Seduced in the Dark (8 page)

I can hear him. He moans against my lips.
Softly, he inhales and exhales as we kiss. He never stops kissing
me; he simply continues to steal my breath, returning it to me only
when he’s infused it with his essence. Pure lust lives inside him.
Every breath I take should come from his lungs.

This is what it’s like to dream of him.

This is what I lose when I wake.

***

The situation is uncomfortable to say the
very least. In fact, it’s closer to insufferable. Agent Reed is not
here. His invitation has been revoked by Dr. Sloan. I can’t say I’m
unhappy about it. Still, it means I am alone with Dr. Sloan, and I
can
be unhappy about that.

She found me crying yesterday. Gripping
Caleb’s picture to my chest and rocking.

I rather like rocking. I’m doing it now.

She asked about the photo of course, asked
about what had happened between Agent Reed and me. I refused to
respond to her questions – she had nothing to offer me – no photos
to dangle in front of me. I haven’t said a word since I was brought
back to my room yesterday.

Agent Reed returned this morning, ready for
another round of what he calls an interview, and I refer to as, an
interrogation. Dr. Sloan got here an hour before he did. I watched,
detached, as she asked Agent Reed to step outside with her. He gave
me the stink-eye as he turned to leave. I guess he thinks I’m a
rat. I don’t really care though, because it means I can keep quiet
a little longer. When Dr. Sloan returned, she was obviously tense.
Whatever was said left her in a huff. If I weren’t so
grief-stricken, I might have smiled.

She’s much calmer now. She has shut the door
to my room, entombing us, but she hasn’t asked me any
questions…yet. I rock back and forth, cradling Caleb’s photo in my
hands, as I sit on my bed. He is so beautiful. I love him so very
much.

Dr. Sloan is sitting in a chair near the
corner, knitting a sweater of all things. It’s a strange design –
unless she has a pet octopus she likes to put clothes on. A few
times, I’ve been tempted to ask her what the fuck that is
about.

She catches me watching her.

“It gives me something to do with my hands,”
she says through a rueful smile. “A lot of times I am the last
person people want to talk to. So I just sit down and knit. I
understand the mechanics of it, but I haven’t really learned how to
make anything. I guess you could call it ‘free-form knitting’.” She
laughs at her own joke.

This woman is ridiculous.

For a moment there is a pause and I think
we’ve reached the end of our one-sided conversation, but then she
sighs and keeps right on talking.

“I never really had anyone to teach me how
to knit. I think most people learn from their mother or
grandmother, but I grew up in foster care, so I had to learn on my
own. I picked it up a few years ago when a friend of mine suggested
I get a hobby. A mindless hobby. I’m a bit of an over-thinker. If I
don’t find a way to shut my brain off I just keep thinking and
thinking and thinking. Mostly about work. My job can be pretty
thankless sometimes.” She glances up at me and smiles again.

I roll my eyes. She’s obviously trying to
annoy me to death.

“See, told you. Thankless.”

For the love of Christ, shut – up! Let a
bitch enjoy her mental breakdown in peace.

“I liked it so much I picked up a few other
hobbies.”

Oh god. Please don’t.

“I make my own beanie babies. Well, not
really my own, because we already know I can’t knit or sew worth a
damn, but I like to buy them, take them apart, and then put them
back together in some pretty interesting ways. I like to call it
‘interpretive taxidermy’.”

Kill me. Just, fucking, kill me.

“It’s a little redundant I guess, since most
taxidermy involves putting things together in an interpretive way.
Still, I’m the only one who calls it that. It’s my own little
spin.”

“Do you have any hobbies, Olivia?” she looks
up at me.

I can’t help the way my eyes narrow. I wish
she’d stop calling me that.

“You don’t like it, do you? When I use your
name?”

I give an infinitesimal shake of my head
that isn’t really voluntary. The moment I catch myself do it, I
scowl and stare down into my lap, at my handsome Caleb.

Caleb.

Don’t. Don’t think about him.

Once again, I am a fragmented person. I am
divided between the soft, sentimental, girl who loves Caleb at all
costs and the hard, logical, version of me determined to survive –
even at the cost of pushing Caleb from my heart.

“Would you prefer Livvie? Your mom says
everyone calls you Livvie.”

