It had been the first time he'd ever discussed Mary with anyone but the unsympathetic Miss Miller, and although according to the books it was far too early to expect a complete healing, nonetheless he was starting to feel as if the worst was behind him. After all, what did the books know about the resources and capabilities of a state-of-the-art multiple?
But even a fully conscious, next-generation multiple couldn't have done it on his own. Christopher understood that he had Irene to thank for his newfound peace-he realized suddenly that he was in the process of falling head over heels in love with his shrink.
And although he knew what the books would say- transference-he had to remind himself once again that the singles who wrote those books didn't understand what it was like to be a multiple. Falling in love was Christopher's function. It strengthened the system, it vitalized the body.
It also pissed off Max no end-but that was Max's problem. He should have seen this coming-and the fact that he had not indicated to Christopher that Max's control might be weakening, that his long tyrannical reign over the system might at last be coming to an end.
Christopher drove the Cherokee into the cool green darkness of the sally port and closed the gate behind him. The dogs came out to greet him; he roughhoused with them for a few minutes and gave each of them a rawhide chew, then unloaded the dog chow before unlocking the inner gate and driving the Cherokee on through.
After unloading the groceries at the house and stripping off the scraggly gray wig he always wore into town, Christopher drove on to the barn to park the Cherokee, then hurried back up to the house. On his way out of the barn, he noticed a sour smell he hadn't picked up before-probably a dead rodent-but was in too much of a hurry to see his new beloved to look for its origin just yet.
Now that he knew he loved her, he couldn't wait to see Irene. He took the stairs two at a time, pretending not to hear Miss Miller calling to him from her room, and knocked at Irene's door. No answer. He knocked louder, then turned his key in the lock and silently opened the door.
She wasn't there. A quick moment of panic, a glance at the narrow window-then he heard the shower running. He tiptoed into the bathroom and saw her slender body silhouetted through the opaque shower curtain. His erection pressed against his trousers- it took an effort of pure willpower to back out of the room again. After all, he had guaranteed her privacy. And forty-eight hours in the darkness was far too long a time for Christopher to be separated from his beloved.
As Irene, exhausted emotionally from her discovery in the loft and physically from the desperate climb back up to the bedroom, turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, she heard Maxwell calling to her from the hallway.
“Be right there,” she yelled back as she wrapped one towel around her, and a second around her hair. On her way across the bedroom she glanced around to be sure that everything was in order-window closed, sheets and blankets back on the bed- before opening the door.
“I brought you a present,” said Maxwell, stepping past her into the room. He handed her the Strawberry Blonds Forever. “Until your natural color grows out.”
Irene's mind spun trying to work through the permutations of meaning in the gesture-was he readying her for a sacrifice? A love affair? But all other thoughts were driven from her head by Christopher's next statement:
“I see you've been a naughty girl.”
She blanched, turned away, struggled for control of her voice. “What… what do you mean?”
He gestured toward the writing table by the window. “Your lunch-you haven't touched it.”
68
The big bald man in the natty, western-style sport coat with embroidered yokes fore and aft, stiff new boot-cut Wrangler jeans, and shiny, silver-toed Tony Lama boots tipped his new white Stetson to the stewardess as he stepped off the commuter jet in Eugene, Oregon.
Pender's new look was not intended as a disguise. He was counting on the probability that the FBI would not embarrass itself by issuing a BOLO for one of its own agents. But as Alvin Ralphs had pointed out, a man with a brand new El Patron had certain standards to live up to-why not let somebody else be the worstdressed agent in the FBI for a change?
On his way out of the store, Pender had revisited his transformed reflection in the window-he now stood nearly six-ten from the soles of his new boots to the tip of his high-crowned hat.
“I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy,” he'd said to himself sotto voce. The new height took a little getting used to, though- he knocked his hat off going through the terminal doors.
