The Dream of the Broken Horses (43 page)

The most amazing thing was that even while I yelled all this at him (and I didn't care whether there was anyone listening in his waiting room or not), I felt myself getting hot. Then I realized I was diddling myself, which kind of told me I really did want to do all those delightful things with him.

'You've turned me into Blackjack,' he said when I finally quieted down.

'What kind of bullshit is that? I'm a sexual woman. I have erotic fantasies. That doesn't mean I've got an Oedipus complex. You asked me to fantasize, I did, and now, God, you pull that old Freudian crap!'

He looked stricken, but all I could think was how stupid this whole thing was.

'I've already got two lovers, ' I told him. 'I get all I need from them. I don't need you in the mix. Or is it that you want to mix in? If you do, please tell me so I can figure out how I can accommodate you.'

That made him furious. 'You're a very difficult patient. I want to help you, but you constantly reject my help.'

'Do you think asking me to think up sex fantasies about us is really going to help me?'

Silence. We both sulked. Finally I turned to him. 'I think you got hard listening to me.'

'That's an interesting fantasy. What makes you think so?'

'It's not a fantasy, Doctor. I've had lots of experience with men. When they get hard I can tell. Hey! Are you blushing?'

Figuring he'd had enough, I changed the subject, told him about the clipping, then about the thousand dollars. That upset him, proof to me he wasn't the one who sent them.

I told him so. 'My fantasy was that it was you.'

'Why? What made you think that?'

'It's so devious I thought it was maybe part of the treatment.'

'You think my treatment is devious?'

'Sometimes it seems like a two-edged sword.'

He ignored that. 'Who do you really think sent those letters?'

'At first I thought it was my ex, then maybe J. I even thought T could have done it since we've been having trouble lately. But of course it couldn't have been T, he barely has a dime. Then I figured it out. At least I think so.'

'Who is it?'

'I'm not ready to talk about that yet. What I want you to do is make a date with me, a date for the two of us to screw so we can get it out of our systems.'

'Fantasy time is over.'

'Fantasy time has just begun!'

'Sorry, the hour's up.'

He rose from his chair. As he did, I checked his trousers to see if I could detect a protuberance.

I find this entry mind-boggling. Did she really take control of the session like that? Is this why Dad's paper suddenly stops? Because he lost control?

She really was an impossible patient! How could Dad stand her? On the other hand, in her diary at least, he comes off as something of a dork, relying on the old analyst's scam of answering every question with a question of his own, and employing the classic standby, 'Now what makes you think that?'

The next day, Tuesday, August
5,
she receives a sealed condom in the mail. She's appalled, frightened. Based on her reaction, whoever is doing this is achieving his goal:

Tuesday
: First the article about the kidnapping, then the money, now a rubber. What's he trying to say? When I opened the envelope and that thing fell out, I nearly threw up. My heart was thumping. My forehead was wet. I called J. He said come over right away. I said no, I need to collect myself, I'm going out to the yard for a swim.

I must have swam a hundred laps, and even that wasn't enough. When I came back into the house, the phone was ringing. J again. He said W's been spreading around a story about my meeting a lover at a crummy motel. 'For some reason he's got it in for you, cutie.' 'Don't call me that, Jack. Not today!' 'Sorry. But listen to me, the little bastard's got it in for you. Think about it. Think about why.'

I know why. Because I didn't tell him about T, didn't share my confidences, cut him off from my secret life. If you keep a secret from W and he finds out, he never forgives you.'

'I wonder if he's the one sending that stuff to you,' J said.

W! Little W! Sure, the little
turd's
fully capable of a stunt like that. It's mean enough, cruel enough, sexually twisted enough, too. But if it is W, then it's not a warning from the kidnappers, it's just a mean, dirty act of a mean, warped, dirty-minded little man who hopes I'll confide in him again about the pain he's causing me, like I stupidly did two weeks ago.

I called up W, told him about the rubber. '
Gawd
!' he moaned, 'I didn't know people still used those things.' 'If whoever-it-is wants me to crawl through broken glass, they're succeeding,' I told him. 'I'm tortured, I'm in real pain.'

He wanted to come over and soothe me. I told him I was crying so hard I couldn't face him. Silence, then he snapped: 'I think it's Jack.' 'But why, W? Why would Jack do a thing like that?' 'Because he's jealous. Because he thinks you're screwing someone else. He can't stand that. It makes him crazy. So now he's sending you all this crazy stuff.' 'But I'm not screwing anyone else.' 'Oh,' he said, 'I heard you were.' 'You know I would have told you.' 'Yes, love, I know. Listen, we'll talk later. Deadline pressure. Gotta run, get my column in.'

I phoned J back. 'W says it's you.' 'That's his game,' J said. 'Stir the pot, then sit back and watch us tear each other apart.'

