Public Secrets Part 268

She couldn't keep her hands still. She poked and pushed at items on the

counter. A wine gla.s.s that hadn't been put away from the night before,

a bowl of fresh frt, the sugar bowl that matched the bovine teapot.

"He used to play tricks. After I'd told him about Darren, everything I

remembered, everything I felt. He would get out of bed after I was

asleep." It was all rushing out now, unstoppable. "He'd put on that

song, the one that was playing the night Darren was killed. Then he'd

call me, whispering my name over and over so that I'd wake in the dark

hearing it. I'd always try to turn on the light, but he would have

pulled out the plug so I would just sit there in bed, begging it to

stop. Once I started screaming, he would come back. He would tell me it

was all a dream. Now when I have the nightmares, I lie there in bed,

frozen, terrified he's going to open the door and tell me it was all a

dream."

"You had a nightmare tonight?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me about it?"

"They're always basically the same. It's the night Darren was killed. I

wake up just as I did. The hallway's dark, the music playing, and I'm

afraid. I can hear him crying. Sometimes I get to the door, and Drew's

there. Sometimes it's someone else, but I don't know who."

"Do you want to know?"

"Now I do, when I'm awake and I feel safe. But during the dream I

don't. I feel as though I'll die if I do, if he touches me."

"You feel threatened by this man?"

"Yes."

"How do you know it's a man?"

"I ..." She hesitated. The dark was lightening to gray. Because

the window was open she could hear the early gulls, like children

crying. "I don't know, but I'm sure it is."

"Are you threatened by men, Emma, because of what Drew did to you?"

"I'm not afraid of Dad, or Stevie. I've never been afraid of Johnno or

P.M. I couldn't be."

"And Michael?"

She picked up her tea for the first time, drinking it cold. "I'm not

afraid he'd hurt me."

"But you are afraid?"

"That I wouldn't be able to-" She broke off, shaking her head. "This

doesn't have anything to do with Michael. It's me."

"It's natural to be wary of a physical relationship, Emma, when your

last experience brought only pain and humiliation. Intellectually you

know that those aren't the purposes, or the usual result, of intimacy,

but intellect and emotion run on different tracks."

Emma nearly smiled. "Are you saying the nightmares are a result of

s.e.xual repression?"

"I'm sure Freud would," Katherine said mildly. "But then I'm half

convinced the man was a lunatic. I'm just exploring possibilities."

"I think we can rule Michael out. He's never asked me to have s.e.x with

him."

Not make love with, Katherine noted, but have s.e.x with. She would file