Chapter 4. Exploring the dark recesses of a deviant mind
Just before nine the next morning, they entered the school. Robert had cleared his schedule with his office, and Karen had asked the neighbor lady to sit with Toby while they were at school. Robert had not said a word to Sarah since they'd left the school the day before. Karen had hushed the girl and told her to let him be. As they approached the Headmaster's office, Sarah felt like she was being readied for a firing squad.
Miss Shelton, the headmaster's secretary, greeted them. "Mr. and Mrs. Williams, Dr. Mayfaire is ready for you. He's in conference room G at that end of the hall. Sarah, you're to wait here."
"Can't I even go to classes?" she asked, realizing how strange it sounded for a student to beg to go to classes.
The young woman shook her head; "No, I'm afraid that's out of the question. You can, however, go into the Headmaster's library…and work on these assignments." She handed Sarah worksheets and notes. The girl's frown deepened, the sheets were math, history, science, language arts, reading; everything but art.
Karen gave her an encouraging nod and sent the girl off though the door the secretary was standing before. Once the door was closed, the woman turned to the Williams'; "If you'll follow me, please." She led them down the hall, tapped on the door and opened it when bidden. "Dr. Mayfaire, the Williams' are here."
Robert entered the room and saw the man standing at the window; or rather he saw his outline. A tall striking dark silhouette outlined by the bright sunlight pouring into the window.
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Sarah sat at the computer terminal, reading over the information she was looking up for her assignment. She was not surprised to find the computer was locked and she could only find certain sites open to her. She worked quietly on her assignments and watched the clock. An hour passed, and then two hours. She was wondering if this specialist was going to see her at all when Miss Shelton opened the door. "Sarah," she said quietly. "Dr. Mayfaire is ready for you."
Sarah had never seen the halls so empty or the school so quiet. "Are my parents still here?" she asked.
"No, they've gone." Miss Shelton's voice was always calm and monotone. "They will be called to come for you when Dr. Mayfaire is finished with his evaluation." She ushered the girl down the hall and pointed to conference room G. "He's waiting for you." When Sarah didn't respond, the woman huffed at her for the first time that Sarah could remember. "Well, don't just stand there…"
Sarah blinked having heard Karen utter those exact words a short time ago. "I'm sorry." She moved to the door and tapped.
"Come in." A familiar voice said from behind the door.
Sarah entered the room and found Dr. Madison in the room talking to a fair haired man whose back was to her. She stood quietly waiting for the men to finish discussing whatever it was and acknowledge her. Nervously she clenched and unclenched her right hand as it hung at her side, her left arm bent behind her, left hand holding her right elbow. Dr. Madison inclined his head and said. "Here she is now." He motioned her to come forward. "Come here, Williams."
Sarah squared her shoulders, held her head up high, and pursed her lips defiantly; "Yes, sir."
"Williams," the Headmaster addressed her. "This is Dr. Mayfaire; he's here to evaluate you."
Sarah looked at the man, speaking with limited patience. "Yes, so you told me yesterday." Her voice was rebellious and bold instead of meek or complacent. The man with his back to the girl turned at the rebellious tone, and gazed at her with a withering look as he moved his spectacles down his long straight nose and off his face. He was much younger in appearance than the Headmaster, and he was looking at her as if she were something to be roped in and tamed. Something about him made Sarah sure she was not going to allow that to happen. "And as I stated, I don't need evaluating. I've done nothing wrong."
Dr. Madison glared at her, then gave Dr. Mayfaire a knowing glance.
Mayfaire on the other hand was studying Sarah with focused attention. "No, no," he held the hand holding his eyeglasses up. "This is actually a good thing…"
The Headmaster cleared his throat, and pointed Sarah towards a chair. "Sit down young lady…" he turned toward the other man and offered him his hand. "I shall await your findings." One more glare at the girl, and he exited the room.
Sarah, seated, had a chance to do a little studying of her own. Mayfaire was about average height, but his lean figure gave him the look of being taller. That and he held himself very erect, much more so than most of the men and boys of her acquaintance. He was slim but not skinny, and looked very muscle toned. His body obeyed him, and he knew how to use it. His hands were long and elegant without seeming effeminate. His face was classical and Sarah wished she'd had her sketching pad. Her mind began to imagine sketching him, and not wearing that expensive Giorgio Armani suit, but nude. She tingled at the thought and a little sharp intake of breath escaped her. He had replaced his dark rimmed glasses and looked at her with mild curiosity. An ever so slight gleam entered his eyes, as if he could read the racy thoughts plowing thought the sex-fevered brain of the teen sitting and staring at him. He moved slowly, deliberately across the front face of the desk he was going to sit behind. His movements were fluid and sinuous, smooth and graceful. He paused for a moment looking at the window, as if he were deciding on whether or not to leave the shades up or to close them. The pause gave Sarah a view of the man that was revealing and gave her hyper-active imagination a field day. He inclined his head slightly, looked at her with a knowing look and then spoke to her.