Tears sting my eyes as I look up toward Dr.
Sloan. She is studiously avoiding eye contact, focusing on yet
another ‘arm’ of her strange outfit.

I wonder, against my will, if my mother is
here. I don’t want to see her, but…why hasn’t she come to see me?
Everyone I love betrays me.

Oh, god. Caleb.

Yes, him too. Don’t think about him.

“I spoke with her a great deal yesterday;
she wanted to see you.” Dr. Sloan says casually. My heart is
skipping every other beat. Panic is rising, but I breathe through
it. Barely. “But when I stopped by to ask if it was something you
might want….” She frowns and shakes her head angrily. I know she’s
thinking about Reed. “I figured I’d wait for you to tell me what
you want to do.”

I nod shallowly and feel manipulated when I
see her nod, too. She’s getting in my fucking head and I haven’t
even said anything.

Caleb says all your emotions are on your
face for all to see.

Shut up and stop thinking about him. Be
smart for once. Listen to me.

I sigh. Thinking about Caleb hurts, but
trying to move beyond my love for him, hurts more. There’s no
getting past the pain. There is only a different brand of pain
available for my eager consumption.

“Do you want to see your mother?”

I don’t know whether the question is real,
or a threat. I carefully abstain from signaling my emotions through
my body language or facial expressions. I suppose it works because
Dr. Sloan resumes her ridiculous monologue about her hobbies.

“I know what you must be thinking.”

You have no fucking idea.

“That I’m a silly woman with ridiculous
hobbies.”

Or maybe you do.

“Though, you’d be surprised to learn, I’m
not all free-form knitting and interpretive taxidermy. I have a
dark side.”

Hmm…doubtful.

“When I’m really frustrated with things,”
she giggles “…I like to get online and change things in
Wikipedia!”

This
,
bitch…is
weird.

“I once made up a whole entry based on
someone called, the Christmas Amoeba. You see, I’m not much of a
baker and I made these holiday cookies for the people at the
office. They came out horribly deformed. They tasted fine, mind
you, but they were misshapen. Not a round cookie in the bunch.”

I look at her octopus sweater. I’m fairly
sure nothing this woman does with her hands is meant for people to
see, let alone consume.

“So I left a note next to the cookies. It
was a story explaining how a small village near K2…. You know that
big mountain, right?” She looks at me to make sure I’m following
along.

I lie down on my bed and huff at the
ceiling. Where the hell is the nurse with my drugs?

“Anyway, they made a movie about it. Not my
cookies,” she cackles, so fucking amused with herself, “…the
mountain. Can you imagine if they made a movie about my cookies?
So, I made up this story about how this village near K2 celebrates
someone called the Christmas Amoeba instead of Santa Claus. He
sneaks in undetected – amoebas are microscopic, so it stands to
reason someone who’s an amoeba would be very stealthy – on
Christmas Eve and leaves presents for everyone. In return, the
people of the village leave a variety of oddly shaped cookies for
the amoeba to eat. Amoeba’s come in a variety of shapes, so it
makes sense.”

She can’t see my face, so I don’t feel like
a traitor for smiling at this preposterous woman’s story.

“Well, the people in my office are just
sticklers for the truth. You know, everything must be verified,
blah, blah, blah. So sure enough, they do a Google search and –
BOOM – up pops my entry on Wikipedia about the Christmas
Amoeba.”

She dissolves into peals of laughter.

Oh my god, she really is crazy. I bite the
inside of my cheeks to keep from laughing. She is laughing so hard.
It’s infectious, but I resist it. My shoulders are trembling with
withheld laughter. I shut my eyes to assist in the effort.

Caleb is there the moment I shut my
eyes.

Joy turns to grief and before I can control
it, my emotions just spill over. I open my eyes and bolt up in my
bed. I laugh for a second before I burst into tears.

I can hear Dr. Sloan moving. Her steps are
coming toward me, cautiously. I don’t care. I’m too
tired
to
care. After so many months of being careful, and hiding every
emotion as best I can, and fearing the future, and not knowing
what’s going to happen next, and thinking I might die, and fighting
for my life, and hating Caleb, and loving him….

For fucksake – I watched a man die!

