By the Time You Read This

31

MELANIE GREENE HAD ONLY a few weeks to live—that was Dr. Bell’s professional estimate. She had done her homework this time, bringing in three—count ‘em, three!—suicide notes. Not that he would need them. If he couldn’t manipulate a miserable teenager into topping herself, he might as well take down his shingle. There would be no mistakes this time.

She told him about driving to her stepfather’s place, about her plan to tell his new wife about his sexual proclivities, and how seeing the little girl had prevented her. Such failure of nerve was typical with Melanie, and might prove a minor obstacle in getting her to make a decent exit. But only minor.

“What made you stop?” Bell said. “You were going to tell his new wife, why not tell his new daughter what he had done?”

“Well, she’s only around six years old, for one thing. Maybe seven.”

“You didn’t think a six-year-old should hear about such things?”

“No, of course not.”

“These things that were done to you at a similar age? When you were seven?”

“I don’t think little kids should even know about them, let alone do them. I mean, do you think people should be talking to six-year-olds about oral sex?”

“It’s your feelings that matter, Melanie.”

“Well, I’m not gonna talk to a little kid about that stuff. But the reason I stopped was just pure shock. I mean, bad enough The Bastard’s married again and he’s probably going to put this woman through hell. But to have another little kid. I was just, like, stunned. I nearly got run over by a car. She’s going to go through everything I went through on those fishing trips, on the boat, at WonderWorld.”

Dr. Bell felt his control slipping. There was a sudden heat in his hands and he realized he was imagining choking her, shaking her, screaming in her face, “Can’t you see? You don’t belong here. Do us all a favour and kill yourself once and for all.” It was a struggle to quiet the pounding in his chest. He decided to take Melanie out of the present and back to her traumas.

“What was the worst part of it? Back then, back when you were a little girl. What was truly the worst? Was it the physical pain?”

Melanie shook her head.

She’ll start chewing her knuckles in a minute, Bell thought.

As if he had willed it, her left hand rose to her mouth and paused there as she gnawed on a knuckle.

“There wasn’t usually any physical pain. Just once or twice when he, when he … you know. Oh, God. From behind.”

“Anal sex?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Did you bleed?”

She shook her head, stared at her feet. Bell saw her shiver as The Entity slipped into the room. The shadowed, hooded figure composed of ice and death enfolded the young woman under his caped arm.

“He was usually very careful that way,” Melanie said. “And mostly it was oral. My lips would be numb. Sometimes I was sore between my legs. A few times, when I couldn’t sleep, my mother asked me what was wrong, and I wanted to tell her. Oh, I wanted to tell her so bad.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“Because …”

“Because I was too afraid. He told me if anyone found out, the Children’s Aid would come and take me away. And he would go to prison.”

“So it wasn’t the physical pain that was the worst. Would you say it was the fear, then?”

Melanie nodded, hugging herself as if it were freezing in the room, though in fact the sunlight through the windows had overheated the office.

“I was afraid all the time. I was terrified of being found out.”

“Because of the consequences you just mentioned?”

“Yes. But also—this was later, when I was thirteen or so—I was afraid of Mom finding out. Because I knew it would hurt her. And because I knew I was taking something that was hers. I was doing something wrong to my own mother.”

“You were sleeping with her husband.”

That should open the spigot, Bell thought, noting the gulping movement in her throat.

“It’s like I was the other woman. It’s …”

The tears would not be stopped. They burst from her with pitiful cries, and she seemed to shatter.

Dr. Bell handed her the Kleenex box and waited. He marvelled at the power of guilt. Properly administered, it was far more potent than any drug.

When there came a lull in Melanie’s sobs, he said: “So you had to deal with the fear. You had to deal with the guilt of stealing your mother’s man. It’s a lot for a little girl to cope with. But let’s go back to WonderWorld. Something you said earlier made me think that WonderWorld might be the worst, but we haven’t gone into any detail yet.”