"Miss Williams, do you know why you're here?" She heard the slightest hint of accent and could not quite place it.
"Because Mr. Henderson thinks I'm a perv." She quipped placing her chin in her hand as she braced her elbow on the arm of the chair trying to stave off the images of the man strutting about naked. If things kept going as they were, Henderson was not the only one who was going to be convinced she was a perv.
Cocking a brow towards the heavens, he smirked. "That's one way of putting it." He took a seat behind the desk and leaned back. "Would you care for tea?"
Sarah gave it some thought, it was evident they were going to have to do this, so why not make the best of it. "Yes, please." She remembered her manners.
He pressed the button on the desk, "Tea, if you please." He said, not waiting for the response he snapped the machine off again. "Now, let's try to forget the last fifteen minutes and start fresh." He folded hands on the desk top. "I'm Dr. Mayfaire, and I've been asked to evaluate your situation."
"What situation?" Sarah asked, taking a defensive stance. "All I did was sketch a picture of a classmate…according to an assignment we'd been given…" It was again a stretch of the truth, but it had enough truth to it to sound reasonable.
The man behind the desk wrote down something on the pad on the desk. "I see."
"No," Sarah said standing up. "You don't." She shoved her hands into the pockets of her school blazer. "You don't know me, you don't know Meg… you don't know anything!"
A tapping at the door announced the secretary with the tea. Mayfaire called for the woman to enter. She placed the tea tray down on the desk and quickly exited. The man watched the girl for a moment then poured two cups of tea. "Lemon?" he asked.
"No, thank you." Sarah groused. "I like my tea straight."
Mayfaire picked up the innuendo, quirked one eyebrow. He picked up one cup and saucer and handed it to the girl. "Sit down, please." When she'd complied, he spoke again. "Young lady, you're in the middle of a very serious state of affairs. Because of the… mature nature of your… sketches… not just the one of this other student," he looked at his notes. "This Meg Kohler… but the sketches an instructor has seen… there's been a suggestion that you've been a victim of sexual abuse."
Sarah nearly spat out her tea. "A victim of what?" her hands shook as she put the cup on the desk. "You've got to be joking!"
"I never joke on the subject of sexual abuse." He assured her.
"Neither do I!" she rose from the chair. "And I haven't been!"
He tapped his pencil on the yellow legal pad. "Then you won't mind answering my questions, now will you?"
Sarah could see it was a witch hunt, and she was trapped, like some poor woman in Olde Salem. "I don't have much choice here, do I?"
He looked down at his notes, "None," he agreed, making a note. "Sit down and we shall begin." He looked up to see her looking at the door, planning on bolting. "Young lady, consider yourself lucky… if this were thirty or forty years ago, the Headmaster could have insisted on you being examined by a physician to verify that you were not sexually active."
Sarah's mouth dropped open, "Well, I'm not!"
He again wrote something on the pad, "Be seated."
She dropped into the chair and glared at him.
He looked at her through the dark, horned rimmed glasses. "Try not to take this personally." His voice was cold and clinical. "Let's begin with some background. Who are your parents?"
"Robert and Linda Williams…"
He looked at his notes, "I met with a Robert and Karen Williams…"
"Karen is my father's second wife, she's my stepmother." Sarah slouched.
"I see." He wrote again. "Are you close with your parents and your stepmother?"
Sarah shrugged; "Yeah, I guess."
"And you live with your father and this stepmother…"
Rolling her eyes, she slouched down even more, "And my baby brother."
More notes, "Are you currently seeing a boyfriend?"
Sarah pursed her lips and refused to answer.
The pencil in the long elegantly sculpted hand was raised to his chin as he leaned back idly in the leather swivel chair. Looking at her disdainfully, he shook his head and began to gently rock back and forth. Shifting, he moved the pencil to tap the palm of his other hand. All the while he kept her under his steady and unnerving gaze. "Refusing to answer my questions is not a good sign." He stated coldly. "I would suggest strongly that you cooperate with me, young woman."
There was something menacing in his tone, something that caused Sarah to look up at him. The way he held his hands, even though there was nothing more than a pencil in them, she felt there should be something else… something long, narrow and …. A riding crop! She could see it, and a quiver shot through her as if she'd been smacked on her bare bottom. She gasped sharply, and looked away. "I'm not seeing anyone…just now." Her pulse was beginning to race, and she felt a familiar tingle in the tips of each of her nipples. She closed her eyes tight for a moment, trying to erase the image of him in leather chaps and nothing else and holding a riding crop. It didn't work, it only made it worse. She could feel her lips begin to tremble.
