“Can you blame her?” he defends. “Does she have a name, this man-hater?”
“Runner.”
“Runner?”
“Likes to run rings around people, gets off on it. Enjoys the power.”
“Is there a part that Runner cares about, possibly loves?”
I consider this. “Dolly. The youngest.”
“Makes sense. So the key might be to bond with Runner through Dolly.”
“I’ll try.”
A muted sneeze in my earpiece.
“Bless you,” I say.
“Thank you,” he allows, sniffing just a little bit. “Remember the multiple I worked with last year?”
“Jessica?” I say.
“That’s the one. She’d send me emails, sometimes five or six from the same address. Her gatekeeper would send me threats under the name of Felix, a male part, remember?”
“How did you manage her? Him?”
“It wasn’t about managing him, it was about gaining trust. Felix appeared after Jessica was assaulted one night in her own bed. Two neighbors—brothers—crowbarred their way into her home. Felix swore nothing like that would ever happen again. You need to listen to your countertransference. One foot in the ditch—”
“And one foot out,” I add.
“Exactly. And try not to let her flood you.”
I end the call and reach for the scrunched-up sheet of paper, ironing it out with my palm. I stare down at the Fouls’ list:
5. Pour bleach down your throat.
56
Alexa Wú
Our bodies collide like head-on traffic. A sudden blow to my chest. The man’s phone crashing to the ground.
He tosses his morning coffee, catches my fall. “I’m so sorry,” he frets, “are you okay?”
Shocked, I don’t answer. Our collision causing my balance to lurch.
I find my breath, my brain adrift. Eyes amiss and blurred as they try to focus on the corner pavement, a graffitied white wall. Soho Square opposite: a vague mass of swaying trees.
I reach out both of my hands to touch the wall, something concrete to steady my shake.
“I’m so sorry.” His soft words repeated. “I wasn’t looking where I was going,” he adds.
The man, blond and slim with a tie, moves closer. Takes hold of my arm, bends and collects his phone. A crack across the screen.
“Shit,” he curses. Rubs the phone along the sleeve of his gray suit jacket.
I reel backward.
Flash.
Robert.
Tequilas.
Flash.
“Get away from me,” I scream, shaking loose the man’s grip. Forcing him away.
Breath racing. Legs shaking. Help.
Stunned, he steps back. Palms raised.
“It’s okay,” he whispers. A dazed look in his eyes.
Flash.
Flash.
I am lying on the floor. Body heaving, wrists bruised. Head to one side and legs unnaturally wide. A pair of twisted black knickers somewhere close to my foot. A sequined dress scrunched at my waist.
I dare not sit up. Fearful I may enrage him further. This man. Slightly overweight and balding—a middle-aged cliché. He throws an expensive gray suit jacket across his thick shoulder and looks far too pleased with himself. He has drugged me. Slipped rohypnol into my drink.
I have a clear memory of talking to him in the bar, slamming tequilas. He works in PR. Name is Robert. Fifty-one years old. Has no children and is divorced—an expensive and messy affair, though he still wears a platinum wedding band. Robert likes to holiday in the spring—usually in the South of France—because the months of July and August are too warm for his pale skin.
Robert also likes to handcuff women and rape them.
When he finally leaves, he throws a sleek twenty next to where I lie unmoving, surviving.
Flash.
The man checks his cracked phone again—dead in his hand—while I focus on the graffitied wall, my head full, mind wandering back to Robert in the Gray Suit—my amnesic barriers now melting. The flashback even clearer—
The girls’ dressing room was cool and damp. Twelve misshapen wire hangers dangling from the clothes rack in the far right corner. I heard the door slam shut, Robert now disappeared. His gray suit jacket slung over his shoulder as he left like he was about to head out for ice cream. Sprinkles with your raspberry ripple, sir?
Motherfucker, Runner hissed, the rohypnol still chasing our veins.
Try to move the Body, coaxed Oneiroi.
What d’ya think I’m trying to do? Runner challenged.
I’m just saying; we need—
Don’t tell me what we need. Just shut the fuck up.
You deserved this, the Fouls sneered.
Dolly started to cry. Please don’t say that, she begged.
I saw Ella’s leather jacket hanging among others, a birthday girl badge pinned to its collar. A thumping bass could be heard from upstairs, the Electra Girls serving drinks from silver trays and allowing their bottoms to be patted and stroked.
I suddenly felt cold, wishing I hadn’t thrown my drink over Shaun and that I could reach Ella’s jacket. I wanted to rest it around my naked shoulders to warn off the floor’s frigid edge. Eventually, the Body roused, my feelings slowly handed back.
“Oh my God, what’s happened?” Ella said, bursting through the door.
I still couldn’t move, not much. Robert’s drug still in my veins.
Hysteria found her eyes. They were wild and fearful and stared into the pit of all my misery. It was a subhuman part, extraterrestrial, not human at all. A worthless piece of shit. A tramp. A whore who got what she deserved and then got paid for it.
Ella pushed my legs together gently and pulled down my dress, dirt drying along its hem. I felt the soft part between my pelvis come alive, the service station where he’d emptied his manhood and refueled on my aching need.
