Black Lies

by Alessandra Torre

  DID is typically caused by emotional trauma of some sort. Abuse, or a significant event, one the brain tries to hide, initially creating the first sub-personality as sort of a protective defense against the knowledge it doesn’t want the brain to have. The rare DID exceptions are brain damage, physical impairments that cause a shorting out of the cranial lobe from which idiosyncrasies result.

  I haven’t had any physical damage, no hard blows to the head, no horrific accidents that would have caused multiple Brants to emerge. I also, with the exception of October 12th, haven’t had any traumatic events. And October 12th happened after – was a result of – my development of DID.

  The obvious answer is that I must have had a traumatic experience and have psychologically hidden it. I’ve asked my parents and believe them when they claim ignorance of any triggering events. My curiosity isn’t worth contacting Jillian, my anger building into a grudge that won’t soon fade.

  Dr. Terra has tried, in a roundabout way, to unearth this possibility. He forgets the man he is dealing with. I am an intelligent enough individual to attack a problem head on. I don’t need subtle pecks at the corners of my brain. I need to split my psyche open and dig at the root of my problem.

  I can feel the incident. It nags at a part of me, like that errand you walked into a room to do and then forgot. It lies, just out of reach but at the corner of my mind, occasionally tapping at my brain matter when it wants to drive me bat-shit crazy. I need to unearth it. Need to open my past and find the key.

  Now, for the 32nd evening in a row, I try. The chair beneath me creaks as I sit on the back veranda, my feet propped against the railing, the skies dark as a storm approaches. I can feel the air thicken, thunder clapping as lightening streaks the sky. I contemplate going inside, avoiding the rain, but the overhang will keep me dry. As the skies open up, rain tapping a staccato beat on the roof above me, I close my eyes and try to remember the past. Try to remember a summer twenty-seven years ago.

  And then, listening to the familiar sound of rain against a roof, it comes to me.

  Chapter 70

  Sheila Anderson had been beautiful. Half Cuban, she had tan skin, dark hair and eyes that gleamed when she laughed. I had never spoken to her. Only sat three seats behind and one seat over, and stared. I was nervous; I was awkward. She was untouchable.

  When she left school, I followed. Always had. I had an excuse. She lived a street over; our paths home followed a logical route. So I followed, and I watched her hair bounce, and I stared some more. She was always with friends, she giggled, she whispered, she hummed, and I listened. Until the day that she cried, and my world broke in two.

  A Wednesday. It rained. A big sloppy downpour, where one foot outside meant a plaster of clothing to skin, no ‘quick dash’ possible to keep yourself dry. I saw her standing, out front of the school, her steps tentative as she contemplated the initial step into the torrent. I stood beside her, offered a small smile to her friendly beam. We waited, together, till the moment that she ducked her head and ran, squealing, her hands covering her head.

  So I followed. And it was just the two of us running across the parking lot. Through the church. Down the road with the fence. Past the house with the dog. We ran, and it poured unrelenting rain. Then she slowed, and I slowed and it came time for me to turn. I stopped. She continued on. Smiled. Waved through falling rain. I watched her until I could barely see her pink shirt. Then I glanced left, the sight of my mailbox barely visible through the rain, ducked my head against wet needles, and ran after her.

  The man’s arm is one I have seen in a hundred nightmares and never understood its place. Thick and dark, not from the color of his birth, but from the tattoos. A sleeve of evil, skulls and snakes, the muscles of his arm jumping with the action of his ink. I was one house back when his arm shot out, grabbing the back of her as easily as one would pluck up a cat, the rain obscuring my view as I saw a blur of arms and legs, the heavy patter of rain muffling the cries. I slowed, unsure of what was happening as he pulled her against his chest and stepped away from the sidewalk, into the heavy shade of trees, ducking into the yard he had come from. I wiped at my face and moved closer, my chest heaving from exertion and something else – the tight feeling that something was wrong. The yard showed no sign of them, but I heard her. Screams muffled by something other than rain. I looked right and left, tried to see, find, something other than rain. An adult. I needed an adult.

