A day later I am in Feshtig’s office again. Usually there are more preliminaries, but today he sits across from me with his pencil poised. “Where would you like to begin?”
The two mothers are on my mind. I have been trying all night and all day to construct a method for dealing with them, for making certain they will not take the matter of their sons’ abuse to the press. It would be foolish to say too much about the mothers to him, in case they do go to the press. I do the next best thing, the better thing: I manufacture a dream based on the truth.
I try to look nervous, reluctant. “With a dream,” I say. “A disturbing one.”
“Go ahead.”
I begin to tell him about what I did to the boys in my office several months ago, pretending it was a dream. I change a few details, tinker with the boys’ ages a little, but I keep the essential details the same.
As I tell it I find myself enjoying it again. Talking about it revivifies it. I have to keep reminding myself to watch my reactions, to try to keep my expressions and tone of voice those of shock and horror. It isn’t easy.
Feshtig watches me carefully, without jotting anything on his pad for once. He is careful with his reactions as well, reserved even when I am recounting the best parts. But twice the corners of his eyes give him away. He can feel the power of what I have done, even though he will not believe I have done it. For him, it is still only a dream. This makes me feel even better.
I leave his office whistling under my breath, my burden lightened, my pleasure bursting. I am becoming a believer in the usefulness of therapy, but not in the way Feshtig would like. If I could, God knows, I would tell it all over again.