Heartless (17 page)

“You know, during our last session,” she said. “You asked me about my children. Remember?”

“Sure. You have a boy and a girl.”

“In the years we’ve worked together, that’s the first time you’ve asked about my personal life. Not that it matters to our work, but it shows real progress in your healing that you took an active interest in my life, in the lives of my children. You are moving back into the world, beyond yourself, your trauma, your history. Josh has given you an opportunity to reenter the world as a whole self.”

I smiled. That’s exactly how I felt with him, as if my life was beginning all over again and it had the potential to be really good.

Miranda leaned back in her chair. “Have you told him about your past?”

My eyes flashed to hers and I tensed up. “No! And I never will!”

Miranda sighed heavily. “Does he know how your parents died?”

“I told him they’re dead, but I’m not going to tell him they committed suicide. I don’t want to go through my life being the girl that everyone pities, or looks at oddly, or with contempt. No one needs to know that. I just want to start over. Be different.”

Miranda jotted something down in her notebook. “We’ve gone over this many times, Heather. You needn’t be ashamed. Your parents’ actions were their own, not yours. You need to put the past behind you, not pretend it doesn’t exist.”

I crossed my arms. “It’s working fine for me so far.”

Miranda sighed again and I recognized it as the defeated sigh. It meant she recognized my stonewalling and would drop this topic for the rest of the session, though not for good. I started to relax.

“So, tell me about your dreams this past week.”

I blushed when I told her the R-rated dream about Josh, but she just smiled and nodded approvingly.

“When’s the last time you had a bad dream?”

“Not since before I met Josh.”

By bad she meant about the past, or the Tragedy, or Pastor Guthrie. I still dreamt about the fire sometimes but I hadn’t dreamt about Pastor Guthrie in almost a year. And for that I was thankful. Those dreams were R rated too but because of violence, not sex. He’d come at me, often with the face of a vicious animal like a rabid wolf or slick-jawed hyena with clawed paws to match. I’d wake up sweaty and shaking, full of terror and pain. He’d never actually hurt me in real life, not with violence, but he had violated my trust by violating my body. Not even Miranda knew the whole story about that. I was too ashamed to share every detail. She knew that he’d touched me ‘inappropriately’ since I’d turned thirteen, but I’d led her to believe he’d only fondled my breasts, as he’d done to every girl in our congregation who’d turned thirteen, “to make sure we were a pure form of God’s second image,” he’d said. Why did any of us believe him? Because we’d trusted him, and our parents trusted him, and to confront him meant shame and possible ostracism. And maybe he was right. Maybe it was important to ‘check’, because if something weren’t pure, he’d be able to fix it. I’d believed that, too.

My breasts had popped up like earthquake volcanoes on the cusp of my thirteenth birthday. For the few years previous they’d been slowly hardening nubs that I’d covered with thick T-shirts and cardigan sweaters. I’d been way behind the other girls, developmentally, but apparently I had something worth waiting for. Because as my inner tectonic plates shifted, magnificent mounds rose. In hindsight, I understood why Pastor Guthrie wanted to get his hands on me, but once he did he couldn’t stop. There was something impure about my shape and he insisted on exploring further, so that he might bring me back into divine alignment. He was systematic and brief at first, like a doctor. But soon his inspections grew more indulgent. He reacted oddly, his eyelids half closing, his breathing changing, his hips shifting as he sat in front of me while I stood in front of him. It was only later that I understood what he was experiencing.

After he felt my breasts the first time he told me I was a lady and that it was time for me to wear skirts to congregation events. In our times alone in his study this would allow him to conduct my alignment more efficiently. He said it might hurt at first but that once it started to feel good I’d be on my way to purity. How could I have been so innocent to believe his lies? His fingers deflowered me. He said the blood was evil being released and I would soon be completely pure, that when fluids ran clear or white I would be closer to heaven. He showed me his fluids, the pure whiteness of them.