  Then I moved. Closer to the house. Picked my way over its stepping stones, one slick enough to put me in the grass, my hands skittering over the ground and coming up dirty as I pushed myself to my feet. I couldn’t hear her anymore and that scared me more than the screams. I hitched my backpack higher and wiped my hands on the front of my jeans. Looked at the front step of the house’s porch. Took a step up and left the rain behind.

  It was strange to be covered. Quieter. Quiet enough that I heard something. I took the next two steps carefully and moved to the front door. Stared at it. The doorbell. It. The doorbell.

  There was a noise from inside, and I bolted to the corner of the porch. Ducked into a ball behind a swing that creaked, bumped, gave away my position with the reaction of its body. I moved away from it, against the house, and was brave enough, for a brief moment, to kneel and peer into the window. Saw through the bare slit between two blue curtains. Saw a television. A rug. A beer can, on its side, a few feet from the trash. Then my eyes lifted, to the room beyond the can, and I saw Sheila Anderson.

  I won’t share the horrors of what I saw, on my knees, on that porch. I know I closed my eyes too late. I know my hands fisted on either side of my head as I tried to drown out the soft sounds of her screams. I now know why I hate the sound of rain. I now know why, that afternoon in August, my mind broke into smaller pieces and locked that afternoon into a place where I was never to find it.

  My foot falls off the railing as I push away, struggling to my feet, the image of that day imprinted on my mind. I stumble to the door wanting, at minimum, to escape the sound of rain. Opening the slider, I see Lana stand from her place on the couch, her eyes on me. “Did you remember?” she asks.

  I nod, unable to say more, and open my arms to her as she steps forward and wraps me in a hug.

  Chapter 71

  1 MONTH LATER

  Round 2: It’s the second time I’m attempting to break up with Lee, and this time the doctor has agreed to stay quiet. To stay behind the one-way glass in the adjoining room. Brant hates it; he cursed us both until he lost control and left the room, but we all eventually agreed, and now I am alone, repeating the lines I have been coached through, the lines that will bring Lee out of Brant’s hypnosis.

  My initial breakup attempt had been done without clueing Lee in to his condition. With the massive failure of that experiment, we regrouped. Decided to share the condition and hope for better results.

  Two weeks ago, Dr. Terra told Lee about the DID. Lee refused to believe it, wanted to talk to Brant, then trashed the room when that option was refused. Dr. Terra stayed calm, citing facts that laid the truth out in big, fat letters that a child would understand and believe. Lee resisted, vocalizing his hatred for Brant in every four-letter word known to man. It was disastrous. I fled the room halfway through the outburst, unable to watch the systematic breakdown of a man who a part of me dearly loves.

  Since then, Dr. Terra has spoken with him four more times, Lee getting less aggressive and more unresponsive with each session. The last meeting he spoke but didn’t stand, didn’t even open his eyes. Just laid on the couch and cherry-picked the questions he felt like answering. Today, I just hope he is open. I hope he listens. I hope he doesn’t break my heart any further.

  “Lucky.” His eyes open and he sits up. Looks around. I wait for his body to tighten, for him to spring to his feet with clenched fists, but he doesn’t. Only rubs his neck and shoots me a sad grin. “Still stuck in crazy town, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  He holds out his arms. “C
ome here. I need to smell you. Touch you.”

  Such a basic request. I walk forward, breaking our plan already, but I need him. Miss him. I sit sideways on his lap and lean into his chest as he inhales against my neck, his chest rising as he sniffs me, his mouth grazing my neck, his teeth scraping and then gently biting the skin right below my ear. I lean further, feel every single bit of his hands as he runs them down and along the lines of my body, his mouth letting go of my name as he kisses a line from my ear to my collarbone. “Don’t do it,” he whispers. “I know what you’re going to say and you can’t say it.”

