Trifecta (73 page)

She kept telling herself it was only her body.  He didn't
really have her, her essential part or essence, but she knew she was wrong.

She must have passed out from the pain for a while because
she heard someone pounding on the door.  At first she thought it was the sound of
the man pounding into her, but it was someone at the door. 

The pounding sound really awakened Michelle from
the nightmare.  She found herself sobbing and grasping her pillow.  She opened her
eyes groggily and shook her head, willing the dream back to her subconscious where
it belonged.  Although the room was not warm she was perspiring.  Her heart felt
like it would burst through her chest it was palpitating so fast and hard.  She
willed herself to get rid of the dream.  She hadn't had one this bad in months.

The knocking that awakened her came again.  Michelle groaned,
rolled to the side of the bed and looked at the clock.  It was five-thirty.  Damn. 

She got up and hurried out of her bedroom, grabbing her
robe and shoving her arms into it.  She went into the living room and down the hallway
to the door and opened it.

"You should be more careful, Shelly," Heather
scolded, walking in with her coffee cup.  "Never open the door without asking
who it is.  How many times have I told you?"

"Murderers and rapist are all asleep this time of
morning," Michelle said, yawning hugely.

"Not funny," Heather said as she closed the door
and bolted it behind her.  They went into the kitchen.  The automatic pot had done
its duty and Michelle poured herself a cup and sat down at the kitchen table.

"You look like hell," Heather said observantly,
filling her own cup and leaning against the counter.

"Oh fuck," Michelle said, as though surprised,
and Heather laughed.

"I have a shoot this morning, at six-thirty,"
Heather said.  "Actually you look better than you used to, though."

"Thanks loads.  I bet you pulled on those jeans and
just walked on over," Michelle said.  It was depressing how beautiful Heather
was.  She never looked tired, never got bags under her electric blue eyes, and stayed
thin without dieting. 

"I do it every morning," Heather said, a little
put out.

"You never look like something nasty an alley cat
dragged in.  Even in the morning."

"I look horrible now," Heather said, really believing
that too.  She looked at Michelle carefully.  "Did you have the dream again?"

Michelle nodded.

"Finish it," Heather said, sipping her coffee.

Michelle obediently closed her eyes and remembered how
the man who was raping her had suddenly jumped up.  The knocking had been going
on for some time.  She started a croaking scream, now that someone was at the door
and might hear her.  She heard the pass key in the lock.  She pulled the pillow
from her face and watched her attacker run to the door and unfasten the chain. 
He threw the door open so hard that he must have knocked the person on the other
side of the door to the ground. 

There was an eerie total silence when the door clicked
shut on automatic springs.  She looked down at herself and saw slick blackness in
the dark.  She was covered with blood.  Moving to cover herself was impossible.

She should have felt relief, but she knew there was something
still in the room with her.  A blackness that was darker than the black room.  That
was when her memory stopped.  No matter how hard she tried, she never could bring
that part of the nightmare to light.  The attacker was gone, but time stopped when
the blackness moved toward her. 

The adolescent bellhop was the one who had ended the attack,
knocking on the door, bringing her some insect spray.  He was worried when she didn't
answer her phone and had gone to her room to make sure she was all right.  She found
out later that he tried to spray some of the insect poison at the rapist, but the
man got away down the hallway and disappeared down the stairs.  Her attacker had
never been caught. 

It seemed like hours before the ambulance arrived.  The
young man had covered her with blankets and called 911.  Then he had run downstairs
and brought her some brandy from the bar.  Michelle gulped it straight from the
bottle.  It was the only thing that stopped her sobs and the uncontrollable trembling. 
It even helped take away some of the physical pain.  That was the beginning of her
life with alcohol as her best friend.

She was told later by her team of doctors that she had
been lucky.  Oh yeah, Michelle had thought at the time, real lucky to be attacked,
raped and ruined. 

