Every morning at 6 AM Jordan began his walk along the beach from one end to the other and back again. He was like a metronome and it took about 30 minutes. He was 24 and didn't have a job. His parents were much older and it was his job to look after them. He was a full-time carer and literally the only time he got out of the house was to go shopping and for his morning walk. There were a lot of people walking very early, mostly with their dogs. There was some sort of camaraderie between all the walkers who nodded to each other and said quick hellos, but not Jordan.
Jordan walked, and mentally took note of who was there every morning and who wasn't. He noted the presence of a good-looking woman who suddenly turned up with a dog and sometimes walked and sometimes jogged but he never responded to her greetings or her dog's sniffing as they passed by. This went on for weeks without any response from Jordan. The longer this went on, the more Ella became intrigued with this man who was so absorbed in himself that he never took any notice of her or anybody else for that matter. Ella was a nurse and had been looking after her elderly parents until they went into an old persons' home and now she was free and hoped to find a partner. That was why she was walking the dog because she had heard it was a good way to meet somebody. She wore tight shorts and looked terrific.
It was likely that she and Jordan would never have met except that one of the other walkers was handing out a piece of paper to everybody asking them to meet the following Monday at 6 AM when a council ranger would come to talk to them about the necessity to keep their dogs on leads and clean up after them or else there would be a $250 fine. This was Ella's chance and she positioned herself next to Jordan while the ranger spoke.
"Do you have a dog?"
"Yes."
"Why don't you bring him with you?"
"I did twice and he just kept pulling against the leash and wanted to run in every direction so I stopped bringing him. I wanted to walk."
Ella was still intrigued with this man who didn't seem to take any interest in her or anybody else for that matter. From that day on she walked with him and slowly but surely they began to talk. Her interest began with mystery, and went through various stages of sympathy and a maternal urge to look after him, to a desire to see if she could hook up with him. It took two months but finally Jordan had come out of his shell sufficiently to smile and greet her when she turned up every morning. Ella didn't know why, but she had begun to like Jordan and wanted to take the relationship to the next step but there seemed no way forward.
"Do you know Hanging Rock Cove? It is not far from here. When it's warm a few of my friends go there for a walk at midnight. Why don't you come? I'm sure you'll enjoy it."
Jordan fell for the bait and agreed to come. Somehow or another Ella was going to get him on the hook. What she didn't tell Jordan was that everybody walked without clothes. There were only ever about six turned up - half male, half female. Jordan was the last to arrive and by the time he arrived, the other three men and the three women were all naked and itching to walk. The beach was isolated and there were no lights but even so, it was definitely possible to clearly see their naked bodies when the moonlight slipped between the clouds. Jordan didn't miss a beat when he saw they were naked.
"You don't have to strip off if you don't want to."
"No, I won't, thanks."
"Okay let's start." They walked for 30 minutes and then everybody got dressed.
"Do you want to come again?"
"Yes. It's so different in the dark. The air is so crisp."
Ella was frustrated that nothing seemed to make Jordan interested in her. She didn't know many other men, but she was sure that most of them would have recognised that she was trying to attract their attention and would have made a move. She would give it one last try and shaved herself. The only reaction was, "You look different tonight."
Ella spoke to a friend at the hospital searching for ideas. The response came back that Jordan must be repressed in some way and must have suffered some traumatic incident early in his life. It wasn't normal to be socially undeveloped like this. Something was preventing Jordan relating to Ella in a normal way. The problem was to find out what and when and then try to get Jordan to face his demons - that was probably the best way to get him to overcome whatever the problem was. The cure might take a day, a month, a year or even longer.
Ella's next step was to get Jordan over to her house where she could sit down and discuss things in more depth. She invited Jordan over to help move some furniture around. Over coffee and cake Ella slowly began to extract some of the details of Jordan's early life. She thought she had hit pay dirt when he revealed that at the age of three or thereabouts, a babysitter had come over to look after him and his parents had unexpectedly come back early. He couldn't remember what exactly had happened but he remembered that there was a lot of shouting and the girl was crying and that he got into trouble too and he was very upset.
Ella surmised that the babysitter must have interfered with Jordan in some way and had been caught. That must be the Demon - how to get Jordan to face it, that was the problem.
"Jordan. Let's play a game. I want you to imagine that I'm the babysitter and that I have come over to look after you. Do you think we can do that?"
"Yes. I can try." Jordan was not really aware of what she was doing but it didn't matter, he went along with it.
