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                   Lemon Turner's Choice                   
                         -by Daxn-                         
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        "I'm not your little research monkey boy!"         
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"I'm not your little research monkey boy!"
Lemon Turner sighed deeply as he sunk inside the black Frau armchair inside his psychologist's waiting room, aimlessly looking around the room, switching slowly from the bare lime green wall at his left, to the footstool-like black sofa topped by an Impressionist picture of a still life in front of him, and to the low white wooden table coated in small plush animals randomly placed one atop the other.
<<I have Latin and Ancient Greek grammar to catch up to. I have to seek out what else do I need to know, before I can be on par with my new classmates...>> he muttered under his breath, his lower torso was lightly pulsing -- an improvement over the major pain he had been suffering of until seven days ago -- and his fingers were tapping onto the armchair's arm like drumstricks. <<God how much stuff I have to do, and that's just what I need to enter, I can only imagine what future months' workload will be. But, hey, it's relatively free distraction, unlike her.>>
He groaned as he briefly looked at the narrow alley that lead from the waiting room to the studio proper, picturing the sight he had seen many times before of a cream-coloured door and a bronze tag reading "Dr. Mild Balm" and the usual inhabitant, a tall lean woman with amber skin and black cherry hair, a toothy smile that spanned from ear to ear, greeting him with a shrill <<Hi there!>> and nodding along Lemon's words as he spoke, before piping up with a phrase taken from the list of phrases needed for the occasion, followed by an tendency to act like an answering machine until the canonical hour was up, at which point he asked for money and dismissed Lemon, leaving him more upset than when he walked in.
<<Hi there Lemony!>>
Lemon Turner slightly jolted up at the mention of that nickname, before he got up with a groan to walk towards Mild Balm's studio with his head hanging low and a grimace stamped on his face, looking down at the gray stone pavement even when he sat down onto the red-and-black plastic and metal chair inside the studio.
<<So, how's school going?>> She asked with her usual overly-cheerful demeanor.
Lemon Turner slowly lifted up his head, seeing the frosted glass surface of the table being occupied by a green low box containing a stack of sheets of paper in the rainbow's colours next to a black-and-while dog-shaped phone on the right, and several colorful pen holders coupled with tins of silly putty of several tonalities on the left. In the center, Mild Balm's hands stood closed in a tent.
<<It's going well.>> He said. <<People don't know about it, so they don't act as if I was the scum of Earth. They tend to stay away from me, thought.>>
<<Oh? Well, that's good!>> she said, forcing her smile to stretch even further.  <<Did you make up with your old friends yet?>>
Lemon Turner grumbled, cringing as he felt his old wounds ache a little once more, at the mere thought of exchanging a few words or even seeing them ever again.
<<Flash Sentry and the others beat me up to an inch of my life... and you're asking me if I've started to talk to them again?>> He said, glaring and pouting. <<Are you seriously asking me that?! Do you understand what they did to me?>>
She nodded vigorously.
<<I don't see why not, it was just a minor scuffle that went a little wrong, nothing to be upset over.>> She said still with a sickeningly sweet tone, one that made Lemon roll his eyes and groan. <<It's not like they killed one of your relatives or anything like that.>>
<<It wasn't and you know that very well, as you know very well they hate me because I was born 'wrong,' as a pedo-->>
She gasped and set both her hands onto her mouth, recoiling and widening her eyes as she did so.
<<Don't you say those awful things about yourself Lemony!>> She said, stretching her hands forward, almost in the attempt to give Lemon an head pat, only to prompt a snarl from him as he slapped her hand away.
<<I'm a paedo, why won't you believe me?!>> He said. <<When I fap alone, I sometimes imagine little kids, I feel uncomfortably horny around beaches because of this, I have started buying foreign comics about this... what else do you need?"
<<Oh, it's just a little adolescent phase.>> She waved her hand back and forth, as if she was sweeping the table's surface clean. <<It'll pass sooner or later, just trust me. Just start by throwing out those magazines and you'll feel a lot better!>>
He facepalmed and massaged his forehead, rage mounting inside him as he felt mocked.
<<I've always wanted to see somebody younger than me naked and at my mercy, and the bar hasn't raised from whence it started, to the point some of my interests would be a decade or so younger than me,>> he said as he massaged his own forehead. <<It's a matter of balance and it isn't easy, you know? You’re supposed to at least acknowledge I feel this way...>>
She shrugged and looked around her slowly, as if she was following a fly’s flight.
