He followed my train of thought, enlightening me without me asking. “OCD comes in different packages. Some you’re aware of, others you’re not.”
“What do you suffer with?”
“Mostly I can ignore the tics of repetition. I can ignore the allure of having to be overly clean or panic about every microbe. I’m more of a selective obsessive.” He pulled a piece of lint off his jeans, flicking it to the floor. “I find something I like, and I have no choice but to master it. I forget about everything else. The world no longer exists. Nothing does apart from that one thing.”
His eyes clouded, remembering things, bringing them back to life by discussing them. “It started young. Legos to start then other toys. I’d play with them once, and then I couldn’t stop until I’d built every design, solved every clue, figured out every solution. My brother’s origami book took me all night to master, and after that, I went through our local library on how to get better, more intricate. I folded and folded until I could fold one handed and half asleep. My parents worried about me. Okaasan tried to stop me, but Otosan knew it was pointless. He understood my issues even though he didn’t suffer the same. He did have an addiction, though—his violin.”
Elder’s voice turned inward. “When he introduced me to music and took me to my first cello lesson on my eighth birthday, it was as if the loudness in my brain quietened. While my mind had the notes and my fingers had the chords, I was empty inside…completely free.”
My eyes drifted to his fingers where they twitched as if he played an invisible cello.
He continued, “It quickly went from comfort to need. There was no other way for me. I had to play. It wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t a need, or thrill, or any normal word to describe why a musician has to play his instrument. It was an all-driving curse.”
He looked up, his eyes once again black with rageful passion. “I couldn’t stop. At home, away from my tutor’s cello, I’d slip into repetitive complications. I drove my mother mad rearranging the cutlery drawer, the pantry, the laundry. Nothing was safe, and everything had to be in threes. My brain latched onto whatever new flavour it wanted, and until it decided it had had enough, it was all I could talk and think about. We had no money to buy a cello, but my father saw how it helped me an hour a week at my lessons. How something like music could give me an outlet to master but be so complicated I could never be truly satisfied. The one thing that had unlimited potential to keep me within boundaries and stay healthy.”
He shuddered as awful memories replaced the nice. “He went against my mother and borrowed money from people you should never borrow money from. He was so proud that night, giving me a beaten up second-hand cello. And I’d never loved him more or been so fucking grateful that he understood.”
He chuckled under his breath. “Playing it made the neighbourhood cats squall until I learned how to tune it. I threw myself into everything there was to know about strings and bridges and bows. I devoured music books then songs on the radio, classics, melodies. I imprinted each tune to memory, and once I’d mastered everything a teacher had to teach, I created my own music. I blended. I evolved. I gave everything of myself to be the best.”
He sat tall as if bracing himself for the bad. “Around the time when I’d mastered the cello enough to be noticed for my talent—to receive invitations to concerts, competitions, and awards—my mind once again turned for other tasks it could dominate. I didn’t play to be noticed. I played to be cured. And knowing people wanted to compete against me—to see if they could better me, beat me—took away the freedom I found.”
He inhaled, his voice turning heavy. “My OCD isn’t a compulsion to do something repetitively. It’s a compulsion to do something until I conquer it. Not just conquer it but to be the best, the only, the mecca. I have to know it inside out. I have to absorb and control and own every minute.”
He gave me a pointed look. “Are you getting it now, Pimlico?”
Slowly, pieces fell into place. He’d told me before that my mind was his ultimate goal, not my body. That he wanted everything from me. My past, my thoughts, my secrets. He’d told me he needed to master me.
I thought he’d been dramatizing his needs. That it was just a turn of phrase.
I was so wrong.
I shuddered to think of him playing me as aggressively as he did his cello. For him to know my every thought and tear every hidden fear from me. To know me better than I knew myself.