The Secret Clinic

By Louis Fabre

This book is a textbook of Psychiatry disguised as a novel.

Virgil has bad social phobia. He can't leave his apartment. He gets virtually involved with Cynthia, a bipolar with a huge sex drive. They have virtual sex via computer and fall in love. Cynthia who has a husband breaks it off. Virgil contemplates suicide but is rescu

• Language: English
• Publisher: Travivo Tales
• Release date: Sep 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986946016

Book preview

1

Virgil

A sliver of light came through the aperture between the curtains of the one window. This woke up Virgil. Usually he woke up from the alarm set on the computer. But the light beat the computer on this day.

Virgil pushed a couple of beer several books out of the way and climbed out of bed. He had on jockey underwear, an old fashion white undershirt and white socks. This was his uniform and he wore it day and night every day of the week every week of the year. He tripped over several books littered on the floor on his way to the bathroom.

Another miserable day Virgil said. Yes he talked to himself. He used to talk to the dog but the dog died. Before that he talked to his wife but she left. Now he had no one to talk to except himself and the computer.

Up Uranus! he shouted. He called the Dell computer Uranus.

"Up you lazy bastard. What horrors do you have for me today: Internet outages, app updates, what?

Do those assholes at the office have control over you again?

His office had an app which let them take control of his computer and do updates and other software update issues.

Do you want to work, Uranus? No? Well neither do I

Every time Uranus made a beep or some other sound, Virgil would say it farted.

"You going to fart a lot today Uranus? Virgil lived by himself. He had no interaction with anybody except Uranus. The computer woke him up. The computer put him to bed. The computer regulated every aspect of his life.

He was virtually on Uranus to make contact with potential customers and trying to sell insurance. He was paid a small salary and commission on the sales that he made. He very rarely made any sales. He was supposed to work from eight in the morning until five in the afternoon. He was supposed to make 10 calls per hour. He was supposed to accomplish one sale for every 10 calls . In reality he might make three or four calls an hour and he sold maybe one policy per day. As a result he made very little money and was barely able to survive. He had to pay rent, internet fees, food , and his Amazon book purchases.

He hated Uranus. He hated his life. He hated the confinement.

Occasionally, he thought about going out the door to the outside. But what would he do outside? He had no friends and he had no activities. Besides he had agoraphobia. He was afraid to go out. So he never went outside.

If he started his workday. He didn't bother to put on clothes. His boss, George, had warned him many times that he had to put clothes on. But he ignored the boss and did what he wanted. Besides Uranus didn’t have clothes.

Also he wouldn't do the canned sales pitch. A lot of times once he got someone on the line he would say, Hey, you want to buy some insurance. They almost always hung up. But that was what he wanted, because that way he didn't have to waste time talking. Virgil thought that no one should buy the product anyway.

Virgil didn't have furniture. He didn't have a stove and he didn't have a microwave. But he did have Uranus.

The 1 bedroom apartment had a bed which was never changed in one room and a desk and chair in the other room. Nothing else.

The bathroom was a disaster. Never cleaned and definitely unhygienic. Virgil never did anything and he didn’t have a cleaning lady.

Virgil wasn’t so clean himself. He took a shower maybe once a month. He didn’t care if he smelled and there was no one else around to smell him.

Virgil’s socks were black. The floors were never swept or mopped . There was an inch of dust on everything.

He used to go to the grocery store at 3 am. No one was there except other social phobics and they kept their distance He learned how to use the self check out machine so he didn’t have to deal with the clerk.

But one day walking home with his bag of groceries a homeless man approached him and asked for a dollar. Virgil dropped his groceries and ran home. He never went back to the grocery store again

He would order his food online and pay by credit card and a man would come and push the food through the doggie door. He never even saw the man. He paid in advance.

Occasionally, his ex-wife would call on Uranus and complain about child support or the dentist visit for his kid or some other expense that she would try to get Virgil to pay for. He would look her in the eye, say nothing and ignore the whole thing. He paid his child support. But he never paid for anything extra.

He disliked the calls from his ex-wife and wondered why in the world did he marry this woman. Till he remembered he had sex with her and she got pregnant.

But where the hell was she when he needed her?

In fact, where was anybody. He had a mother and a brother but he got upset if they called. His father had died when he was a child.

He missed the dog more than he missed his ex-wife. At least the dog was happy and would cheer him up from time to time.

He thought about getting a new dog but no dog could compare to the one he lost. He thought it would be a waste of time and energy. And he would have to go out of his room to make this happen. Besides the new dog would die and it would be the same.

