Only Serena got it right. Victoria, Martha, even Kirk, they all missed. Dear doctor’s stare isn’t predatory or piercing. He’s trying much too hard for that. No, his stare is supremely artificial and I know, like Serena instinctively knew, that he passed his adolescence dreaming of girls he never had the courage to approach. Halberstam’s the ultimate nerd, the one who stood by the fence at the back of the schoolyard. Now he’s got real power. Now he’s dangerous. Now he’s out to get even.
I’d be afraid, but I don’t do fear.
I’m in the chair described by my brother and sisters. The submissive chair. Fine with me. I allowed my dress to slide up a bit when I sat down, so now, with my legs crossed, I know he can track the underside of my thighs almost to the swell of my ass. I’ve pulled my shoulders back as well. We don’t have the biggest boobs in town, but an asset’s an asset.
I watch the disappointment build as he continues to stare at me. I’ve offered a dare he hasn’t the courage to accept and we both know it. We both know that I’ve measured him out, that I’ve found him wanting just like every other woman in his life. Kirk was an idiot to suggest we keep the dear doctor in line with sex. No, the dear doctor’s a walking billboard for erectile dysfunction related to performance anxiety. I need to lead him to a line he can’t cross. Lead him to the line, but keep him on the safe side. That way he can go home with his fantasies intact.
I find myself considering Bobby Ortega, wondering if there’s a challenge he won’t accept. Wondering if there’s a challenge he’s prepared to offer that I’d refuse. Finally, a thought wiggles its way into my horny brain. Ortega knows who we are, knows the woman he met last night, Serena, is not the woman he met this morning. He knows and he doesn’t care. This is new for me and I feel exposed as never before, exposed and vulnerable. I recall asking a man I met at a street fair if he’d like some crazy sex. I might have asked Ortega the same question in the same words, the meanings entirely different. He’s promised to pick me up at three—a trip to the morgue—but if I have my way, the two of us will never leave the apartment.
“Am I finally speaking to Eleni?”
“That’s me.”
“I should tell you, right away, that I was just visited by a policeman, a detective who claimed to be investigating the murder of your father. Yet here you sit, as if your father’s death means nothing at all. Nothing positive, nothing negative. You’re not happy, you’re not sad.”
“Family relations … not my focus. As for his murder, well sometimes bad things do happen to bad people.”
“Really? Well, we can talk about that later on. Your reaction.” He turns to a notebook on his desk, thumbs through the pages, lays it flat. “This is our first meeting, Eleni, and it’s been long in coming. Too long, considering that you’re the one who precipitated the events that brought Carolyn Grand to my office. Victoria, for instance, at our first meeting, told me that you were ‘promiscuous.’” He stops to review his notes for a moment. “And Martha didn’t deny that you were promiscuous. No, she defended your right to be promiscuous, as so many New York women are. Now I want to hear it from you and please keep your account accurate. Let me add that the police investigating your father’s murder have also contacted the court and the physicians on the board are very nervous. So …”
He lays his elbows on the desk and leans forward, his genial expression in sharp contrast to the threat he delivered. But Martha was right to defend me. I did nothing to be ashamed of.
“Except for a few isolated hours,” I begin, my tone sultry, “I’d been out of the body for more than a week before I took full possession. You can feel that. You can know you’ll be around for a while. So, I was especially horny and I had the time and”—I lean forward, just a bit—“I left our apartment fully expecting to get laid. That’s about as raw as I can make it. My first preference was for one of the after-work bars near Wall Street. That wasn’t happening, because it was the end of the month and we were broke, as usual. So, I decided to walk around a bit, take my chances, hope for the best. Maybe twenty minutes later, I see the cop, or the guy who turned out to be a cop, leaning against the wall of a bodega on President Street.”
I’m about to describe his appearance—about thirty-five, suitably trim and rugged—when I realize that I’d describe Ortega exactly the same way. Now I can only wish he was there instead of the asshole I stumbled on to.
“I walked up and propositioned him, simple as that.”
“What did you say, exactly?”
The demand comes as no surprise and I give Halberstam his cheap thrill. I’m careful to add just enough sneer to expose my disdain, along with enough leg to keep his attention where it needs to be.
“I didn’t have a lot of time, so I kept it simple. I stood right in front of him, looked into his eyes for a moment and said, ‘If you follow me into that alley, I guarantee you’ll come out with a pair of empty balls.’”
The dear doctor rocks back a few inches and I’m sure I touched one of those closely held fantasies he’ll never make real. Fuck him.
