Succubi

“Yes,” she said.

“And the figures in the foreground are women?”

“Yes.”

“And who is the center of attention to these women?”

“Me.”

“You. Naked. Pregnant. On the birth table.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you find it interesting that the active participants of the dream are women, while men remain in the background, clearly symbolizing a subordinate role?”

“I plead the Fifth,” Ann said. Dr. Harold was boxing her in now, cornering her. It made her feel on guard. Moreover, it made her feel stupid, because she didn’t know what he was driving at. “A minute ago you said you didn’t think I’d been completely open with you about the dream. How so?”

“My conclusions will make you mad.”

“Hey, Doc, I’m already mad. Go ahead. Lawyers don’t like to be accused of withholding information.”

“But they do, don’t they? Isn’t that part of the trade? Withholding facts from the opposition?”

“I’m leaving,” Ann said.

“Don’t leave yet,” Dr. Harold said, lightly laughing. “We’re just beginning to get somewhere.”

Ann stalled. Her head felt like it was ticking.

“First, I’m not the opposition,” Dr. Harold asserted. “Second, I make references that trouble you because being troubled is a demonstration of the very subconscious underpinnings that have recently made you feel unfocused and confused.”

Ann didn’t care about any of that now. She wanted to know what he was going to say. “What? What conclusions? What is it you feel I haven’t told you?”

“You already know.”

Ann’s eyes bore into him. But, again, he was right, wasn’t he? She did already know.

“Tell me,” she said.

“What you haven’t admitted to me is that the dream aroused you. Outwardly, you were repelled, but inwardly, you were stimulated. You were stimulated sexually. Am I right or wrong?”

Stonily, she answered, “You’re right.”

“You were aroused and you had an orgasm. Right or wrong?”

Her throat felt dry. “Right.”

She’d told him neither of these facts, yet he knew them. Somehow she suspected he knew them on her first visit three weeks ago. The man was a walking lie-detector.

“Are you experiencing an orgasmic dysfunction at home, with Martin?”

Now Ann laughed, bitterly. What difference would it make? “Yeah,” she said. “Sex has never been a problem for me. I’ve always been…orgasmic. Until now. Since I’ve been having this nightmare, I haven’t had an orgasm with Martin.”

“But you do have an orgasm in the dream?”

“Yes, every time.”

“You’re afraid that an aspect of your past will ruin your future.”

The words seemed echoed, hovering about her head. Is that what the dream meant? And if so, what aspect of her past?

Dr. Harold went on, “Do you—”

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” Ann said. “I really don’t.”

“Why?”

“I’m upset.”

“There are times when being upset is good.”

“I don’t feel very good right now.”

“You have a lot of fixations, the most paramount of which is a fear of seeming weak to others. You associate being upset with being weak. It’s not, though. In being upset, you’re releasing a part of yourself that you’ve kept hidden. That’s an essential element of effective therapy. The exposure of our fears, the release of what we keep hidden. It helps us see ourselves in such a way that we can understand ourselves. When we don’t understand ourselves, we don’t understand the world, the people around us, what we want and what we have to do—we don’t understand anything.”

I understand that I need a drink, she thought.

“I think that it’s important for you to continue coming here,” he said.

She nodded.

“One more question, then I’ll let you go for today.” Dr. Harold unconsciously stroked his mustache. “What makes you certain that you’re giving birth to Melanie in the dream? You said that you were very ill, and that you remained barely conscious for several weeks after the birth. What makes you—”

“The setting,” she said. “All I see of myself in the dream is my body. It’s almost like a movie, going from cut to cut. I never even really see myself, but I feel things and I see things around me. The cinder block walls and earthen floor—it’s the fruit cellar at my parents’ house.”

“Melanie was born in a fruit cellar?”

“Yes. There’s no hospital in Lockwood, just a resident doctor. I went into labor early, and there was a bad storm, a hurricane warning or something, so they took me down into the fruit cellar where it would be safer.”

“And this strange emblem, the one on the chalice and the larger one on the wall, was there anything in the fruit cellar that reminded you of that?”

“No,” she said. “It’s just a normal fruit cellar. My mother cans and jars her own fruits and vegetables.”

Dr. Harold pushed a pad and pencil across his big desk. “Draw the emblem for me please.”

She felt sapped, and the last thing she wanted to do was draw. Quickly, she outlined the emblem, the warped double circle on the pad.

Dr. Harold didn’t look at it when he took the pad back. “So you’re off—where is it? To Paris?”

Ann smiled genuinely for the first time. “We’re leaving tomorrow. I’ve just got a few things to wrap up at the office this afternoon, then I’m picking up the tickets. Melanie’s an art enthusiast, she’s always wanted to see the Louvre. It’ll be the first time the three of us have been away together in years.”

“I think it’s important for you to be with Martin and Melanie on a leisure basis. It’ll give you a chance to get reacquainted with yourself.”

“Maybe the dream will go away for a while,” she said, almost wistfully.

“Perhaps, but even if it doesn’t, don’t dwell on it. And we’ll talk about how you feel when you get back.”

“Okay,” she said.

“I hope you have a wonderful time. Feel free to call me if you have any problems or concerns.”

“Sure. Bye.”

Ann left the office.

«« — »»

Dr. Harold sat in silence. He closed his eyes, thinking. He thought about her. Type A, occupationally obsessive, sexually dysfunctional. Dream methodizing, he thought. The emblem she’d drawn on the pad looked scrambled, dashed. Kinesthetically, it was obvious: she’d drawn it hurriedly because it scared her. He knew that a lot of things scared Ann Slavik.

An awful lot of things.

—

Chapter 4

“So what happened?” Duke asked. “You never said.”

Erik finished his Macke cheese dog. He always ladled them with onions—the kind that came in the little