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One month later

The coming of nightfall found Martin once again in bed and although this particular resting place seemed far more familiar, it supplied little comfort in the jarring context of a life turned upside down. Staring up at the ceiling of his modern-contemporary studio apartment in downtown San Francisco, Martin considered the brutal shift of fate that in the course of just a few weeks had ripped his life apart. Just a month and a half ago had he rode the high seas as a well respected Navy Seal, fulfilling a long held childhood dream that had developed into a lifetime career. He had never felt stronger, happier or more fulfilled; or more certain of his goal and destiny in what seemed to be a perfect life for him.

Now, instead, he struggled every day with undergoing incessant rounds of intense physical therapy before dropping from exhaustion in the evenings. Yet even as the pain and fatigue eventually overtook him, he still found he couldn't sleep; his nocturnal hours cursed by frequent fits of insomnia as well as ceaseless nightmares, the explosion and near death experience weighing more heavily on him than he expected it would. He was tougher than this, he thought.

"No more," Martin decided that night as he heaved himself up from his bed and faced the full length mirror in the a far corner of his bedroom. Thanks to his vigorous rounds of intense physical therapy and extra albeit unobserved self-directed physical training, he'd managed to remain exceedingly fit despite circumstances and due to some minor reconstructive surgery, his chiselled blue eyed face remained what the ladies might call strikingly handsome. "I'm a Navy SEAL and this is temporary," he decreed to himself and the universe. "I may be down now, but I'm still a man. And now I'm getting out of his luxury jail, time for some action, women and beer."

There was a new bar around the corner, he remembered. "No nightmares tonight, if I'm stuck here, I may as well remove sleep from the agenda, at least for tonight, anyway. After a good shower and a sound shave, I should be ready to make my own action," he thought, missing his buds from the SEAL team. "This is out character for me," he decided to let that thought slide, forging a way through the frustration of downtime and a future of uncertainty.

The new bar on the corner was one of those that showcased live music, and as Martin stepped down five rough concrete outdoor steps and through a newly painted red wooden door, he was met by a kind of Jazz fusion he hadn’t heard in years. On the stage up against the far side wall he spotted a quartet consisting of a drummer, a guitar player, a sax player, all ragged old post-hippies, and a sultry young lady on the mike who had a deep, mature voice that bellied her thin, youthful look. The place was not only crowded, it was newly renovated as well, it had been a debauched tattoo shop earlier, and all reminding of that had been pulled out and replaced with mahogany half-walls, boots, tables and chairs and a long bar desk complete with a mirror case bottle stand.

He made it through the benevolent crowds and ended up by the bar desk, ordering a beer from a man in his fifties with a mop of graying hair and a sole creole dangling from his right ear.
"This place is new?" Martin asked as he paid for his drink.
"Two months," the gray-haired man replied as he returned the change. "Opened just this April."
"You're a welcome addition," Martin said. "I live just next door."
"First time here?"
"Yes. I've been…. away," he settled for. Nobody benefitted from knowing what he'd been through and how it had affected him. A T-skirt with long arms hid the scars and the burn marks on his arms and hands and he hoped that the marks on his soul didn't reflect through his eyes, as the dark sun glasses he usually wore these days were now pushed up on the forehead to be able to decipher the layout this dusky cellar level.

"Welcome back then perhaps I shall say," the bartender said and held out a strong-looking and hair-covered hand. "I'm Simon."
"Thanks, Simon, I'm Martin," he was surprised and gladdened by the easygoing congeniality of the older man, it warmed him in a way he hadn't expected. Perhaps this was just what he needed, he thought as Simon moved on to new patrons. Some even-tempered people to surround himself with and some nice and undemanding music to pamper his ears with. The beer was good too and settled pleasantly in his belly.

Martin was used to frequent bars all over the world together with his buddies, but he'd never really gone out drinking in his very own part of Frisco. He'd always been hanging with his SEAL buddies, one in a crowd of plenty who'd entertained each other, entering bar was alone a novelty. Feeling out of one's element was usually painful, yet not this time. Now it made him feel as if he was a spectator in a movie, a guest in a strange land that carried the outlines of his home. A kind of content feeling was beginning to form in his belly as he turned around, leaned against the bar desk and watched the band that kept playing. He realized that what he really wanted was to get to know his hometown quite a bit better. He'd been out of town so much that he'd never really taken the chance to do just that.

And those girls, there was a trio of attractive ones standing just four chairs away from him. He especially liked that strawberry blonde one.

***

Once again, Martin found himself wallowing in the sheets of his own bed; seeking a brief respite from the unmitigated hell his life had become. Only this time, he wasn't alone. Sharing his crisp, soft cotton sheets this morning was a slender bleached blonde with abnormally sizable breasts; one whose name he struggled to remember as he tried to gently shake her awake. "Um, Miss?" he summoned her in a soft voice, uncomfortable with her presence in his bed.

Letting out a soft grunt, the woman opened her sleep-glazed eyes to focus on the man who disturbed her slumber.
"Hiii" she purred, grasped his head with two rough hands and dragged him toward her; seizing his lips in a passionate kiss as he grumbled his protests.
"Ma'am!" he exclaimed, breaking their kiss as he sat away from her in bed. "I had a great time last night, but my mom is due here anytime this morning and I really think it might be awkward….."

Jumping from his bed the disgruntled stranger pulled on her clothes, a simple shirt and jeans ensemble found at the edge of Martin's bed, as she seared him with a hardened gaze.
"You lied to me last night. You told me you were a Navy Seal," she spat out these last words with unmistakable venom before adding. "No Seal would kick a woman out of bed like this."

