“Oh, good Lord!” Bob exploded. “Not that again. You have this morbid fixation, this ingrained idea that I am interested sexually in Kathy. You can't seem to realize, you refuse to realize that it is you who arouses me. You, Denise! I had my arm around your waist, correct?”
“Yes…”
You're wearing no girdle tonight, and no bra?”
“Yes.”
“Then don't you think that your presence was what excited me, Denise?” he asked, as if I were the densest person in the world. “You were so worried about things that were not even involved, I don't suppose you were conscious of the fact that my hands were caressing your buttocks, my fingers were feeling the yielding flesh of the underside of your breasts. Denise! You are a sexy woman, an erotic woman! When I am close to you, feeling your flesh like that teasing my hands beneath a minimum of clothing, I get passionate! Why do you keep torturing yourself and denying your sexuality? Why? Why? I want to make love to you, Denise. Yes! All week you have wanted to make love. Is it so strange, am I some kind of pervert because tonight, I want to make love to you?”
“No… no, darling… love me…”
And he did, more violently and satisfying than ever before.
The third incident of that summer was not so easy for me to put aside. I had rejected the others, relegating them at least to my subconscious where they boiled from within to tear me apart without my quite knowing or understanding what it was.
But this time it was different. We had been drinking quite heavily. Kathy had been staying out until all hours and acting very peculiar. She would often knock on our door after Bob and I had gone to bed, as if deliberately trying to keep us from making love.
And on that particular night when I had been drinking far too much, Kathy came in about one in the morning acting giddy and foolish. I knew she had been drinking too, but I was too ashamed of my own condition to mention it. We said a few words and then she went up to her bed.
Bob helped me upstairs, and I remember passing out almost as soon as I hit the bed. I woke up, still in a daze, about four o'clock. I needed to go to the bathroom. Bob was not there! I walked into the hall and saw his trousers and shirt across the railing at the top of the steps. I could hear voices somewhere and the sound of Kathy's radio.
I started toward her door, then I suddenly stopped in my tracks. I was shaking all over. I reached out to grab the doorknob, determined to break right into her room.
But I could not do it!
I froze right there, still trembling and chilled all over. There was a breeze coming through the hallway. But was it really that cold? The goosepimples stood out all over me, and only then did I realize that I was naked. I turned and went down to the bathroom. It was all I could do to function, my body was so tense, twisted up inside.
On the way back to my room, I seemed to hear voices from everywhere, the sound of a bed moving, little titters of laughters and pleasant sighs… and the music from the radio. I even thought I heard the refrigerator door close down in the kitchen.
I became dizzy and unable to stand up right. I was losing my balance. And the strangest thing was that I was so afraid to risk facing the truth, that hay biggest concern was that I might make some noise that would give me away. Carefully, I groped my way back into the bedroom, and seem to recall seeing Bob's blue silk pajamas lying across the foot of the bed just as they had been all day.
I awoke with a terrible start at 8:30. I don't know what awakened me. I seemed to hear the sound of a door closing, Kathy's door. But I could not be sure. I immediately jumped out of bed and put on my robe. My head seemed amazingly clear. I was not dizzy anymore. I was determined to have it out, to go right into Kathy's room and have it out. I was going to find out the truth, find out whether everything that I suspected was true, or whether I was out of my mind.
I stopped short when I opened the door to the stall. Bob was sitting at the top of the stairs, smoking a cigarette and wearing his blue silk pajamas. His blue silk pajamas! My mind seemed to snap, and I walked toward him wagging an accusing finger.
“Where have you been?” I demanded.
“Be quiet, dear. You'll wake Kathy,” he stated with amazing calm and aplomb, patting a place beside him for me to sit down. “I've spent a rather hectic night, but I think it's all for the best…”
“You… were in Kathy's bedroom?” I accused him outright, ”… in your underwear…”
“For God's sake keep your voice down!” he whispered sharply, grabbing my arm. “Kathy had been drinking. Chillie got her drunk and almost raped her. She was terribly upset. I could tell that when she came in. As soon as you passed out, I went in and talked to her.”
“But your clothes… I saw your clothes over the railing there when I got up to go to the bathroom at four.”
“So you did,” he agreed without hesitation. “I talked to her first until about two-thirty, and then I came in here to get my pajamas. I told Kathy I would sleep in the den so that if she needed me she could come get me without disturbing you. She was still quite upset. I changed clothes here in the hallway so I wouldn't have to leave my clothes downstairs.”
“No… no you didn't,” I said stiffly, determined to have it out, “Your… pajamas were still on the bed when I was up at four.”
“Oh? How were you feeling then? Was everything clear? No effects from your drinking?”
“Yes!” I blurted out, then I felt an awful headache coming on, “No-I was dizzy-”
“Blue pajamas-blue vertigo,” he commented, shrugging his shoulders and smiling at me, “It can happen to anyone. Probably fixated in your mind from the night before when they were there.”
“But you were-in Kathy's room-”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation, “I stayed with Kathy most of the night, with the exception of about an hour when I was in the den, twenty minutes fixing something to eat in the kitchen. I even lay beside her in the bed and let her cuddle close to me, put her arm around me. The girl needed it. She needed her father. Her mother was drunk!”
The last word seared through me like a hot branding iron. I turned away from him and wanted to cry. How could I believe it? How could I believe it, knowing what had gone on before, knowing that he had the means to watch her alone in her bedroom at any time through that spy device?
“Denise?”
“Yes, Bob.”
“The door was unlocked. Why didn't you come in and see for yourself when you were up at four?”
“I–I don't know. I wasn't feeling good.”
“You could have peeked in through the scope in the closet, Denise. If you were so worried, why didn't you do that?”
“Oh-I don't know Bob. I'm so-so mixed up about everything-”
“Denise, look at me. Look at me right square in the eye, and tell me you honestly believe I was making love to your daughter.”
“I can't-,” I admitted tearfully, about to go to pieces inside, but afraid to.
“I'll tell you another reason I stayed in there nearly all night with Kathy,” Bob announced, looking at me very seriously. “I wanted to see how deeply this phobia goes. You claim to love me, Denise. But you don't trust me at all. How can you say you love me when you don't trust me?”
How could I not believe him?
UNTIL Kathy left to return to her father three weeks later, I was in a state of emotional turmoil. One day, I would believe it was all in my imagination. The next day, Kathy or Bob would do or say something that brought it all back.
I went to the doctor complaining of nerves and he tried to get me to talk about the thing that was bothering me. Naturally, I refused, because I refused to recognize it myself. He prescribed some tranquilizers, but they only