When Dr. Sloan silently puts her arms around
me, I crush her to my body. I hold on to her with all my remaining
strength. I cry all over this ridiculous fucking woman.

She doesn’t say a word and I’m grateful.
Please, just hold me. Please, just hold me together.

I’m so tired of holding myself together.

She rocks me.

I rather like rocking.

Back and forth we sway for endless minutes
while I cry and sob all over Dr. Sloan’s suit jacket. She smells
nice. Her scent is light and almost fruity. It is distinctly
feminine and therefore, far removed from Caleb. With this feminine
scent saturating my nostrils, my brain cannot connect to memories
of Caleb and the way he smelled when he held me. It feels nice,
being free of the pain of missing him.

Reluctantly, I pull away from her. I am
still humming with shame. I don’t know what’s come over me. I
wrinkle my brow in confusion and shake my head.

Caleb’s scowling face is staring up at me
from the photograph in my lap. I feel a pang of longing. Dr. Sloan
pushes my hair from my face and I can’t help but think of it in a
sexual way. In another time, I’d have thought nothing of it, but
now all my interactions seem tainted by my newfound lust. Caleb
trained me well.

“I want to help you, Livvie. Talk to me,”
she says, softly. I know she doesn’t want to startle me, but
already, I feel the tension creeping back into my shoulders. She’s
standing too close and the fact she’s talking to me makes me feel
cornered.

She must be able to tell, because she backs
up. I relax, just a little.

“I would like to see the charges against you
dropped, but you have to talk to someone. Agent Reed is…” she
searches for the word she wants to use, “very good at his job, and
despite his behavior yesterday, he’s a great guy. However, his
first priority is solving his case. My first priority is you. He
shouldn’t have pushed you the way he did.”

I look up at her from beneath my lashes. I
wish she would hold me again

“I’d like a lawyer,” I whisper.

“Of course. If you’re ready to talk, I’ll
find a lawyer for you. But, Livvie, the things you need to talk
about go far beyond the legal charges. I’m here to help you with
that.”

I nod, but say nothing else.

Dr. Sloan returns to her chair and sits. She
looks at me expectantly with her green eyes. She’s pretty, in a
very down-played sort of way. With her red hair, the brown suit she
is wearing does her no favors. Still, there is something about her,
something warm and pleasant.

When it becomes obvious I won’t be the one
to keep our little conversation going, she reaches for her knitting
and resumes the mindless design.

Dr. Sloan presses her lips together,
searching for words.

“Do you want to see your mother?”

I don’t hesitate. “No.”

She stops knitting. “Livvie, the people who
love you, accept you for who you truly are. No matter what has
happened to you.”

“Well there you go. My mother doesn’t love
me, Dr. Sloan. She wants to love me, I think, but…I just don’t
think she does.”

She nods, but I can tell she doesn’t believe
me. What would she know?

“I think your mother loves you a great
deal.”

I stare down at my picture of Caleb. I
thought he loved me. Could it be the one person I discounted, loves
me more than the one I trusted completely? My heart aches. It’s a
question I am not prepared to have answered.

Slowly, I crawl under my covers. I want to
go back to sleep. I want to be with Caleb again. In my dreams,
there is never a reason to doubt my heart. In my dreams, he is
everything I want him to be. He is mine.

As if on cue, Dr. Sloan stops asking me
emotionally charged questions and once again regales me with tales
of free-form knitting and interpretative taxidermy.

Chapter Five

Day 8:

I’m feeling somewhat better today. I still
miss Caleb, I don’t think the feeling will ever go away, but I can
get through several minutes without wanting to break down and weep
for him; it’s progress. Dr. Sloan says one day I’ll make it to an
hour…a day – but that’s as far as I let myself hope. The thought of
one day not thinking of him at all is just too much for me. It
feels like a betrayal to ever hope for such things.

Once again, I am sitting in the dreadfully
cheery room they use to interrogate Kindergarteners. This time, I
don’t have to do very much talking. I have a lawyer to do it for
me. He and Agent Reed have been battling it out for the last hour.
David, my lawyer, isn’t much to look at, but he’s very smart and
incredibly aggressive. There’s something super hot about watching
the two of them argue…or maybe I just like Reed when he’s
unsettled.