Chapter 5

"... If love remains, though everything is lost, we will pay the price, but we will not count the cost..."

I spent the next few days in a different world. I was trying to figure out exactly why her whole story seemed to be untrue. She had never once been deceptive to me since I had come to Las Vegas. After the last night, though, everything seemed just like I had never left her in the first place. I couldn't shake the feeling that she really hadn't changed at all.

I arrived for dinner at the specified time and knocked on the door.

"Just a minute," she yelled. Momentarily, she opened the door. She still had on the plain flower print dress I had seen her in when I walked by the office that morning.

"Sorry, I was in the middle of something and couldn't get to the door right away."

I could faintly smell mint on her breath, mixed with something else. Since I was unsure of what it was, I just filed it and walked into the apartment.

"Do you mind if I go change," she said, "I'd really like to get into some jeans and a tee shirt, and get out of this damn dress. I just got home about thiry minutes ago and haven't had time to change."

"Ummm... sure go ahead. Is there anything I can do with dinner in the meantime." I could smell a roast cooking with vegetables in the oven.

"Yeah, could you mash the potatoes for me? The masher is in the drawer next to the oven." Again, that mint and something smell on her breath.

"Sure, go change," I said with a grin to cover my awkwardness. "I can find my way around the kitchen."

I stepped into the kitchen, promising myself that I wasn't going to be nosey. You can guess how long that lasted.

I found the masher in the prescribed drawer, and then noticed the key underneath. The small silver key could have fit anything and I was going to just leave it when I noticed the locked cupboard right above it. I wanted to believe that she wasn't going to regress, but I couldn't shake the feeling that here was what she had been hiding the whole time. Strange that I hadn't noticed the cupboard locked before.

I unlocked it and, to no surprise, found a half-empty bottle of vodka and a glass with some clear liquid left in it, along with a book. I just let out a sigh and shut the cupboard, locking it once again. As I turned back to the drawer with the key, I noticed Kathy standing there. She looked like a trapped rat. I didn't say anything and started mashing the potatoes. I was shaking and I didn't want her to know.

Finally, I had figured out what was going on. She had a hard time dealing with commitment. My coming back into her life represented everything she had tried to put behind her, and as a result, she immediately returned to the thing that caused all of her past problems -- drinking.

I think it hurt more to know I believed in her so much that I thought her incapable of returning to the past. She was not as strong as I thought. I wanted to say something, anything to give me more time to digest what had just happened. While I stood there, I heard her turn and walk into the other room.

"... Need I say I love you? Need I say I care? Need I say that emotion is something we don't share?... "

I stopped mashing the potatoes, and followed her out into the living room. She was sitting on the couch, with her back to me, looking out her back window.

"Kathy, " I said quietly as I reached for her shoulder. She hunched away from the contact. "Kathy," I repeated a little louder, " we need to discuss this."

"I don't want to talk about it," she mumbled.

"Look, you have a problem. That much is obvious, and I'd like to help. Pushing me away is what happened the last time and I let you do it. This time I'm not going to let you."

"I can't let you help me. I don't know how."

"It's not a matter of knowing how, it's a matter of letting me in so we can try to find a solution. I love you very much, but I can't help you if you don't let me in. You obviously can't fight this thing alone. C'mon, let me in for once." She shuddered then making it clear that I had hit the mark.

"Glen, for so long now I have wanted help, but I don't know how to ask. It seems every time that someone gets close to me, I end up getting hurt. I mean, look at my track record. I was having problems, and you up and left me. George did the same thing. I'm not strong enough to take it again."

"Dammit Kathy, I'm not going anywhere this time! I didn't know how to reach you the last time; that's why I left. This time your pushing me away and then telling me that you want my help. I'd like to help you fight whatever demons you're dealing with, but you have to let me in. I can't have you lying to me anymore."

"When was the last time I ever lied to you," she demanded harshly, finally looking at me.

"The other night when I was here. You and I both know that you story has some element of truth to it, but I want the real story. I want to know what really happened between you and George."

She sat there looking shocked -- more so because she realized that I had seen through her -- and then turned away. After a moment she suddenly stood up and stormed out of the room. She was back momentarily holding the book from the locked cabinet.

"This is the diary I kept from back then. Every time I get depressed, I look back at it and realize that things will never get that bad again." She looked pensive for a moment before continuing.

"I'll read to you what I wrote back then. All I ask is that you let me finish before you make any comment. A lot of this is going to sound very strange, and I figure you'll lose some respect for me, but I guess you have a right to know."

