“Now hold on a minute, Kirsten.” Dr. Henderson put the rubber band down and spoke softly. “That’s not what I’m here for. If anybody has given you to believe that you’re coming to me for some kind of magic formula and-hey presto!-everything’s back to normal again, then they’ve seriously misled you.”
“What are you here for then?”
“The best way to look at the situation is that you are here, and that’s what’s important. You’re here because you’ve got problems you can’t deal with alone. I’m here to help you, of course I am, but you’re the one who’ll have to do all the work. Your description of what happened, for example-a bit thin, wasn’t it?”
“I can’t help it, can I? I mean, I can only tell you what I remember.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“How do you think I feel?”
“You tell me. Your description sounded curiously flat and unemotional.”
Kirsten shrugged. “Well, I suppose that’s how I feel.”
“How are you getting along with your parents?”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”
“Have you told them about your feelings?”
“I told you, I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything. Of course I haven’t told them. Do you think I…?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Kirsten, have you ever been able to talk to your parents about your feelings?”
“Of course I have.”
“When?”
“What do you mean?”
“Give me an example of something you’ve discussed with them.”
“I…I…well, I can’t think of anything offhand. You’re making me flustered.”
“All right.” Dr. Henderson sat up straight. “Let’s take it easy then, shall we?” And she smiled again. Kirsten found herself relaxing almost against her wishes. The doctor took out a packet of ten Embassy Regals from her desk drawer. “Mind if I smoke?”
Kirsten shook her head. She was shocked to find a real doctor smoking-especially, for some reason, a young female doctor-but she didn’t mind. Dr. Henderson turned in her chair and opened the window a little further.
“Can I have one?” Kirsten asked.
“Of course.” The doctor pushed the packet toward her. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
Kirsten almost said, “I don’t,” but she managed to stop herself. “Sometimes,” she said, then lit up. Though the first few drags hurt a bit, she didn’t make a fool of herself and start coughing and spluttering and crying. She had smoked once or twice before, just to see what it was like. The smoke made her feel a little dizzy and sick at first, but her system seemed to adapt quickly.
“And my first name’s Laura,” the doctor said. “I want us to be friends.” She poured two cups of coffee from a Thermos on the desk and pushed one toward Kirsten. “Milk? Sugar?”
Kirsten shook her head.
“Black, then. So, I take it you haven’t really been able to talk to anyone about what happened to you?”
“No. I can’t remember, you see, I really can’t. It’s like there’s a heavy black cloud inside my head where it’s all stored, and I can’t see inside it.”
“I don’t mean the event itself so much as your feelings about it now,” Laura said.
“I don’t think I feel anything.”
“Why did you take all those pills? Was it because of this cloud?”
“Partly, I suppose. But it’s mostly because I don’t feel I’m really living. I mean, I don’t enjoy things like before. Reading…company…and I don’t sleep well. I have bad dreams, over and over again. I thought it might just be better if I…”
“I see.” Dr. Henderson made a note in the file. “How important are sex and children in your life, Kirsten?”
Kirsten swallowed, shocked by the sudden change of direction. Her mouth turned dry again and the bitter coffee made it worse. She turned away. “Never thought about them. I don’t suppose one does till…till…”
“Till they’re gone?”
“Yes.”
“Had you ever considered having children?”
Kirsten shook her head. “One day. I imagined I’d have some one day. But not for a long time.”
“What about sex? Were you sleeping with your boyfriend regularly?”
In spite of herself, Kirsten blushed as she told Dr. Henderson about Galen and about how she was now trying to cut him out of her life. The doctor listened, then made more notes in her file.
“As far as I understand it,” she said, “Dr. Masterson told you that sexual intercourse would be painful, if not impossible. Am I right?”
Kirsten nodded.
“But that’s not all there is to sex, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean,” said the doctor, “is that perhaps you should start thinking about the pleasurable things you can do, rather than the ones you can’t. I’m not going to embarrass you by explaining them, but there are manuals available. What I’m saying is that you have to accept the loss of your full sexuality, yes, but that you mustn’t think that means the end of your entire sensual and erotic life. It’s important to know that you can still have those feelings and can still satisfy them in some ways-you can still touch and you can still feel.”
Kirsten stared down at the floor. She hadn’t thought about this, had tried not to think about sex at all since leaving the hospital, and she didn’t know what to say. It was probably best to let it go by for the time being.
“Just think about what I’ve said, anyway,” the doctor said. “It might be a long haul, Kirsten, but if you stick with it we’ll get you there. And if at any time you feel the need to talk to someone, please call me. Any time. Do you understand?”
Kirsten nodded.
“What about dreams? You said you’ve been having bad dreams about what happened?”
Kirsten told her about the black and white figures slashing and slicing at her in the recurring dream.
“Are you talking about nightmares?” Laura asked. “Do you wake up screaming?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“How do you react, then?”
“I don’t really. It’s all very ordinary. A bit frightening, I suppose, but there’s no pain. It’s like I’m detached from it all, just watching.”
“Why do you think you keep having that dream?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it’s some version of what happened. But I didn’t see anything, so it can’t be real.”
“Why are there two figures, a black one and a white one?”
“They’re both doing the same thing.”
“Yes, but why two?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, it can’t be anything to do with what happened. I didn’t see anything.”
The doctor stubbed out her cigarette and drank some more coffee. “The mind’s a curious thing,” she said. “It remembers things that happen even when you’re asleep or unconscious. Obviously, if your eyes are closed you can’t see, but you can hear and smell, for example. Some of those things that happen come up in dreams. What the imagination does is translate them into pictures, based on what the sensations were and what you feel about them. I’m not a Freudian, but I do think dreams can tell us a lot. These two figures cutting you, who do you think they are?”
“I suppose one of them-the black one-must be the man, the one who…you know. Or maybe they both are.”
“White and black?”
“Yes. But if what you say is true, and I remember things even when I’m unconscious, then maybe the white one’s the doctor. They operated on me for a long time, cutting in the same way I suppose. White and black. One for
