drunk Dynamo and Queen Sacred-Panties had the fob with the four digits on it. After another message or two from Miedo, the pair would also find their way here where they would discover they had the code to the security system and that the fob would grant access to through the gate that surrounded the property. And Mr. Star would be led here a little more directly by Miedo because the coach still loved his phobic tramp.

  When he ended the call with Mr. Star, Miedo left his bank of computers. He went to Calvin Vale. The young football player was in the induced sleep. His head darted and his body twitched as he presumably tried to evade one nightmare horror or another. Next to Vale was the last drug Miedo intended to use on the kid. In an ampule was a clear, innocuous-looking liquid that Miedo had been developing for the last month. Miedo was very excited to use it. But he was also torn by a slight dilemma. He knew he couldn’t deviate from his plans which meant Vale was going to get the full dose of his brilliant new drug when the time was right, but Miedo really wanted Heather to experience the drug too. Unfortunately, he’d only been able to synthesize so much and he didn’t feel that Vale would… achieve his potential if he only got a partial dose. Miedo slowly nodded as he looked down at the naked football player. He reassured himself that he would carry on as he planned. Vale whimpered and Miedo leaned over the listen to the sounds of his fear. Miedo instantly became aroused. He rested an ear on Vale’s sternum and listened to the terrified heart thunder loudly below and felt himself stiffen even more. Miedo lifted his head but turned his nose to the body. He inhaled deeply. Vale’s survival endorphins were in full gear and Miedo savored the fragrance of the boy’s fright and his desire to survive. From his lips, Miedo’s tongue slipped out. He ran it up the football player’s torso and out across a pectoral before settling into his armpit. The taste of fear there drove Miedo over the top. He felt super charged, as if Vale’s fear had somehow filled his fuel tanks to maximum. When he pulled his face from Vale’s armpit, Miedo spied Heather. With the pressing ache behind his zipper and the commanding fear-high in his mind, Miedo found himself powerless but to take a slight deviation from his plan. He advanced on Heather. He didn’t walk or run. He kind of danced over to her.

  When Miedo got to Heather, he saw her visibly stiffen at his approach. Her earlier wailing had subsided, but she started to whimper as he neared. He quickly saw sweat on her and then smelled it. It was different than Vale’s, aside from being feminine, but it was still laced with fear. Her bouquet s
ent new waves of anticipation through him. He used one hand to adjust himself and spoke.

  “Heather?” He tried to sound calm, soothing, and safe even though he had no intention of being any of those things in the next few moments.

  Heather said nothing. She only continued to whimper and struggle against her straightjacket. Her hair clung to her face. The aroma of fear poured off of her.

  “Heather?” Miedo said again. “I… I’m going to pull you back and get your feet on the ground again,” Miedo said. He meant it, but he still had to struggle against bursting out into laughter. But when he’s said “feet on the ground” Heather instantly stopped whimpering. “Okay. I’m going to grab you and pull you over to the platform. Don’t struggle. I’m not going to hurt you.” Miedo stifled more laughter. “I’m really sorry about all of this but it’s all over now. I’m going to get you back on your own two feet and then get you out of here.” He took hold of her shoulders and felt her tense beneath his touch. With a giant smile, Miedo shook his head and felt anticipation well up even further. He pulled her closer to him. Even though her toes were only inches from the floor, Miedo knew that, to her, it probably seemed like crossing the Grand Canyon. “Okay. Here we go. Now your feet are about to land on a crate…” And he guided her over the crate. When her feet brushed it, her toes tried to grab onto it.

  Heather gasped as her feet connected with the crate. Seconds later, Miedo saw tears coming out from beneath her blindfold. He couldn’t wait to taste those tears. An animalistic part of him wondered if he would stop at the tears or he would proceed to bite into her face. He found the prospect of the latter not at all unappealing.

  “There. Feels better now, doesn’t it?” Miedo asked.

  “Y…y…yes!” Heather stammered. Her entire body trembled on the crate.

  “Now stay still there. You’re still on the edge and I need to step down to move you some more and then take the straightjacket off. Do you understand?’ Miedo asked.