They said the man would certainly have killed her if he
had not been interrupted.  But the scariest thing for her was the fact that she
could pass her rapist on the street and never know it.  She knew that he was big
and very strong.  So now she was afraid of men.  And the fear had generalized so
much that even tiny men could numb her with fear if they looked at her wrong.  Wrong
being looking at all, in Michelle's mind.

The police hadn't wanted to believe that she could not
identify the rapist.  There was a gigantic manhunt going on because this kind of
attack, in one of the best hotels in Las Vegas, adversely affected the tourist industry. 
They hadn't been able to keep the incident from the newspapers or television.

The second day she was in the hospital two detectives brought
piles of albums with pictures of criminals with the same sort of M.O., as they put
it.  Rapist/Slasher types.  Michelle looked at the pictures and told them over and
over that it had been dark and she had not seen his face.  They countered that just
the head shape or maybe a profile would grab her.  Michelle was not grabbed, she
was disgusted.  So many pictures.  So many violent people.

When the pictures didn't work, the detectives sent over
a police artist.  Michelle described what she had seen in the mirror.  And she saw
again, in the artist's rendering, the shape hovering over the bed.  Then she described
the head and shoulders looming above her during the violent fight.  It came alive
on a drawing tablet. 

She knew the police were sorry for her; she was, after
all, being cooperative.  Then they were confused by the fanciful drawings of a demon
lurking over her bed.  But the most troubling thing to Michelle was when they began
to disbelieve her whole story.  The lab results had come back and she didn't have
any physical samples of fluids on her body from another person.  There was no saliva,
no seamen, no blood, and no hair, except her own.  It was a locked room mystery
and they didn't believe her any more.  She was disgusted when they were disappointed
that the man had not ejaculated inside her. 

Michelle found out later that the young bellhop had gone
through the same sort of interrogation.  He could no more describe the man than
Michelle.  The boy had been flung to the floor by the door when he was trying to
open it.  He just saw a tall shape covered in blood.  Michelle was grateful he had
witnessed the gigantic shape running down the hallway.  At least there were two
people who had seen the attacker, even though both witnesses could only describe
a large male.  The police had to believe her with the boy's verification.

During the rape, when she told herself her attacker was
not possessing her really, not the essential Michelle, she had known it was not
true, even then.  She had been possessed and brutally injured in both mind and body. 

While Michelle was in the hospital it had been too painful
to walk for days, but when she finally could, she managed to get to a communal bathroom
down the hospital corridor from her room.  There she took off her nightgown and
looked at herself in a full length mirror.  At first she cried.  Then a funny thought
occurred to her.  She would be a perfect centerfold! 

She started laughing and quickly got hysterical, doubling
over with spasms, tears running out of her eyes.  She tried to stop because she
was hurting the stitches by the giant whoops, but she couldn't. 

The orderlies at the nursing station heard the strange
laughter, finally went to investigate, and helped Michelle back to her room and
into bed.  She had a large red and puckered scar that ran from the top of her chest
to below her navel, with black stitches holding the skin together.  She was
neatly bisected down the middle.  A centerfold complete with staples.

Michelle was in the hospital for reconstructive surgery
for a couple of weeks.  Then she had psychotherapy for six months.  Now she tried
not to think about how much she had loved physical relationships with men in the
past.  She would not think about how she could have been construed as loose or,
that most terrible of words for women, easy, but she knew she had been, sometimes. 
The difference was that she had always been in control.  She had been the one to
decide whether she wanted a physical relationship.  Now she couldn't bear the thought
of a man touching her. 

She had been too badly injured by the assault to ever have
children.

Michelle opened her eyes and nodded at Heather,
signaling that she had finished.  Her therapist had told her to finish the dream
whenever she had it, calling it Closure.  Michelle wondered if it did any good. 
All it did was scare the bejesus out of her yet again by the conscious repetition. 
It was bad enough in her dreams.

