Case of Lucy Bending (32 page)

"Do you love your daddy more than your mother?"

"Why do you say that, Doctor Ted?"

"You mentioned him first."

"I love them about the same," she said.

"And you want them to be happy?"

"Well, my goodness, of course I do."

"Then why don't you do what they ask you? Stop annoying men who come to your house by sitting in their laps and touching them."

"Because it doesn't annoy them," she said with some asperity.

"How do you know?"

"I can tell."

"Whether it annoys them or not isn't important, Lucy. What is important is that your parents don't want you to do it, and it makes them unhappy when you do."

"I don't care," she said, her face suddenly tense.

"You're not going to stop?"

She didn't answer. They sat in silence for a full minute, looking at each other. Finally her eyes lowered, slowly. Long lashes lay upon her limpid cheeks.

"I want to," she said in a voice so tremulous that he could scarcely hear.

"You want to," he said gently, "but you can't?"

"Yes," she said, prolonging the word into a hiss.

"Why do you suppose that is, Lucy? Why can't you stop when you want to stop?"

"I don't know."

"Guess."

"Something makes me do it."

Levin felt he was coming closer now, that he might be near to a revelation.

"What do you think it is that makes you do it?"

"I don't know."

"Is it a voice that tells you to do it?"

"No."

"Is it a feeling you have, something you just have to do?"

"Yes, like that."

"Because it will make you feel good?"

"Sort of. But they like it, too. I know they do."

"But that's not why you do it, is it, Lucy? The real reason is to make
you
feel good."

"I guess," she said, sighing. "But it's very mixed up."

She was right, Dr. Levin reflected. And not only
her
motives, drives, dreams, but all behavior. Not for the first time, he despaired of finding adequate explanations of the human enigma.

Part of the problem was vocabulary. Language was simply not subtle and refined enough to identify ihe delicate nuances of the psyche. What words had been coined had become crass labels that clarified nothing.

The other difficulty went to the foundation of psychotherapy. Could one, by reason, make sense of unreason? Could a rational system of observation, analysis, and theor-ization understand and explain the irrational? Or could only the mad interpret the mad?

If he believed that, Levin thought, he really should be in another line of work.

He sat back in his swivel chair, hands clasped comfortably across his paunch. He stared at Lucy through his thick

glasses, trying to make his expression as sympathetic as he could.

"Lucy," he said, "when you get this feeling that you have to sit on a man's lap, or kiss him, or touch him between his legs—well, I wish you would tell me what that feeling is like. I really want to know. Now, suppose you didn't know me. Suppose I was a stranger to you, but your daddy brought me home for a visit. Suppose I'm sitting in your living room, and then you come in and see me sitting there, and your daddy introduces us. What would—"

"Is this like a story?" she interrupted.

"Like a story," he said, nodding. "Now suppose you tell me what you'd feel and what you'd do."

She took a deep breath. "Well, if I liked you, and I would because you are very nice, and your beard is so funny and bristly, well then, I would love you and want you to love me. And it would feel, I don't know, it would feel good. Warm, you know. So I might hold your hand at first. Yes, I might do that. And if you didn't pull your hand away, I would sort of squeeze it and look to see if you liked that. Then, say, my daddy has to go out of the room because the phone rang and he has to answer the phone. Then we would be alone, and that's better because my daddy would think I'm annoying you, but I know I'm not because you call me 'Dear' and 'Darling.' And you touch my hair. Things like that."

Levin watched closely, fascinated, as the child became excited by her own fantasy. She inched forward on the chair, leaned toward him. Hands gripped tightly. Face flushed. Eyes glittering. Words spilling out . . .

"That's what you'd say. 'Dear' and 'Darling.' Like that. And I'd say, 'I don't care. I just don't care.' And you'd say, 'Are you sure we're alone?' And then I'd feel you, like maybe I'd be on your lap or maybe standing between your knees. And I'd be feeling you, and your face would get all red and giggly. Then you would touch my legs and under my dress and all, and I'd make these funny noises, and start to unbutton my dress, and I'd say, 'Hurry. Hurry.' And you'd start to take your pants off, and then . . . and then ..."

Levin watched her panting, lips wet with saliva, forehead glistening with sweat. Her body was rigid. Her gaze seemed to have turned inward. She sat immobile, frozen.

"And then?" he prompted her.

Suddenly she slumped. Hands unwound. She took a deep breath, moved farther back in the chair. She swung her legs casually. She pulled gently at one of her braids.

"And then?" Levin repeated.

"Oh," she said with a queer smile, "then I suppose daddy would come back, and we'd pretend like we had just been talking about things."

"I see," he said, but he didn't. Not completely. "And is that how you always feel, Lucy, and what you think when you touch men and sit in their laps?"

"I might," she said archly, "and I might not. You said it was just a story. Gloria and I do that all the time—make up stories. Did you like that story, Doctor Ted?"

"It was quite a story," he said.

"Miss Carpenter says I have a very good imagination. Sometimes we have to write stories for school, and Miss Carpenter says she likes my stories best of all."

"I believe it. Lucy, in your story you have both of us saying things. I called you 'Dear' and 'Darling,' and I said, 'Are you sure we're alone?' And you said, 'I don't care. I just don't care.' And then later, you said, 'Hurry. Hurry.' Did you make that up, Lucy?"

"I think so," she said, frowning. "But I may have heard that on television. You know how things stay in your mind, and then you forget where you heard them."

"Yes," Levin said, "that's true. Lucy, in your story, your daddy comes back into the living room, and we pretend nothing happened. Do you think he believed nothing happened?"

She looked at him wide-eyed. "My goodness, Doctor Ted, how would I know that?"

"But did he behave like he believed nothing happened?"

She pondered a moment. "Yes, that's how he behaved. Like he believed us."

