I nodded. Purse in lap, hands folded, knees together, ankles crossed, lean forward a little. Look enthralled.
“Usually the strong presence of the mother prevents you from realizing any fantasies you might have about possessing the father. Which, of course, if realized would be terrifying.”
I nodded five times to show I understood completely.
“In your particular case your mother’s inadequacies, which you fully perceived, and which you knew from observation that your father perceived as well, made the actual attainment of the father frighteningly possible.”
“Not in fact,” I said.
“No, not in the phenomenological fact, but to your unconscious, a very real possibility.”
I nodded some more. The light was dawning.
“So while you very much wanted and needed your father’s care and love, you learned that you had to keep him at arm’s length, and invented away of doing so.”
“And I transferred that push-pull to my relationship with all men.”
“Exactly,” Melvin said and sat back a little while I thought about it.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, that’s right. I know it is. I know it not just rationally but, but…”
“Somatically,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
We were quiet for a moment, then he let his chair come forward and leaned toward me a little with his forearms resting on the arms of the chair, and his hands clasped in front of him.
“To break that pattern,” he said, “you need to trust a man, entirely. Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said. “What I want you to do is lie on the couch for me.”
I stared at him for what seemed the right amount of time, then, without a word, I stood and went and put my purse on the floor beside the couch and lay down. Richie Burke, Richie Burke, Richie Burke.
“Good,” he said. “Now can you disrobe for me?”
“Disrobe?”
“Yes.”
I was looking at the ceiling. It had been plastered with repetitive circular swirls.
“All… all the way?” I said.
“Yes.”
“I… Doctor… I… Why do you want me to disrobe?”
“You need to trust me,” he said.
“But I’m too embarrassed.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s understandable. Let me give you something to relax you.”
“Relax?”
“Yes. You’ll be awake. You’ll know everything that happens but it will make you calm and responsive to the therapy.”
“You think I need to do this?” I said.
“If you’re able to do this,” he said, “I think we can break this circle of ambivalence once and for all, tonight!”
I was still for a time, looking at the ceiling swirls. Then I took in a long breath.
“All right,” I said. “If you think I should.”
“I do.”
“Okay.”
He stood and I heard him moving about the room. While he did that, I poked the Dilazaplin tablet out of the gum and onto my tongue.
“Give me your arm,” he said and I did.
He swabbed a patch with alcohol.
“This won’t hurt,” he said. “Little pinch.”
I felt the needle jab and swallowed my tablet. Melvin’s voice deepened.
“There, just lie quiet, in a short while you’ll feel the relaxation spread slowly through you.”
I lay still. I felt a little shaky in my chest, which was probably tension. Otherwise I felt nothing. He stood quietly watching me. I let my eyelids droop and watched him through the slits. I saw him run the tip of his tongue along the surface of his lower lip.
“How are you?” he said.
I spoke slowly, trying to sound thick-tongued.
“I’m kind of sleepy,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “That’s to be expected. Could you raise your right arm for me?”
I thought of what I had learned about Xactil and its effects. It was enough time. I stirred my arm slightly then let it lie still.
“Can’t,” I said.
“That’s fine,” Melvin said.
His voice was as deep and soothing as butterscotch sauce. Through my slitted eyes I thought his face looked a little moist. Maybe perspiration on his upper lip. He stepped to his desk for a moment and the office door opened and two men came in. I knew it would be Dirk Beals and Barry Clay. It was.
“She all set?” Beals said.
“Yes.”
Clay came and looked down at me.
“How you doing, toots?”
I opened my eyes and looked up at him and said nothing.
“She can hear us,” Clay said.
Melvin said, “Certainly.”
“And see us.”
“Yes.”
“But she can’t move,” Beals said.
“That’s correct,” Melvin said.
The three of them gathered around the couch and smiled down at me. I looked up at them and didn’t move. Melvin’s face was definitely moist. I could hear all three men breathing.
Melvin said, “We have a special treat for you, Sonya.” His voice was husky.
“Lean back,” Beals said, “relax, and enjoy the flight.”
The three men laughed and began to undress. They took off all their clothes, Melvin folding his neatly and putting them on his desk. The other two men let them lay where they dropped. Naked, the three of them formed a semicircle around the couch where I could see them. Being naked didn’t make them look better.
“Three wise men,” Clay said. “Bearing gifts.”
Because I didn’t want to move, I wasn’t entirely sure that I could. But I felt entirely alert, so I was hopeful. I wondered if Richie was close. I knew if I didn’t appear in fifty minutes, that he’d come after me. I’d been in the office maybe twenty minutes. A lot could happen in the next thirty. The three men posed, as it were, arrayed around me. There was something communal in their corruption, as if each helped the other to enjoy the adventure. All for one and one for all.
“Your turn, now, Sonya,” Melvin said.