Virgil talked to himself. He said How did I get in this mess. Then He thought back. He was a normal kid playing baseball. One day when he rounded third-base on the way to home plate he tripped over a batting helmet and broke his arm. He was taken to the hospital where they put a cast on his arm. The problem was he couldn’t play baseball anymore.

His mother gave him a computer to play with since he couldn't do sports anymore. He was good with the computer and learned to play a number of games at a high level.

When he went to high school he skipped most days. He went on Fridays when they had tests and he was good at tests. In his senior year he had a girlfriend Sally.

Sally knew she was in trouble. Her father was sick and she could see she would be on her own. The way women took care of themselves in those days was to get married. She threw herself at Virgil. He was quiet, not a trouble maker. She lured him into sex without protection and she got pregnant.

When his mother, Trudy, found out about this she demanded a wedding. She also demanded that Virgil and Sally go to college.

Virgil and Sandy lived with Trudy. They went to Grandview University in Des Moines on student loans. Trudy took care of the baby.

Trudy was in remission from her own mental illness and really enjoyed her interaction with the baby. These were probably some of the best years of her adult life.

Virgil had little interest in college. As a result he barely passed. But his college degree got him the job that he currently held.

After college, his illness got worse. Sally didn’t understand it and was not supportive. She urged Virgil to go to the doctor but was not in favor of medication. The relationship went downhill until one night Sally through his medication down the toilet and Virgil filed for divorce.

Sally took the baby and went to California to live with an aunt. Virgil took the job in Trenton.

Trudy was left alone, broken-hearted.

Now he was 29 years old. He felt like life was over. He lost a dog and a wife and outside activities. He had no friends. He didn't even have any enemies.

He thought, How nice it would be to have an enemy. I could scream and holler and rant and rave and take up a lot of time with negative thinking. But I don't even have that luxury.

Virgil didn’t have a television. Uranus did not connect to news or movie sites. He had no interest in the outside world. No news, no sports, not even weather since he never went out. Occasionally he would get something from the social media sites he visited, but this would be by chance not design.

His only entertainment was looking out his one window. Across the street was a parking lot. This was often used at night as a battleground. Two opposing gangs would fight there. It would start with name calling. Then fist fighting, then knife fighting. Sometimes someone would get badly stabbed. Then the ambulances would show up. Usually the cops would come and the gang members would run. Now and then the cops would catch one or two of them.

For Virgil this was the alternative to television. But it made him nervous. He had heard of a gang fight in Cleveland that spilled over from a park to the nearby hotel and the hotel was set on fire and burned down.

So the fights were entertainment but potentially dangerous.

Maybe I should have a car. But I don't have any money to buy a car. . And if I had a car where would I go? I don't have anywhere to go. And I’m afraid to go out anyway. So a car has no value.

So here he was in this room with the bed, table with Uranus on it, a chair for him to sit in and a small refrigerator. Nothing else. The room was dimly lit and it was littered with books he tripped over. It was stuffy since he never opened the door or the window.

At times he would walk from one end of the little apartment to the other in his stocking feet. If he had had shoes he would've made marks. But all the socks did was shine the floor and get blacker.

At times he would scream and holler. Virgil had no reason to pay attention to time so these tirades could happen in the middle of the night. Then the neighbors would bang on the walls to make him stop.

Come on in, you assholes, and murder me and put me out of my misery. I leave the door open to make it easier for you. Uranus can’t fight you. Come in.

But of course no one did.

Virgil didn’t have a washing machine or a laundry service. Since he didn’t wear clothes he didn’t have much laundry. But he occasionally had to wash his underwear, undershirt and socks. His approach was a little unusual but effective. He just left them on when he took a shower and washed himself and the clothes at the same time.

He would pick a sunny day and even though it was cold in New Jersey, the sun coming through his one window was warm. After his shower he would put his desk chair in front of the window and let the sun dry him and his clothes. He had thought about taking them off and hanging them up and drying himself naked but that was too much trouble.

Sometimes the warm sun on his dick would give him an erection. Then he would pull his jockeys down and masturbate.

I would put this dick in Uranus, but I can’t find the hole . Ha, Ha, Ha, he laughed to himself.

He hated his job. He hated the boss. He hated the apartment And he hated himself.

Virgil didn’t have to go to a doctor to know he had social anxiety with agoraphobia. Getting around people gave him panic attacks so he never got around anyone. Therefore he was very lonely. He wondered why did he even