She opened the little red plastic purse she ^was carrying, removed a small, round mirror and examined her face, turning this way and that. Her movements were so similar to those of her mother that Levin couldn't help smiling.

Lucy poked at her hair, rearranged her braids so they fell to the front. Then she replaced the mirror, snapped the purse shut. She crossed her legs, looked at him brightly.

"Would you like to hear another story, Doctor Ted?"

"Oh yes. Very much."

"Well . . she said in a confidential tone, "there was this man who was very young and handsome. Like a movie star, you know. And he's a doctor. Not a shrink, like you are, but more like a preacher. And he's always helping people. Like if someone hasn't got enough food to eat, well, he gives them food. And he goes to visit sick people and brings them flowers and candy and books to read. You understand?"

"He's a good man."

"Yes, he is. He helps everyone. Well, he gives everything he has away, so he's very poor. But he doesn't care because all he thinks about is helping people. And he lives underground, like down in a cave, because he's poor, helping all those people and everything, and he can't afford to buy a house. Well, one day he's walking along the street, and he sees this tragic automobile accident. This car hits this beautiful young girl and knocks her down. She is all bloody and everything. And this doctor, he carries her to his cave to take care of her."

"He doesn't take her to a hospital?"

"No, because where he lives is closer, and if he waited for an ambulance and all, she might just die. So he carries her to his cave because he doesn't have any car, being poor and all. And he closes this big iron door, and they're in there all alone. And he washes her off and brings her fresh clothes, really nice things, and he gives her pills. And she's very sick, but he's very nice with her and loving, so she gets well."

"Does this man have a wife?" Levin asked.

"No, he's too poor to have a wife. So he's very lonely. My goodness, you can't go around helping people
all
the time. Well, after this beautiful girl is all well again, she sweeps the cave and makes him some delicious meals. And he tells her she is okay now and can leave the cave and go home. But he really doesn't want her to, you know, because he has fallen in love with her, she is so beautiful and all. But she says she has fallen in love with him also, and she doesn't want to leave the cave; she wants to stay with him forever and ever. And he says, 'I am sorry, my dear, but I am a poor man and I can't afford to have a wife.' And then, guess what?"

"What?" Levin said.

Lucy laughed happily. "It turns out this beautiful girl is a princess from a foreign country, and her daddy has so much money he doesn't know what to do with it. So they get married and love each other all the time and fix up the cave nice, and she helps him do good things for people."

She finished and looked at him expectantly.

"That's a lovely story, Lucy," he said.

"Oh well . . ." she said modestly, ". . . you know. I just made it up. I'm always making up stories. Would you like to hear another one, Doctor Ted?"

"I would," he said, glancing at his desk clock, "but our time is just about up. Will you tell me more stories the next time I see you?"

"Oh sure," she said. "I like to tell stories."

When she was gone, he sat slumped at his desk and slowly pulled the cellophane from a cigar. He was satisfied with the session just concluded. He felt progress was being made.

In the second story, Levin supposed, he, Dr. Theodore Levin, was the doctor-preacher who helped people. And Lucy B. was the beautiful young girl he restored to health and made love to in a cave behind an iron door. The fantasy was a thinly veiled appeal, almost a seduction.

But she also told him the second story, obviously, to divert his attention from the first. And she had tried to convince him of her strong imagination, her skill at storytelling, her penchant for creating characters and situations out of whole cloth.

But he didn't feel her first "story" fell into that category at all. The detailed incidents were too realistic, the dialogue too adult and believable to be totally the product of her fancy. They came, he guessed, from her memory.

Then, having revealed something she considered secret, unmentionable, and perhaps sinful, a defense mechanism had taken over, and she had hurried to imply that her "story" was nothing more than a superficial romance.

It was a serious error, Dr. Levin knew, to assume the emotionally or mentally disordered were dull- or dim-witted. Usually, quite the reverse.

There seemed to be something in behavioral disturbance that bred devious cleverness. Even in one as young as Lucy B. There was a cunning there, sharpened by psychologic dysfunction. To hide the guilt, she had built a wall of tricks the therapist had to bring tumbling down.

His wife insisted on coming along—another defeat for William Jasper Holloway. He was certain neither Grace Bending nor Teresa Empt knew of their husbands' activities. And even if they knew, he reckoned they would have no interest.

But Jane was familiar with all the plans of EBH Enterprises, Inc. She asked questions, discussed financial details, and even drove out to west Broward County where the new factory was nearing completion on a lonely plot of scrubland.

So when Luther Empt called an evening meeting of the partners and the mob representatives, Jane Holloway announced she would attend. As usual, she wore her husband down with her persistence.

The purpose of the meeting was to view a video cassette of
Teenage Honeypots,
the twenty-minute porn film supplied by Rocco Santangelo and Jimmy Stone. It had been processed in Empt's personally owned facility to develop techniques that would be used when full production began in the new factory.

The viewing was held in Luther Empt's private office, a large room that had been provided with extra armchairs arranged in a semicircle in front of a twenty-four-inch RCA television set equipped with a Sony Betamax cassette player.

Empt had also provided a well-equipped bar and a box of Upmanns. Jane Holloway was introduced to Santangelo and Stone, and all the visitors were introduced to Ernie Goldman, Empt's executive assistant and top electronics engineer.

Goldman was a stick of a man with bent shoulders, a saffron complexion, and an inability to stop blinking. After everyone had settled down around the TV set, he gave a short speech in a reedy, breathless voice:

"The film you are about to see," he started, then stopped. "I mean the original film,
Teenage Honeypots
, the one we were given, was not of such great quality. Most of it was shot outdoors and was overexposed. Some of the interior scenes had a greenish tinge. Also, the sound was very bad. A lot of interference. Like you could hear traffic sounds, a police siren, and so forth.