Martin groined as he realized that she was one of those ‘Seal hoppers', and that he was just a notch in her belt. How things had changed. Within moments she cleared the room and grabbed the black purse that was hanging from his door handler; slinging it over her shoulder as she opened his front door to reveal a most unwelcome sight.

Maryann Hart was a slender, dark-haired woman wearing a proper blue dress with a conservative white sweater, and now she stood in Martin's doorway with mouth agape; staring wordless at the coarse young woman who swept past her into the hallway.
"He's all yours, Mamma," the girl declared, heading with brisk steps out of his apartment and down he stairs, away from Martin, minus her unfulfilled morning desires. And Martin himself lay quiet and still in his sheets, wishing fervently that his bed would open up and swallow him while his mother seared him with a condemning gaze.

"Mom," he finally managed, his voice cracking as he attempted a casual shrug. "This is not what it looks like, I swear."
His mother shook her head.
"This is indeed exactly what it looks like, and you have no need to explain," she assured him as she folded her arms before her. "I don't know where my son is, but I really don't care for the irresponsible jerk who has taken his place. You stay out partying all night, bring home strange women and you've skipped numerous physical therapy sessions. You won't go out and do something productive with your days but you seem well enough to trek out to the neighbourhood bar, to get drunk and make the acquaintance of a sundry one night stand. Worst of all Martin, you refuse find the character you once had. Who the hell are you anyway?" she demanded to know. "And what have you done with my upstanding son!?"

Martin shrugged. His mother shook her head.
"Well this isn't good enough Son," she informed him as she took his hand and pulled him from his bed. "And that's why I have elected to hire you a little outside help, in the form of a therapist."

Martin shook his head, he was more afraid of counselling than that of jumping out of a perfectly good plane and into combat.
"No way," he insisted as he folded his arms before her. "I'll go to every physical therapy session, you know the kind of therapy that actually works, however I am not going to sit and listen to some know it all shrink who claims she can analyse my subconscious mind."

Maryann sighed. "Well somebody needs to read you the riot act or at least set you back on the right track," she insisted. "And Dr. Crest just may be the person to do it." His mother was stronger than hell itself, and Martin respected her for her deep wisdom. Although he definitely didn't agree with a lot of things she did and said, she always produced a solution to a pressing problem. He wasn't always raised to say ‘no' to his mom, and he wasn't going to test her and try now. After all, he admitted, he really had nothing to lose but the panic attacks that continued to plague him, nightly.

Two days later.

Martin was standing in a stairwell outside a solid mahogany door marked 'Dr. T. Crest'.

"I wonder what Thomas, Ted or Tony will have to say about the many and various ways I'm screwing up my life," he wondered, envisioning a balding, bearded and bespectacled gent in a three piece suit who was about to open the door before him. A Sigmund Freud with a jaw bone speaker, was what his mind was picturing. "Whatever, I'm still in Seal shape. If he says something I really don't like, I can just punch his lights out and be done with it," he humoured himself, nervously.

He amended this opinion moments later, as his solid knock on the office door was answered by an individual who; while bespectacled, to be sure; could not precisely be described as balding or bearded. And in lieu of a three piece suit, the person who answered his summons wore a smart azure business dress and high heels.
"Well hello there Tom," he greeted with a smile. "Or would you be Tom's nurse?"

The middle aged woman in the neat bob-cut rolled her dark eyes heavenward in a way that told Martin that he was not remotely correct in either assumption.
"I am Dr. Tamara Crest," she identified herself as she extended her hand to him with a confident flourish. "I take it you are Lt. Martin Hart?"

Taking her hand in his, Martin offered her a friendly smile. "It was just an attempt from my side to make an educated guess, and I must admit that my education in this case lacks severely." he admitted.
"Well I see you have some kind of self knowledge at least too," Dr. Crest responded with an almost motherly smile.

Pulling him by her hand into her office, Dr. Crest closed the door behind them and turned to face him with a cold hard stare.
"Look Martin, I've been warned in advance of you and your B.S. But I am here to help you reconcile what you've been dealing with, so you can get back to whatever you do. Whether you like it or not."
"Whether I like it or not," Martin repeated in a light tone as he looked around the neat and collected office with the diplomas on the wall and a partially obscured view over the bay. "Is this the new and cutting edge method of advanced psychotherapy?"

Without awaiting an answer, he plopped down on the leather couch that formed the centre of Dr. Crest's office, watching with casual, insolent interest as she took a seat at the polished cherry wood desk that formed the office's far corner.
"Listen, I really hate to tell you that you're wasting your time here, along with, I might add, my mother's money," Martin said. "I've no intention of sitting here while you fill my head with meaningless psychobabble. Sure, I realize that I don't remember a lot about who I was and what happened to me but it's not like you have a magnifying glass into my mind."

Dr. Crest shrugged. "It's your choice of course," she agreed as she looked her reluctant new patient straight in the eyes. "Just know though, that your mother only called me at the insistence of your commanding officer." She paused here as she pointed an authoritative finger straight in his direction. "Unless you agree to attend these weekly sessions, in addition to your physical therapy sessions, your chances of making it back into the Seals are roughly less than zero. Give or take, " she finished, issuing him a challenging look.
"Give or take, " Martin mimicked in a snide mocking tone with an insolent look. "Look, if you want to waste an hour of your time each week here in this office with me, then by all means; feel free to do so. We can play checkers, each chocolate chip cookies washed back with some milk, preferably chocolate milk, or take naps here in the depths of your comfy office furnishings here." He paused here as he flattened his body down the surface of the couch and let loose with a languorous sigh. "But I refuse to discuss, reveal, remember or share anything of substance in your presence. Nothing. Got it?" He decided he won that round.