The Girls He Adored

by Jonathan Nasaw

  Max, in a multicolored hibiscus-print Hawaiian shirt and modishly baggy shorts. “Good morning, Irene. Did you sleep well?”

  Did I sleep well? After being kidnapped and nearly raped, did I sleep well? Oh you rotten s.o.b. “Yes, thank you. Did you remember to call somebody about Bernadette?”

  Max smiled reassuringly. “I called the Trinity County Sheriff's Department last night. I had to take the car phone up to the hayloft of the barn to get a signal. By now, Bernadette's probably resting comfortably in the bosom of her family. Are you ready for breakfast?”

  “You know, I think I am.” To her surprise, Irene realized that she was absolutely famished. The good news about Bernadette had restored her appetite.

  The kitchen was wood-paneled, with a hardwood floor, a gorgeous cast-iron wood-burning stove, now fitted with electric burners, and a round-shouldered old Amana refrigerator. The kitchen table was covered with a hand-embroidered linen tablecloth. Maxwell waved Irene to the chair at the head of the table, then opened the oven door and removed a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon.

  “I'll pop some toast in for you,” he said, setting the plate down in front of Irene. She had taken a quick shower and was wearing a rust-colored cotton blouse over a pair of white cotton shorts.

  “Can I ask you a question, Max?”

  “You can ask.” He poured two cups of coffee from an old-fashioned bubble-topped percolator on the stove, then sat down across from Irene.

  “Who was the woman I met last night?”

  “Aw-aw-all in good time, lady.”

  Jimmy Stewart. Max's celebrity impressions seemed to be a coping mechanism for avoiding stressful topics—of which the woman in the mask was apparently one. Irene decided not to press him; she changed the subject. “These eggs are delicious.”

  “They don't get any fresher—I took 'em out of the coop this morning.”

  “Aren't you having any?”

  “We've already eaten—we keep farmer's hours around here.”

  “What do you grow?”

  “Silver bells and cockle shells and— No, I'm kidding. Just a truck garden—and of course the chickens.”

  But Irene's mind had already completed the Mother Goose rhyme Maxwell had abandoned so precipitously. Pretty maids all in a row.

  While Irene finished breakfast, Maxwell set up an impromptu psychiatrist's office in the woods behind the house. He was stoked as he dragged the furnishings up from the basement storeroom and down the path. For years he'd daydreamed about achieving fusion, real mastery over the others, not just sporadic control. And now, his daydream was on the verge of becoming a reality.

  It wouldn't be easy, he knew—it would take work and commitment from both himself and Irene. He'd have to be honest with her, or as honest as their unusual circumstances would permit, and he'd have to allow her access to the others—and vice versa. But if it achieved the desired effect, it would be well worth it.

  And if it didn't work out? Well, he and the others would still have enjoyed the opportunity, for the first time in their lives, of telling their story to a sympathetic, understanding professional. And afterward, no matter how it turned out, they'd all have the luscious Dr. Cogan to share, for however long she lasted.

  It's only therapy, Irene tried to tell herself as Maxwell led her down the dappled path. You've done it a thousand times before.

  Still she was rocked, momentarily disoriented, when she first came in sight of the office he'd set up in the small clearing. A padded Windsor-style myrtlewood chair and a notebook and pen for her, a padded redwood-slatted chaise for himself, a small round three-legged table placed in the angle between the chair and the head of the chaise to hold a box of tissues and an ashtray. A Freudian layout in a Jungian wood. And the sweet smell of the needles, the mushroomy smell of the loam, reminded her sharply of the redwood grove near Lucia, of the pine grove in the Trinities— she understood now that the forest was Maxwell's safe place.

  “Are we missing anything?” he asked her.

  “Some water, perhaps. Therapy can be thirsty work.”

  After fetching a pitcher and two plastic glasses, Maxwell lay down on the chaise. Irene positioned the Windsor chair beside his left shoulder, crossed her legs, and waited with the stenographer's notebook in one hand and a green Uniball pen in the other.

