Something shady, p.22
Something Shady, page 22
part #2 of Stoner McTavish Mystery Series
“For what?”
“Being gay.”
“I’m not gay, I’m depressed.”
Millicent flicked her lovely wrist. “In the sense of sexual preference.”
“You mean because I’m a lesbian?”
“Yes. A...” She stumbled a bit over the word. “...lesbian.”
Stoner felt no pressing need to respond.
“Do you have a primary relationship?”
“A what?”
“A lover.”
“Sort of. Do you?”
She retrieved her clip board. “Is the relationship satisfactory?”
“Not at the moment.”
Millicent reached eagerly for her pen. “And why is that?”
“Because I’m here and she’s there.”
“What else?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re certain?” she seemed disappointed.
“Why not?”
“Well...” Millicentunes cleared her throat. “...Lesbian relationships can be difficult.”
“All relationships are difficult, aren’t they?”
“You’re being defensive, Stoner.”
“Sorry.”
“Sex life?” Millicent asked, taking aim at her clip board.
“Whenever possible.”
“Do you enjoy your sex life?”
“Sure. Who doesn’t?”
“Tell me about it.”
She felt herself turn red. “My sex life?”
Millicent Tunes nodded and waited.
Stoner let her wait.
“I won’t be shocked.” She adjusted her hair. “Psychologists are accustomed to hearing all kinds of things.”
“Pretty racy stuff, huh?” Stoner said brightly. “I’ll bet you never have to buy trashy novels.”
“Sex isn’t trashy, Stoner. It’s a natural biological function. You mustn’t be ashamed.”
“I’m not ashamed.”
“Well, that’s a very healthy attitude. Many... lesbians feel an unconscious sense of shame.”
Stoner frowned. “If it’s unconscious, how do they feel it?”
“Believe me, they do.”
“Not me. I figure I’m lucky. I don’t have to worry about unwanted pregnancies and yeast infections.”
“True,” Millicent said flatly.
“How come you know so much about what lesbians feel? Unconsciously, that is.”
“I told you, I’m highly...”
“Right,” Stoner interrupted. “Highly trained. There are a lot of highly trained people around here, aren’t there?”
“We’re very proud of our staff,” Millicent said. “Tell me about your lover.”
Not on your life. “I thought I was supposed to talk about myself.”
“That would be appropriate, wouldn’t it?”
My God, the woman’s cool. I’d be tempted to toss me out on my ear. But, then, I’m not highly trained.
“There’s one thing,” she said, perversity pushing her on.
Millicent leaned forward. “yes?”
“It’s the other women.”
“Other women? Then you’re not monogamous?”
“They won’t let me be. They call me at work. They show up at my house in the middle of the night. Women in flimsy negligees, high-heeled shoes, denim jackets, black lace garter belts, Saran wrap. Even here, I’ll look out the window some night and there they’ll be, running, stumbling up the walk, rhinestones glinting in the moonlight...”
“All right,” Millicent said. “That’s enough.”
“God knows I don’t encourage them. All I want is to get married, settle down, and have five wimmin-children by parthenogenesis.”
“I said,” Millicentunes barked, “that’s enough.” Her smile cut a gash in her face. “This isn’t amusing, Stoner.”
“Forgive me,” Stoner said contritely. “I didn’t sleep last night.”
“Indeed?” She made a note on her clip board. “Why was that?”
“Someone was screaming.”
“Did that trouble you?”
No, nothing calms me like a soul in torment. “A little.”
“You’ll get accustomed to it. Some of our guests are disturbed.”
“I’m not surprised, what with the rats and all.”
“Rats?”
“There were rats running around in the attic.”
Millicent frowned. “I’m sure we don’t have rats.”
“You have something.”
“I see.” She made another note. “Do you suffer from hallucinations?”
“No, but I have a few I enjoy.”
Millicent ignored that. “What room are you in?”
“Thirty-three B.”
“Ah!” She nodded. “That’s directly beneath the cupola. Birds nest in the cupola.”
“In March?”
“I’ll have it looked into. Meanwhile, we’ll give you something to help you sleep.”
“They tried that,” Stoner said. “It wasn’t a good experience.”
“Yes,” Millicent said. “I heard.”
“Aren’t there laws against forced medication?”
This time Millicentunes’ smile was genuine, and nasty. “You were given a form to sign when you arrived, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, some insurance thing…”
“Included in that form was your permission to let us decide what treatment is in your best interest.”
Stoner sat up. “You can what?”
“You heard me.”
“Nobody told me.”
“Nevertheless.”
“Jesus Christ!”
The elegant Dr. Tunes tilted her head to one side and fixed Stoner with a gold-flecked, steely gaze.
She got to her feet. “I’m checking out.”
“I don’t think so. You also agreed to let us decide when you’re ready to leave.”
Furious, she started for the door.
Millicent caught her wrist. “If you’re unhappy here, there’s always the state hospital.“
Stoner froze in her tracks.
“Sit down, please.”