Pender had used his own credit card for the flight. Arriving in Eugene late Monday afternoon, after the weekend car rentals had been returned and washed, Pender had his pick of the fleet. Again using his own credit card, he selected a sporty-looking Dodge Intrepid with barely enough leg room for him and clearance for his new hat, purchased a set of maps, and set off for Umpqua County.
It was full dark by the time he reached the county seat. Founded during the gold rush of the 1850s, Umpqua City, a mining town until the gold was gone, a logging town until the forests were decimated, was now struggling to reestablish itself as a tourist destination. Pender booked a room at the Old Umpqua Hotel, a threestory yellow brick establishment across the street from the Umpqua County Courthouse, and catty-corner from the Old Umpqua Pharmacy. After a long shower, he treated himself to a salmon dinner in the hotel's Umpqua Room-wood-paneled walls, white tablecloths, and waiters wearing sleeve garters.
When he got back to his room, Pender turned off his cell phone and sky pager before climbing into bed. For anyone else it might not have been that big a deal, but for Pender, it meant that for the first time in over a quarter of a century, he was beyond the reach of the bureau.
69
Irene dined alone, locked in her room again that night. Christopher would have preferred to eat with her, but he knew better than anyone how dangerous it could be to ignore Miss Miller for too long. This way when Miss M complained about being locked in her bedroom all afternoon, he could at least point out that Irene was still locked in hers.
There was, however, zero chance of Miss M receiving a visit from Peter that evening. Christopher had other plans for the body. After dinner he and Miss Miller did the washing up together, visited Freddie Mercury and his flock, and sat together on the front porch watching the sun set behind Horned Ridge, the two-pronged peak to the west.
But when that sun was gone, so was Christopher. Irene was sitting at the writing table composing a second haiku when she heard the knock. She glanced quickly over her poem Sunset on Scorned Ridge
Strawberry Blonds Forever
I don't want to die.
— then closed her notebook and slipped it under the top of the escritoire.
“Yes?”
“It's Christopher-may I come in?”
“Can it wait till morning?”
He hadn't expected that. “I just wanted to say good night.”
Irene decided she might as well test him now as later. “Good night, then.”
“I want to come in.”
“Christopher, we have a contract. You've agreed to respect my rights. As I'm sure you're aware, DID therapy can be as exhausting for the therapist as for the patient. I'd really appreciate a little space tonight-then I'll see you in the morning, fresh and rested and ready to go.”
On the other side of the door, Christopher was in a quandary. He felt a nearly overwhelming desire to let Max or one of the others have her-as long as it wasn't Lyssy, at least he'd be able to access the memory. Then he realized that the urging was probably coming from Max.
Irene put her ear to the door-she could hear him breathing. “Good night, Christopher,” she said, trying to put a kindly, caring inflection on it.
“Good night, Irene.” Then, in a whisper: “I'll see you in my dreams.”
Miss Miller is half asleep. Her bedroom door opens, then closes again softly. “Ulysses?” She stirs from her junkie nod as he climbs into bed besid
e her.
“Sshh.” Christopher, as opposed to Max or Peter, hasn't made love to Miss Miller since he was a boy, but Irene has left him no choice-for Christopher, the drying shed is no longer an attractive option.
Miss M is lying on her back. He can see too much of what's left of her unmasked profile; his erection is rapidly dwindling. Hastily he shuts his eyes, nudges her over onto her side, facing away from him, and works her nightgown up to her shoulder blades. Her back is unscarred-as he traces a line down her spine and fondles her cheeks, he can just about persuade himself that it is Irene's long, slender ass he's fondling. The erection stirs again. Rather than break the spell by attempting to enter her from behind, he flips it up, trapping it between his belly and her butt, and begins rubbing himself frantically against her.
“Oh, Ulysses,” she drawls coquettishly. She's mildly aroused, drugged out, and amused. “Just like the old days.” She means the frotteurism.
“Sshh.” He hushes her again-that voice will spoil everything- and shuts his eyes even tighter, as if that will shut out the voice. “Don't talk. Please don't talk.”