  She wasn't sure at first how to begin. “Do you think you might be up for another regression?” she asked him.

  “NO!” Max's shout echoed through the forest, flushing the crows and jays from their boughs. Then, quietly but firmly: “No more hypnosis.”

  Irene felt the fear coursing through her system—she had been reminded of how vulnerable she was, dealing with a volatile and dangerous multiple without any of the customary safeguards.

  Calmly, calmly: “Of course you don't have to do anything you don't want to, Max. But if we're going to have any chance of success here, the other alters are going to have to be included.”

  “Not a problem—I can take care of it.”

  “Fine. As I said, you don't have to do anything you don't want to. But I do need you to know that hypnosis and regression can be invaluable tools. Perhaps later on we can work out some ground rules, some safeguards you'd be more comfortable with.”

  “Perhaps,” replied Max, with just the trace of a lisp—Irene's old lisp.

  She let it pass. “I just thought of something, Max. I've been acting as if this session were a continuation of an ongoing therapeutic relationship. But this is actually our first session. Which means there's a very important piece of business we need to get out of the way.”

  After a quick conference with Ish (co-consciousness; no switch), Max came up with the answer. “A contract?”

  “A contract.” Not only could behavioral contracts be used to set limits on unhealthy behavior, but by establishing obligations, rewards, and punishments, they could also help nurture an appreciation for cause and effect in multiples who had generally been raised by abusive adults with erratic parenting skills.

  “Can do.” Max closed his eyes and conferenced with both Ish and Mose, who provided him with the contract template in general use among DID therapists. “Okay, here goes:

  “I, Max Maxwell, speaking for all the alters, both known and unknown, comprising the system inhabiting the body known as Ulysses Christopher Maxwell Jr., hereby guarantee the rights and safety of our body, the rights and safety of Dr. Irene Cogan, our therapist, the safety of Dr. Cogan's property, and the safety of the property of all the alters, including any written or taped material they may provide to Dr. Cogan during the course of therapy.”

  “Very good. How about guaranteeing respect for the rights, safety, and dignity of all alters?”

  “On behalf of all alters, both known and unknown, I promise to respect the rights, safety, and dignity of all alters.”

  “And do you have any suggestions for establishing the consequences of contract violations?”

  “Accountable alters to be banished from consciousness for . . . forty-eight hours?”

  “How about a reward for following the guidelines?”

  He thought about it for a moment. “Could we go for a swim later? You and me?”

  Irene thought about it. Compared to some of the things he might have asked for, a swim sounded harmless enough. And unless that structure in the meadow really was a covered swimming pool, he might even intend taking her off the property.

  “Agreed. What I'll need you to do tonight, I'll need you to write up the oral contract we just made. We'll go over the document tomorrow morning, then both sign it. Between now and then—and I'm speaking to all the alters who can hear me now—if any of you can't accept the terms of the contract, you have to speak up now, or consider yourself bound by them until tomorrow morning.”

  Max closed his eyes. He could hear what he called the crowd noise building in his head. Humor her, he told the others. Just humor her. He opened his eyes and turned his head, glanced over his shoulder at Irene. “Looks like w
e're all in agreement.”

  “Excellent. Let's get started. Again, my preference would be a hypnotic regression, but if that's still out of the question, what I need, when you're telling me your history, is to hear in turn from each of the alters involved, rather than have all their experiences filtered through you. Would that be possible?”

  “As long as you don't ask their names directly. Remember, if you do that, they automatically revert to me.”

  “But will they identify themselves? I have to know who I'm speaking with.”

  As if by way of response, Maxwell's eyes rolled up and to the right, and his eyelids fluttered. When they opened again, his lips were slightly pursed, his eye movements quicker.

  “Good morning, Dr. Cogan,” he said. It was a woman's voice. Not a falsetto, not the modified Julia Child vibrato of so many transvestites, but a woman. “My name is Alicea.” A- lyss-ee-ah. “Max wants me to tell you about some things that happened to me when I was a child. Would you like to hear them?”

