The building was rather quiet for Gazette's tastes as she made her way up to the therapy clinic. She knew that people had come here, and some with some regularity. One Alligator woman named Jill had seemed to come here a lot over the previous year, which to some extent left Gazette curious. Of course that curiosity came with her own sense of excitement and desire to indulge it. She wore a pink tank top that showed a fair amount of her cleavage and no bra, allowing anyone to see her jewelry through the fabric. She also wore a pair of pink and white bike shorts that looked like they were drawn on her. To many with her Animalian muscles and curves she looked sort of like a dyed super-hero.
"Hey! I'm here to see Doctor Jones!" Gazette said to the secretary who was seated at her desk.
The woman gave Gazette a surprised blink and turned over to the phone that was on one corner of her desk. She pressed a small button that had the word, "intercom" written over it. "Doctor Jones, your One Thirty is here... She... she is pink."
"Never mind her color, Jan," came Doctor Jones' answer, "Send her in."
The woman at the desk then gestured toward the one lone door, and Gazette made her way in. A part of her was really hoping for some fun, after all, Doctor Jones had supposedly given out some odd gifts during Christmas that people liked and most of clients came to him with relationship problems. In this she figured he was good with all that person to person stuff that would allow her to scratch a certain itch, as it were, as there were times when even other Animalians seemed uneasy around her for some reason.
"Ah... Ms..." Doctor Jones' voice spoke softly from behind his chair as he turned to face Gazette.
"Gazette," Gazette said with some surprise, not expecting the therapist to be human. She was vaccinated, of course, but that didn't mean she expected the therapist to be human.
"I trust you understand why you are here?" Doctor Jones asked.
"Some people don't like the way I dress," Gazette grumbled, "Which I don't get..."
"How so?" Doctor Jones asked.
"Well you know the Meat Market, right?" Gazette asked and waited for Doctor Jones to nod, "Well... I'm not a stripper there... but I suppose I do like to be fairly free. No one sees anything they shouldn't, of course, and I've NEVER sexually assaulted anyone, male or female. Yet some people seem to have problems with how I look."
"Well... you do look different from other Animalians," Doctor Jones commented, "perhaps they're just a bit surprised with the new you. After all... I don't many that dye their hair..." His eyes bulged for a moment as Gazette sat across from him... "Or pierce their nipples."
"That's not ALL I've had pierced," Gazette gave a semi playful smile.
"I'm sure," Doctor Jones gave a small but professional smile back, "but it may not be something people are used to."
"We're not supposed to be clones of each other," Gazette said firmly and with narrowing eyes, "that sort of thinking has caused this world far more problems than anything else."
"Is that why you do what you do?" Doctor Jones inquired to stand out.
Gazette sat in a lone chair that was offered her and looked to the young therapist. He was seated looked fairly calm, though unlike some of the men at the Meat Market he wasn't leering or uncomfortable. Some of it was odd as their scents could tell they were aroused, but they never seemed to want some direct fun with her, which shouldn't be a problem since she was vaccinated.
"You want to stand out?" Doctor Jones asked again
"I suppose that's a part of it," Gazette said slowly and half nervously, "I mean... I grew up in a family that didn't want to stand out... Grew up in Essen in the heart of German Industry, only to see them go mad with hatred. We managed to get out before things went bad... but... it still didn't sit right with me."
"Things like wars are never truly "right" in any sense of the word," Doctor Jones commented, "for whatever goal or prize that you hold to be won... there will always be a cost that someone will bear and they will have to pay for it."
Gazette slowly nodded, but said nothing as she looked across at him. He was kind of cute, in a way, though she also knew that her own life was messed up in many ways. Her family had survived the war, thankfully by ultimately getting to Switzerland. But she couldn't just leave good people to the whims and passions of the Nazis who seemed to change with the winds. That had sent her back into occupied France, where she had to play a long game of cloak and dagger. She had killed her fair share of bad guys, often in ways that were actually quite intimate, which made her thankful that she didn't have the oversized nose that the Nazis seemed to draw attention to get people to identify Jews. That didn't make anything necessarily any easier.
"Would you like to talk about it?" Doctor Jones asked, "carrying great stresses inside you isn't good for you."
"You don't know what I've been through," Gazette answered defensively, "and I don't need to defend what I've done!"
Doctor Jones raised his hands slowly, "I'm not trying to say I know what you've been through, nor judge your war record. But your co-workers are worried for you. They're afraid for you. That's why they asked you come here... to talk to me... I'd like to be able to help."
Gazette looked down to her hoofed toes and then up to Doctor Jones again, who gave her a small smile.
"But I can only help you if you help me," Doctor Jones said slowly and offered Gazette his hand.
She felt him touch the back of his hand.
"It all started with the day he came to power," Gazette said slowly, "signs went up all over Essen... all over Germany. Attacked people who'd done so much for it. Done more than that wall painter ever did! Yet, we were the ones who were vilified! My father lost a leg in the trenches! And for that he was tossed out of his own shop like he had no right to it."
"Hatred makes strange decisions," Doctor Jones nodded, "and sometimes we can't explain why or how..."
"It wasn't right... but there was nothing my family could do," Gazette continued, feeling surprisingly safe with Doctor Jones. The only other person she'd ever shared any of this with was Daniel, the Golden Retriever Animalian, who wasn't a Golden Retriever when she met him. "We managed to make it out of Germany and settled in Strasbourg... but the same problems just seemed to loom over the horizon."
"France and Germany's shared border," Doctor Jones nodded.
"I couldn't just let that man and his hatred win," Gazette spoke clinching her hands, "all the pain he'd brought on so many innocent people. I got my parents out into Switzerland, but I made a vow that I would try to help the country that had sheltered my family and at least tried to stand in evil's way."
"Is this where you met Daniel? Or did you meet members of the CIA?" Doctor Jones asked.
"It was still the OSS then, and yes I did met Daniel during the war," Gazette answered, "but our meeting was more by chance. I'd already done some missions for the British Secret Service and that took me through the area where his unit was encamped prior to D-Day. He was a charming man... VERY charming, not like the Nazis and their thuggish behavior... but that's a different story."
Doctor Jones nodded, "Does any of this give you nightmares? Trouble sleeping?"
Gazette blinked and looked to him, "Some of it... but I'd like to think I made it through with everything in tact. But I learned enough to know that hiding, for whatever reason, is never fun and there is so much more that people can do together that is better than stabbing each other in the dark."
"I see," Doctor Jones said slowly.