Chapter 2: (Loretta’s Task)

CASE FILES - PERSONAL NOTES - PATIENT 71 - DAY 3

She refused to speak about herself at all for the rest of our first day together in the apartment, and we slept in each other’s arms until deep into the afternoon, when hunger drove us in search of nourishment. I put her into a plush bathrobe that I had used for a former patient. She did, I’m sure, realize that the presence of that, as well as a few other female items in the place, must have some story attached to them, but she didn’t questioned it. She seemed overjoyed with the freedom to explore and putter around, fixing things in the kitchen, looking at the few pictures I had hung on the walls, fingering the knickknacks that were lying around. We ate and then went back to bed.

At three in the morning, we got up and fixed a snack. I have one of those gas heaters that’s made to look like a fireplace, and we sat, naked under a blanket on the couch, and cuddled. Her hair is a reddish blonde; and somehow, firelight in a dark room seems to make it glow. We had been contentedly silent for a long time before she spoke. “I don’t want you to die.”

I huffed a short, one-syllable laugh. “I’ll second that motion.”

“He’s going to find us, doctor,” she said softly. “He’s going to find us, and he’s going to kill us.”

I held her just a little tighter. “Why? Why go to all that trouble?”

She sighed. “He thinks I know something.”

That caused me to pause and consider. “Do you? And if so ... what?”

She shrugged her bony shoulders. “I suppose that I’m People’s Exhibit A. Gladys didn’t let us watch a lot of TV, but it’s hard not to notice the fact that your ex-husband is a U.S. congressman. Of course, he didn’t run for office until well after he ... um ... did what he did to me. His first wife is still around somewhere ... Spokane, I think. When they talk about former wives, I’m sure the emphasis is on her. He’s married to someone even younger than me, now.” She sighed. “Oh, how I pity her.”

“What did he do to you, Loretta?”

“That was a memorably violent day in my life,” she answered, almost matter-of-factly. “And that’s saying a lot. With him, every day was violent. He has this guy working for him ... gardener, driver, sort of a jack-of-all-trades, I guess. But, mostly he’s a thug. Big guy. His name is Hardy. It was Hardy that saw me that day ... that saw us that day. I kissed you when I left your office. Do you remember that? That last kiss? Anyway, I was doing something in the kitchen at home, later that day, when Hardy walked in. He told me that Ralph wanted to see me. I went to him, and ... he didn’t say anything ... didn’t give any warning. He just hit me.”

She sighed heavily. “Is that something that all guys know instinctively? How to hit a girl? I’m not sure what the exact spot is ... but they all seem to know it! It makes you see flashes of light that aren’t really there, and your ears ring so loudly that you can’t hear anything for a minute or two. It makes your teeth hurt, and you can’t talk without having everything come out in mumbles. Slowly, I started figuring out what he was screaming about, but it was all so surreal! He kept picking me up, but my legs wouldn’t hold me, and I’d fall right back down again. He seemed genuinely disgusted with me. He asked Hardy if he wanted to fuck some sense into me; and of course, Hardy said sure. He tore off my clothes, pulled my legs apart, and plunged right in while Ralph sat down and watched. Hardy only slowed down a little when it looked like I might throw up, but he still managed to finish himself off inside me. Finally, after he was through, Ralph pulled me up and held me around the waist; and he grabbed my right wrist, and he held it out away from my body ... and Hardy was walking toward me with a hypodermic needle, flicking it with his finger to get the air bubbles out of it. And I fought then ... but Ralph spun me around toward him and hit me ... right in that same damned spot. And then he was holding me up again ... holding my wrist again. And I thought: Just don’t hit me. Do anything you want, but please please please don’t hit me anymore. And I watched as the needle went into my inner arm. I can still remember the sting.” I felt her shrug in my arms. “And that’s it. That’s all I remember.”

She turned, though I kept her wrapped in my arms, until she was facing me. “Do you like them, doctor?” she asked almost lightly.

“What? Like what?”

“My breasts, of course.” She slid the robe aside using both hands. “You haven’t said one thing about them. What do you really think about them?”

“Gummy bears,” I said.

She blinked and canted her head to one side. “What?”

“They’re gummy bears,” I said without humor. I traced my fingertip around her right nipple. “Can you feel that?”

She shivered at the touch. “Mmm. Yes, of course I can. It feels good.”

I let my fingertip trail gently down one side toward her underarm. “That?”

She giggled and shrugged away from it. “Yes.”

I smiled. “Whoever did it ... they did a good job. With something this size, nerve damage is actually pretty common, even with today’s improved procedures.” I put my palm underneath the left one and hefted it upward. “Nice consistency. Much more liquid than most. But ... it’s not liquid. It’s formed gel that retains its shape. Like gummy candy. That’s why they call them that. It’s sort of like memory foam in mattresses, only more fluid. They sag slightly ... they’re supposed to. It hides the scar from the larger incision.” I bounced them in my palms.

That made her smile. “Having fun?”

“Do you want to keep them?” I asked her.

“Do you?”

“I think ... they might be useful,” I said thoughtfully.

She smiled. “Then they are at your service.” She turned again and settled back into my arms. “They were like that one time when I woke up from a drug-induced nap, though they were all bandaged up, of course. I have no idea where I was. They kept me prisoner someplace. There were no windows, and they only opened the door to feed me or shoot me up. I fought them once. Only once. I never fought again. Ever. Not with them ... not with anyone. Even after they took me to Gladys’ house. Ever.”

“And you never saw your husband again?”

She turned to look at me out of the corner of her eye. “Yes, of course I did. He visited me once or twice a month. He always got me for the night ... but he never stayed for more than about an hour.”

“Even recently?” I asked, surprised. “After he was remarried?”

