Re-live (Rebirth Series Book 2)

Book summary

In "RE-LIVE" by G. Miki Hayden, psychotherapist Steven ventures into the unconventional realm of Re-live therapy, introducing clients to The Slap, a choice he soon regrets. Amidst the vibrant backdrop of New York City, he grapples with the complexities of love, therapy, and self-discovery. From encounters in Marcus Garvey Park to the juxtaposition of societal classes, Steven's journey intertwines with enigmatic characters like Eu-Mei and Mateo, while his martial arts mentor, Jay, imparts wisdom that transcends combat. As he blurs the lines between therapist and savior, Steven realizes his pursuit of love, success, and spiritual depth are intricately connected in this contemporary tale woven with martial arts mystique and the quest for meaning.

Excerpt from Re-live (Rebirth Series Book 2)

Steven slapped his client once across the face with conviction. He was pleased that the slap sound wasn’t too loud. Just right, perhaps, and he didn’t seem to leave much of a handprint.

Loren’s cheeks turned red, but Steven guessed the coloration was more from the emotion elicited rather than the slap itself. He studied his client with steady interest and watched a cascade of emotions cross the man’s face.

“Jesus, after almost two months,” said Loren, “and then that. How is that supposed to help?”

“What are you feeling?” asked Steven. But then he watched tears begin to form and Loren’s eyes turn red. “Good,” the Re-live therapist added in approval.

“No,” Loren countered. “Totally stupid.”

Steven toggled his head up and down in agreement. Actually he was conceding, and while observing Loren, was watching his own reaction. His client had been bound up tight, and Steven had only performed the slap in an effort to remove the strictures from the other man’s emotions. But at the moment, he didn’t like what he had done. The slap did feel like abuse. In the nearly five years he’d been working with clients doing this process, he had only used the slap on three other occasions. Had the violent action helped? Maybe, but now he saw slapping showed a weakness on his part.

Steven kept his eyes on Loren. “Yes, you’re right—it wasn’t the best choice. But let’s make some use of the moment, anyway. Your father hit you. Quick. What are your thoughts?”

“No thoughts. I’m in my suit and I have to go to work. Get out of my house.”

“What do you feel?” Steven persisted.

Loren had plucked a napkin from the table and he wiped the tears from his face. He leaned over and picked up a mirror and looked at himself. “All right,” he said. “Now just go.”

Steven stood up. “What are you afraid of?” he asked.

“That someone will hit me, and I can’t retaliate.” Loren looked as if he could spit some powerful corrosive acid.

“You couldn’t hit your father back? But you wanted to?”

“Get out.”

Steven picked up the trash from the celery juice and fruit salad he’d brought Loren and tucked it all in the brown paper bag he’d carried the breakfast in. “I have to use your john.” He took the bag and headed to the powder room in the hall. Not his best hour, but so life sometimes went.

That was Re-live for you, and as stated in the contract, a slap was legal tender in the work, so the only consequence to Steven was an emotion of regret, a moment of feeling inept. He’d bring the matter up with Vivica when he ran into her in the office for their sometimes Friday meeting, or he could schedule a phone call with her. Or better yet, he could just think it over and suck it up and not pay her for a consultation. He smiled at the thought.

Had the incident been without value, though? No. Loren had been shaken, and so had Steven, himself. He couldn’t know what would result from it. That was good.

He came out of the bathroom. “I’m going, buddy,” he called. “See you tonight.”

Loren appeared, his mouth forming a pout. “I don’t know why I’m doing this,” he said.

“I know why,” Steven answered. “Think about it.”

“To feel better?” Loren answered.

Steven nodded. “In part. I’ll bring potatoes.”

“With butter,” Loren insisted.

“I’m not out to kill you.” Steven smiled. “How about some guacamole?” He turned toward the door and waved over his shoulder. Closing the door behind, he went into the compactor room where he threw away the brown paper bag.

The first time he was here, he’d discarded the leftover food in Loren’s kitchen bin. The Monday after, when he’d reappeared, he’d smelled a rotten garbage smell. Loren hadn’t emptied the trash. That boggled Steven’s mind, threw off his sense of order. A million-dollar-plus apartment and the man didn’t think to empty the bin.

He made his way out of the building and to the subway. Convenient enough for him to take the 2 or 3 up to Harlem, to the bargain, rent-stabilized apartment where he’d lived while earning his civil engineering degree, going on to work in the field, and then studying with Vivica. He’d soon begun to re-parent grown men as a therapist, a career that wasn’t exactly perhaps right for him either, he wryly thought now.

Maybe the slap was a good technique for Vivica. She seemed to believe in it. The smack was good enough, anyway, to earn a few articles in magazines that covered highbrow culture. An article in Tomorrow had highlighted the scandalous steps that the Re-live therapists might take. Vivica had been interviewed espousing the slap, sleeping with clients—just sleeping, no sex—feeding them, and so on. The article was titled “One Step Beyond Primal Scream”—comparing Re-live to a 1970s therapy most people had never even heard of

Steven hurried down the subway steps and put on his mask.

The magazines and newspapers had loved what seemed to them to be outrageous talk, and Steven himself had been interviewed for two dubious articles. Had he said all that? Had he played up the sensational? He hadn’t intended to.