<<I do. I just try to make you stop thinking so many bad stuff about you.>> She adjusted her coat’s neck. <<I mean, what kind of psychologist would I be, if I were to take whatever my patient says upfront? I mean, if I tell you it’ll pass, trust me that it’ll pass.>>
<<How could you possibly think it's 'just a phase'? Do you act like this with homosexuals too?>>
<<Well, usually not, I just help them check if they really feel that way or if they're just really sexually confused.>> She shrugged, her fingers twitching as she did so. <<But it's something completely different, it's a mental illness you surely don't have, just because you want to see children in the nude doesn't meant you'd like to touch them. Maybe it's just your subconscious trying to tell you to become a paediatrician, or maybe a schoolteacher, or...>>
He glared and frowned, turning his face in a veritable sea of wrinkles and feeling his heartbeat speeding up and his blood warm up in his arms.
<<Yeah, because the guy that gets a boner at the sight of children's undies is totally the one you'd trust to watch over your children!>> Lemon Turner's right hand started to tremble. <<Did you mistake me for a dumbass or what? Again, I'm mentally ill and I'm asking you to help, why don't you give it to me, instead of acting as if you were in my head at all times?>>
Suddenly Mild Balm  frowned and got up from her chair, glaring at him with pinprick pupils and placing her left hand on the table while his other arm was bent in a v-like shape against her side.
<<Lemon, listen, do you really want to keep being so emotionally immature, that you will still try to pick up little girls at thirty? Your fixation with paedophilia isn’t healthy, it will drive out girls, discourage friends from helping you, and it will make you live lonely and miserable, all because you kept going in an immature attempt at being ‘special and different!>> She shouted, her tone suddenly authoritative, or at least, as authoritative her shrill voice could get. <<Go out more and you’ll see you’ll grow out of this stupid obsession!>>
Lemon Turner cringed and almost curled up in a ball, despair and rage battling together. He felt the hopelessness of the situation and the desires to repress his own instincts battle against his fiery will to dominate and channel them instead and fight what he was going through.
Soon, before his eyes, scenes of his past encounters with other psychologist of the same mettle as Mild’s flashed before his eyes, each and everyone stating with slightly different words the same exact lie about his mind.
A stare piercing the void formed on his face.
<<No… I cannot tolerate this…>> he muttered, his previous angry grimace being restored. <<I cannot suffer her and her idiocy anymore… I cannot live with all of this, waste money in being patted on the head and told I’m not sick, while my ill-willed instincts try to bring me to do horrible things to children… no, I cannot suffer this anymore.>>
He felt the spark of rage ignite his heart. At first, it burn was as mild as a matchstick’s, but it soon grew, turning into a candle, then into a bonfire, which then spread through blood, warming up each and every limb, somewhat clouding his vision and prompting him to see bloody images of his fight against Mild Balm. His defeatism withered away, and, soon, his heart had turned into a blazing inferno, while the rest of his body felt powered by courage.
<<You’re telling me to grow out of this?! You are telling me to grow out of this?>> He jumped up, screaming with all his might as he grabbed Mild Balm by her coat’s neck in one fell swoop, looking her straight into her eyes. <<Well, guess what, if finding my own way to avoid turning into a criminal and not babble about not meeting up with people I hate means become an adult, then I don’t want to grow up! To Hell with your bullshit, I’ve had enough of it!>>
Mild Balm’s eyes had instantly dug up a trench in her orbital cavities, as she flailed her arms around.
<<S-stop right this instant! I won’t allow you to walk out of this unle-->> She cried out, in her last attempt in showing any authority.
<<I’m not your little research monkey boy, the creature that I am is not the one you think you’re dealing with. All you quacks did was skirt around the point of the issue, as if I wasn’t capable of actual rational thought, or treating it nonchalantly, as if people came inside your studios claiming to be attracted to children all the time.>> He said, strengthening his grip, as he let her go, which made Mild take several deep breaths in a row. <<But you know what? You have found a real one. And, if I kept going according to how you saw my issues, then one day I could have possibly, nay, certainly, have gone forth and raped a child because I couldn’t deal with not addressing my issue anymore, and, right then, right there, you would have gotten part of the guilt, because you did nothing but scam me, when you could have prevented my fall. From now on, we’re going separate ways and I shan’t put my foot here ever again.>>
Lemon Turner scrambled his hands in his trousers, pulling out a banknote.
<<Take it and keep the change!>> he said, before turning around and slamming the door behind him, while Mild still babbled in shock.