Beverly proceeded to answer questions about her full name, address, age, and history of sleep disorders.
Janie looked up at the sound of Beverly hanging up the phone. "Well?"
"I've got an appointment tomorrow night."
"Awesome!"
"Well, we'll see what happens."
Chapter 2
The following night, Beverly drove to the Somnos Sleep Clinic. The building reminded her a little bit of the office where she worked as an intern in college. She looked up at the water tower that rose above the parking lot and chuckled. "Here's hoping we don't get an earthquake," she said to her reflection in her rear view mirror as she parked her car.
Retrieving her overnight bag from the trunk of her car, she slowly walked into the building. She made a note of the tasteful, yet somewhat boring decorations as she strode up to the receptionist's window. "You must be Beverly," the receptionist said the moment Beverly was close enough to hear.
"Um, yes."
"I spoke with you yesterday. It's so good to see you could make it. If you could just fill these out, we'll be with you in a moment."
The receptionist slid a clipboard with a pen and a couple of forms underneath the window. Beverly took the papers and the clipboard over to a seat in the corner of the waiting room and began to complete the paperwork.
The forms started out somewhat innocuous: it asked for her name, address, and insurance information. From there, it started asking about medical history, past surgeries and extended-duration hospitalizations.
She paused to recall the timing of when she had had her wisdom teeth extracted and, during that pause, a woman wearing sunglasses and an overcoat, strode into the clinic, an overnight bag swinging from her shoulder.
The receptionist cheerfully said, "It's good to see you back here, Melissa."
"It's good to be back. I'm not running late, am I?"
"Not at all. Just go right back. You'll be in room number 3 tonight."
"Thank you."
Melissa walked through a door in the back of the waiting room.
Beverly mused that, if Melissa was any indication, then the enthusiasm of the patients was a plus for this clinic. She was seventeen when her wisdom teeth were removed and she figured that would be good enough for the form.
After that, Beverly filled in a free-form section that described her current complaints regarding her issues with her sleep. Below that was a series of questions that felt like they were becoming too personal:
*Which of the following do you consider a source of stress in your life? Check all that apply. *
The options were listed in two columns below the question:
-- Job
-- Lack of job
-- Current romantic relationship
-- Lack of current romantic relationship
-- Sex life
-- Lack of sex life
-- Health worries
-- Family issues
-- Money/Expenses
-- Political issues
-- Legal issues
-- Other
The blank lines next to the issues pertaining to family, politics, legalities, and "other" implied that Beverly would need to elaborate on the specifics if she chose them.
Beverly checked "Job" and "Lack of current romantic relationship." She decided against checking "Lack of sex life" as a source of stress; she figured that the lack of the romantic relationship implied that she wasn't getting laid with any regularity.
The next question also struck her as somewhat unusual: *Do you consider yourself politically liberal, conservative, or moderate?* She checked the box next to the word 'moderate.'
The next question asked, *If you were to die today, would you go to heaven, hell, or somewhere else? Explain your answer.*
She looked up at the receptionist when she saw this question. The receptionist was typing something into her computer. The truth was, she hadn't really thought about it since she was a little girl. She didn't care if the doctor thought it was a cop-out, but she decided to answer this question by writing "That depends upon your definitions of heaven and hell."
*How long has it been since the last time you had sexual relations with another person?*
Beverly really didn't feel comfortable answering questions like this. They already knew that she wasn't in a romantic relationship; did she need to go into the details of her current needs? She stood up and strode cautiously over to the receptionist, who looked up as Beverly approached the window.
"Yes?"
"There's ... some questions here that I, um, would rather not answer."
"That's all right. You can skip any questions you don't like."
She eyeballed the remainder of the questions and decided she didn't want to go into any details about her masturbation habits, homosexual encounters, or past drug use. She was fine saying that she doesn't take any illegal drugs now, but they had no right to ask about which drugs she had experimented with more than ten years before.
"Here you go, then." Beverly put the clipboard down on the counter somewhat harder than she had meant to do.
"You hold on to it until Dr. Dunleavy comes in. I'll let him know you're ready."
"Thanks."
She sat back down and began thumbing through a seven-month old newsmagazine. She mused that reading old news articles effectively accomplished two things: first, for those articles about matters that actually interested her when they happened, she decided that she already knew more than what was reported in the magazine. Second, for those articles about matters she didn't care about initially, her sense of apathy had not waned any in the time that followed.
She quickly found her way to a review of a disaster movie. She chuckled as she read the closing paragraphs of the review: "At one point, someone looks up at the mountain and asks his neighbor, 'Is it going to blow?' You bet. And so will the volcano."
"Is something funny?"
Beverly jumped at the sound of a man's voice behind her. "Oh! Um... Nothing. I was just..."
"Just waiting for me to show up. Good evening. My name's Dr. Conor Dunleavy. Research that I performed in graduate school led me to open this clinic a little bit over a year ago now. I trust you're comfortable."
"Yes. Thank you very much." She absentmindedly ran her hand over the handle of her luggage.
"May I see your paperwork?"