Head pounding, vision blurred, I tried to stand and failed.
“I’m losing my mind,” I said, searching for my twist of underwear. “The Voices. They’re getting louder,” I cried.
Ella helped me up, pain surging through my vagina like a hot knife.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said. “Then we have to go find Navid. Tell him what’s happened.”
“No,” I warned. “No. I don’t trust him.”
We didn’t speak as she led me to the women’s bathroom. I guess there was a part of her that blamed herself. A part that felt shame because she’d gotten us involved. Amateur spies. Clueless fools. Both of us in denial of the real danger we were putting ourselves in. Ella reached for my abandoned black underwear and handed them to me, unwanted and soiled. I told myself that if I hid them, scrunched them into a tiny tight ball, they would disappear. Make what had just happened go away. Take me, I thought. Incarcerate me. Punish me. I deserve it.
Finally, she gets it, the Fouls jeered.
Standing before the trio of mirrors, I did not recognize the Girl staring back, the bruise on her cheek. Grazes on her wrists turning coal colored.
I blinked and the Girl blinked back.
Widening my eyes, I watched her do the same.
Then I frowned and she copied.
I pulled at my bangs and she did too.
I pulled and I pulled and I pulled—even harder at the skull.
Hateful and violent.
Large chunks of hair fell away in my hands and the Girl opposite began crying, wailing. I watched her clenched fists pounding the mirror, not caring if it shattered. Next, she clawed at her skin. Her neck. Her chest. A scrawl of blood leaking down the length of her arm.
Ella stepped in then. Took hold of my hands. Bound me to her. “Please stop,” she pleaded.
I picked up my hair, in clumps on the floor, believing I could stick it all back. That it would attach like fuzzy felt, or a magnet—and simply carry on growing like before.
A moment of madness.
“Let’s get y
ou dressed,” Ella said.
But I refused to move. Instead I waited for Ella to dress me. I thought it was the least she could do.
“Stop!” I screamed, touching the soft part of me. “I’m still bleeding.”
Flash.
“Can I do something?” the man asks, loosening his tie.
I shake my head. He tilts his, and attempts to take my arm again. I pull free.
“Here”—he points—“sit down for a second.”
Cautious, he nods at a wooden bench a short distance away. My head catches up. The flashback slowly ebbs. Focus, I tell myself. Concentrate.
He chooses to stand while I sit. Frowns. Runs his phone-free hand across his blond head.
“Just leave me alone,” I say.
“Are you sure? I can—”
“Go,” I insist. Fatigue pressing down hard on my bones.
He walks away, shakes his head, and forces his useless phone in his back trouser pocket. I aim my recovering eyes at his back, his gray suit jacket. A fantasized knife suddenly pictured in my hand—steely and curved—now forced deep into Robert’s spine.
57
Daniel Rosenstein
“I’m considering a sabbatical,” I say.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“It’s not a total surprise,” he says, “considering how you’ve been struggling.”
“It took Monica to intervene, point out how stressed and rotten I’ve been. I’m not sleeping. Dreaming a lot, but not sleeping.”
I blow my nose. I sense a cold emerging. My throat already raw from a night’s worth of dry coughing.
“I’m sorry,” Mohsin says, scanning the room. “Let’s order. Then we’ll talk.”
In pursuit of the Pretty Freckled Waitress I too glance around the room, but it appears she is not here today. Maybe she’s got the day off, I think, picturing her on the back of some boyfriend’s motorbike, her strawberry curls catching the wind.
“I can’t get up in the mornings,” I begin.
“That’s not like you.”
“Find myself making all manner of excuses not to go to work. Just like when Clara died.”
“I see.”
A pause.
“So maybe it’s nothing to do with your practice,” he says, fingering his tie—a Windsor knot. “Maybe it’s you. What’s going on, Daniel?”
“I wanted to drink last week,” I say.
“Sorry,” he says firmly. “Not an option.”
A waitress finally arrives at our table. Pretty, but not freckled.
“Large bottle of sparkling mineral water, please. Two glasses. Thank you,” Mohsin orders.
The waitress nods and walks away.
“Were I to refer Alexa on, what would be the protocol?”
“Just Alexa?”
“I feel she needs specific analysis.”
He squints at me, notes a flicker in my lower lip.
“What’s really troubling you?”
“I just don’t feel equipped.”
“Go on.”
“I should let someone else take care of her. I’m too involved. Too attached. Part of me wants to go to the Electra and—”
He sighs. “So now you’re some vigilante shrink?”
“I should refer her on to someone else, probably a woman.”
“That’s not the answer.”
“I feel impotent.”
“Literally? Or metaphorically?”
“The latter. And just with her, I might add. I have fifteen patients, most of them steady and improved. But with Alexa, it’s different. This crippling disorder of hers, it’s too much.”
“It could be harmful if you give up on her now.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You’re more than equipped to do this piece of work. You’re tired. She’s traumatized. What’s happening with your countertransference?”
“I feel both powerless, ineffective, and without agency.”
“That’s three.”
“Sorry?”