I never told a soul.

Not even Ethan. But when Ethan wanted to kiss me, my body seemed to know what to do next, and so did his. We held back. At first. Ethan claimed it was a sin and when I pieced together the two different realities—the doctrines on sex and my divine alignment process—Pastor Guthrie changed before my eyes. He was only a man, a small man, ruled by his fetishes. He was even less of a man than Ethan, who was barely out of boyhood, but who at least had some hold on his appetites, though that hold didn’t last long. The drives of the body were so much stronger than the will of the mind. I could see now that was true for Pastor Guthrie, too, and yet he had created a position for himself that was beyond suspicion. I watched him after that. I watched him watching all the girls and women in our congregation. Including my mother, who had been seeing him for counseling ever since her second miscarriage. Is that part of what drove her crazy? Crazy enough to give up her life? I wondered now if her subsequent pregnancies were even by my father. My poor father. His death had been the most tragic. He had died for her, but she had died for Pastor Guthrie and her unborn babies.

By age 14, I stopped going to regular church services. The few times I was forced to go, on special occasions, I would sneak out. The last time, Ethan and I snuck out together, into the cornfield behind the church farmhouse…

“Can we talk about the cornfield?” said Miranda.

I closed my eyes and shook my head.

“Let’s try a gentle hypnosis and see what comes up,” suggested Miranda. “You know you’re still in control in that relaxed state. Let’s trust your body and psyche to bring up what you’re next ready to deal with.”

I did enjoy our hypnosis sessions. I always felt relaxed afterwards. And working through memories in that altered state didn’t always feel as emotionally traumatic, because I usually felt out of my body, able to observe what was going on. A little bit like a dream but also different.

I stretched out on the couch and tucked a pillow under my head. Miranda led me through a body relaxation process while I let my thoughts settle and wander.

Miranda's voice guided me down a set of stairs, along a dark hall, until I arrived at a door. On the other side of the door was the farmhouse, the cornfield, and my memories.

Ethan and I had been so young, curious, and fearful. We were sure we were going to Hell after all the things we tried together. That’s what had been drilled into us at the New Christ Ascension Congregation that my mom had joined when I was five. My dad had joined with her, to support her mostly, I think. My dad was head over heels for my mom, even after she got crazy. He seemed to go a little crazy right along with her, as if the crazy were contagious.

Ethan’s family had been part of the NCAC before he was born, which, it turned out, was no guarantee for devotion, at least once adolescence hit. That was a time when you didn’t want to take other people's words for the way the world, and everyone in it, worked; you wanted to find out for yourself. Ethan and I felt those normal urges just like other teens, only we didn’t know they were normal. We took our experimenting to the cornfield behind the old farmhouse where Pastor Guthrie had set up the congregation’s communal hall.

At first I thought for sure we were going to get caught, but Pastor Guthrie was a charismatic speaker and once he got going, most everyone was riveted by his presence. So long as Ethan and I slipped back into the farmhouse and were waiting in the parlor when refreshments were served, everyone thought we’d been there all along.

Ethan and I had tried everything except ‘it’ for months. The day we went all the way was the same day of the fire, and all those memories were blurred for me now. That’s why Miranda wanted to keep going back there. She was certain something more needed to be uncovered. I told her what I could about losing my virginity.

Ethan had been pretty sweet, but awfully quick. I had some memory of the pain of penetration, and how it doused my initial arousal so at first I didn’t end up feeling much pleasure. But what I felt was…interesting. And then the pleasure returned and I liked it. The feeling of having a part of Ethan inside me was empowering, yet I also felt vulnerable receiving him,
letting
him be inside me, finding his own pleasure. But he was vulnerable, too, in his search for that pleasure and satisfaction, and that awareness brought me back to a sense of power. It was like a big circle of energy of giving and receiving. I imagined one day I would really love the feeling, especially once my own pleasure burned as intensely as Ethan’s seemed to. His weight, and grunting, the rhythm and the friction, it all seemed very crude, and yet what was going on deep inside of me felt almost magical.