Mayfaire felt the corner of his mouth creak upward and a faint smirk, a haughty and arrogant smirk form. His eyes narrowed, observing and judging her. Her defiance didn't seem to fade for long, no sooner had she retreated she would regroup and bolster her wall of rebelliousness. Other girls would be meekness and compliance itself, but not Sarah Williams. 'My little adversary,' he mused as her eyes met his. 'Little antagonist, let's see you out maneuver me this time.' He tapped his note pad with long fingers. "How do you feel about living with your father rather than your mother?"
The question had taken her by surprise. "It's…it's…" she suddenly stood up. "It's none of your business!" her voice was sharper than she'd intended and bordered on impertinent. "What does who I live with have to do with what I drew?"
Mockingly, Mayfaire watched her; "You tell me," he suggested.
"It doesn't!" She paced the room like a caged feline. "This is stupid!"
"Tell me about the sketches in your book." He said unperturbed by her outcry.
Sarah had the feeling of being caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and blanched.
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Meg met Terry and Lana under the oak in front of the school at lunch. "What did you learn?" She asked Terry in a demanding tone, one that expected an answer from an obedient lackey.
Terry looked around; wanting to be sure they were not being overheard by anyone else. "They called in some kind of doctor to assess her… your father's complaint and the sketches….Dr. Madison is thinking she's been sexually abused." Her light voice, which never had meaning behind her words answered quickly, hopeful of praise. Her dull gray eyes swept over the school yard looking for trouble. Her dishwater blond hair looked dull and lifeless.
"Idiots," Meg snapped. "They are going to ruin everything."
Lana, the stronger of Meg's two followers, pouted. "I don't see why you're so interested in that… girl." Her pretty features were twisted right now in a look of disgust. She was not just the stronger of the two; she was also the more attractive and was aware of it. She had always been Meg's favorite, her special pet, and didn't like being put aside in favor of the Williams girl. Her dark blue eyes under dark lashes stared at Meg.
"She's what Hank wants." Meg reminded the two willing followers. "And what Hank wants, Hank gets… or we don't get what we want." She said under her breath, "I need you to find out what's going on in that room… somehow we've got to get to Sarah and warn her not to tell that fuckin' doctor too much!" She spun on her heels and headed toward the school. "And it can't be me, they are watching me like a hawk, I can't go near her… if they let her out for a bathroom break one of you two better get in there and advise her… nicely…" She looked at the girls flanking her. "Why don't you two come over to my house after school, we'll have some fun."
Lana smiled her face lighting up with delight. Terry just looked worried.
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Sarah repeated his words, "The sketches in my book?" The book had been confiscated by her instructor, and she now recognized it among the items on the desk; "Which ones?"
Mayfaire opened the book easily and pushed it toward the edge of the desk. "These."
Sarah didn't have to look, she knew which ones. "It's just a sketch." She said defensively.
"It's the subject that interests us, young lady." He looked at the sketch. "Rather brazen and overt."
Sarah began to pace again, trying to think of a logical explanation. "Mr. Barrette was giving a lecture on the human form, and its magnificence… I just started to daydream and doddle."
"I see," he jotted down another note; "And the woman… in bondage? She looks a good deal like you, Miss Williams."
"I don't know, day residue…" Sarah looked out the window at the barren trees. "We had just read about the Rape of the Sabine Women, in our Roman Religion and Mythology class" She kept her back to the man. "I think I just mashed the two together in my head. Next thing I know, I've got an instructor breathing fire down my neck for not paying attention, and then he's praising my inspired work." Sarah returned to the table, looked at the figure of the woman hanging once more. "That does not look like me!" She denied as she tapped the page, trying not to allow the suggestive picture to affect her. However she could not help but become aware of the wonderful spicy scent pouring off the man who was just on the other side of the desk. She had seen men in suits all her life, after all her father was a lawyer, however her father and his partners didn't fill out a suit quite the way Dr. Mayfaire did. She blinked when she realized she was once more staring at the handsome features of the beautiful face opposite her "That's not me…."she stammered.
Mayfaire turned the page and looked at it again for perhaps the thousandth time; 'Inspired indeed.' He looked at the clock, "I suggest we take a break. Why don't you go freshen up and then Miss Shelton will take you to where your lunch is to be served. I'll see you back here at one." He dismissed her curtly.
Sarah found the hall nearly empty as she headed toward the girls lavatory. Once inside the sanctuary she leaned on a wall and put a hand to her forehead.
Someone else's hand gripped her wrist and pulled her into one of the stalls. When she went to protest a hand covered her mouth. "I've a message for you from Meg." A voice whispered. "She says don't tell… you understand me? Don't tell that frickin' doctor anything more than you have to." The hand that was holding Sarah facing the back wall of the stall let her go and she could hear foot steps leaving her alone in the stall.
Sarah braced herself on the sidewall. "What I wouldn't give to be anywhere else but here." She said quietly. "It's not fair." She slumped against the wall and started to slide down. What was it Meg thought she was going to tell the doctor? Her mind could still see him strutting in the nude. "Talk about magnificent." She mused darkly to herself feeling the moistness seeping through her panties.