“Short and sweet, Doctor. He hauled out his badge, which he wore on a chain beneath his shirt, and demanded ID. I produced our New York resident card, but it wasn’t enough and he decided, all on his own, to run my name through a database that included individuals committed in the past to a New York psychiatric hospital. Carolyn Grand popped up and now what was he gonna do? Am I really crazy? Can he take a chance?” I grinned, displaying my hands, palms up. “When in doubt, refer any problem to a higher authority, in this case Sergeant Brady, his immediate supervisor. Brady questioned me for about ten minutes and I could see in his eyes that I propositioned the wrong cop. If I’d been lucky enough to run into Brady first, we’d be in the alley now, rutting behind a dumpster like stray dogs. That couldn’t happen. Too many witnesses. So, Brady eventually picked the one sure way to handle me without it coming back to bite him. He shipped me off to a locked ward at Kings County Hospital. Let the shrinks figure it out.”
The dear doctor’s eyes jump around, from feature to feature, across my face, finally to the hemline of my skirt. I lean back in the chair, giving him enough space to enjoy his daydreams. The gleam in his eye tells me that he liked my story, which contained several deliberate lies. What I actually said to the cop, for example, was equally blatant, but much less offensive. I even added a touch of humor.
“I’ve got two hours to kill, baby. So, if you’ve got a place we can be alone, you can have me any way you want, fried, poached, hard-boiled, soft-boiled or sunny-side up.”
In the end, it hardly mattered because the cop reacted in the same way. And so did Sergeant Brady when he finally arrived. But there was no gleam in Brady’s eyes when he approached me, and no thought of rutting behind a dumpster. What’s more, I was gone before Brady called in the paramedics, replaced by poor Victoria.
The dear doctor bangs away at his computer’s keyboard for a moment before looking up. “Do you appreciate the risk you took? Propositioning a perfect stranger?”
“I took very little risk.” For once I tell the truth. “Take this from a woman who’s been there. You don’t choose the man who wants to slap you around. He chooses you. And he doesn’t throw a rope around you and drag you off. He charms you first, then flips the switch when he gets you alone.”
Dear doctor’s ready for me this time. “Even if I concede that you’re less likely to get into trouble if you choose randomly, that doesn’t eliminate the possibility that you’ll choose the wrong man. And not someone who merely ‘slaps you around’ but someone who’ll kill you.”
I give it a beat before responding. “I once read an article about women who fly rescue helicopters into combat zones. Bullets flying everywhere, rocket-propelled grenades fired from rooftops. ‘This is for me.’ That’s what I thought. Or it would be if I had a remote shot at a normal life. Which, of course …”
Dear doctor gets to his feet, looks at his notes for a moment. Then he comes around his desk to perch on the edge closest to me. I see genuine curiosity in his eyes and I know I’m ahead of the game. I’ve challenged him, drawn him to the line, but I haven’t pulled him across. Even if I know, I won’t tell.
“In theory,” he says, “there’s no time limit for therapy. Therapist and patient continue on as long as the sessions are productive. Your case, on the other hand, demands an immediate judgment. The detective who interviewed me, though he refused to answer directly when I asked if you were a suspect, said that he was ‘looking at anyone who had contact with Hank Grand since he was released.’ That certainly includes you.”
“That’s true, but I only saw my father for a few seconds in a supermarket. There was no actual contact.” I recross my legs, chin up, looking directly into his eyes. “But if you’re asking me if I killed my father, the answer is no. I couldn’t have because, you see, I didn’t exist.”
“Ah, the default response. I didn’t exist. Do you know how many times I’ve heard that?”
“I wouldn’t know because—”
“Because you didn’t exist. I believe you, too, Eleni, but I’m not sure the review board will. In any event, painful though it is, I have to be frank here. Your continued freedom hangs by a thread. The judge and the doctors on the review board, even the administrators at Kings County, they’re preparing the statements they’ll release to the press if you’re arrested. Statements explaining why they discharged you in the first place.” He glances at his watch. “I want you to know that I’m defending you as best I can, but my opinion is far from binding. If I were in your shoes, I’d find a good lawyer and keep a very low profile. Don’t give the board an excuse to pull the plug.”
I stand up. Time to go. The dear doctor’s startled at first, but then folds his arms across his chest.
“You seem to think we should be grateful,” I tell him. “Thank you for releasing us from this prison you call a hospital. Not me, not my sisters, not my brother. We know we never should have been committed in the first place.”
“That,” he declares with a quick shake of his head, “is not what I hoped to hear. You’re telling me that you intend to take the same risks in the future that you did in the past. Would you please explain, before you go, exactly what you hope to achieve?”
“Orgasms, Doctor. As in more than one.”
I head for the door, thinking I’d gotten the last laugh, but the dear doctor’s a step ahead this time. He raises a finger, bringing me to a halt.
“One more thing before you leave, Eleni. You told me that you couldn’t have killed your father because you didn’t exist on the night your father was killed. But if you didn’t exist, you can’t know what happened. You can’t know who inhabited Carolyn Grand’s body, nor where they went, nor what they did. Not unless someone confessed. Did that happen, Eleni? Did someone confess?”
“Not to me.”
“Would you tell me if they did?”
That brings forth my best and brightest smile. “Please, Dr. Halberstam, do you really think I’m that crazy?”