GODDESS OF THE MOON (A Diana Racine Psychic Suspense) (13 page)

“To protect yourself.”

His chair squeaked on its hinges as he leaned back.
He
steepled
his fingers under his chin.
“For what reason?
Do you think I impregnated th
em
?”

Now it was her turn to stare him down. “The thought entered my mind.”

Slater’s skin paled, and he didn’t flinch except for a small twitch in his cheek.
“Would that I could.”

The response stopped her. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t have a penis, Ms. Racine.”

The Descent into Hell

D
iana gasped for the second time in as many minutes. Shocked and confused, words failed her. No psychic revelation prepared he
r for this. She slunk down in the
chair
, aware of
Slater watching her reaction.

“I was twenty-one
,” he said
.
”
One of the rarest forms of cancer, and even rarer in one so young.
Almost unheard of, in fact.
It started with a small lesion at the base of my penis when I was in divinity school. I wasn’t a virgin. Not that I was promiscuous, but I’d discovered sex and liked it
―
a lot. I assumed I’d contracted
herpes
and bought some over-the-counter cream
, b
ut it didn’t clear up.”

He stopped and gazed across the room, then back at Diana. She felt the heat on her face, saw the pain on his.

“Finally, I went to a family practitioner. He prescribed a pill and more cream, but
the
sore
still didn’t clear up; in fact, it got worse. I went back to the doctor and he prescribed a more potent pill. By the time I went to
a
urologist, the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes in the groin. I won’t bore you with the che
mical torture other than to say
nothing worked. My penis had to be excised or I would have died. Surgery was the only way to save my life, and against the odds, I’m still alive.
Ironic, because I spent the next ten years trying different ways to kill myself.
It would have been a lot easier and less painful had I let nature take its course.” Slater’s voice came out flat, his statement a matter-of-fact explanation of a condition he’d long since suffered and accepted.

Flashes of heat pulsed through Diana’s body, her heart thrummed. When she realized she sat as rigid as a statue, she made a point of relaxing. But the gesture must have seemed as phony to Slater as it felt to her. His story shook her, and he knew it.

“I’m…I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s why I didn’t want to touch you. I was afraid you’d sense something.”

She didn’t think she was capable of such a vision, of so shocking a revelation. “So, the name Osiris was a literal interpretation. Cut into little pieces and put back together, except for the phallus.”

“Exactly.
I thought you might figure it out.”

“Who could possibly connect mythology with reality and come to that conclusion? Those ten years you spoke of, where were you?”

“Reconstructive surgery, not to create a penis as Isis succeeded in doing, although I wear
a prosthesis
to create the illusion, but surgery that allows me to urinate.
Then more chemo, radiation, drugs, alcohol, and three suicide attempts.
I’ve been to hell and back, Ms. Racine. I’m sure there are worse things than losing your manhood, but to be honest, after what I’ve been through, I can’t think of one. And don’t say that one’s manhood isn’t all between his legs. Try telling that to a woman who thinks she loves you, until you tell her you’re missing a crucial part of the love-making process.”

Diana nodded,
then
wondered how she would feel if she
learned
that about the man she loved. She shook off the thought. “So you lost faith in God.”

“No benevolent
g
od could allow
such a travesty
. Believe me, being a divinity student put my faith to a test. My faith lost.”

“Hence, all the studies, the psychology and philosophy.
You were looking for answers. You must have come to terms with your situation. You seem at peace.”

“In many cases, radiation kills sexual urges, but not in mine. So I had myself castrated. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it relieved me of feelings I couldn’t engage in and lessened my torment.”

So that’s why he didn’t follow through with Jeanine Highsmith. He couldn’t.

“Why are you telling me this, Mr. Slater? Obviously, you’ve kept this from everyone. You refused to touch me, so why tell me now?”

“Because we share a sense of mysticism.
In that realm, I am normal.”

“So you became a mythological figure, explaining, if only to yourself, a situation you couldn’t face as Edward Slater.”

He sucked in his bottom lip and closed his eyes for a
minute
. When he opened them, he stared at Diana. There passed between them a brief connection so strong it was as if a spark ignited.
S
he could
n’t
explain
the sensation
, nor did she want to as a picture of Lucier flashed in front of her eyes
, but her
heart
raced
.

“Something
like
that,” he said, still staring.

A
moment
later
she found her voice. “
What took
the place of your faith
?
”

“
I’m
an atheist. That’s renouncing belief in a supreme being. I never said I relinquished my faith. On the contrary, if you remember when we first met, I said I was a disciple of faith and reverence. It’s not faith in God. Nothing radical, I assure you, but it entails a long story, which I’ll save for another time. I’ll probably regret telling you what I’ve already told
you.”

“Did you tell
Jeanine Highsmith
?”

“Jeanine was seeking something I couldn’t give her.
She possessed an
exceptional
i
ntellect, but she clearly had other things in mind
―
carnal pleasure, for one. And I…well, I’m not in the market for that and never will be.”

