Wet Part 3 (11 page)

“You heard that, huh?”

“I was
distraught
. Not deaf.”

“
I
was distraught, and yeah, not very compliant, not when they expected me to comply with staying away from you.” He blew air out through his tightened lips. He needed to convince her, but he knew how stubborn she could be. “Rhees, I don’t think it’d hurt to see this guy. He’s already on his way.”

“Fine, he can come.”

Her easy concession surprised him and he wanted to fist pump his hand in the air at his victory.

“But I’m not talking to him. What a waste of money.”

“You have to talk to him, what good will it do to get him all the way down here if—” Again she cut him off with a loud gasp.

“Our honeymoon!”

“Hmm?” He perked up. “You still want a honeymoon?”

“We’re supposed to be on our honeymoon right now.
Please,
tell me you cancelled our reservations and got your money back.”

“No.” His disappointment was palpable. He’d hoped she’d brought up the honeymoon for a different reason. “I’m afraid that was the furthest thing from my mind.”

“That’s thirteen thousand dollars down the drain.” She turned to look at him with sad eyes. “It’s all my fault.”

“It’s all right, Baby. I don’t want you worrying about that. I just want you well.”

“Thirteen thousand dollars—I’m sorry. Maybe we could call and explain what happened. Maybe they’ll understand. We were hijacked. It was completely out of our control.”

“Rhees. It’s too late. It doesn’t matter. I’m more concerned about you than money.”

“Thirteen thousand dollars,” she mumbled.

“We should do something else, something easy and carefree.” He sounded enthusiastic. “Have you ever been on a cruise? A cruise is an easy way to vacation. Everything is done for you. You don’t have to think too hard or worry about anything. What do you think? We could just get away, relax in a nice, stress-free—”

“You just lost thirteen thousand dollars! You want to spend more? What’s wrong with you?”

“I can aff—” Paul realized he’d never explained his financial situation to her. “Rhees, I never mentioned it before. I should have, before now, but I don’t think about it much anymore, not since . . . I left Florida. The last time I did think about it, a few months ago, marriage was the furthest thing from my mind, and then when we started talking about getting married, well to be honest, I’ve been so pre-occupied with trying to keep my hands and
He
to myself—do you know how crazy I’ve been—knowing how I was finally going to get to . . .” Paul let his voice trail off. He squeezed his eyes closed at his mistake, not the topic of conversation to have with her right now. When he opened them again, Rhees’ eyes were squeezed shut too. He cursed himself under his breath.

“Rhees, Baby, I have—I mean
we
have money.” He hurried to get her mind off of what he’d been about to say—that the thought of finally making love to her had made him crazy the last couple of months. “Thirteen thousand dollars is nothing. We won’t miss it. Please don’t worry about that.”
There’re more important things to worry about.

“You
are
crazy! It’s nothing?” She sounded incredulous and the anger she directed at him elated him. He loved seeing emotion, any emotion, from his previously catatonic wife.

“And
I’m
supposed to be the one who needs therapy?” She rolled her eyes.

“Rhees, it’s all right. We can afford it,” he said, loving the squabble. He almost always did. He loved feisty Rhees.

“I know how much the shop takes in, Paul. It’s better now than it was, but we can’t just go around throwing money out the window like there’s an endless supply.”

“Dani Girl, you’re not hearing me.” He twisted his mouth. He rarely realized how often he did that, but this time he did. He loved her so much and couldn’t help but watch her, so very appreciative she’d come from an entirely different world than his. Her perspective always clobbered him as fresh and unfamiliar. She kept him on his toes.

“Look, Baby. I reviewed the books before I bought the shop. I examined the financial statements, which were nothing more than a few bank statements and some chicken scratches on notepaper, but I ran the numbers. Rhees, I have a gift for evaluating businesses—that’s what I did before I—” He hadn’t expected to go down that particular memory lane. It caught him off-guard and left him feeling sick.

“I know what to look for.” He tried to get back on track after looking like he’d been punched in the gut. “I knew the shop was losing money. It was a terrible investment. The previous owner was crazy. I told you about him, Dodger, remember? The business was a mess, inches away from closing its doors for good.”

Rhees’ thoughts flashed to Claire and Dobbs, and how they’d planned to buy the shop before Paul came along and bought it before they’d had a chance. She thought about what he was saying and it made her wonder if they’d known. It would have been disastrous if they’d used their life’s savings, entered into a contract with the previous owner under the guise of buying a business they thought would sustain them.

“But I have money, okay—plenty of money—now, you do too. I’ve always had money, mostly.” He apparently didn’t know how to talk about this without bringing up his past. “My family has money, and I made my own early on. I bought the shop because I’d
already
made my fortune, not because I believed it was my ticket to wealth.