  “I have to,” I breathe, his hand running over the top of my bare thigh and sliding down, in between my legs, his fingers pushing roughly against any attempt of mine to keep them together. I think of the man on the other side of the glass. Of the video filming this instance for Brant’s eyes later. Of the script that I am supposed to stick to. The one in which I tell this beautiful man that I never loved him. That I only dated him to keep tabs on Brant. That I want him to leave so that I can be with Brant. Lies. Black, dirty lies. I feel the push of his fingers as he slides his hand higher up my thigh, underneath the skirt that is doing nothing but helping his cause. I picked out this skirt. Pulled it on this morning when I could have worn a hundred more restrictive outfits. Did I know? Did I pick it intentionally? Am I really that cruel? To myself? To Brant? I fear asking the question when part of me already knows the answer.

  “You don’t have to,” he says, his hand traveling higher as his other hand pries my legs apart, his mouth hot against my neck, stealing kisses in between his words. Kisses that claw at my skin and leave marks that won’t wash off.

  “I do, Lee.” I fully abandon the script the moment my legs lose the battle and part further, the fingers of his hand at the silk of my panties, rubbing hot lines over my barely covered sex, teasing me through the fabric, his mouth moaning my name against my neck. “I can’t keep dragging Brant through this. The only way it will work is if you leave.”

  He tugs my panties aside and pushes two fingers inside, the sudden invasion causing me to gasp, his mouth taking advantage of the opening and closing hard on my lips. He kisses me as he pushes and curves his fingers. Finger-fucks me there on the couch, my legs falling fully open as we create an image that I flush over. But I can’t stop. Not when I have needed this every night I have lain next to Brant. Felt the cold distance as he tried to sort his way through this. I open up my legs and let his fingers slide inside, feel the level of my need. Take me to the edge that I want to fall over.

  “I don’t give a damn about that man,” he growls, lifting off my mouth and bucking underneath me, dumping me off his lap and catching me with his hands before I hit the floor, his rough pull of me more out of need than chivalry. “Bend over,” he orders, yanking at the zipper of his jeans. “Lucky, I will never leave you. I will never let you fuck him without my name on the edge of your lips.” He pushes hard on my back, shoving me over, his other hand jerking at my skirt. “Tell me you still love me.” My back arches without control on his first thrust, a full-fledge push of hard, angry man that shoves through any remaining control on its way in. I gasp, clawing at the back of the couch as he withdraws and then shoves back in. I see stars when he pushes in and feel the delicious want when he withdraws. I cry when he stops, when he pauses with only his head inside, the gentle push so different, the stop of him so jarring. “Please,” I beg, reaching for him, my moment of need never as strong as it is in this one moment.

  “Tell me you still love me.”

  I fight it, close my eyes so tight the tears fall, my feet straining on their tiptoes as he rocks a tiny bit inside and breaks every last dam around my heart. “I love you,” I whisper, and earn an inch or two of push.

  “Tell me you need me.”

  “I need you,” I weep. “Please.”

  He sweeps a hand down my back and grabs the meat of my ass, squeezing the material of my skirt as he pushes fully in and then drags out.

  Over.

  And Over.

  Over.

  And over. He fucks me as if I am dirty and his slut and his to do whatever he wishes with. He fucks me as if he can give an order and I will drop to my knees to worship him. He fucks me as if his cock is my lifeblood and every stroke of it ties me to his will. I cry his name and close my eyes to the tears as he fucks me because all of it is true.

  “I will never leave you, Lucky,” he whispers as he leans forward and wraps a hand around my chest. Pulls my hair until my head is arched back and his mouth covers mine. Rips a kiss from my lips and swallows a bit of my soul in the process. “I will never leave you,” he promises as he buries himself in me and comes.

  Chapter 72

  Brant

  I can’t look at her. I can’t look at her without picturing her bent over that couch. The look on her face when he thrust. When she cried. When she told him she loved him.

  I can’t accurately express how it feels. To watch my body, my face, fuck my fiancée. Before Dr. Terra began recording our sessions, there was a part of me that hadn’t believed. That thought that maybe she was crazy. That she and Jillian were both fucked in the head and I was the only sane one. That somehow my parents had drank the same Kool-Aid. It was an impossible probability, yet my brain held on to it like a lifeline. But then I saw the first hypnosis session and watched myself act in a way I would never act. Smile in a way that doesn’t work. Speak in words I’ve never used. Fuck my woman in a way that I never have.