"... I know that I am like the rain, there but for the grace of you go I... "

The story she told was a strange one. Apparently, it started the night of the 'concert' she and Chris had gone to. Upon arriving at the arena they discovered that the concert had been cancelled. So Chris and Kathy decided to go out drinking -- Kathy was already in danger of losing her job at the department store. At one of the bars they were at they met a man who started giving Kathy some lines about how pretty she was and asked her to dance. After dancing with her, he introduced himself as George Keller and explained that he hired dancers to work in his club and thought she would fit in perfectly. Kathy turned away in disgust, but the guy mentioned that it was amateur night at his club and first prize was $500. That got her attention real fast. In her somewhat drunken mind state, she came to the conclusion that the money would enable us to go on a short vacation to try and mend our relationship.

She broke off long enough here to explain that she had, in fact, already saved another $500 for that express purpose. Her thinking was that if she could get me alone for a few days we could straighten everything out.

She found Chris and mentioned the idea to her. Chris thought she was crazy, but agreed to come along for 'moral support' -- kind of an odd thing in a strip club, moral support, but I digress -- so off they went. It turned out that George had several outfits for her to pick from at the club and put her on the schedule for the contest. He explained that she only needed to dance provocatively, not necessarily take anything off. Of course, he noted, the amateurs who won generally showed some skin.

Kathy selected a small red lace teddy that barely covered her chest and some white thigh highs. George also gave her a red and white garter to wear on her leg. 'For tips, ' he told her.

Kathy was the third of five dancers to perform, so she got some idea of what the other girls did before she went on stage. When she first arrived on the stage, she couldn't move. After a minute, she got the hang of it, but the first few seconds were hell. Towards the end of her act, she popped out of the top of the small teddy she was wearing. This hadn't been planned and she was a bit embarrassed. Then she recognized her boss was sitting in the front row with several other men. Kathy was mortified. Clearly he recognized her as he held a folded dollar bill up to her. She allowed him to slide it under the garter on her left thigh as she had seen the other dancers do and walked off the stage shaking.

Unfortunately, the last girl to dance in the contest turned out to be a professional from another club in town. Naturally, she won and Kathy was crushed. Her best laid plans had gone to waste. George came back stage and offered her the chance to finish the night out at the club doing table dances for $10 a pop. Kathy mulled this over for a moment and agreed.

When she reappeared on the floor, the first person to solicit her was her boss, Dave. Having watched the other girls dance, Kathy had some idea of what was expected and anyway, ten bucks is ten bucks, so she did it. In fact, he hired her to do several dances for him over the course of the evening. Meanwhile, Chris had gotten bored and left.

At the end of the evening, George offered her a job working nights if she wanted it. Having made just over $100 for the two and a half hours she was there, Kathy thought it made sense to have the second job, especially with things going sour at her day job. She could do that for a month and then take me on a vacation and repair our relationship. She agreed to dance for the next month.

Naturally, they had a drink to celebrate, then another to toast her new job, then one for the road and pretty soon Kathy was sloshed. Then George made a pass at her. She let him kiss her, then he began to get a little bolder, grabbing at her breasts. She tried to push him away, but in her drunken state she was ineffective. Realizing that there was no way she could overpower George -- he's six-two and about two-ten, all muscle -- Kathy just let him proceed.

I started to interrupt, but Kathy waved me into silence.

So he basically raped her in his office, and then told her to be at work at 6:30 the next night. Stunned, Kathy got up and headed home. She found half a bottle of Absolut in her car, left from some other party, and drank it on the way home.

She was so upset that she didn't even want to talk to me when she got there, which is why she blew me off and went to bed. She didn't know how to tell me what had happened and she knew how I reacted to her drinking heavily.

The next morning she headed off to work before I woke up. She felt guilty for what she had done, and had a killer hangover. She didn't want to wake me up for fear that I would bite her head off. So off she went to the store.

When she got there, her boss popped a surprise drug test on her. Kathy had already been on probation for failing her last one -- she'd been drinking heavily the night before that one as well -- and knew there was no way she could pass it. She took the test and handed it in, then Dave asked to see her in his office. Once in his office he asked if she was hungover, which she admitted to. Dave told her that by failing the drug test he would have to terminate her. She begged him for another chance, but he was set against her, unless she would have sex with him in his office. Kathy refused and was promptly terminated.

Now out of a job, she realized that working for George at the club would be her only chance until she could get things straightened out. However, she was still afraid to tell me what was going on. So to cover her tracks, she began working days at the club -- it opened at 11 -- and staying home at nights. She also worked doubles when she knew I would be working late. Since she took care of the checkbook, I never noticed the difference in the balance or that the deposits were mostly cash and not checks.