She went back to her chair.
“It changes things a bit, doesn’t it?” Millicent asked.
“I guess so.” She propped her elbows on her knees and rested her head helplessly in her hands.
Millicentunes touched her arm. “I’m not trying to be cruel, Stoner. But we mustn’t lose sight of why you’re here.”
Stoner tightened her jaw. I know why I’m here, lady. And, by God, when I’m ready to leave, I’ll leave. Edith Kesselbaum can get me out.
Can’t she?
Can’t she?
“May I make a phone call?” she asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
The muscles in her stomach began to shake.
Millicent moved over to sit on the coffee table and take Stoner’s wrists in her hands. “I know how you feel,” she said, all sweetness and light. “It’s a hard adjustment at first, but when you learn to work with us rather than against us, you’ll find this a very therapeutic experience.”
Therapeutic? I’ve been in this snake pit less than 24 hours. I’ve been insulted by your lousy head nurse, assaulted by that cretin Mario, scrutinized, pumped full of drugs, kept awake by screaming and rats in the walls, and stuffed with pig slop served up by smiling schizophrenics. That isn’t my idea of therapeutic.
“I’m here to help you, Stoner.”
She forced herself to look - pathetically, she hoped - into Millicentunes’ cold eyes. “You all make me feel like a criminal, but I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Guilt is a component of severe depression.”
The woman’s relentless. “Dr. Tunes…”
“Millicent.” She rested her hand on Stoner’s knee. “Call me Millicent.”
“I’d rather not.”
“It helps equalize the power in the relationship.”
You can have me strapped down and shoot electricity through my head. You can put me in seclusion and feed me drugs until I can’t stand. You can ship me off to the state hospital, all nice and legal. There ain’t no equality in this relationship, Massa.
“Okay,” she said. “Millicent.”
“Good.” Millicent squeezed her knee. “Now tell me what I can do for you.”
“Do for me?”
“If you’ll think of me as a friend, I can make your stay here a lot more pleasant and productive.”
It sounded ominously like a line from an old prison movie.
“Well...” A brilliant idea flashed into her mind. “Could I go outside?”
Millicentunes frowned. “Whatever for?”
“Just to look around.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“It’s just...” She ducked her head. “Never mind. It’s silly.”
“Nothing is silly.”
“You’ll laugh at me.”
“Of course I won’t, Stoner.”
She shifted her feet. “I have these dreams, nightmares, about a house.”
“A house?”
“Yeah.” She looked up. “That’s all I remember. Except, when I got here, I knew it was this house.”
“How very odd. And you can’t recall anything else?”
“I try. Sometimes I almost catch hold of it, but it slips away. So I thought, if I could kind of walk around a little, it might bring it back, you know?”
“I really don’t...”
“Forget it,” Stoner said abruptly. “It was a stupid idea.”
“That isn’t it.”
“Maybe you don’t have the authority...”
“I am in charge here,” Millicent said. “Everything that happens at Shady Acres happens by my orders, and only mine.”
Well, well.
“So may I…”
Millicent shook her head. “I don’t think it would be wise.”
“You tell me to trust you,” Stoner said, pretending to flare up, “but you don’t trust me to take a lousy walk around your lousy house.”
“With depressed patients…”
Stoner cut her off. “Think of you as a friend!” She laughed harshly. “That’s the best joke I’ve heard all year, Millicent.”
“The risk of suicide…”
“If I wanted to kill myself, do you think I’d have checked into a maximum security mental hospital?”
“What would you do?”
“Get a gun, wait for pheasant season, and mutilate every hunter I saw. If I survived that, I’d fly a planeload of explosives through the front door of the Pentagon and die happy.”
“Such violence,” Millicent murmured softly. Her eyes sparkled. “How does that express itself in your personal life?”
“What?”
Millicent gazed at her thoughtfully. “It would be interesting, wouldn’t it, to see how that would translate itself sexually?”
“Not particularly.”
“You’ve never been tempted to inflict pain in a sexual context?”
“Never.”
“Many do. Passion enhances passion, as it were.”
“That’s their problem.”
Millicent got up and strolled to the window. “I find it an interesting phenomenon, clinically speaking.”
“Then you should meet my ex-lover.”
“Was she aroused by violence?”
“Emotional violence. She may have moved on to bigger things by now.”
Perching on the window sill, Millicent turned to her. “Tell me about it.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Did it excite you?”
“It made me want to die.”
“Perhaps we should talk about that,” Millicent said.
“There’s nothing to talk about. It‘s over.”
“How did this violent side of her nature show itself?”
“Look,” Stoner said, “if it’s exciting to you, I’d be glad to put you in touch with her.”
“It doesn’t excite me, Stoner. My interest is purely professional.”She folded her arms. “I must admit, I’ve always been intrigued by the incidence of sadomasochism in the gay community.”
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t satisfy your curiosity,” Stoner said, her anger real now. “Try the straight community. They call it love.”
“There’s no need to be defensive.”