I told Jack I want revenge on the little freak. 'I can have him beaten up,' J said. 'Break his legs.' 'No, no violence. I want everyone to turn against him. That'll hurt him most.' 'Well, that's your department,' J said. 'I only know how to strong-arm people, not how to get them disinvited from parties.' 'Well, I do!' I told him. 'And I'm going to do it. I know his weaknesses, where to get him where he hurts.' 'Well, good for you,' he said, 'but be careful, because if you're wrong and it's not him, he'll go to war against you, publish stuff that'll help A with his case.' 'Well, J, if it comes down to that, you'll have my permission to break his legs, his stupid neck, too, while you're at it!'

The great revelation for me here is her suspicion that it was Waldo Channing who sent her the article, money, and condom. It makes sense. For one thing, he'd have easy access to old newspaper clippings. For another, he had sufficient malice of heart and financial ability to blow a thousand bucks on a vicious gesture. But if it was Waldo, what was he trying to convey? Or was Barbara right, was it just his way of pulling her back into his orbit, coaxing her to confide her latest sexual escapade, which they could then dish together with complicit smiles?

On Thursday, August 7, she has lunch with Waldo at The Elms. She reports this encounter and subsequent lovemaking session with Jack Cody in what I feel is an increasingly alarming cynicism:

Thursday
: Lunch today at The Elms: W his usual bubbly, mean self. On Elaine: 'She really ought to get some wrinkle cream. She's looking like an awful prune.' On A's
pupsy
-baby: 'She's one of those
Bettyboob
types. You know—
lotsa
boob but not much to bet on!'

After Jack came over, he whispered: 'He's looking kind of peaked these days. Must be he's not getting enough sex.'

Ha!ha!ha
!

'I put the rubber someone sent me on him and J didn't like it one bit,' I told him. W giggled, but I detected a certain quivering in his eyeball, the left one, the "tell" Andy used to say always gave away W's intentions to their poker group.

'Look,' I told him, 'whoever's got it in for me had better watch out because I'm going to find the little creep. I've got detectives working on it right now, and when I find out who he is, I'm going to expose him to the world.'

The old left eyeball started vibrating again. He tightened up so much I was sure I'd found my man. 'What can detectives do? How can they tell?' 'All sorts of ways,' I told him. 'Fingerprints on the paper, saliva on the stamps. Plus some other angles I can't tell you about. Don't worry, I'll find him out.'

More quivering. Great sport!

'I'm surprised you keep saying "him." I just assumed it was a woman,' W said.

'You said you thought it was Jack.'

'I was wrong. Now I sense a feminine hand at work.'

'You mean it's all so catty, is that it, W?'

'Well put, love. Very well put.'

I laughed in a very special way to suggest several layers of private amusement. That unnerved him more. He excused himself before coffee, said he had to get back to town and file his column. Soon as he left, J and I went upstairs. 'It's definitely Waldo,' I told J. 'And now he's running scared.'

'He's pathetic.'

'Vicious-pathetic.'

'So what're you going to do about it?'

'Wait a while, see how far he goes. I read there's a saying: "Revenge is a dish best eaten cold." '

We made love and J was tender with me, more tender than I can ever remember him being. When I closed my eyes, I imagined he was T. He could have been. It was T's touch, T sensuous grazing on my skin, T's tongue wagging its way into me. For a moment, I thought I was going mad, mixing my lovers up.

On the way home, I pounded the steering wheel. If Jack can make love as tenderly as T, then what do I need T for? But maybe T can make love as harshly as J. Could I train him to? Could I cross-train these guys, make them interchangeable?

Must ask R about this.

What kind of slut am I? I wonder. Am I nuts or just perverse?

Fascinating! And I find I'm beginning to respect her for dealing with Waldo with such magnificent sangfroid. Seems to me she beats him at his own game.

But the following day, August 8, she receives another envelope. If Waldo sent it, he probably did so prior to their Thursday lunch.

Friday
: A rubber tied in the middle full of—yuk! I immediately threw it in the trash. Then I called W, told him what just arrived. 'If it really is semen,' I told him, 'I'm sure it isn't his.' 'Now why do you say that, love?' 'Cause I'm sure he's impotent, an impotent little toad. He couldn't produce a bag of scum if he wanted to. It's probably diluted mayonnaise.'

Long silence. 'I've been thinking about this since we spoke yesterday, and the more I've thought about it the clearer it is to me it has to be a woman.'

'Now why do you say that?' I asked, taking a page from R.

'It's more than just being catty, love. There's something definitely female-cruel about those letters. Diabolically cruel, I might add. Strikes me this person is some kind of witch.'

'Well, dear, I think it's a man, and he's probably a fruit, too. You know what they're like, W. I mean, a man as worldly as you.'

'Are you trying to tell me something, love?'

'I'm just saying I know it's a man, a pathetic sick excuse for one. Sending me a scumbag filled with yuk! Did he think I'd feel threatened? Me! Barb Fulraine! No, dear, it only makes me laugh!'

'Well, love, go tell your shrink all about it.' Pause. 'I wonder if it's him. Maybe he's got a crush on you. Wouldn't surprise me, you know, since everyone else around seems to.'

On Monday, August 11,
 
more neurotic fissures open up in her already fragile analytic relationship with Dad:

Monday
: At session, told R about the second condom, why I think it's W who sent it, what we've said to each other back and forth, and what I think he's trying to do.