"I'm sorry," Heather said softly.

Michelle turned away and poured more coffee so Heather
wouldn't see the beginning of her tears.  She took a deep breath, bit her bottom
lip hard, and controlled it.  She blinked very hard and fast.  Heather was the nicest
person she had ever known.  Niceness always made her feel like crying. 

To cover up her feelings Michelle said, "You should
have seen what happened last night."

"What?"

"There's this new older man in the building.  He bought
the top floor."

"The one with the black hair and creepy eyes?"

"Must be the same one.  He asked me out for a drink..."

"You didn't!" Heather exclaimed.  She was one
of the few people who knew that Michelle had a problem with alcohol.

"Yes.  But I didn't mean to.  So it wasn't a slip. 
Honestly.  I mean, I told him I didn't drink, and he brought me a Virgin Mary. 
But when I drank it, I knew it was spiked."

"Oh, no!"

Michelle nodded, "I jumped up so fast I spilled both
drinks in his lap.  And the whole table."

"Good."  Heather was smiling.

"I ruined his suit.  You should have seen the tomato
juice all over him.  On this dazzlingly white shirt with onyx studs.  Even in his
cape."

"His cape!"  Heather was laughing hilariously.

Michelle looked at Heather.  "It wasn't funny.  Stop
laughing," but she could feel her own mouth quirking into a smile.

"I can't."

Michelle reached for her cigarettes on the table and watched
Heather.  At least she had brightened her day.  "I was mortified."

"You shouldn't be.  You told him you didn't drink. 
And a man like that.  I mean, he must be a shit."

"You mean because he's gorgeous," Michelle said. 
It wasn't a question.  His looks were a given.  It was obvious that Heather believed
that he had done it on purpose.

"No question.  Or else he's gay," Heather said.

"That's what I thought.  I can't imagine why he asked
me out," Michelle said.

"Well, that's obvious."

"No," Michelle said shaking her head.

"You're simply the most interesting looking person
he probably ever saw."

"Right.  He's attracted to a giantess with yellow
eyes."

"I mean it."

"I used to be attractive," Michelle said frowning. 
It seemed like a long time ago.

"You used to know you were.  Before.  You know what
I mean.  You have gorgeous black hair.  And your eyes really are so unusual."

"Right," Michelle said smiling.  "You forgot
the freckles."

"Keep kicking yourself, lady.  But since you stopped
drinking, you really have improved." 

Heather had made it a habit to bring her coffee cup over
every morning.  She had seen Michelle with gigantic hangovers many times in the
past, so sick she could hardly move, her face swollen and her eyes bloodshot.  At
that time she had never mentioned to Michelle that she looked horrible in the morning.

"I still want it, sometimes," Michelle said. 

"The litany for models at the agency is no sugar,
no fat, no salt, no carbohydrates, no calories.  Might as well chuck eating altogether. 
But especially no alcohol.  And I don't care."

"You'll never understand.  And you eat anything you
want anyway.  I just want to get out of my head.  Have things ease up a little. 
Have some fun."

"Well, you certainly won't have it going out with
that black haired stick."

"Omar," Michelle said, significantly, watching
for the reaction.

"Omar?" Heather said.  She started laughing again
and Michelle joined her.  It was one of the best things about Heather.  She saw
humor in everything.

"Exactly my reaction when I heard it," Michelle
said.

"Oh my God.  Omar," Heather was hysterical again. 
She got up still laughing.  "Perfect.  I have to fix my face."  Laugh
tears were running down her cheeks.  "Omar."  She shook her head helplessly
and headed to the door.

"Actually, he was quite nice," Michelle said
as Heather walked out. 

Michelle watched Heather's yellow hair drift behind her
down the hall.  Laughter and the name Omar floated back to her.

A
ctually he had been nice, Michelle thought as
she flipped on the computer and tried to figure out how to finish the bi-annual
financial projections for six buildings in two hours.  She had done most of the
homework, so she just had to plug in the figures.  Still, it was a gigantic, daunting
task.