I shifted my eyes toward him and then to the others. He took the hem of my skirt and pulled it up to my waist. His face was red and sweaty now. The other two men looked flushed as well. All of them were excited. I could feel the tension along every nerve path. My legs felt rigid. So did my shoulders and neck. My chest was tight. I was having trouble getting in enough air.
“Good legs,” Clay said.
“Like a rainy day,” Beals said.
“You want to see them clear up.”
“Badda bing,” Clay said.
Both men giggled.
“It is time,” Melvin said. His voice was very hoarse. “Time to be free, Sonya.”
“Time to get fucked, Sonya,” Beals said.
Melvin looked at his two pals. And smiled.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “If you would.”
He stepped back to watch. It was almost choreographed. They’d done this before. On either side of me, Clay and Beals each hooked a thumb under the waistband of my panty hose. It was as far as I could go. I drove my elbow into Beals’s approximate crotch and rolled off the couch on his side where my purse was.
As loud as I could, I yelled, “Richie.” And took my gun from the purse and held it in both hands and pointed it at Melvin. I felt myself tremble.
Beals hunched over in pain. Clay and Melvin stood as if in a stop-action film frame. The door to Melvin’s office opened and Richie came in with a gun in his right hand and a small videocamera in his left. He looked at me for a long few seconds, then he raised the videocamera and filmed the three men, standing naked.
“You,” he said to Beals. “Look up at the camera.”
Beals remained bent over. Richie put his gun in his holster, stepped carefully behind me, and took a handful of Beals
’s hair. He yanked Beals’s head up and shot ten seconds’ worth of his face in close-up. Then he let him go and stepped back around me.
“You okay?” he said.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“They get far?”
“They pulled my skirt up,” I said.
Richie nodded. “Which one’s Melvin?” he said.
“The distinguished-looking gentleman by the desk, with the silly-looking little penis,” I said.
Richie put the videocamera down on the couch beside me and walked across the room to Melvin. He stopped in front of him, standing so close that their bodies nearly touched. He stared into Melvin’s eyes for a moment. Melvin looked back.
“You don’t understand,” Melvin said. “This is a therapy…”
Richie hit him on the point of the chin with his left hand. It was a short punch, but Melvin fell back over his desk and banged into his swivel chair and sent it rolling across the room. Melvin landed on his side on the floor. I felt the visceral release of it as if I had hit him myself. Richie went to the door and leaned on the jamb and rubbed his knuckles, his eyes on the other two men. Lying naked on the floor, Melvin looked pathetic. He began to whimper.
“I’ll give you money,” Beals said. “I have a lot of money.”
Richie stared at him.
“I have a lot of money,” Beals said.
In a clenched voice, Clay said, “I do too. I’ll give you some, just let us go.”
Richie looked at me. “You want to take their money?” he said.
“No.”
“I’ll testify,” Beals said. “I know all about John. I’ll tell you.”
“He arranged all this,” Clay said.
“The ship appears to be sinking,” Richie said.
“And the rats are leaving,” I said.
“I can tell you everything,” Beals said.
Still holding my gun I went to Melvin’s desk and picked up his phone and dialed a number I had memorized for this moment.
“You’ll have your chance,” I said.
The phone was answered on the second ring. “Homicide.”
“Detective Meyer,” I said. “Norman Meyer.”
Chapter 70
“I need to stay here tonight,” I said to Richie when we got to his place and had spent enough time greeting Rosie so she had settled back down on the couch.
“Sure,” he said.
“Any problem with Carrie?”
“I’ve put Carrie on hold while this was going on.”
We were standing at his big picture window looking at the harbor. Some sort of patrol boat with a blue light on the stern moved silently across the black water.
“Because?”
“Because you needed help.”
“I don’t want to sleep with you,” I said.
“There’s a guest room,” he said.
“It doesn’t mean I never want to sleep with you.”
“I know,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“Vulnerable… dirty… frightened… angry.”
“I would think,” Richie said.
“I feel like I want to stay all coiled in on myself, you know? Like an armadillo.”
“Yes.”
A tanker moved its five-story bulk soundlessly across the harbor headed for the storage terminals along the Mystic River.
“When I was in there, after the shot, I didn’t know if I could really move. You know. I had to keep still to pretend and I didn’t know when it came time to stop pretending…”
“I came up right behind you,” Richie said. “I was in that little room at the top of the stairs. With my ear against the wall.”
“Could you hear?”
“I heard you yell,” Richie said.
I shivered. “And if you didn’t?”
“In twenty-eight more minutes I’d have come in.”
We were both quiet. The tanker moved slowly. It was far away and silent, gliding like something huge and fearful across the nearly motionless water. Richie put his arm around my shoulder.
“You look like Meg Ryan,” he said. “And you’re tougher than my uncle Felix.”