“You said both, then gave three.”
“Oh. Well, mostly powerless.”
“Which is how Alexa feels, only a hundred times more. Listen to your countertransference. It’s the best tool you have, apart from that big brain of yours. Remember, we can read as much as we like and consider ourselves incredibly clever with interpretations and insight, but in the end it’s authentic feeling and countertransference that informs the work. A direct result, a window into the patient’s unconsciousness.”
A pause.
“Look. Alexa’s inability to control her desire and the course of her life is a moral problem. One might say her pathology is political. You need to make her aware of this.”
The waitress arrives with our water. Lands two glasses and pours.
“What would you like?” she asks, taking out her notepad and pen.
“The crab,” Mohsin answers. “Times two.”
“Very good,” she says, turning on her heel.
“You were saying?” I ask.
“You need to make her aware of her pathology.”
“I agree. But it’s when I’m faced with Dolly, her youngest personality, that I unravel. She’s so vulnerable.”
“And what does that say about you? Your inner boy? Maybe there are some things you need to work through?”
I nod, agreeing.
“I miss Clara and I barely see my mother,” I say, a swell of sadness finding my throat. “And now Monica wants a baby.”
“Quite a trio.”
I nod again, sipping the bubbly water.
Mohsin places his palm on my wrist.
“You’re overwhelmed. Flooded.”
I feel myself wanting to cry but hold back, fearful Mohsin will become exasperated with me. Instead I reach for my briefcase, the distraction soothing my hurt.
“Alexa left these at reception for me, just before my holiday,” I say, offering him the manila envelope.
To Mr. Talky,
I drew these for you. Love, Dolly
Mohsin smiles.
The first picture is of an orangutan. A large, scrawly but immensely accurate line drawing. Its markings with an amber-colored pencil capturing the swinging ape almost perfectly. Long hair blowing, the orangutan hangs from two beetling vines. I note the intense concentration that has gone into its face, particularly the eyes. The second picture is of a gibbon, again drawn with tremendous detail. Its sinewy arm stretched toward what appears to be a thick rope. The third is of a rhesus and her baby—mother and child—both resting with the aid of hunched legs and open palms, their arms clinging protectively. While it’s not as accurate as the orangutan and the gibbon, I favor this one most, which I imagine is due to my respect for psychologist Harry Harlow and his observations of the wire-monkey mothers, his discoveries changing how we understand early attachment.
“She’s talented, this younger part. Creative.” Mohsin smiles, placing mother and child on top of the other two.
“The drawings are representative of her loss,” I say, “her mother in particular.”
“I see. And what about her stepmother, Anna?”
“I suggested Alexa ask her for help with her medication, which she was open to.”
“Good. You could even schedule a call with Anna, maybe.”
“Really? Might that not jeopardize trust between Alexa and me?”
“Mm, possibly. Have it as a backup plan, then.”
I picture Alexa clinging to a surrogate wire monkey mother, realizing she was instead thrown to wolves.
“Look, no one said this work is easy,” he says, handing back the manila envelope.
“I know.”
“And there are certainly easier ways to earn a living.”
“So it seems.”
Mohsin loosens his tie and leans back.
“Intervention is needed,” he says. “Clear your mind. Sooner or later you need to make some decisions. All this conflict with Monica—it’s impinging on your wo
rk and well-being. If you don’t want another child, tell her. If you do, then great. But try to level out. Visit your mother. Figure out what you want. Regarding Alexa: You’ve been colluding with her neurosis, allowing her to act out with little challenge. All this evidence gathering and risky behavior—it has to stop. She’s repeating a pattern of abuse and needs to extricate herself from that club and anyone who’s associated with it. While she continues to be involved she remains in trauma time, not real time. Encourage her to cut contact. And quick.”
I pause. “So more intervention.”
“Precisely.”
58
Alexa Wú
“I’m so happy you’re back,” I purr.
He clears his throat.
“Runner wasn’t,” he says, looking at the small hole in my stocking above my knee. “Neither were the Fouls. They gave me a list of ways they’d like to hurt me.”
“I know,” I say, crossing my legs, shame needling in, “I was watching from the Nest.”
He stares. Scanning, I imagine, for clues to who I am today, or perhaps whether Runner is close by.
“You were watching?” he says.
I nod.
“Runner made me rest with a headache. But I didn’t know she was going to be so mean to you. I’m sorry.”
He waits. “Does that happen a lot, you acting as a bystander?”
His challenge surprises me.
“It’s not that simple, Daniel,” I defend. “Sometimes I’m just too exhausted or stressed to do anything. All the switching makes my head hurt. And your going away really upset me, so the Flock had to take over.”
“I see.”
Silence.
“So how have you been?” he asks.
I yawn quietly. “Tired,” I say.
“Trouble sleeping?”
“A little,” I add, stroking the rose quartz pendant at my throat, Oneiroi, although fatigued, longing to take over the Body. “I’ve been waking around three, unable to get back to sleep.”
I’ve missed him most, Oneiroi pleads. Let me out.
“Sounds like insomnia,” Daniel says.
I pause.
“We missed you,” I eventually say.
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