As she swiftly and mechanically toiled away on the statistical
reports, she decided that the thing she hadn't liked about Omar was that he was
a Toucher.  He had found reasons to touch her arm or pat her hand, even brush back
tendrils of her hair as they talked.  Michelle thought it might be a European mannerism
that was practically ingrained, but she couldn't help flinching when she saw a male
hand come near her.  Especially those spider fingers of his.  He had not seemed
to notice her withdrawal.  Or maybe he found it interesting or amusing when she
recoiled.  Anyway, it didn't matter.  He wouldn't want to go out again with someone
who clumsily knocked drinks all over him.  The  clots of thick tomato juice had
looked like blood, reminding her that she had thought of him as a Dracula type figure
in the cape.

Heather's immediate reaction had been about his creepy
eyes.  When Michelle thought of them close up, she was suddenly and sickeningly
reminded of spiders again.  Or that monstrous insect on her bedroom wall.  Omar
had long thick lashes on both the top and bottom lids.  It reminded her of spider
legs.  Which was ridiculous, because his eyes were slanted and extremely unusual. 
Even if they were kind of spooky.  And it had been nice to get out for an evening. 
Michelle couldn't remember the last time she had been alone with a man. 

As Michelle's fingers automatically plugged in the projected 
costs of electricity, janitorial services, landscaping, maintenance personnel, construction,
and all the other expenses inherent in running large office buildings, she decided
that if Omar asked her out again she would consider it. 

Michelle worked silently and intently for a while, turning
off her thoughts and concentrating on getting the work done.  When she had almost
finished she grimaced and shook her left hand.  She hoped she wasn't getting carpal
tunnel syndrome.  Working on the computer was essential to her job. 

She pushed up the sleeve of her robe.  There was a large
blue bruise that went all the way around her wrist, back to front.  Michelle stared
in surprise, because although she had light skin, she didn't bruise easily.  Then
she remembered that numb feeling when Omar had let go of her wrist last night, when
she had attempted to bolt from the cocktail lounge.  He had held her wrist tightly,
but she had felt no pain. 

When she went over the incident in her mind she found it
even more incredible that Omar had been able to stop her headlong rush to get away
from him.  Michelle repeated the event again in her mind slowly.  She had jumped
up and bumped the table, saw the drinks tip into his lap almost in slow motion,
the liquid splashing up over his shirt.  Then the whole table had fallen and landed
on his knees.  The table rolled off of him and landed on the floor with a gigantic
crash.  By that time Michelle had told him the drink had vodka in it and had turned
on her heel to leave. 

The incident didn't add up sensibly.  How did Omar get
up, walk around the table, and grab her before she had taken a second step?  It
seemed impossible for anyone to move that quickly.  And she had been very fast herself. 
Furiously angry, she had decided in a split instant to leave, thinking he was playing
a nasty, macabre joke on her.  Of course, she'd had her back to him when he moved
to intercept her.  She couldn't imagine him jumping over the table, cape and all. 
That was ludicrous.  But he had been right beside her when she was one step from
the table. 

Michelle decided to let it go.  She had been sitting motionless
for too long, trying to figure how Omar had bruised her.  She had to get to work. 
The last time she had been late with financial reports, the corporate comptroller
for the entire Heroshi conglomerate, Nakamura, had sent one message:  Are you dead? 

Later, she learned it was a kind of Japanese joke.  She
didn't think it was very funny at the time, but she didn't understand the Japanese
very well.  And she didn't want to make that powerful man, Nakamura, angry again.

Michelle continued to sit and muse.  She would have to
wear something long sleeved, today, and probably all week long.  Michelle thought
that maybe she hadn't noticed the pain because she had been so furious.  And maybe
she had the sequence all wrong.  Perhaps she had stood in disbelief for a few seconds
before turning to go. 

