Tracy

036:

She hated to admit it, but she felt chicken-shit whiny baby as she entered the less than elegant clinical waiting area in the research department of Doctor Armani's USC office. Her eyes darted nervously from cheesy framed art, to worn indoor outdoor carpet. Her fingers behind her long faux-quilt skirt wiggled for Richard and he took them, knowing what she needed.

He stepped to her side, and laced their fingers, not for the first time, taking the slight heat that threatened to spill over. Michael moved past them both, up to the sliding glass window above a chipped blue and white counter top covered in forms that looked into a crowded file cabineted area. He cleared his throat and a lovely Latino co-ed bounced up from examining the floorboards, or so it seemed. Her smile was infectious.

Two cheap lamps resided on plastic tables at the ends of a couple of worn plaid couches, drawing Tracy's attention away from the dirty white door that obviously led to the inner sanctum of the office. She didn't even want to contemplate what might lie beyond that door. She felt like she was here under extreme protest--- which wasn't necessarily true. Just that another headache had convinced her something had to be done, and after the failure of the chiropractor a few days ago, this seemed like an appropriate option.

Doctor Armani came to the door himself, flinging it open, and smiling too warmly, as his eyes lit on her, cowering under Richard's protection. He held out his hand to greet her--- the hand of a Cuban dancer, not very much older than herself, she thought randomly. He looked like Igor--- too anticipatory, too eager. She did not immediately reach for him, and he kept his hand outstretched evenly, expectantly, his lithe un-doctor-like body clad in jeans and a plaid long-sleeved button down.

Michael reached for the hand to cover Tracy's lack of manners, and much to her surprise Doctor Armani didn't reach for it. He kept his eyes on hers, and instead of making her want to stand on her own, brace herself for an extroverted moment, which she was perfectly capable of, she shrank back even further. Richard obviously stood like a rock, not letting her retreat, but he did it in a gentle sort of leaning way. His whole body sheltering her.

He waited for her.

His dark brown eyes wrinkled in another smile. He dropped the hand, ran it through unruly, unkempt, uncombed--- hair. Michael gave Tracy a semi-reproachful look and then did the same.

Tracy literally felt, for the absolute first time in her life--- the urge to flee. She turned, pried Richard's fingers out of hers, and pushed him aside. The headache reared its ugly menace, and she stumbled.

"Please." Dr. Armani whispered. "Please stay."

She turned, her eyes sought Richard's for validation. Surely he could see she was in distress? Surely by now he knew her well enough to see the signs that she didn't want to be here. He did. And he shook his head slightly, waiting for her.

She'd reached the hand print smudged door. "This isn't-- what I thought."

"It never is, is it?" The Doctor's voice was gentle and kind, and very warm. "Please come back to my office and let me explain exactly what it is I do here, before you make that decision to leave."

The headache threatened to topple her, her eyes blurred. Both hands on the door weren't enough to steady her. Doctor Armani held up a hand to warn Richard off. He stepped close, not that there was anything she could have done to stop him, and placed just one finger on her bare neck.

She expected him to feel tingling shock waves, perhaps fall back, cry out. He did neither of those things. Instead, his eyes still holding hers as they cleared, he turned her shoulder to the inner door and urged her one step at a time back the way they had come.

The inner door opened, the perky little receptionist held it as Tracy and her protectors entered.

"Do you see aura?" Again the doctor's voice penetrated her awareness. She felt limp, drained, as the entire flow of her heat exited her body through his one finger. It was a rushing sensation, a blood flow screaming to that one solid point, and leaving her body as if compelled. And she wanted it to.

"No." She was still reeling from the emptying experience as they made it down a dingy hall, not lit with the customary fluorescents, but with a tiny table and a tiny yellow lamp at the far end.

His office was large, not exactly an office. He placed her in a chair set before a standard desk, with a plastic stacker holding papers, a handmade ceramic pencil holder lavishly painted blue, but only in swirling spots, the rest left bare. Behind which loomed a tall file cabinet, and atop that a poor fern struggling to stay alive.

The rest of the room contained a very large medical looking machine, tubular, with a sliding bedlike table, and more lights. Tracy shuddered. This was what she'd been fearing. A counter beside it was strewn with more stacking things and lots of unstacked papers. Alongside the closest wall, bordering the hallway they'd just traversed were a couple of folding chairs and another chair that slightly resembled a dentist's seat.

She tried to breathe through her nose to calm her heaving chest, and then lost the battle and turned for the door. Richard was there automatically, both hands catching her to his chest, holding her close, comforting. "Nothing weird is going to take place here. You have my word, Trace."

"Oh, it will be weird." Doctor Armani announced as Michael found a folding chair to settle his bulk. He dimmed the lights using a remote control that had been velcro'ed to the side of the tubular machine. "Trust me. You've never seen anything like this. Neither of you see aura?"

The two men swallowed at the cryptic question, feeling deficient for having to shake their heads no, they did not see aura. A clipboard was produced and the doctor began to check off boxes. His eyes once again riveted on Tracy.

With a gentle and thorough voice he began taking a detailed medical history, and after about fifteen minutes offered that she sit on the dentist's chair so he could finish the psychological part of his survey without fearing she would pass out or fall over. She declined, still standing now as far up against Richard as she could be.

The doctor stared at them both for a solid minute and then nodding, resumed asking far too many personal questions, that she'd have preferred to answer privately in the sanctuary of her own bedroom.

*****