That was what he’d meant by teasing Loren that the client had another reason for doing the therapy. He wanted to impress people who knew him. Steven had started to think “his friends,” but Loren didn’t seem to have actual friends. And until today, Steven hadn’t committed any extreme acts. Loren wouldn’t let him near enough. Wasn’t Freud the one who’d cautioned therapists to “respect the defenses?” Some well-known early psychotherapist had said it anyway, and now that Steven thought of it, this was another reason why a slap wasn’t a good idea.

Before this, he’d spent too long studying in the wrong field. Engineering, for goodness sake. But still. And later on, he’d taken a bunch of classes with Vivica, a full professor at NYU—and his personal therapist. Had he needed one?

He sat on the train and began reading where he’d left off in The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit, a super-amazing book that explained a lot not accepted in the current field of biology. Steven couldn’t follow parts, though he picked up the gist. Author Joseph Chilton Pearce clarified that his set-forth actually proven or brilliantly proposed theories weren’t espoused mainly due to a desperate attempt to cling to the status quo. The accepted beliefs kept their defenders earning better-than-good livings in medicine and at the universities.

Steven understood the problem, but the book revealed a whole other world of human possibilities. Was he shocked? No. That the framework maintained by those operating the old systems kept people sick and suffering, away from their divine potential, was a travesty, but thus was it ever. Burning the innovators at stake was traditional.

At his building, he guessed that the elevator was out as usual when it didn’t arrive—with no notice posted. He walked up. Inside, he chowed down on the fruit salad that he’d left for himself and lay on his bed to nap. While he waited for sleep, love filtered through Steven’s being. What could be more positive? He sent the love to Loren. Loren had paid for it. Quite a lot, in fact, though Vivica took a hefty chunk of the set-aside initial six-month fee.

Steven was soon out for the count.

Two days later, said Vivica called with another client for Steven to meet and evaluate. Vivica had talked to Nico’s father on the phone and judged him a fit with Steven, in terms of not just the client’s psychotherapy needs but seeing Nico’s schedule would mesh with the times Steven saw Loren. Steven knew Vivica otherwise trusted him to conduct the Re-live therapy in an effective, intuitive style. For Steven’s part, he had been needing a second client for a couple of months now. Running two clients at a time was optimal for earning a living.

Nico lived in Gramercy, across from the park, which meant he had a key to the green space, Steven had read. He’d looked up real estate for sale there and saw some totally modern apartments listed at high prices. Well, that was promising. But when he entered the lobby at Nico’s address, he noted that the building itself was from yesteryear. Still, he was sure the condos (he assumed they were) must be rather pricey.

A doorman rang up Nico to tell him he had a visitor and then indicated the elevator Steven should take.

The carpet in the hall was a little worn and Nico’s apartment was somewhat near the two elevators, a negative in terms of noise. Nico answered the door and Steven had to introduce himself and say a friendly word or two before Nico let him in, a little odd perhaps, Steven felt. But clients were odd. If they had good social manners, they generally didn’t see themselves as needing the intensive help of a Re-live therapist—or a paying family member didn’t.

Nico stood out of the way and Steven stepped in. The apartment smelled somewhat musty and looked a bit not kept up with, to go with that. But the few pieces of artwork on the walls were stunning, seemingly museum worthy, and the artists’ names came to mind. Was that a real Cassatt, honestly? A Degas, seriously? Steven went over and opened a blind to let in the light, then pulled up the blind halfway to crack the window. “Let’s just let a little fresh air in. Such a nice day out. Have you been out?” Nico hesitated. “Do you go to the park? Quite a luxury for you to have a park right here. Let’s sit at the table. I’ve brought you a snack.”

Nico didn’t look as if he’d been out, but then maybe not yet at only four in the afternoon.

“I do go to the park once in a while. We pay for it. That is, the building pays a fee.”

As Steven unpacked the celery juice and large papaya slice he’d brought his prospective client, the client himself reluctantly wended his way across the room to take a chair at the table. Steven had brought a plastic fork and napkins. The papaya was in a fresh plastic container.

“May I take your hand for a moment?” he asked as Nico looked askance at the “snack.” Steven got it. Nico already appeared overwhelmed by the multiple stimuli Steven had brought into the room, and he was most likely dehydrated.

Steven took the soft, sweating hand and lightly tested some acupressure points. “I can help you,” he said. “Together, we can change your life. If you’d like.” Then he gave back the hand, smiled, and pointed at the cup of juice he’d brought. “Celery juice. Electrolytes.” He broke his eye contact and looked around the room, didn’t speak, to give Nico a chance to collect himself if such was possible.

But the space he had given the man was a yawning gap. “Drink a little,” he suggested. “What do you ordinarily eat?”

He’d expected to see expired cans of soda here and there on the floor, but such wasn’t the case. “You have someone come in to straighten for you?”

“Ye… ye… yes. Once a week.” Not quite a stutter.

Steven nodded. “Have you had a lot of previous therapies?” He could practically write the whole story of the still youngish man’s life. In his thirties. Either he earned his living at an esoteric but well-paying occupation, maybe in the sciences, or this was family money here—maybe the condo had been inherited from a grandmother, a widow, who had lived here alone after inheriting it from her husband, and who had died a few years before.