When Michelle got to the bottom of the graphs, the projected
gross income from monthly lease rentals, she considered her personal problem.  She
needed practice at being alone with men.  It was like the psychological method of
Progressive Desensitization, in which one gradually becomes used to a situation
that precipitates a panic attack.  Omar might be the perfect person to practice
with.  He was older, so he probably wouldn't suddenly pounce on her, like an overly
enthusiastic younger man in a bout of excess testosterone.  He seemed to be sensitive,
even with all the touching, and he had sat there with tomato juice all over him
calmly.  She couldn't help regarding him favorably for not using his cape to cover
up. 

Michelle knew she was rationalizing reasons to see him
again.  But he had been nice about his ruined suit.  She knew she was always paranoid
and suspicious.  It was time to learn to trust again.

Omar had shaken her hand at the doorway to her apartment
and didn't seem to expect her to ask him in.  He appeared perfectly safe, gentlemanly
and mannerly.  And besides, he was urbane, sophisticated, charming and had a beautiful
voice, not to mention his exceptional face.  Except he was so big.  He was large
enough to be the man who had hurt her. 

Michelle sighed in exasperation at the preoccupation
her mind slid back to like a half healed scab.  She could accept the fact that
she was going to be leery of men, probably for the rest of her life, but taking
inventory of the physical size of each man she met and wondering if he was the
one was a little extreme.  Especially since an ocean separated her from the
place where it had happened.

Michelle's female therapist on the mainland believed it
was  drastic for Michelle to move so precipitously to Hawaii.  She had advised Michelle
that in these dire economic times it might be a decision she would later regret,
reminding Michelle that she had a wonderful job, which she enjoyed, and which was
quite lucrative.  Michelle found herself wondering just whose economic times the
therapist was worrying about.  Losing a patient whom she saw three times a week
would be an economic loss not to Michelle, whose medical insurance was paying for
the therapy in any case, but it might to be to that very same therapist. 

The other thing that Michelle's therapist thought was 'counterproductive'
was that she had become obsessed with the Karate classes she started taking after
she recovered from the attack.  The therapist had stated categorically that Michelle
had to feel safe with men 'in her mind alone.'  But Michelle didn't think so.  Feeling
safe in your mind alone was just plain stupid, as far as Michelle was concerned. 
She wanted to say, Just wait until you are raped, then see how safe your mind makes
you. 

Michelle never wanted to feel at the mercy of anyone again. 
She was a big girl, almost six feet tall, and she loved physical exercise.  She
liked the feeling of being strong and able to kick ass if the situation arose. 
Her therapist argued that Karate was ineffective against a gun or a knife, but Michelle
went ahead as obsessively with the workouts as she was with anything she did seriously. 
When she drank she was a serious drunk, at the office she was a workaholic, and
when she practiced karate she knew she would kill without hesitation if she was
ever again threatened with her life. 

Michelle still faithfully performed her Karate exercises
at least an hour a day.  She could break boards with her fist, and she knew how
to break out of any hold a man could throw on her.  Michelle could not only break
holds, she could kill.  The thought that she herself was lethal gave her a depressing
kind of exultation.

Her therapist did talk her out of getting a gun, although
Michelle learned how to use several weapons and practiced at a range for a few months.

Michelle didn't have a therapist now.  She had abhorred
going over and over her character defects.  She had rather liked herself before
the rape and found she did not particularly like her therapist.  She didn't want
insights.  She wanted to stop being afraid of men.  It was a weakness that hindered
her mostly during social occasions.  Michelle hated the uncontrollable trembling
that would begin whenever she was alone with a man.  It was as if her mind gibbered
hysterically 'Danger', to her body, when she knew logically she was safe.  Suddenly
she would be in throws of a full-scale panic attack. 