"What? Oh, um.. Sure." She handed the clipboard to the doctor and watched as he quickly flipped through some of the pages she had filled out.
"Mmm hmmmmm... All right." He looked up and put the clipboard down to the side. Smiling warmly, he leaned closer to her and said, "Beverly, I'm not going to ask you to go into any more detail about those matters on the questionnaire that you chose not to answer. But I want you to understand that, once you go through that door, you will not be leaving here until the morning. So did those questions on the form make you uncomfortable?"
"Uncomfortable? I just don't want my sexual history that, um, visible, even if it is within your own files."
"That seems fair. Now I have to warn you of one thing, Beverly. This isn't in the paperwork and I certainly won't write this down. But it might be reason enough for you to decide you don't want to take advantage of my services here." He leaned in conspiratorially, and, in a tone just louder than a whisper, told her, "A lot of my clients report that they have very vivid, very sexual, very erotic dreams. I guess, by the loosest definitions of the word, this can be a side-effect of the treatment."
Beverly, who was feeling simultaneously exhausted and anxious to see if this trial would actually work, took a moment to process this information.
"Erotic dreams?"
"Yes. I'm not entirely sure why it happens, but too many people have told me this to doubt that it's related to my treatment. I sometimes wonder if some of my repeat customers are just faking their sleep-related issues just to be hooked up to one of my machines. Knowing that this could happen with you, you have two choices. First, you can come back with me an
d I'll help you sleep again." He gestured towards the door through which Melissa had walked when she first came in. "Or you can take your bag, go home, and we go our separate ways, never to see each other again in a setting like this."
Beverly considered the doctor's comments and said, finally, "All right, doctor. You can count me in."
"Great! Let's get started." The doctor held the door open and gestured for Beverly to walk through.
Chapter 3
Dr. Dunleavy escorted Beverly to a small room in the middle of a long, dimly lit corridor. Beverly stepped into the room and assessed it: a comfortable-looking bed without a headboard or footrests. Nightstands on either side of the bed. A small desk lamp on one of the nightstands. A couple of plants on the windowsill. A small sink in the corner of the room.
"This is the room where your insomnia will end. I'll leave you for a minute while you get changed into your sleepwear."
Before Beverly could respond, the doctor had left Beverly alone and closed the door.
After Beverly stepped out of her shoes, she threw her overnight bag onto the bed, opened it, and pulled out a pair of pink satin pajamas. She turned back to the door to confirm that it was, in fact, closed, before she got changed.
Not knowing how long she would have before the doctor returned, she quickly walked over to the sink and began to brush her teeth. As she was brushing her teeth, she heard a knock on her door.
"May I come in?"
She quickly spit out the frothy mixture of toothpaste, saliva, and the remnants of the food she had eaten throughout the day, and called, "Come in!"
Dr. Dunleavy wheeled a small machine into her room.
Beverly took a drink of water from a dixie cup and put her toothbrush down on the sink.
"Would you mind please putting this on?" He pulled a piece of fabric out of a small bag that he had brought into the room with the machine.
She took the fabric and stretched it between her hands for a minute, not entirely sure what to do with it.
"I'm sorry," the doctor said, smiling. "Please wear it like a headband. You see that darker square on the one side? Try and center that on your forehead roughly between your eyes."
"Oh. Okay."
She quickly put on the headband and adjusted it so that the square was over her forehead.
Dr. Dunleavy lifted the machine off of his wheeled cart and onto one of the nightstands. "Is that comfortable? Too tight? Too loose?"
"It's ... a little tight but not too uncomfortable."
He reached forward and adjusted the headband with his thumbs.
"Better?"
"I guess. Thank you."
"Sleep is all about comfort. Now. Let me explain to you what's going to happen. After you lie down in bed, I'm going to turn this machine on. The machine will emit radio waves at a special frequency. You won't hear it, but it will get picked up by a specially designed microchip in your headband. That's where the dark spot is. As it receives the waves, it'll send a little pulse into your head, stimulating the part of your brain that regulates your need for sleep. I usually ask my patients to count backwards from ten, slowly." He paused before adding, with a chuckle, "I've never had anyone make it all the way to one.
"And then you'll sleep the rest of the night. When you wake up in the morning, you'll feel like your old self again. Your body and your mind will be fully rested."
"But I'm going to have dreams about sex," Beverly giggled.
"Most likely, yes. It's not a given but that does seem to be the rule. Pretty much everyone says that's a small price to pay for as restful a sleep as you can have."
"I ... I guess I agree with that. As long as I don't have to... you know... talk about the dreams in the morning."
"Tell you what. You'll only have to tell me about your dreams if they're not sexual. How's that sound?"
"All right, I guess."
"Great! Would you mind please getting into bed? Is it comfortable?"
"The mattress is soft enough, that's true, but could I please get another blanket? It's a little bit colder in here than I'd hoped."
"Sure!" He quickly retrieved a blanket from the bottom of his cart and spread it out above her body. "That better?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"All right. Unless you have any more questions, I'm going to turn on your machine."