Now the room is silent except for the silky, rhythmic whisper of the sheets. Five minutes, ten minutes- wshhh, wshhh, wshhh, wshhh. Then a moan, and it's over.
“Thank you,” says Christopher.
No response-just Miss Miller's steady, raspy breathing. She appears to have fallen asleep.
“Thank you, come again sssometime,” he replies for her, in Irene's voice, so as to prolong the fantasy. Then he chuckles silently, wipes himself on the tail of her silken nightgown, and slides backward out of the bed, carefully avoiding any further contact with that dreadful body.
70
After growing up in sunny San Jose, Irene Cogan found she rather enjoyed fog-if you didn't, you didn't settle in Pacific Grove. There were few things she and Frank liked better than having coffee and cinnamon rolls in bed on a foggy Sunday morning. Two newspapers, the Monterey Herald and the San Jose Mercury News, spread out across the comforter, a silent football or basketball game on the bedroom TV for Frank, the radio tuned to classical music for Irene, and through the second-story window, the silver fog drifting lazily through the boughs of the great live oak in the front yard.
The fog on Scorned Ridge, however, was a different creature, oppressive, damp and cold and heavy. When Irene opened her eyes shortly after dawn on Tuesday morning, it seemed to her to be pressing up against the bedroom window, as if seeking a crack through which it could gain entry. She pulled the blankets over her head and tried to go back to sleep.
Some time later, she couldn't say how long, Irene found herself sitting on the toilet with her nightgown hiked up and no memory of having entered the bathroom in the first place. She tried to tell herself that it was funny, or at least ironic, that under stress the DID specialist should find herself displaying symptoms of a dissociative disorder, but it wasn't-it wasn't funny at all.
What it was, was a wake-up call. She spent the next hour sitting at the writing table going through her notebook, looking for some weakness, some crack in Maxwell's system, that she could exploit in the guise of therapy. According to her notes, little Lyssy seemed to be the only alter with whom Max and the others did not share memory.
But Max had already informed her that Lyssy was unavailable. Even if Max were lying, Lyssy could only be accessed through hypnosis, which would require Max's cooperation. And if she did access Lyssy, she would still be dealing with a weak, infantile personality who couldn't do her much good, unless he knew how to shut off the power to the electric fence, which seemed unlikely.
Mose, though-Mose would know how to shut off the power. He'd tell her, too. But unlike Lyssy, Max and the MTP did share memory-they might even have some sort of co-consciousness or copresence setup, in which case Max would know the moment Mose told her.
Alicea was a possibility, if Irene could establish some sort of sisterhood connection. But even if Alicea agreed to help Irene, Max could easily seize consciousness from her.
Christopher, though-what was it Christopher said yesterday? When he was in love, his personality was strong enough to threaten Max's control. That was why Max hadn't warned him about Miss Miller.
When he was in love. In love. In love…
Irene found herself in the bathroom again. Not sitting on the toilet this time, but standing in front of the sink, staring alternately at the box of Strawberry Blonds Forever on the stainless steel shelf, and her reflection in the mirror behind it.
For the first time in years, Christopher had been in control as Maxwell fell asleep, and stayed in control long enough to enter REM sleep. In the beginning of his dream he was down at the swimming hole with Mary. Below the dark green surface of the water, she had slipped the top of her bathing suit down for him; her nipples were puckered and hard from the cold.
By the time the dream ended, though, she wasn't Mary anymore- she had somehow turned into Irene. Which was fine with Christopher. He slipped from REM back into stage-two sleep with a peaceful smile on his face and an erection substantial enough to prevent him from turning onto his stomach for several more minutes.
But it was Max who awakened in the body the next morning. As always, he recalled, indirectly, as if he'd seen it in a movie, everything that had happened while Christopher and Useless and the others had been in control. He understood immediately what was going on. Not only was Christopher gaining power and influence from the therapy, but the other alters seemed strengthened as well. Exactly the opposite of the results he'd hoped for-he vowed to put a stop to it.
