Psychological Control

CHAPTER 1 - New identity as Brian Morse. Finally getting out of the mental health center.

"Brian Morse, 18 year-old, antisocial personality disorder patient. Three years ago was released from the mental health center but was brought back again a month later because of self-perception distortion. Now I want everyone to determine his case and make a final decision."

In the meeting room were psychiatrists, holding Brian Morse's medical record on their hands. The profile picture showed a young guy with pale skin, curly redhead, looking calm and unperturbed.

"We spent two years building back his personality, another year confirming the result. The patient has passed all the psychology test, hypnosis test, and test in social functioning. Results showed that the patient's ability to function normally in society can meet with normal people, in fact, the patient had event started to teach himself psychology. We have enough evidence to believe that the patient can control himself…"

"Three years ago Brian Morse because of a relapse was brought back again, but after that he was very cooperative in treatment, giving us the feeling that it was just an accident. After all, the patient has been here since he was 4, getting back to the normal society after 11 years, it's possible that it was a momentary shock that led to the relapse."

"If that's the case," the chairman put a stamp on the profile, "Brian Morse is approved to be discharge from the."

Mental health center was easy to get in but hard to get out. After three years, Brian Morse again was discharged from the center, leading to the congratulations of all the nurses. In a high-pressure environment like mental health center, lively and cheerful Brian was everyone's favorite boy.

I am Brian Morse, but at the same time I am still myself, the hard-working youth that died in the hand of a madman on the third of November 2014. While now, the day I got discharged from the hospital was August 31st, 2008.

November 3rd 2005, my consciousness awoke on this Brian Morse guy. At that time Brian Morse was just released from the hospital, my consciousness disturbed the originally already chaotic mind, I was brought back to this mental health center by the local hospital.

A bit different from the psychiatrists' conclusion, I only took two days to reconstruct my self-awareness. I was still myself, only that I now had the memory of Brian Morse, well obviously, I also took over his body.

My memory of the past 23 years was petty but also detailed, thanks to my strong self-perception, I was so lucky I didn't lose myself because of the interference of Brian Morse's memory.

After all, turning from an Asian to a Caucasian, not to mention a redhead that only accounted for 2% of the world population, was a big shock to me. If someone looked at my medical record at the psychiatrists', they definitely could notice that during those two days, I kept standing in front of the WC's mirror staring at myself for no reason.

Brian Morse, admitted to the mental health center at the age of 4. In 1994, 4-year-old Brian and his one year younger brother were discovered by the local Miami police at the murder site.

Until the notice of the police, they had already sat in that blood pool from hell for 2 days 3 nights, while the victim was their mother. Brian and his brother witnessed how the kidnapper used an electronic chainsaw to cut their mom's body into pieces; blood overflew, the world in front of their eyes was covered in pure red.

Brian's a year younger brother, Dexter, was adopted by office Harry Morgan, who also was the first one to find them. Brian, because he was at the age of being able to know and form memory, was diagnosed as antisocial and brought to the mental health center.

Brian's memory was carved deeply with the scene of Dexter being taken away from him. Therefore right after he was discharged from the hospital, he went looking for his brother.

He rushed to look for his brother, only to discover that Dexter seemed to have no memory of him; his faith broke into pieces. Brian had used this firm faith of being able to see his sibling again to build his personality, therefore his mental state was damaged too.

And so I came.

If I was to comment, I'd say Brian was too hasty. If he had continued to investigate, he would have seen what he wanted to see. Because of Brian's obsession, during these 3 years, I continued his investigation on Dexter.

Even though Dexter was adopted by Harry Morgan and brought up in a normal family, but the scene he witnessed at three was carved deeply in his memory, even though he could not completely recall it. Therefore, Dexter and Brian were so similar.

They were both potential criminals. As people always said, a pitiful person also has a blameworthy side, a lot of criminals were once victims, because they did not get psychological treatment in time, committed crimes on other guiltless people to vent out their anger.

Brian remembered the scene of his mother being cut into pieces, so he always had the desire to see flesh split and blood flown. Even when growing up under the psychiatrists he had learned to disguised this, such desire usually became a phantasm, existing in the memory Brian left for me.

Dexter, despite only remembering the redness in his subconscious, he still couldn't hold back his desire for blood, like a desire for memory. In my investigation at Dexter I discovered that his neighbor's dogs had gone missing not just once or twice.

I wonder if until now Dexter had committed crime on human yet? How would his adopted father, office Harry, treat his adopted son with a desire to kill people?

I was different from Brian, I was so conscious, sickly conscious. I would not commit crime on guiltless people just because of my subconscious violent desire for blood, I could control myself very well, just as how I psychologically controlled the madman before.

The previous me was not an antisocial personality disorder person. Therefore I had confidence that I would definitely find a way to control my new self.

….

The weather outside is beautiful. After getting out of the hospital I went to get my belongings, including some identity documents, two psychology books I got from my psychiatrists, some underwear and socks, all fit in a backpack. After that I bought a newspaper to find a job offer.

The good side of being an orphan was that you had the ability to feed yourself.

I put on the only outfit that I had except for the hospital gown, short-sleeved white shirt, tight blue jeans, black Toms shoes, simple and neat like a normal student that lived in an ivory tower.

Basing on the job offer news, I went to the nearest coffee shop and successfully got hired. The job was easy and simple, the wage was not too bad also. Thanks to my previous hard-working life, I possessed all the necessary skills that would allow me to feed myself.

I spent an afternoon getting used to the work, then officially started working the next day.

Yet even with social welfare benefits together with the salary from this job, it was only enough to cover my living expenses. This amount wouldn't be enough for me to start my study over again.