“I knew that no matter what I did, it would never be a hugely profitable business, but I bought it anyway.” He paused. “I fell in love with it—it needed me . . . and
I
needed it—the way I
need
you
.”

He gazed into her eyes, thinking how the shop had changed his life. He didn’t think his life could get any better . . . until Rhees came along.

He thought about saying that but she rolled her eyes again, telling him her current state of mind wouldn’t hear it or believe it. He’d just have to spend the rest of his life showing her.

“I have other investments. So no matter how good or bad the shop does, the cost of living on the island is so low, our money will long outlive us both. We can throw away thirteen thousand dollars on vacations we don’t take, every month for the next twenty years, and
still
have enough to live a very good, comfortable life.”

Rhees visibly closed off again, and Paul wondered if he should have tried a different way to have given her the news. She rolled off the bed and stood up. “I need the bathroom.” As she walked away, he heard her mumbling. “Of course I didn’t know he was rich. Add another piece of evidence in the case of my stupidity.”

Paul realized he had something he needed to do, something very hard for him, but he needed to do it. Rhees needed it . . . just as soon as the very thought of it stopped giving him a panic attack.

Chapter 8

W
hen Dr. Keene arrived, Rhees said she had nothing to hide and insisted Paul stay because she didn’t plan to talk anyway. The doctor really was good and she found herself opening up more than she’d intended. He’d done his homework. He’d already listened to the recording from the police station and read her file from the hospital.

“Do you know how old you were?” Keene sat at the end of the chaise, facing Rhees, who’d chosen to sit wrapped up in her safe ball on the corner of the bed. Paul had pulled the desk chair around to face them both. His bare foot tapped out a tense, but quiet beat against the carpet as he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. His chin rested on both thumbs, hiding the lower half of his face behind his clasped fingers, masking how ferociously his mouth worked its way through his tension.

“The summer I turned five. I’d just had a birthday.” She closed her eyes as if trying to visualize it, obviously not an easy thing for her to do. “My birthday balloons were still tied to my headboard. I was supposed to be taking a nap. I didn’t want to. I wanted to go to the playground at the apartment complex next door. My mom said she’d take me when I woke up from my nap, but I disobeyed and sneaked out of the house without her knowledge. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I went to the playground anyway, alone.” She shuddered. The story had taken a toll on her.

“That’s where he found me . . . I shouldn’t have been there . . .” Her shaky voice trailed off.

“Do you know who he was?” Keene listened without emotion and always spoke in a firm, professional tone.

She put her hands up to rub her eyes and strained to breathe for a few seconds. “I don’t know his name. He lived in the apartments. I’d seen him at the playground before, but my mom always went with me. I used to think it had been a man, but now—I think he was just a kid, maybe a teenager.

“You have to understand, I really haven’t thought a lot about this. I’ve kept it all buried, trapped in the back of my mind, because it hurt too much—it scared me. I’m so ashamed.” She rested her forehead on her arms. “Every time it did try to surface, I pushed it right back, because—because I couldn’t deal with it. The slightest hint of the memory always made me panic. I just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen. I wanted it all to go away.”

“That’s understandable, but now that it has finally surfaced, it’s here to stay, and I’m here to help you learn to think about it, re-learn to think about it, without all the fear and anxiety it’s caused you all these years. It’s never going to be a pleasant memory, but you
can
get to a place where you don’t have to allow it to affect your life so negatively anymore,” the practiced doctor assured.

“It has affected you, and it will always affect you, but with a little work, re-training your thought processes to deal with it in a healthier way, you can come to terms with it, make peace with it.”

The pained look on her face made Paul feel the need to hold her. He rocked in his chair, indecisively, wanting to race to her and take her in his arms, but he didn’t move. He wondered if he would ever be able to touch her again without worrying what it would do to her.

“Most small children have trouble comprehending age. When you ask children how old their mothers are, they’ll often tell you she’s a hundred years old.”

“He wasn’t a hundred,” she said dryly.

Paul ducked his head to hide his grin.
There’s my feisty girl.

“You stated you weren’t sure if he actually penetrated you. The hospital performed an examination. Your hymen is still intact.” Keene looked somewhat surprised. “If you weren’t still a virgin, we might never know the answer to that question.”

“Phew! Who would have thought? Apparently it
does
come in handy.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.

Paul noticed Dr. Keene raise an eyebrow. It seemed he’d found another topic to explore, later. The doc pushed on. “Based on that fact, I think you may be right about him being in his early teens. That would explain a few things. He was old enough to be too large to easily penetrate such a small child, yet, too inexperienced to hold his arousal long enough to figure out how.”