  “Very much, Alicea. I'd like very much to hear them.”

  And so began one of the strangest and most horrifying tales that Irene Cogan, who'd made a career of listening to strange and horrifying tales, had yet heard.

  54

  THE YEAR IS 1980. A Saturday night. Nine-year-old Alicea is hiding in her bedroom. Or at least wishing she could hide. She knows what's coming—she's been through it before. In a way, it's her job. More than her job: it's her reason for being.

  As nine o'clock approaches, Alicea sneaks out of her room wearing only her underpants and tiptoes down the hall to her parents' bedroom. The door is ajar. She slips inside and locks it behind her, secure in the knowledge that it cannot be opened from the outside—all these years after Lyssy's dream, and the hole in the doorknob is still clogged with Superglue.

  Feeling goosebumpy all over, Alicea strips off her underpants (in the process unconsciously tucking the male genitalia of which she is unaware back between her legs) and with her legs closed stands before the full-length mirror to examine her body. What she sees is very different from what Christopher sees when he examines himself in the mirror. The contours are more rounded, as if there were an extra layer of fat beneath the smoother, moister skin. And the dark hair is longer, the rib cage longer and narrower, the nipples slightly fuller. Best of all is the delicious smoothness between the tightly pressed thighs.

  Nope, no question about it—Alicea, though enough of a tomboy to the eye that no one ever acknowledges her true gender, is a one-hundred-percent all-American thank-heaven-for-little-girls little girl. This is a good thing—she understands that if she were a boy, what she is about to be subjected to would be crushing, absolutely unbearable.

  Reassured, she returns to her room. Downstairs the grown-ups are getting rowdier—the speed and the booze are beginning to kick in. She turns on her radio to drown out the noise. “Another One Bites the Dust,” by Queen. Alicea adores Freddie Mercury.

  As always, Mother opens the door without knocking. Her eyes have that off-center look they get when she's high on meth, as if the irises were oblong and the pupils elongated.

  “I see you're ready, for a fucking change,” says her mother spitefully, though Alicea is nearly always ready when they come for her—sometimes it saves her a beating.

  The grown-ups are waiting for her in the basement. There are four or five of them tonight, all standing back in the shadows except for Carnivean, who sits on his black throne, under the red spotlight, naked save for the short goat horns set wide apart on his forehead.

  When Alicea and her mother reach the bottom of the stairs, Daddy joins them. Like the others except for Carnivean, they're wearing loose-fitting robes. They walk her to the foot of Carnivean's throne. Grandly, rather like the Duchess in Alice in Wonderland, Carnivean gestures for Alicea to open her robe. She does so; he looks her up and down as if he hadn't seen her dozens of times before, nods approvingly, then steps down from the throne and takes her by the hand.

  Her parents move aside; Carnivean leads Alicea over to the divan against the wall. She kneels, bends forward across the soft padded leather. He lifts her crimson cape and flips it over her head, enfolding her in a soft, incongruously private, ruby darkness. She rests her cheek on the back of her crossed hands and tries to tune out the pain.

  Alicea knows of course that outside this basement Carnivean is really Mr. Wandmaker who owns the Harley shop where Daddy works. She also knows she must never say that out loud. Mr. Wandmaker took Daddy in when he was orphaned and taught him to be a mechanic, and where would we be without him? With his clothes on he looks big and powerful, but naked he's just gross fat, with a big hairy belly and saggy boobies like an old woman.

  When she hears him begin to grunt she knows it's almost over—and also that the worst part is about to begin. For now his weight drops down full upon her and the slapping begins—her buttocks, the back of her thighs, her shoulders and head under the cape; the thrusts grow deeper and more frenzied.

  Tonight this final stage seems to go on forever. Alicea feels a funny, pins-and-needles prickling in her head as his weight begins to squeeze the breath out of her. Just before she passes out from lack of air, though, she hears a voice in the darkness—the darkness inside her head, not the darkness under the cape. A man's voice— but not Carnivean's, not Mr. Wandmaker's. A somehow familiar voice, though she's never heard it before.

