Portrait Of The Psychopath As A Young Woman Part 12

She's...perfect, he thought.

And as he walked the rest of the way around the bar, he noticed that she was looking right at him, and she was smiling.

(II).

"...like he was looking right at me, and he was smiling," Kathleen muttered into the crook of Maxwell's neck.

He stroked her hair, held her. "You don't have to talk about it any more if you don't want. Jesus, Kathleen, I had no idea."

She'd told him everything about Uncle Sammy. Everything.

"The counselor called it retrograde memory jags or something like that. She said it was normal after a longterm trauma. Sometimes I'd think I was seeing him when he wasn't really there. But it went away years ago."

"And now it's back?" Maxwell asked.

Kathleen nodded. Tears dried to crust on her face. "I don't understand. Why? After all this time, why?"

"There must be something in your life, something that's happened recently, to trigger it."

The killer, she thought. But it was really no surprise. she thought. But it was really no surprise. The killer was abused as a child, you were abused as a child. The killer was abused as a child, you were abused as a child. But she knew she could not tell Maxwell about the killer. She knew she could never do that... But she knew she could not tell Maxwell about the killer. She knew she could never do that...

"Sammy's still in prison. Christ, I even asked my father to make sure."

Maxwell cradled her, gently rocked her. "You should try and go to sleep now," he said. "You'll feel better tomorrow."

But she didn't want to go to sleep. She couldn't. "It went on from the time I was nine 'til I was about 17 or 18. And I never said anything, I never told anyone, until years later when he got caught. I still don't understand that."

"It's just what the counselor said. Your uncle was able to secretly abuse you for all those years because he'd developed himself as a symbol of trust to you. You were just a child then, Kathleen. Children are totally vulnerable to their impressions of adults. Your mother was dead, your father was always away on business. The only person you had to look up to-to trust-was your uncle. Of course you never told anyone. You'd been brainwashed into believing that nothing bad was happening."

That's just what the counselor had said. She'd even said it was commonplace in similar situations. The most naive question touched her then: How can people be like that? How can an adult, any adult, do something like that? To children, for G.o.d's sake? To children? How can people be like that? How can an adult, any adult, do something like that? To children, for G.o.d's sake? To children?

"Sometimes people can be very evil," Maxwell answered, as though he decrypted the thought by her eyes or the look on her face.

Eventually she drifted into sleep, Maxwell gently rocking her in his arms. The dream came back the instant she closed her eyes: Naked, s.h.i.+vering in sweat, she lay paralyzed atop the bed. The figure leaned over her in tinted darkness. The moon stared at her.

"Embrace your hatred," eddied the woman's voice.

Kathleen could not reply.

The stack of Polaroids dropped onto her stomach. The joints of her fingers clicked as she picked them up. She squinted. She could see them this time.

The first picture showed a cigar box, like the one booked as evidence at Uncle Sammy's trial. But it was closed. The second picture showed Kathleen exactly as she was in the dream: naked on this same bed, her legs parted, paralyzed. Her skin looked garish in the light of the flashbulb. Her sweat glittered like sprinkles of crushed gla.s.s.

Third picture: The cigar box again. This time, however, its cardboard lid stood open.

Something dark was in it. Something stout, coiled.

A snake, Kathleen realized.

Now the paralysis bolted her down, plucked her eyelids open. The snake seemed huge despite the confines of the box. It seemed jammed into it.

The fourth picture showed the snake being dumped out onto the bed between her legs.

A black plastic cat clock on the wall ticked hypnotically. Eyes and tail switching back and forth. Its hands moved backward.

"Embrace your hatred," eddied the woman's voice.

In the fifth picture the snake was slithering forward.

In the sixth picture the large, pointed head was about to enter Kathleen's v.a.g.i.n.a.

(III).

"Can I blow you?" she asks.

He chuckles. "What am I gonna say? No?"

He's naked on the bed.

She's naked next to him, legs crossed.

She feels electric.

"But let me give you a back rub first. I promised you one, didn't I?"

His erection throbs. "How about blowing blowing me first?" me first?"

They're in Daddy's Room. It's different now, it looks like a bedroom. "All good things to those who wait," she says. "Come on, turn over." He turns over on his belly. Sometimes she'd cry when Daddy was doing it to her, or when he let his friends do it to her. But she always cried the most when he made her watch through the mirror. His friends did horrible things to her mother. "Fire her up first," one of the men said and then they held her mother down while Daddy injected heroin into a vein in her breast and then they'd beat her mother up and all take turns f.u.c.king her and then Daddy would take her into the closet and make her watch the men and he'd put his finger into her v.a.g.i.n.a after he was finished f.u.c.king her.

-but no man will ever touch her there again.

Now she looks up at The Cross in The Window.

He's lean and muscular, a Spa Boy.

She gets up to get the ma.s.sage oil.

He doesn't see her slip on the double pair of Bectond.i.c.kinson vinyl examination gloves.

She straddles him at the small of his back, squirts on the oil.

The squirting reminds her of Daddy.

Behind her is the cabinet, the Box of Souls.

She can feel The Cross on her back.

She feels s.e.xy and beautiful.

You're beautiful, her mother says. her mother says.

"I know," she says.

"What?"

"Shhh."

She rubs the oil into his back.

Her fingers knead the slick skin, mold his shoulders, run up and down his spine.

"Does that feel good?"

"Yeah," he drones.

Her v.a.g.i.n.a is rubbing against the small of his back.

She wants to touch herself but not yet.

You're such a smart girl, her mother says from somewhere. her mother says from somewhere. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you.

Later, he starts to fade.

"I'm really tired," he drones.

Now she turns him over and climbs off.

"G.o.d, I'm so-"

"Try to get up," she says, her eyes earnest, inquisitive.

It's funny watching him.

He tries to lean forward, then slumps.

He tries to slide off but his legs barely move.

"What...did...you..."

She walks over and opens the closet to get her things.

She comes back with the stainlesssteel tray.

"Look," she says.

She slaps him hard across the face.

His eyes are slits but she can see the terror there.

The gorgeous terror...

"Look."

The tray contains a biopsy curette.

A length of Vicryl suture.

A radial needle.

Bruns serrated shears.

Chapter 12.

(I).

Maxwell wondered what she wanted out of life. What are her dreams? What are her dreams? he thought. he thought. What does she see in the future? What does she see in the future?

He felt poisoned by the past, one relations.h.i.+p gone bust after another. It was part of life. He'd almost gotten married twice, but almost meant nothing at all.

His poetry was how he defined his life, and life in general. It was impulse. Without it he'd have no purpose.

He remembered saying to her last night: Sometimes people can be very evil. Sometimes people can be very evil. This was true. How could a person live with that? How could she trust anyone ever again? This was true. How could a person live with that? How could she trust anyone ever again?

He didn't dare wake her. All that she'd told him, her own poison spilling like a dark cascade, must've exhausted her. He got out of bed as quietly as he could, took up his clothes, and slipped out to the living room.

This was where she did her writing for the magazine, instead of the second bedroom. He wondered why. Maybe she doesn't like enclosed places. Maybe she doesn't like enclosed places. Or perhaps the smaller bedroom reminded her of her past. Or perhaps the smaller bedroom reminded her of her past.

He glanced at some papers on the desk.