Listening to Keene talk so casually about the maggot made Paul squirm. His jaw set and the muscle in his cheek twitched while he fantasized about hunting the kid down and beating the life out of him.
The creepazoid
would
be a man now, I’d have to hire a—

“Paul. Stop it.” Rhees’ voice brought him back to the present.

“Stop what?” He thought he’d missed what she and Keene were talking about and felt guilty for zoning out on such an important conversation.

“I know that look. Don’t go there. You have to promise me you won’t do anything . . .” She paused. Her lips trembled as she struggled to get the words out. She looked down at her hands, the hands she rubbed and manipulated over and over.

“I hate him enough for the both of us. I need you to stay calm, and reasonable, and not go to prison, so stop plotting murd—”

“Why do you always think I’m going to kill someone?” Paul wondered how she knew, she read him too well sometimes. She was right in this case, but it wasn’t the time. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“He’s wasted enough of our time already.”

He nodded in resignation, ashamed she’d had to be the one to point it out to him. She shouldn’t have had to do that. Keene stared at him, the expression on his face unreadable.

“My whole life, I worked so hard to make up for what I did—forget it happened, to pretend like it didn’t.” Her eyes looked down at her wringing hands. “It terrified me to think it might happen again. I became the perfect child—daughter. I never willfully disobeyed again for fear—”

“There’s nothing to be ashamed about, Baby.”
How is she ashamed about this? She didn’t do anything wrong.

“It’s good to get it out in the open,” Keene said.

Her eyes shot up to meet his. “It doesn’t feel good! It doesn’t feel good at all—it feels horrible! I didn’t want anyone to know, ever.” Both men sat quietly, wondering what to say, knowing they didn’t have the answer. Her shoulders suddenly dropped and the next words burst out of her in a surprising rush.

“Do I have a sign on me somewhere that says, ‘Rape me’?” The question sputtered out, the desperation in her voice clear. “Because this last one makes three attempts.” She covered her face with her hands. Her breathing grew labored as she tried to stem the urge to cry. Paul didn’t hesitate to move to her this time, but she put her hand up, stopping him cold. He slinked back to his chair, the sting of her rejection on full display before he noticed Keene watching him again.

What’s he looking at me for? I’m paying him to help Rhees.
Paul glared back until the doctor returned his attention to the real patient.

“It’s very likely you do send out signals,” Keene said. “Signals that experienced predators pick up on. A tiger knows how to pick out the weakest animal in the herd—the one that’ll give it the best odds of making a kill.”

Rhees turned pale. She looked ill.

“A staggering number of the victims of childhood sexual abuse become the victims of rape as adults, but most of these children know their attackers, and the abuse is repetitive, often goes on for years. Your case is different, but I do know that these crimes against children derail normal, healthy development. I see the same symptoms in so many of my patients. Self-loathing, low self-esteem, trouble sleeping, social isolation, fear of intimacy,
sexual dysfunction
—the extreme guilt they carry around with them is indisputably disabling.

“The traumatic damage to a child’s developing sexuality manifests itself in strange ways. A few withdraw; forgoing sex altogether—like you, but the most common response is acting out recklessly, promiscuity—putting themselves in dangerous situations sexually. A few even fantasize about rape, watch rape fantasy porn or put themselves in situations where they’re more likely to be raped, such as walking alone at night, or sleeping with strangers. It’s the same form of self-injury as, let’s say, cutting or self-flagellation. It’s all about the shame and guilt, the self-loathing.”

“She didn’t
want
those sleazebags to rape her,” Paul hissed. He’d researched it. He knew about all of it . . . except the rape fantasy part. Rhees’ symptoms had been easy to recognize, the low self-esteem, social isolation, the fear of intimacy—at least, up until just before their engagement.

Rhees’ alarmed eyes darted to Keene as the words spewed from Paul’s mouth and then she looked down.

“Rhees, do you want me to ask him to leave?” Keene glanced at Paul as he asked the question. It took her a few seconds to answer.

“No,” she said quietly, but then looked down. They all sat without speaking for several seconds.

“The thing I hate the most . . .” She finally broke the silence. She choked up, forcing herself to move the conversation along. 

“Creepy’s dead. Mario’s in prison for a long time, so neither of them are going to hurt anyone else, but what if . . . what if
he’s
still out there? I didn’t tell anyone—” she stammered. “How many other children did he do this to? Is he still doing it because I was too ashamed to tell anyone? I don’t know how I’m supposed to live with myself knowing he’s still out there because of me.”  

“You were a baby for crying out loud!” Paul jumped up from his seat again. “You were so traumatized you’ve spent your whole life trying to forget this tragic memory. You were just trying to survive. Rhees, please don’t internalize that kind of guilt. Don’t let that fu . . . that bastard victimize you again.”