  Alicea?

  Yes?

  I'm here. I'm going to take care of us now—I'll never let them do this to us again.

  Who are you? she asks.

  Call me Max, says the voice.

  55

  “AND I KEPT MY PROMISE,” said Max, rubbing his fists against his thighs. “They never did that to her again.”

  Irene recognized his voice. She'd missed the switch but observed the grounding behavior. From a purely professional point of view she was fascinated. The birth of an alter—terra incognita in the annals of dissociative identity disorder. “Do you have any sense of where you came from, Max? Where you were before you spoke to Alicea?”

  He turned around in the chaise, amused, detached. “Do you, Irene? Do you know where you came from before you were you?”

  “No—but I'm not an alter.”

  “Neither are any of us, as far as we're concerned.”

  “I don't think I'm following.”

  “Then let me enlighten you.” He sat up and swung his legs casually over the arm of the redwood chaise. “How do you define an alter, Irene?”

  She rattled it off: “‘A dissociated state of consciousness, with a persistent sense of self and a characteristic pattern of behavior and feelings.’”

  “Very good. Here's how I define it: an alter is everybody else in here. All the other personalities, or identities, or whatever you want to call them, who inhabit this body—those are alters. I'm just me, the same as you're just you.”

  “And if I asked any of the others the same question?”

  “You'd get the same answer: ‘I'm me—everybody else in here is an alter.’ ”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Ain't it, though.” Max resumed his supine position on the chaise. “Oh—and by the way, Irene?”

  “Yes?”

  “I'm perfectly aware that Useless and some of the others think I'm a demon.”

  “Why is that, do you think?”

  “Because I made myself known to Alicea while she was getting fucked by a man wearing horns and calling himself Carnivean.”

  “I'm not familiar with the name.”

  “In demonology, Carnivean is the patron devil of lewdness, and his chief joy is enticing humans into obscene behavior.”

  Despite the warmth of the morning, Irene was beginning to feel chilled. Max's behavior while attempting to rape her the previous day, she realized with a mounting sense of horror, was quite similar to Alicea's account of Carnivean's attack on her. Multiples often internalized their persecutors as a way of gaining a semblance of control over tha
t which could not be controlled. Which meant that it was conceivable that on some level Max identified with or embodied Carnivean, that he thought of himself as the patron devil of lewdness and obscene behavior.

  Equally troubling was the degree of Max's control over his alter switching. Irene couldn't recall ever having met a multiple who'd switched alters so easily, or with such eerie sureness. She didn't know exactly what that signified, though, or what it might portend. All she was sure of at the moment was that Ulysses Christopher Maxwell Jr. was like no other multiple she had ever encountered.

  “Irene? Dr. Cogan?”

  “What? Oh, sorry.”

  “You need a break or something?”

  “No—please go on.”

  “Okay—but try to stay with me, hunh? I'm not flapping my gums for the exercise.”

  Max's first act, upon taking possession of the body from Alicea, was to throw his head back with all the force he could summon. A crack, a moan, and the weight was off his back. He flipped the cape off his head and looked over his shoulder. Wandmaker, one of his horns knocked askew, was staggering backward across the basement, cupping both hands to his face, dark blood from his shattered nose dripping from between his fingers.

  Max did not yet know how to engineer a switch without the cooperation of another alter. Consequently, it was Max who endured by far the worst beating the body had ever received from Ulysses Sr., then spent the next twenty-four hours locked in his bedroom closet in severe pain, without food or water. It would have been longer, but Monday was a school day.

  Max knew how to turn both negative experiences into positives, though. He used the time in the closet to convince the others that the helter-skelter anarchy under which they had been living was a thing of the past, and that they would all benefit immensely from the change. Then, on Monday morning, he made sure that his beloved fourth-grade teacher noticed the bruises from the beating.