“Not… guh… happen,” he muttered aloud. “Wouldn't be prudent.” A pedestrian George Bush impression, not up to his usual standards.
By ten o'clock, when the knock came at Irene's door, the fog had burned away-it was another gorgeous day in the southern Cascades.
“Just a minute.” Irene checked her reflection in the mirror, primped up her slightly damp strawberry blond hair, and opened the door. She couldn't tell at first which alter she was dealing with, but whichever one it was, he was momentarily struck dumb. She prompted him: “Well, what do you think?”
He whistled softly-he couldn't take his eyes off her. “I think my dreams just came true.”
It's Christopher, she decided. Thank you, Jesus. “It's a little dark, but it'll probably lighten up as it dries.”
“It's perfect.”
“Thank you. By the way, I wanted to apologize for last night, for not letting you in to say good night. The truth is, I had the impression you might be going through some transference, and well, the real truth is, I was going through some countertransference myself.”
“Now my dreams really are coming true.”
“We can't act on it-surely you understand we can't act on it.”
“Of course not.”
She could see the hurt in his eyes. “At least not yet,” she added hastily. “We still have a lot more work to do.”
“I understand,” he said sweetly. But although the voice was Christopher's, for just a moment there, Irene could have sworn she saw a flicker of Max's sardonic expression gazing back at her from behind those gold-flecked brown eyes.
“Is there anything that's happened since our last session that you need to discuss?”
It was slightly chillier in the forest this morning than it had been the two previous days. Maxwell wore a bulky brown-and-white Oaxacan sweater over his hula shirt and shorts. Irene wore a cranberry-colored cardigan from the closet over a short-sleeved blouse and a pair of white ducks.
“Other than falling in love with my therapist?” He glanced over his shoulder, gave her that Christopher grin.
Irene forced herself to smile back. “We can start there if you'd like-but I'd have to give you my standard speech on transference.”
“Something that happened while I was in town, then.”
“Yes?”
“We must have had a spontaneous alter switch-I don't think anybody noticed. I found myself in the Old Umpq
ua Feed Barn.”
“Where you originally met Mary.”
“Right. But what I wanted to tell you-as far as I can remember, it was the first time I was back there since, I guess since she died, that I didn't feel an overwhelming sense of guilt.”
“What did you feel?”
“Sadness. But a peaceful sadness-like I'm finally starting to put all that behind me.”
“Sounds like progress. Anything else?”
“Not off the top of my head.”
“All right then, let's move on. Yesterday, before you started telling me about Mary, you said something I need to ask you about.”
“What's that?”
“You said something about Mary being the first one.”
“No, I didn't.”
“I distinctly remember-”
“Max said that.”
“I see. What do you think he meant by it?”
“I'll tell you later. First I have a present for you.” From the deep pocket of his sweater he removed a small packet: gilt wrapping paper folded into a rectangle and secured with transparent tape. “Happy anniversary.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don't tell me you don't remember?” Genuine disappointment, even a hint of anger.
Desperately, Irene searched her memory. Finally it came to her. “It's our one-week anniversary. We met one week ago today.”
“I knew you couldn't have forgotten.” He handed it to her. “Go ahead, open it. Just a little something I picked up in town.”
She tore open the paper; a pair of emerald drop earrings spilled out onto her palm. They were exquisite-and if Irene knew her jewelry, frightfully expensive. She realized immediately that he hadn't bought them yesterday, or they'd have been in a plush box. She tried to think how to react.
In the normal course of therapy, Irene would have had to: 1) inform him that an expensive gift was inappropriate at this point in their relationship and that she couldn't accept it; 2) gently call him on his lie about having just bought it, and try to find out why he'd felt it was necessary to lie; and 3) point out that he'd changed the subject from Max's comment about Mary being the first one.
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