“Isn’t there?”
“As a social scientist, I naturally have an interest in unusual subcultures.”
“Take your unusual subculture, and shove it!”
“Aren’t you overreacting a bit?”
“Am I?”
“I think you are. You’re taking an intellectual discussion and perceiving it as a personal attack.” She smiled. “Perhaps you’re not as comfortable with your sexual orientation as you like to pretend.”
“The only thing uncomfortable about my sexual orientation is your curiosity about it.”
“We’ll see. I’m going to enjoy working with you.”
Stoner glared at her. “I wouldn’t want to bore you.”
“I don’t think you could bore anyone.”
“Only my ex-lover, the sadist.”
“She seems to be very much on your mind. Perhaps that should be the topic of our next session.”
“It’s ancient history.”
“And yet you bring her up twice in the same hour.”
“The conversation warranted it.” She felt as if she were about to explode.
“We have to face the hard things, you know.”
“Swell. But leave me out of it.”
Millicent twisted a strand of blonde hair around her finger. “Resistance?”
“Whatever.”
“It doesn’t have to be difficult. There are techniques…”
We have ways of making you talk. “Such as?”
“Hypnosis, for one.”
“Thanks, I think I’ll pass.”
“Certain drugs…”
“I’ve had enough drugs,” she snapped.
Millicentunes sighed. “We want to help you, Stoner. I’d prefer to do it with your consent.”
“Why bother? I signed away my rights on your phoney insurance form.”
“Isn’t that a little paranoid?”
“This place breeds paranoia.”
“We’re all professionals.“
“What do you use as a training manual, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest?”
“You’re not making a very good first impression, Stoner,” Millicent said, toying with her pearls. “There have been two complaints against you already.”
“I didn’t know you were holding a Miss Congeniality contest.”
“Refusing medication, not finishing dinner.”
“What do I win with three strikes, a lobotomy?”
Millicent came over and took her hands. “Stoner, Stoner, why won’t you trust me?”
“You figure it out,” Stoner said, and pushed her away.
Millicent raised one eyebrow. “Hostility?”
Something in her broke. “I don’t like being touched by strangers!” she shouted. “I don’t like being drugged. I don’t like being condescended to. I don’t like being locked up. I don’t like being out of control.”
“You’re out of control now.”
“You’d be out of control, too, if I treated you like...” Her voice broke.
“I think,” Millicent said smoothly, “we need to explore your transference problems.”
“Try picking up the morning paper,” she choked, “and reading hate letters calling you filthy, with appropriate Biblical references. Try having obscenities shouted at you by beer-soaked adolescents in pickup trucks. Watch the state legislature pass laws to keep you from living where you want, or working where you want. Let them tell you a state orphanage is a better environment for a child than living with you. Then come back and talk to me about transference.”
“My,” Millicent murmured, “so brittle.”
Fists clenched, Stoner whirled on her. “Want to see hard? I’ll show you hard.”
“Would that give you pleasure?” Millicent asked with a little smile.
Stoner caught her breath, and realized she was crying. “God damn you!”
“That’s good, Stoner, Get your anger out.”
“Up yours!”
Tears running down her face, she gasped for air. Millicent offered her a box of tissues. She turned her back and rammed her hands into her pockets.
“I can see that this is going to be a very productive relationship.”
She didn’t dare respond.
“If you still want to take a little stroll around the grounds, I’ll tell the aides you have my permission.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” Stoner said hoarsely.
Millicent chuckled. “You’re such a brat, Stoner. Just a little, scared brat.” There was a friendly eagerness in her voice that made Stoner’s flesh crawl. “You trusted me with your feelings. The least I can do is trust you...”
She started to protest, and stopped herself. She’d already lost her self-respect. The least she could do was salvage a few hours of freedom. “Thank you,” she said, the words tasting like moth larvae in her mouth.
Millicent touched her shoulder. “This seems like a good place to stop for now. We’ll take it up again tomorrow.”
Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she stumbled through the door. Lily sat in the waiting room perched on the edge of a chair.
Wonderful. A witness.
She tore across the hall and up the stairs to her room.
I won’t let her do this to me again. I won’t, I won’t.
“I want to go home,” she said aloud.
“Can I help?”
She turned.
Lily stood in the doorway.
“I’m sorry you heard that, Lily,” she said. “I’m not usually so... so…”
Lily smiled.
“Would you like to come in?”
The elderly woman sat on the bed and folded her hands in her lap.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Stoner said. “I don’t know what made me think I could…”
She hesitated. But what could be safer than talking to Lily? The woman was in her own private world, and she desperately needed to talk to someone.
“I shouldn’t have lost my temper,” she said. “But, damn it, she made me so angry. I know she’s your niece, Lily, but Millicent Tunes is a 24-carat bitch.”
Lily patted her hand. “Well, she certainly didn’t get it from my side of the family.”
Stoner stared at her. “Lily?”
“It could be her own unpleasant nature, of course, but then her father was an uncouth sort at heart.”