Paul knew he needed to control his temper and watch his words, but this whole thing left him feeling incensed. He realized what a bad idea it would be to call the man who’d tried to rape her, a
fucking
bastard, but he knew her too well. She’d already figured out a way to victimize herself all over again with her own compassion.

“Paul, I’ll have to ask you to leave if you can’t calm down and be quiet. Let Rhees do the talking.”

Paul made an apologetic gesture and sat back down with a frustrated sigh.

“Rhees, you have a problem with physical intimacy.” It was a statement, not a question.

Her eyes flashed to Paul. He sat forward, waiting to hear her response. “I guess so. At least, I
did,
before Paul.”

Paul ran his hand through his hair. It kept hitting him, over and over, how much one horrible incident had affected her entire life. No wonder she’d tensed up every time he touched her, had panic attacks after what Mario tried to do to her.

oOo

The next day, Keene skillfully worked his way to where she’d left off.

“I never allowed myself sexual urges—I never wanted to have them. They brought back the memory—it frightened me, to the point of incapacity. I couldn’t get anywhere near those feelings without a meltdown, and meltdowns called too much attention, people demanded an explanation—I couldn’t allow that.

“It’s not like it was hard. I never felt temptation. It wasn’t until Paul kissed me—really kissed me, the first time, in my bedroom—I almost liked it—I was so conflicted.”

“Conflicted?”

“Like I said, I almost liked it. That was a real problem for me.”

“So you never,
almost
liked anything like that before?”

“No. There’s only been one other boy I ever considered letting do that to me. I didn’t want to—it wasn’t that I was tempted. Roney was impatient and aggressive. Each time we made out, he’d push the intimacy, I’d freak out, and he’d stop. He frightened me—made me remember. But my friend made me feel like I had to—and I couldn’t let her know what was wrong with me. She’d ask me why I wouldn’t just do it, but I couldn’t tell her. Then Roney pulled the hurt feelings card and I felt so bad. I decided I had to let him.”

Paul noticed the way she’d said
let
him. She’d used the same terminology with him.

“How do you think that would have worked?” Keene asked. Rhees hung her head and shrugged.

“There’re a lot of things we have to do that are hard,” she mumbled. “But we have to just get through it, somehow. Roney was too impatient. It all blew up before I had to figure that out.”

“So there were no other memorable instances before your husband?”

“It was pretty easy to avoid sexuality where I grew up. At least for me and my hyper,
I’d-rather-gut-myself-than-even-think-about-it
, tendencies. I got engaged to one other man, but there was no intimacy there. We never reached the point in our relationship where I had to worry about it. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure what I would have done if we’d actually made it to our wedding night.” She seemed to be pondering something.

“Paul thinks Sean is gay. If that’s true, maybe Sean would’ve been okay with never consummating the marriage. None of this would have ever come out.” She slipped into her own head again.

“What about the drummer? You said he kissed you.” Paul decided to push for some clarification on that night. He already felt his heart being squeezed, the way she talked about all of it, as if she didn’t understand how telling her words were about
their
relationship.

“Rob didn’t paw me or put any pressure on me. He gave me one,
slow
, polite kiss. I saw it coming. I didn’t feel threatened by it. He was too nice.”

“He had his hands all over you, up on the stage.”

“No, he didn’t.”

Paul rolled his eyes. “That’s how
I
remember it.”

“He gave me a drum lesson. I guess, keeping my mind focused on not embarrassing myself on the drums kept it off of the fear of being raped, right there
in front of
a hundred people
!” Her eyes danced and Paul could tell she almost giggled, but a grin twisted at her mouth instead. “Paul. I can’t believe you’re still jealous about the drummer and that one little kiss.”

He’d just witnessed the first hint of happy in her for days. Paul couldn’t help the grin he gave her in return. Keene interrupted with his next question.

“How did you come to wind up with Paul?” Keene asked. “Let’s explore how you overcame your fears to end up marrying him.”

“Um . . .” Rhees blushed and squirmed, having trouble deciding what she’d say. “The first two days, he scared me to death, but then . . .” It took her a second to choose her words again. “We had a
misunderstanding
. He hated me—”

“I didn’t hate her,” Paul interjected. “I wanted to, but hating her is not possible.”

She grinned again. “He did a very good job of pretending to hate me. It gave me a chance to get to know him without ever feeling threatened because there was no way I’d ever have sex with him. He reminded me—still reminds me . . . Paul has a lot of the same qualities I loved in my dad. He died a little over a year ago.”

“So how did you go from feeling safe from Paul’s advances to
almost
liking that first kiss, an obvious advance?” Keene prodded.

“It wasn’t our first kiss, but when we called our truce, we were supposed to be friends. I really believed we were just friends.” She glanced at Paul and he looked ashamed at how he’d used that to get close enough to try to take advantage of her.