Melanie nodded. Tears had reddened her eyes, streaked her makeup. The Entity had transformed her into a rag doll.

Generally, in therapy, the patient is allowed to move at their own speed. It’s usually counterproductive to push, the risks being twofold: either the material is too much for the patient to digest, causing them to develop an even thicker armour of denial, or it can unleash a torrent of emotion for which they are not adequately prepared. Depending on the presenting neurosis, this can result in any number of ways of acting out: running away, rages, and, of course, suicide.

And so Dr. Bell prompted his patient for detail. Melanie was young and passionate and had a strong drive to be rid of her pain; Dr. Bell knew he could count on that.

“First, let me be sure I understand you correctly. You were dying to go on all the rides at WonderWorld, and that’s exactly what he promised you. So you get down there, he has you in a hotel room and he won’t let you go on the rides until you satisfy him. For you to get the rides, you had to give him sex.”

“Right.”

“You hinted at this, I think, when you said he had asked you ahead of time for a list of your favourite rides. Sort of a Christmas list. You mentioned the Tilt-A-Whirl.”

“That’s right. If I wanted to go on the Tilt-A-Whirl he, uh …”

“Take your time, Melanie.”

She pulled out the whole array of delaying tactics: looked at her feet, stared at her fingernails, heaved deep sighs, stared out the window, looked at the clock. Finally, when there was no option left short of complete catatonia, she said—and this in a voice so tiny Bell had to lean forward to catch it—”If I wanted to go on the Tilt-A-Whirl, I had to give him oral sex.”

Her right hand rose, fanlike, to cover her face.

“So, it was like a contract. A negotiation, perhaps.”

A shake of the head. “There wasn’t any negotiating. He just told me the way things were, you know. I was eight years old, for God’s sake. I didn’t question him. He was my father. I thought of him as my father, anyway. He’d been living with us a couple of years by then.”

“And did he get what he wanted?”

“Yes.”

“And you got the Tilt-A-Whirl.”

“Yes.”

Bell let her weep again, watched the face crumple and the mucus run, listened to the ugly cries. He didn’t let it go on too long; he needed the momentum.

“And there was the waterslide,” he said. “I believe you indicated that that was on your list.”

Melanie nodded. “I’m feeling a little sick. Do you think maybe …”

“Would you like to lie down? Sometimes going over old pain can be overwhelming.”

“Um, maybe I will.” Melanie got up unsteadily. “It seems like such a cartoon—you know, lying on a psychiatrist’s couch—you see jokes about it all the time. But I’m feeling really dizzy.”

“Lie down, then. No jokes, I promise.”

She lay down, gingerly, feet politely hanging off to one side. She took one of the cushions and was about to place it on the floor, thought better of it and placed it over her genital region. Sometimes patients could be so eloquent without knowing it. A shaft of sunlight made her hair shine.

“You were talking about the waterslide.”

“Yeah. I really wanted the waterslide. I think that was the single most fun I ever had as a kid was flying down that slide. It’s such a thrill, but it feels completely safe at the same time.”

“What did he suggest you do in exchange?”

“He didn’t suggest anything. There wasn’t any maybe about it. He just laid down the law.”

“But didn’t you say he told you that if you wanted to go on one ride, you’d have to do this? If you wanted to go on another ride, you’d have to do that? Wasn’t he in effect giving you a menu of choices?”

“I suppose so.”

“And you chose the waterslide?”

“Right.”

“Chose it. You weren’t forced to go on it, were you?”

“I guess not. Oh, God.”

“And what did it cost you? What was the going price of a ride on the waterslide that particular summer day?”

“I had to let him … well, intercourse, I guess.”

“Full intercourse. Vaginal intercourse.”

“Yeah.”

“And you did that?”

He had to wait a long time while she wept.

“And then there was the Wild Mouse,” Bell said. “Your absolute favourite, you said. You couldn’t wait to go on it.”