  I don’t know what bothers me more. The image of her emotional pain, or the fact that she enjoyed it? I know what arousal looks like on her skin. I know the struggle she had, the fight against an orgasm. I’d like to think I’ve done that to her before. Made her crave my body in that way. Made her lose all control and sanity with simple thrusts of my cock. I’d like to think I’m not lying to myself, my jealousy justifying away a part of me that she may require.

  Now, we drive back home. To the house that we are supposed to have children in. To the house that suddenly feels empty. We are disconnected. I need to find myself so that I can find her again and we can be whole. I need to heal us but I’m too busy healing myself. That man fucking her? He was as close as I’ve been to her in weeks and I hate him even more for it.

  I can’t look at her. I can’t look at her and see disappointment in her eyes. See her wish that I was Lee.

  I look at the road and make the engine roar loud enough to drown out my thoughts.

  Chapter 73

  I have to do it. Have to stop screwing around and do what needs to be done. Brant’s hypnosis is not bringing any other personalities out to play. Lee is it, the only soul between me and Brant and normality. I need to break up with Lee. Ignore him for the next five or ten sessions, long enough for him to give up. Give up and sulk into a corner of Brant’s mind where he may never resurface from again. Dr. Terra says a DID mind creates alternative personalities to protect the primary, or to act out in a way that the primary won’t allow. If the primary can fill that void by himself, the alternative personality may disappear altogether. May. The short word that carries so much weight. Other possibilities… Dr. Terra won’t discuss the other possibilities. He says our awareness of those possibilities increases the likelihood of Brant’s mind exploring those paths, playing with the delicate threads for no good reason other than to drive us both bonkers.

  So today, I am trying again. To end it in a way that leaves no doubt in Lee’s mind. Not like last time, when my pathetic attempt ended with his cock buried inside of me, my head yanked back by his grip, all in full view of the cameras. I am embarrassed by that moment, by the weakness shown to the doctor and to Brant. But Lord help me, I cannot look in that man’s face, the same face as my future husband… and pretend I don’t love him. Cannot see anguish—whether it be his eyes or Lee’s—and pretend that I don’t care. Cannot have the touch of him against my skin and be unaffected. Especially Lee’s touch.

  I will try my best. And I k
now, even settling into the chair, with Brant giving me a tight smile, that Lee will see right through me.

  I take a deep breath, watch Brant as he lies down on the couch, and begins the hypnosis script.

  When he comes out this time, it is different. The fight is dimmed in his eyes. He doesn’t immediately reach for me, doesn’t bound to his feet. He seems, suddenly, an old man in Brant’s body.

  I don’t move from my spot in the chair. I sit there and feel like I am watching him die. When he speaks, his words are weak.

  “I’m not smart. Not compared to you and Brant.”

  I feel tears well and don’t know why—don’t know where they come from—except that my tear ducts know more about this situation than I do.

  “But, I am assuming that you have a plan. You and him. A plan to remove me.”

  I look down. Break the contact that stretched between us. Feel the drip of a tear as my body betrays me.

  “What is it? The plan?” He sighs as if the weight of the question is heavy.

  “You already know I mean to break up with you.” My voice wobbles when it speaks and I look back up at the man I may never see again.

  “And then? When I fight it? When I come out of Brant’s body every time his conscience loses control?”

  “I’m supposed to ignore you. Snub you. Make it clear how I feel.”

  He laughs softly and sadly, a chuckle that runs fingers up my inner thigh and breaks my heart, all at the same time. “Your feelings for me show every time you look into my eyes. I used to think it was love for me. Now, I think it is your love for him.” He rubs a rough hand over the front of his pants. “I spoke to the doc, sometime after you and I fucked in here.” I flinch at the words, spoken carelessly, as if the act had been nothing. As if it hadn’t ripped out my heart and left it on the carpet that now lay between us.