“
Y
ou still could have pleasured a woman.
N
ot with penetration but certainly with other methods. Before castration you had physical cravings.”

“
Which only made me more aware of my deficiency
―
no pun intended.
I read something of Kierkegaard once. I’ve kept it as a kind of mantra because it applies in so many ways. ‘There are two ways to be fooled,’ he said. ‘One is to believe what isn't so; the other is to refuse to believe what is so.’ It took me ten years to face reality and come to that conclusion. If I were going to live any kind of life, I couldn’t live as half a man, feeling sexual desires without the goods to follow through. That’s worse than torture. So, I made my decision to live in a way I understood, and God wasn’t part of it. Granted,
my way
isn’t
for
everyone, but it ma
kes
sense to me. I certainly don’t bandy about my atheism, especially here.”

“Who saved you?”

“As I said, another time
, a
nd I hope there will be another time. Maybe I’m holding back the rest of the story so I’ll be sure we
meet again
. You’re intellectually stimulating, and we’ve barely scratched the surface of subject matter.”

He got up, walked around to the back of her chair
,
and pulled it out. “You can tell your
l
ieutenant to relax. I have no designs on you sexually.” He smiled and looked at her as a man would look at a woman who holds for him sexual interest.
“Would that I could.”

* * * * *

“H
e what?”

Lucier and Diana finished dinner and curled up together on the sofa. His exclamatory question was in response to a chronicle of Diana’s day, which ended with most of her conversation with Edward Slater.

“You heard me,” she said. “The man is incapable of being a sexual predator or impregnating those women.” Diana decided not to break Slater’s confidence by telling Lucier the true nature of his condition. She inferred Slater was gay. How could any man understand the choices he made
or
comprehend living without his manhood? “
H
e could
n’t
possibly be a Satanist. One of the primary characteristics of a Satanist is carnal pleasure, and Edward Slater isn’t interested in those women.”

“So maybe it’s carnal pleasure with men. It works both ways, you know. Pleasure is pleasure. Depends what floats your boat.”

“
H
e didn’t impregnate those two girls, and I don’t believe he’s involved in the disappearance of
that baby, any baby
.
The man’s been through hell, Ernie
.
Drugs and alcohol brought him down as low as a man can go, and he’s rebuilt his life
, devoting himself
to helping people. At worst, someone is using his mission to prey on the
women
who wind up there, for whatever reasons.”

“You’re losing your objectivity.”

“
He’s not a
Satanist,
”
she said louder than she intended.

“Then what’s so secret about his faith or religious persuasion?”

“I don’t know
―
something he’s devised to make sense out of his life. All I know is that Edward Slater hasn’t got the perverted character to be involved in what went on in that house.”

“And he told you this, or is it something you
felt
?”

She noted his sarcasm but chose to ignore it. “Why are you so negative concerning him?”

“Because I think your feelings about our good Brother Osiris are way off track.” He rose from the sofa. “It’s been a long day. I’m going home
before one of us says something we’ll regret later
.”

He pecked her on the forehead and walked out the door, leaving her confused and―dammit―angry at him for being so stubborn and shortsighted. Then she wondered if she had indeed lost her objectivity. Had she become a victim of Slater’s charismatic spell?

Hacker Extraordinaire

D
iana sat in the dim light alone, stung by Lucier’s accusation. Was his opinion of Slater colored by his love for her?
H
e judged Slater as an adversary and as a suspect rather than how she saw the man
―
as a victim. But then she knew his story, or part of it. There was more.
He as much as told her so.

She couldn’t share Slater’s secret with Lucier or anyone else. She’d be betraying a man who’d been betrayed, rightly or wrongly, by the greatest force in his life: his God. No, she entered into a tacit agreement, and she wouldn’t break it without good reason.

In questioning Lucier’s motives, she had to ask about her own.
What made her
so sure Slater was telling the truth? This time, to reinforce her intuition that she wasn’t being conned, she needed outside help. She’d
deal with
the residual guilt later.

At age twelve, Diana could no longer bear the pressure of leading police to missing people, most of whom were dead, so she said she’d lost her psychic gifts. Because her father was unwilling to give up the notoriety and the money his daughter generated, he devised her act. Her performances employed assigned seating, and a series of computer hackers matched the information culled from the credit card payments to the people she called onstage. Though using most of her researcher’s
material
to avoid giving herself away, she couldn’t resist incorporating a tidbit from her psychic impressions that, despite raised eyebrows, she logically explained away.

Computer hacker Jason
Connors
was the latest in a line of techno geeks employed first by her father, then later by her.
They all signed a confidentiality agreement, and to date no one had cashed in on what would surely be a juicy story.
She picked up the phone, punched in Jason’s cell number, and felt a wave of nostalgia when she heard his enthusiastic greeting.

“Wow, Diana,” he said, “I never expected to hear from you.”

“Why not, we’re friends, aren’t we?”