Michelle hated not being in total control of her own body. 
The worse thing was that the attacks were unpredictable.  Panic would suddenly consume
her and she would have to retreat before someone saw her trembling like a palsied
victim, vibrating away as though she would pass out at any second.  It was demeaning. 
Michelle knew she was living a restricted life because of it.  Her mind wouldn't
let her enjoy normal social occasions because she was deathly afraid she would go
out of control and have to retreat ignominiously.  And the fear and avoidance made
her affliction worse.  Fear of an attack could actually bring one on.

Michelle understood that her mind was trying to keep her
safe to avoid the physical damage and the pain she had endured when she was raped. 
The uncontrollable shaking, caused by the release of adrenalin in her body from
fearful emotions, had nothing to do with the logical part of her cortex.  The 'Fight
or Flight' response had probably saved primitive man in the past when faced with
dangerous situations.  But now her natural fear reactions were causing her pain
and humiliation.  And a great lack of sex in her life.

The worse thing was that Michelle really missed being around
guys.  She liked their sweaty physicality, the largeness that made her feel almost
dainty, their boisterousness and sometimes crude and funny senses of humor.  She
missed men in her life as friends and lovers. 

Michelle had always been close with her younger brother
Bobby and his gang of friends, but after her attack they all treated her as if she
would shatter like glass.  The same men she had played touch football with, that
she had wrestled when they were all adolescents, now detoured her carefully.  Not
only were they leery of her, they were ashamed that they were males; the half of
the human population that could rape.  She knew they were also infuriated by what
had happened to her and their guardedness and protectiveness warmed her soul, but
she longed for the old days when they had treated her like one of the guys because
she was almost as big as they were, and she wouldn't hesitate to fight dirty to
win a game.

The one lucky thing about the panic attacks was that they
did not effect her at work.  She was in perfect control at the office.  All of the
other executives at Heroshi Corporation were males, and she had no trouble dealing
with any of them.

Michelle had finally decided that karate would do it for
her body, make her feel invulnerable to attack, and having Heather as a friend was
better than any therapist.

Michelle had met Heather on the first day that she had
moved into her apartment in Hawaii.  She had been pulling on her hair abstractly,
staring despairingly at the boxes the moving company had deposited in a pyramid
on her living room floor.  Michelle was astonished by the sheer amount of objects
she possessed and daunted by the task of creating order out of the mess. 

She had packed so swiftly, the decision to move so sudden
and imperative, that she had not labeled the boxes.  She couldn't  bare the pain
in her mother's eyes any longer, or the sadness that had aged her father.  They
constantly reminded her of the attack by their silence.  And she wanted to be far
away from the man who had hurt her.  She thought it would make her less fearful. 
During the attack she had tried to humanize herself by telling the rapist her full
name.  Now she had nightmares that he would be able to find her again. 

She got out her exacto knife and was just slitting the
adhesive tape on the first box when someone knocked on the door.  She thought it
must be a mistake.  She knew no one in the building.  It must be some children,
knocking on doors as a prank.  She turned back to the boxes when the knock came
again.

Michelle opened the door and thought she had been right. 
She saw a tiny girl in a pony tail holding a coffee cup.  She was wearing shorts,
thongs and a tee shirt.  On closer inspection it wasn't a girl.  She looked young
because she was so small.  A tiny, exquisite woman.

"Don't kill me.  I just wanted a cup of coffee,"
the small person said.

Michelle looked down at the knife she still held in her
hand and laughed.  She opened the door wider, so the woman could see the piles. 
"Sounds like a great idea.  If I can find the coffee pot."

"Wait a sec, I'll get my scissors."

Michelle watched her run down the hallway and go into an
apartment at the end of the hall.

She was back in less than a minute, holding a pair of wicked
looking scissors open in her small palm.

Was this going to be some sort of strange duel?  Scissors
against exacto knife, or was she intending to help?  Michelle got out of the way
as the woman walked in and looked around.

"Which one is kitchen equipment?"

"I have no idea," Michelle said.