thousand times before.
Still she was rocked, momentarily disoriented, when she first came in sight of the office he'd set up in the small clearing. A padded Windsor-style myrtlewood chair and a notebook and pen for her, a padded redwood-slatted chaise for himself, a small round three-legged table placed in the angle between the chair and the head of the chaise to hold a box of tissues and an ashtray. A Freudian layout in a Jungian wood. And the sweet smell of the needles, the mushroomy smell of the loam, reminded her sharply of the redwood grove near Lucia, of the pine grove in the Trinities- she understood now that the forest was Maxwell's safe place.
“Are we missing anything?” he asked her.
“Some water, perhaps. Therapy can be thirsty work.”
After fetching a pitcher and two plastic glasses, Maxwell lay down on the chaise. Irene positioned the Windsor chair beside his left shoulder, crossed her legs, and waited with the stenographer's notebook in one hand and a green Uniball pen in the other.
She wasn't sure at first how to begin. “Do you think you might be up for another regression?” she asked him.
“NO!” Max's shout echoed through the forest, flushing the crows and jays from their boughs. Then, quietly but firmly: “No more hypnosis.”
Irene felt the fear coursing through her system-she had been reminded of how vulnerable she was, dealing with a volatile and dangerous multiple without any of the customary safeguards.
Calmly, calmly: “Of course you don't have to do anything you don't want to, Max. But if we're going to have any chance of success here, the other alters are going to have to be included.”
“Not a problem-I can take care of it.”
“Fine. As I said, you don't have to do anything you don't want to. But I do need you to know that hypnosis and regression can be invaluable tools. Perhaps later on we can work out some ground rules, some safeguards you'd be more comfortable with.”
“Perhaps,” replied Max, with just the trace of a lisp-Irene's old lisp.
She let it pass. “I just thought of something, Max. I've been acting as if this session were a continuation of an ongoing therapeutic relationship. But this is actually our first session. Which means there's a very important piece of business we need to get out of the way.”
After a quick conference with Ish (co-consciousness; no switch), Max came up with the answer. “A contract?”
“A contract.” Not only could behavioral contracts be used to set limits on unhealthy behavior, but by establishing obligations, rewards, and punishments, they could also help nurture an appreciation for cause and effect in multiples who had generally been raised by abusive adults with erratic parenting skills.
“Can do.” Max closed his eyes and conferenced with both Ish and Mose, who provided him with the contract template in general use among DID therapists. “Okay, here goes:
“I, Max Maxwell, speaking for all the alters, both known and unknown, comprising the system inhabiting the body known as Ulysses Christopher Maxwell Jr., hereby guarantee the rights and safety of our body, the rights and safety of Dr. Irene Cogan, our therapist, the safety of Dr. Cogan's property, and the safety of the property of all the alters, including any written or taped material they may provide to Dr. Cogan during the course of therapy.”
“Very good. How about guaranteeing respect for the rights, safety, and dignity of all alters?”
“On behalf of all alters, both known and unknown, I promise to respect the rights, safety, and dignity of all alters.”
“And do you have any suggestions for establishing the consequences of contract violations?”
“Accountable alters to be banished from consciousness for… forty-eight hours?”
“How about a reward for following the guidelines?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Could we go for a swim later? You and me?”
Irene thought about it. Compared to some of the things he might have asked for, a swim sounded harmless enough. And unless that structure in the meadow really was a covered swimming pool, he might even intend taking her off the property.
“Agreed. What I'll need you to do tonight, I'll need you to write up the oral contract we just made. We'll go over the document tomorrow morning, then both sign it. Between now and then-and I'm speaking to all the alters who can hear me now-if any of you can't accept the terms of the contract, you have to speak up now, or consider yourself bound by them until tomorrow morning.”
Max closed his eyes. He could hear what he called the crowd noise building in his head. Humor her, he told the others. Just humor her. He opened his eyes and turned his head, glanced over his shoulder at Irene. “Looks like we're all in agreement.”
“Excellent. Let's get started. Again, my preference would be a hypnotic regression, but if that's still out of the question, what I need, when you're telling me your history, is to hear in turn from each of the alters involved, rather than have all their experiences filtered through you. Would that be possible?”
“As long as you don't ask their names directly. Remember, if you do that, they automatically revert to me.”
“But will they identify themselves? I have to know who I'm speaking with.”
As if by way of response, Maxwell's eyes rolled up and to the right, and his eyelids fluttered. When they opened again, his lips were slightly pursed, his eye movements quicker.
“Good morning, Dr. Cogan,” he said. It was a woman's voice. Not a falsetto, not the modified Julia Child vibrato of so many transvestites, but a woman. “My name is Alicea.” A- lyss — ee-ah. “Max wants me to tell you about some things that happened to me when I was a child. Would you like to hear them?”
“Very much, Alicea. I'd like very much to hear them.”
And so began one of the strangest and most horrifying tales that Irene Cogan, who'd made a career of listening to strange and horrifying tales, had yet heard.
54
The year is 1980. A Saturday night. Nine-year-old Alicea is hiding in her bedroom. Or at least wishing she could hide. She knows what's coming-she's been through it before. In a way, it's her job. More than her job: it's her reason for being.
As nine o'clock approaches, Alicea sneaks out of her room wearing only her underpants and tiptoes down the hall to her parents' bedroom. The door is ajar. She slips inside and locks it behind her, secure in the knowledge that it cannot be opened from the outside-all these years after Lyssy's dream, and the hole in the doorknob is still clogged with Superglue.
Feeling goosebumpy all over, Alicea strips off her underpants (in the process unconsciously tucking the male genitalia of which she is unaware back between her legs) and with her legs closed stands before the full-length mirror to examine her body. What she sees is very different from what Christopher sees when he examines himself in the mirror. The contours are more rounded, as if there were an extra layer of fat beneath the smoother, moister skin. And the dark hair is longer, the rib cage longer and narrower, the nipples slightly fuller. Best of all is the delicious smoothness between the tightly pressed thighs.
Nope, no question about it-Alicea, though enough of a tomboy to the eye that no one ever acknowledges her true gender, is a one-hundred-percent all-American thank-heaven-for-little-girls little girl. This is a good thing-she understands that if she were a boy, what she is about to be subjected to would be crushing, absolutely unbearable.
Reassured, she returns to her room. Downstairs the grown-ups are getting rowdier-the speed and the booze are beginning to kick in. She turns on her radio to drown out the noise. “Another One Bites the Dust,” by Queen. Alicea adores Freddie Mercury.
As always, Mother opens the door without knocking. Her eyes have that off-center look they get when she's high on meth, as if the irises were oblong and the pupils elongated.
“I see you're ready, for a fucking change,” says her mother spitefully, though Alicea is nearly always ready when they come for her-sometimes it saves her a beating.