“Anal sex,” she said, just like that, her voice dead. “If I wanted to go on the Wild Mouse, he had to get anal sex.”

“And did he?”

“Yes. He turned me into a little whore. Just turning eight, and already a prostitute.”

“Keep in mind, Melanie, the age of consent in this country is fourteen years old. Almost twice the age you were.”

It cost Bell a lot to say that, and Melanie received it like balm. He could see the effect right away: her lower lip began to quiver. It cost him, but anything less might have struck her as callous, which could provoke anger and resistance he would only have to break down again. So if a little kindness and understanding added a week or two until endgame, that was just the price of being a professional.

“That’s in Canada,” he went on, “and a lot of people in this country think the age of consent should be much higher. In most other places, it is. In the U. K., anyone under sixteen is considered to be incapable of giving an informed consent. You were seven, Melanie. Just turning eight.”

“It’s not like I didn’t know what he was doing. By the time he took me to WonderWorld, he’d already introduced me to all of it.”

“Nevertheless, Melanie, we’re talking about rape here.”

“All right.”

It was hard, sometimes, to be so comforting. It went against the grain, felt as if he were working against himself. But it was also necessary. They had to believe you were on their side, that you were saving them from themselves.

“So, would you say, then, we’ve gotten to the worst of things, Melanie? He made you feel like the Other Woman. And he made you feel like a whore. It’s as if he turned WonderWorld into a House of Horrors.”

She sat up suddenly, gripping the edges of the couch. “WonderWorld wasn’t the worst,” she said. “Despite everything that happened there? WonderWorld wasn’t the worst, not by a long shot.”

“I must have misunderstood, then. You’re telling me there were other times, other places, when your stepfather did even worse things to you?”

“No. Not things he did. WonderWorld was as bad as it got, physically. But he did those same things to me in other places. Even at home, if you want to know the truth. Even in my mother’s bed, sometimes. Can you imagine? That Bastard. In my mother’s bed. But even that wasn’t the worst.” She lay back again, her rib cage rising and falling with laboured breathing. “The worst was the boat.”

“The fishing trips you mentioned before? The camping and so on?”

Melanie shook her head. “No. This was a different boat. A beautiful cabin cruiser. I think he must have borrowed it or something, or maybe he was looking after it for someone. It was just a couple of times, when I was about eleven. There was the time my mother was on the boat. But there was another time when it was just me and him. It was toward the end of the whole business. He took a lot of pictures.”

“Sexual poses. Like before?”

“Some of them were normal. I guess so he could show them to Mom—you know, ‘Here we are still in the marina. Here we are at the island.’ But a lot of them were completely pornographic. I just hope to God he didn’t put them on the Internet. That’s all I need, for someone I know to come across them.”

“Do you think that’s likely?”

“I don’t know. He used to spend a lot of time on his computer. I mean, you hear about stuff like that.”

“Tell me more about the boat. What do you remember most, when you think about those times?”

“Lying in the bed at night. It was Trout Lake, you know, dead calm most of the time. And once it got quiet, dead dark. The rocking was just so gentle, it was like you were suspended in some warm, sweet place where nothing bad could ever happen to you. And yet, …”

Dr. Bell let her have the hesitation. Her momentum toward revelation was palpable.

“And yet,” she said again. “Oh, I feel sick, remembering …”

“You’re safe here. Truly safe. Not like the boat.”

She looked up at him. “You know what I think about all this stuff, don’t you? I mean, you know that I know it was wrong. That it was sick and perverted and illegal and all the rest of it.”

“Yes, I know you think that. But just because a thought occurs to you doesn’t make it true.”

That one went right by her, as he knew it would. She was turned so inward at this moment, he could have nominated her for sainthood and she wouldn’t have heard it.