I felt myself shaking a little as if I were cold. I felt cold.
“Sit on the couch with me and Rosie,” I said.
“Sure.”
I sat and put Rosie in my lap. Richie’s shoulder touched mine. He put his arm around my shoulder. I cuddled Rosie. We didn’t speak for a while.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” I said.
“Sure you could. You did. You had them compromised and your gun out when I got there. All I did was take some pictures.”
“And hit Dr. Melvin.”
“And hit Dr. Melvin,” Richie said.
“Whether I needed you to subdue them, I don’t know. Maybe not. But when I was in there and he shot me with the needle and I was on the couch, all I could do was think about you. I kept saying your name. Richie Burke. Like a chant.”
“Backup is good,” Richie said.
“I couldn’t have gone in there without knowing you were close by.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Meaning?”
“Maybe you could have if you had to.”
“I was very scared,” I said.
“Me too,” Richie said.
“For me?” I said.
“I didn’t know what I was walking into.”
“But were you scared for me?” I said. “Specifically.”
Richie nodded slowly in the dim room. “That I’d fail you,” he said. “I was afraid that I’d fail you.”
Chapter 71
Spike sat on the floor of Melanie Joan’s apartment and threw the ball for Rosie. Rosie chased it the length of the big living room and skidded past it and picked it up and trotted back and dropped it in front of Spike and Spike threw it again.
“So what will happen,” Melanie Joan said.
“Well,” I said. “They attempted to restrain me chemically.”
“Even though you weren’t really helpless?”
“Their intent was to hold me against my will. That’s illegal. They exposed themselves to me. That’s illegal. I was administered medication against my will. That’s illegal.”
“But what about the murders? How will you prove the murders? Or when they tried to kill you?”
“The cops and the DA will try to flip somebody,” I said.
“Flip?”
“Bargain with one of them to testify against the others.”
“Will that work?”
“These don’t seem to me like stand-up guys,” I said.
“Will they bargain with John?”
“No.”
“So he’ll go to jail.”
“After Beals and Clay rat him out?” I said. “He’ll be in jail long enough so that you won’t have to worry about him again.”
“Will they let him out on bail or anything?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “A known stalker accused of two murders. We’ll stick with you until we know.”
From the floor, Spike said, “So I guess my days here are numbered.”
“In fact,” I said.
“Does that mean I can stop throwing this fucking dog the fucking ball, soon?” Spike said.
“Shhh, she’ll hear you,” I said.
“Relentless,” Spike said.
He rolled the ball down the carpet again.
“I can be alone,” Melanie Joan said.
“As much as you want,” I said.
Melanie Joan frowned. “I’m not sure I want at all,” she said.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.”
“I know. It’s just that I’ve been afraid so long…”
“You can’t get rid of it,” I said.
“No.”
“You will.”
“Will I see you anymore?” Melanie Joan said. “Or Spike?”
“Of course,” I said. “We’ve become friends, haven’t we?”
“Y
es.”
“Friends see each other,” I said.
Melanie Joan said, “Spike?”
“As long as you don’t start touching me,” Spike said.
Melanie Joan smiled.
“That’s a tough condition,” she said.
“I know,” Spike said.
Rosie dropped the ball in front of him. He didn’t throw it. She picked it up and dropped it again.
“Jesus,” he said and rolled the ball once more across the carpet.
“I’m terrified,” Melanie Joan said.
“Maybe you need to talk with a shrink,” I said.
“That’s what started me being terrified.” Melanie Joan said.
“Think of it as the hair of the dog that bit you,” I said.
Chapter 72
I sat with Dr. Copeland in his office.
“The three of them,” I said. “In a giggling semicircle, showing me their peepees.”
Copeland nodded.
“I’d have been mortified if I were them, they? Whatever. To behave like that in front of friends…”
“Maybe the friends were part of the point,” Copeland said.
“Strength in numbers?” I said.
“It might have been a way to access each other sexually.”
“You mean they wanted to show each other their peepees? And I was just the excuse.”
“That’s a little simple,” Copeland said. “Most actions are driven by more than one thing. But sometimes men with a repressed homosexual urge will have sex with the same woman as a kind of secondhand fulfillment.”
“So the three of them having sex with me would, in a manner of speaking, be like having sex with each other.”
“At least symbolically,” Copeland said.
I thought about that. Copeland waited calmly.
“What about his medical practice?” I said.
“Isn’t he going to jail?” Copeland said.
“Yes. I’m sure he will. But if he gets out earlier than he should. Could he practice psychiatry again?”
“I think we can see to it that he does not,” Copeland said.
“Good,” I said.
Again we were silent. Again Copeland was patient. All the time in the world. If we didn’t get to it this time we’d get to it next time. If there was a next time.
“I couldn’t have done what I did,” I said, “without Richie’s help.”
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