The memory of Ethan ended there. Beyond the magic there was danger and fear. The rustle of cornstalks, a feeling of stickiness, and a smell of smoke… Those senses blended into images of horror movies, of death and destruction, and I had a difficult time sorting out what was real and what was from the scary movies I’d watched about teenagers getting chased and hacked to bits. Sometimes I would dream that Pastor Guthrie came after us with an axe, or that my parents would lead the whole congregation to the cornfield and find Ethan and me naked and writhing…

I startled back to the present as I heard Miranda say, “…three.”

On Wednesday evening, Josh brought over take out sushi and we perched on the steps of the back deck and ate it with chopsticks. The next weekend was the 4
th
of July and apparently Josh had another surprise planned for me.

“Seriously, you’re going to love it. At least I hope you will.” He bit his lip and looked suddenly doubtful. Then his face brightened. “No, I know you will. Definitely you’ll love it.”

I loved all the expressions his face made. He was an ongoing marvel to me. I didn’t think I’d ever tire of looking at him, or touching him. I set aside my chopsticks and slid closer to him, ready for a kiss.

“Does this surprise involve wearing leather?” I batted my eyelashes at him as he swallowed hard, tensing slightly as I slid my arms around his waist. Beach-girl had been coaching me lately.

“Uh…Um. You mean for the bike, right?” He cleared his throat. “Actually, I was hoping we could use the Porsche this time.”

“Oh, okay.”

“And… well, I was wondering if you’d mind if my mom came with us.”

“Huh?”

I loosened my grip on him. My hands had been about to slide over his perfect buttocks until he mentioned his mother.

“She doesn’t want to miss it. She’s going to bring her boyfriend, Garth. They’ll take his car so we’ll meet them there.”

We were going on a double date with Josh’s mom and her boyfriend? That certainly was a surprise to me.

“I guess so… You’re surprising her, too?”

Josh laughed. “No. She knows what I’ve got planned. She just wants to come along. She’d do it anyway, even if we weren’t going to.”

“You’ve got me real curious, Josh.” Not so much in a good way, though Josh seemed oblivious to my hesitation.

“Great! Make sure to pack a couple of blankets in the trunk.”

Blankets?

He pulled me closer to him. “Now that that’s out of the way, where were we…?” His fingers slipped over my ribs and all thoughts of mothers and surprises vanished from my mind.

“Should we go inside?” I said.

He hesitated. “You mean upstairs? To your room?”

Now I hesitated. I wasn’t ready for
that
yet. I just wanted to be more comfortable. The edges of the steps were digging into my ribs. But Josh’s suggestion had set off a swarm of frightened butterflies in my stomach.

“It’s getting late isn’t it?” I said, stalling. “And we both have to work tomorrow…”

I hoped he wouldn’t be too disappointed.

“Yeah, sure. You’re right.” It was clear he was disappointed.

We packed up our take out dinner remains and went inside.

“Thanks for bringing me dinner, for feeding me tonight.”

With the kitchen still unusable, Josh’s dinner offer had been very welcome. “You know I’d like to do a lot more, Heather,” he said, while he packed up the trash and set it on the tiny square of remaining countertop. I had a feeling he meant a lot with those few words. Maybe it didn’t make a lot of sense that I was still so scared, but I was. My session yesterday had stirred things up. I knew I was close but still not ready.

I wrapped my arms around Josh’s waist from behind, just like being on the back of his motorcycle. “Thank you,” I said again. I slipped my fingers under his shirt and trailed a line along the skin just above the waist of his jeans.

“Mmmm….” With my cheek and ear pressed against his back I heard and felt the sound resonate from inside his chest. He turned in my arms so he could wrap his arms around me. He kissed my forehead, and then each temple. I closed my eyes and pressed into him as he leaned against the counter.