From blue-collar worker to white-collar worker was only a word different, yet that difference lay in the degree and knowledge. If I wanted to earn money for textbooks, application fees, or even tuition fees, room and board and such, only a simple job was not enough.

Maybe some commercial dance group would be in need of a jazz dancer?

I had already planned my job a year ago. Coming back to the original job was the best option, even though it was tiring, but my work as a jazz dancer that only begun from interest still brought me higher wage than any other part-time job.

For that I put myself in a lot of training during the days. Yet even if I brought back all the body muscle I used to have, considering Brian's delicate body and his innocent harmless face, I was still in a dilemma.

From Brian's perspective, his exquisite, elegant face along with the curly hair and the perfect smile were his best camouflage.

But from my perspective, using that appearance to find a job in a commercial dance group was extremely hard. From Brian's normal aura, nobody would feel that he knew how to dance. Not to mention that he had such childlike appearance. I bet the dance group owners would all considered him as a beginner in dance.

From Brian's body I couldn't find the manliness that I once used to fool a lot of people. Even my usual dance style was completely changed to match the impression Brian's appearance gave other people.

If my style was dangerous and sexy, my dance moves were fast and arousing, then after I became Brian my development only had one direction: sinful pleasure. On the originally strong an unstoppable movement of jazz dance, I developed it into a more feminine style, gentle yet provocative.

Harmless angelic face along with provocative dance style would cause the audience a feeling of guilty, yet this guilty feeling would lead them to an uncontrollable addiction. I could only use the truth to prove my ability to the dance group manager.

8pm, the sky had darkened, the coffee shop had closed. I headed to a famous Miami bar. Job offers page only posted normal career, and jobs like the commercial dance group rarely advertised openly; rather, they only waited for people to discover themselves.

Ignoring the stares of people, I walked into a pretty crowded bar; based on my knowledge about commercial dance group, except accepting some offers to be dance partners for celebrities, they usually joined many dance competition to boost up reputation. They liked to hand out flyers in wine bars, finding audience for their performances.

The dance group I aimed at at the moment had no intention of taking new people in. Even so, I did not want to give up on this chance. Among the reputable dance groups of this city that I had looked into, this dance group seemed to have the most potentials.

Even if they did not plan to hire people, or should I say, did not plan to hire random people and only took in someone they knew, I believed I could find a shortcut to get in.

My eyes searched through the people in the bar, followed the glance of some ladies, I saw two dancers ferociously competed against each other on the dance floor.

A pretty matured-looking man was giving out flyers for the audience. Under the dim light I could see some blurred words printed there, Chippendales – professional dance group, my aim.

I would not out of the blue join the dance performance that was clearly made to advocate the advertisement - that would look more like provoking. I was only looking at the man giving out the flyers from afar.

At the time, he was handing the flyers to two girls.

These two girls were rather shy facing men, it was easy to analyze their thoughts. It was the first time they came to a place like this, hoping to be approached yet at the same time when a sexy, dangerous man did come, they were afraid. The strange environment made it even harder for them to accept this kind of promotion.

I put on my typical harmless smile and walked towards the two girls and the man.

"I…We… We still have friends waiting for us, so… we cannot go..." I heard one girl muttered a rejection.

"Hi, ladies. If you guys have friends, why don't you ask them to go along with you? Don't worry, Chippendales dance group has been dance partners for many superstars, this is a really professional group." Under the man's surprising eyes, I walked ahead, talking to the girls as if we were friends.

For this kind of girls, being demanding would just make them tensed, but I chose to tell them how good this dance competition would be, how legal, professional and safe this dance group was, because the two of them actually was attracted to the maturity and manliness of the guy in front of them.

The man shot me a thoughtful look, opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something but ended up keeping silent. I knew he wanted to see how the situation went.

I still kept my harmless smile and took some flyers from his hands: "You two take these flyers first. On such a fun holiday, don't you have any plans? You could go discuss with your friends to see if they want to see this or not. How does this sound?"

The two girls glanced at each other, blushing, accepted the flyers from my hand. "We have nine people… We should go tell them first.." – they said, then hurried away like lost sheep running into a wolf pack.

The man's eyes set on me: "Pretty good, under this situation making them take the flyers was a half-way success."

….

Mike and I stood at a street corner, looking at the group of people longer than 10m. There were men and women, all had neat make-up, standing outside the pub that had a line of Chippendales' flyers, looking even more eye-catching under the colorful light.

Mike was the man handing out flyers earlier. I bet god finally felt guilty, as this Mike Vincent guy was not any normal dancer of Chippendales. Mike was the senior of the dance group, a golden signboard.

Hooked a big fish.

"Brian, I don't know if you just have a momentary curiosity with this job as a dancer, or just want to find a place to spend your overflowing energy on. But I want to inform you, this job is not as easy as it looks. I agreed to bring you in and let you join the competition, but if you make me lose my face I will kick your ass." Mike said, half jokingly.

"Of course, I even rely on this job to feed myself." I laughed, "I think you guys are also concerned that in the group there are only female jazz dancers but no male right."

Mike smiled while looking at me: "You got it right. Seems like you are very confident in your ability huh."

I just laughed without response.

This was not a blind guess. When I confirmed Chippendales as my target, I also did a research on the dancers in the group. For a commercial dance group like Chippendales, the most popular and practical was hip-hop dance, which dancers were mostly males. For jazz dance, their group only had female dancers.

Therefore when they received request from female singers wanting to find male dance partner, they could only awkwardly let their hip-hop dancer, whose style was totally not match with the female jazz dancers, join.

Originally I only planned to make friends with a dancer handing flyers of Chippendales, then step by step instructing him to recommend me to the group's owner, thus getting the job chance. But now, if I could show off my overwhelming ability in this competition, that would be the most convincing recommendation.