"I think I'm good for now."
"Great. Now if you'll just lie back and put your hands by your sides."
Beverly felt a little bit nervous and a little bit skeptical that this headband would somehow help her fall asleep after the failure so many other supposed "cures" for her insomnia, but she recognized her own desperation and saw no harm in arguing or worrying about this point.
Dr. Dunleavy leaned over to the machine and pressed a couple of buttons. The machine made a dull whirring sound as it started up.
"Now. Can you count backwards, slowly, from ten?"
Beverly took a deep breath and softly muttered, "Ten."
She felt no different when she said "Nine" or "Eight."
When she said the number "Seven," however, she felt all of the tension slowly leave her lower back and her shoulders. She turned her head slightly but the sheer comfort of the situation made her decide to allow whatever was about to happen, to happen.
"Six." She suddenly felt like she needed to close her eyes and, once again, she did not fight the feeling she received in her body.
"Five." She felt a tiny bead of saliva slide out of her mouth and down her cheek. She felt no desire to move her hands to wipe her mouth.
"Four." Her body had become so relaxed, so calm, so tired, that she started to slur her speech with this number.
"Thr..." before she could get out the sounds of the number 'three', she had drifted into a deep sleep and started snoring.
"Very good, Beverly." The doctor lifted her hand and released it. As it flopped back down onto the bed by her side, he grinned. He added, "Very good, Beverly" as he walked out of her room.
Chapter 4
Dr. Dunleavy walked over to the receptionist and asked, "How many patients do we have tonight, Aileen?"
"A full house, sir. Stewart, Roger, and Melissa are returning patients, and Beverly is a new patient."
"Are they all here?"
"Yes, sir. Melissa was the last to arrive, but she got herself set up and she's been asleep now for about ten minutes."
"Did Beverly see any of them?"
"She was in the waiting room when Melissa arrived. Considering the way Melissa hurried in, and the way she was dressed, I doubt Beverly got much of a look at Melissa's face."
"Good."
"I know Beverly's in room 1. Does that mean Melissa's in room 3?"
"Yes. And Roger's in room 2."
"Got it. So how have you decorated the central hall tonight?"
"Why don't you go see for yourself?"
"Do we have to play this game every night?"
"Do you have to ask every night? I'd think you'd need more details than anything I might say about what I did. You'd need to, um, see my handiwork firsthand, wouldn't you?"
"And I would check it out anyway. I'd just like ... to, uh, you know. Know what your theme is before I walk in there."
"So you admit to me that you have other ways of finding out."
"Of course I do. I'd just think that you'd want to tell me."
"Blame my upbringing."
"I always do, Aileen. I always do." He turned on his heels and strode to the central hall. The moment he opened the door, he smiled broadly. "Now this looks like it'll be a lot of fun for our four patients tonight."
He looked up at one of the cameras that monitored activity in this room and gave his receptionist a "thumbs up" sign.
Glancing at his watch, he recognized that he had about ten minutes to kill before Beverly would be ready, so he returned to his office and decided to play a few games of solitaire on his computer.
After losing two straight games, the young doctor glanced at his watch
and realized it was time. He launched an application on his computer and stared at a few lines of encoded information in green text against a black background.
As he continued to type, he made a point of glancing out of his door and into the corridor. Melissa slowly walked past his office, her back completely straight, her eyes fixed straight ahead. She was wearing a gray bathrobe.
After Melissa was out of sight in the hallway, Dr. Dunleavy glanced at a closed-circuit television camera monitor. After a few moments of watching an empty room, he smiled as Melissa appeared in the monitor. From what he could tell, her face was expressionless, eyes barely open. He typed a few commands on his computer and Melissa strode over to a table near the wall. She then picked up one object and held on to it.
"Perfect, Melissa. Absolutely perfect," he whispered.
*****
Once the first commands had registered in the computer, Beverly let out a gasp. She sat upright in her bed, turned so that her feet hung over the edge, and stood up.
Chapter 5
Beverly's sleeping body moved of its own volition. Her hand moved inside of her pajama top and, in a sweeping gesture, unbuttoned all of the buttons, before both hands hung limply by her side.
She swayed slightly in a few different directions and the smooth fabric of her nightshirt fell off behind her, revealing her breasts to the darkened room.
She continued swaying until she landed gently back onto her bed. Her hands moved to the pieces of elastic that kept her pajama bottom and her underwear on at her hips. Stretching both articles of clothing with her thumbs, she lowered them to her knees and stood up again.
Her legs then started moving in an almost march-like stride. In no time, the remainder of her clothes had fallen gently to her ankles and then onto the floor.
Once naked, she held out both of her hands in front of her and marched out of her room, down the hallway, and into the central hall.
Melissa had been waiting in the central hall ever since her own nocturnal wanderings had taken her to this point. The only clothing she had been wearing was the gray bathrobe, which now lay at her feet.
Beverly stopped a little bit over an arm's length away from Melissa. Once she stopped walking, Beverly opened her mouth and raised the back of her long hair above her head.
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