“Like I say. It felt wonderful to lie there in the dark. To listen to the little waves against the hull, I guess you call it. To hear the breeze flapping the little pennants on the back of the boat. It should have been the most peaceful, restful feeling in the world. But there’s no way I could sleep. He was in his bed on one side of the cabin, I was in mine on the other. It was hot, so I was wearing just pyjama bottoms, and he never wore anything to bed, he always let it all hang out. So quiet, but I couldn’t sleep a wink. I was completely tense and wide awake.”

And it wasn’t because you were afraid, that you couldn’t sleep, Dr. Bell was almost tempted to say aloud. It wasn’t because you were afraid of what he would do, and it wasn’t because you wanted your mother. That wasn’t why you couldn’t sleep. Eleven, twelve years old, doesn’t matter. It wasn’t because you were angry. I know exactly why you couldn’t sleep. The only question is whether you can bear to reveal it to me. To reveal the worst part of yourself and have it accepted, not judged, was the very crux of therapy. Without those moments there is no therapy, no progress, no healing, there’s just talk. Hours and hours of talk.

Bell’s voice was as soft as it could be while remaining audible, the gentlest beckoning: “Can you tell me why, Melanie? Can you tell me why you couldn’t sleep? What were the feelings that kept you awake?”

“Well, um … I knew it was going to happen. I mean, it always did, whenever he had me alone. Especially at night …”

“You were a child, Melanie.”

“I was eleven years old! Maybe twelve! I should have known better by then!”

“Why? How could you have known? Did someone hand out an instruction manual: ‘How to Tell Mom That Your Stepfather Rapes You’? Have you ever observed twelve-year-old girls on the street? At the movies? Wherever?”

“Well, yes …”

“And what are they like?”

“Airheads, most of them. Complete ditzes.”

“Kids, in other words.”

“Kids. Right.”

“So there you are, eleven years old, maybe twelve, a child lying in the dark in this completely safe and secret environment with a man who professes to love you. Maybe in his way did love you. No one else is around. What was that little girl feeling?”

“I’m going to be sick.”

“Feel like you’re going to throw up?”

A tight nod. She’s pale and quivering, gripping the edge of the couch.

“It’s the words you need to throw up, Melanie. The secrets. Tell me this one thing and the feeling will pass, I promise.”

“No, I’m really going to be sick.”

“You’re lying in the dark. You’re eleven or twelve. There’s a full-grown man beside you. You know he’s going to come over to your bed. You know what he’s going to do to you. What are you feeling? Tell me this one thing, Melanie, and the nausea will pass. You know he’s going to come to you. What are your feelings before he crosses that dark space and comes over to your bed?”

“He didn’t! That’s just it, don’t you see? He didn’t come over to me!”

“What happened, then, Melanie? Tell me.”

“I can’t! I can’t! I don’t want to!”

“Yes, you do. You wouldn’t be here, otherwise.”

“Please. I just can’t.”

“He didn’t come over to you, you said. He didn’t come over to you … and then?”

“I can’t …”

“He didn’t come over to you …”

“Oh, God …”

“He didn’t come over to you, and …”

“I went over to him!”

The tears that came from her then drowned all the tears that had gone before. In all his years as a psychiatrist, Dr. Bell had never seen anyone cry harder.

“I wanted it! I’m so sick! I’m so sick! I wanted him to do it! I wanted him to do it! I did it to him! I did it to him that time, do you see? Oh, God, I deserve to die.”

Bell watched her cry and cry until there were no tears left.

“I’m so sick,” she said weakly. “Really, I don’t know why I’m still walking around.” She looked smaller, as if guilt had taken up physical space in her small frame.

“I’m afraid that’s all we have time for, today.”

“Oh, God.”

“Stay another minute or two, if you like.”

“No, no. That’s okay. I’m all right.”

Melanie smoothed her hair and stood up, tottering a little. She gathered her things, still sniffling, and moved toward the door. She opened it, then stopped.

“God. I don’t know how I’m going to make it till next week.”

“Oh, that reminds me. Sorry, Melanie, I should have told you at the top of the hour.”

“Told me what?”

“I’m not going to be available next week.”