She grunted a soundless laugh. “What’s THAT got to do with anything? Yes ... of course. It’s always been that way. He came to feel superior ... to feel dominant. He came to let me know that he could fuck me ... he could hit me ... he could do anything he wanted to me. And I could never do anything at all to him except submit.”

I thought about that. “And what makes you think you might know something that could hurt him”

“Something I overheard. It might not really mean anything. He finished with me once at Gladys’ place, and when he opened the door to leave, Hardy was waiting for him. On a whim, Ralph asked him if he wanted a turn with me. Hardy had done it to me earlier, of course ... back wherever they had kept me before. He screwed me lots of times. Anyway, Hardy said sure, and he came in and pounded me pretty hard from behind for a few minutes. And, when he was through, as he was leaving, I heard him talking to Ralph. They were smoking, just on the other side of the door, so I could hear them. And Hardy asked him why. Why did he keep me around? Why didn’t he put me down? That’s what he said. Put me down. She knows too much, he said. I couldn’t hear Ralph’s reply ... he spoke in a lower tone. But Hardy said: ‘If she was my woman, I’d put her down. She knows too much.’ And then ... they went away.” She shrugged again.

I thought about that for awhile while I was idly pulling on her nipples. “If you do know anything, I’ll find out,” I said at last.

Her chest was rising and falling more pronouncedly under my stroking, pinching fingers. “You ... you’ll hypnotize again, won’t you?” she whispered.

“Oh yes.”

“Do ... do other women succumb to that like I do?” she asked in a hushed tone. “Did the girl who wore this robe before me ... did you make her love surrendering her mind to you like I love it?”

I smiled and nuzzled into her hair. “I was preparing her for another man,” I told her. “He wanted a virgin bride, so I couldn’t take her the way I wanted. But I DID make her want the trance. She’d do anything for the trance. I would let her show her appreciation by using her mouth.” I paused while she shuddered. “Oh yes. Some women go so deep that they beg me for the trance.”

“Please,” she whined. “Doctor, please.”

“After,” I told her, and I stood and pulled her up with me. She didn’t protest at all as I tugged her to one end of the couch and peeled the robe from her unresisting body. I used my arm around her waist and the palm of my hand against her back to bend her over the arm of the couch. She was still dripping from our last encounter, and I launched my rigid, fleshy pole into her with a single, violent thrust. She cried out at the suddenness of it. I reached around her and reclaimed the nipple with one hand and her clitoris with the other. I pinched, pulled, thrust, tweaked, stroked, pounded, rubbed; and within half a minute, she was wailing out her ardor while the muscles of her pussy grasped and milked me, causing my invading missile to explode inside its moist, silky target. She made slow little mewling “mmm-mmm-mmm” noises as I carried her back to the bed; and she appeared dazed as I counted to three and felt her dissolve into a hypnotic puddle in my arms.

CASE FILES - PERSONAL NOTES - PATIENT 71 - DAY 6

She held out her coffee cup to me for a refill, but her hand was shaking so violently that she was forced to set it down on the surface of the table in front of her while I poured. “It’s going to be another bad day,” she moaned morosely.

“Not as bad as yesterday,” I commented, turning back to the stove to finish the oatmeal. “And, tomorrow will be better.”

She tried to hold her right hand with her left to still the shaking, but failed. “The days are so long,” she whispered. “I think I could stand it if the days weren’t so long.”

“It won’t seem so long today,” I told her, trying to sound cheerful. “I don’t have classes, and my patient load is light. I’ll be able to devote more time to you.”

“I don’t want you to devote time to me. I want to help you. I want to be a part of your life.”

I walked around the table and put my arms around her. “You will always be a part of me. And ... you’ll be able to help me, just as soon as we can get the shakes under control.”

She idly started scratching her forearm, and I reached out and stopped her, then folded my arms back around her. “Oh, God, this is the pits!” she sobbed. She put her arms over mine, and I rocked her slowly back and forth.

“Soon,” I promised. “I am desperately in need of a receptionist and nurse. And a partner.”

“A partner in crime,” she said quietly. “An evil mad nurse for the evil mad doctor.”

“Just wait, Loretta. It’s such a rush!” And I leaned down, whispered a count of three into her delicate ear, then lowered her gently to the table, deeply asleep, until I could finish breakfast.

CASE FILES - PERSONAL NOTES - PATIENT 71 - DAY 18

“Doctor, I don’t think I’m ready,” Loretta protested, standing.

I smiled and put out my hand to her. Of course, she didn’t hesitated, and she reached out her own delicate hand to mine. “We’re on a schedule, Loretta,” I told her seriously. “It’s time to take your training to the next level. Now, I expect you to be completely professional. Follow the instructions that I’ve given you ... but above all else, rely on your instincts. Do what you think you have to do to complete the task at hand. I’ll be right there, and I’ll take over if you falter. But ... if you just allow your intuition to guide you, I know you’ll succeed in this.” She took a deep breath, which put an undue level of strain on the bodice of her white nurse’s uniform, and she followed meekly as I led her from the reception area into my office.

“Trudy,” I said to the small, slim woman occupying the easy chair in front of my desk, “I think you met Nurse Jones when you came in this morning.”

The young housewife turned toward us, her bouncing brown curls continuing to sway left and right long after her head stopped moving, and her breath caught, her eyes widening slightly. “Y ... Yes. Hello again.”

“Hello, Trudy,” Loretta breathed sultrily, locking eyes with the woman. Trudy seemed to be suddenly be in danger of hyperventilating, though she was breathing through her nose.

“Trudy,” I said as I moved toward the computer at the side of the office, “please come over here and sit in this chair. We have talked about helping you through hypnosis. It is, as I told you, a powerful tool in psychoanalysis.” I held the chair as she sat down. “I am in the process of teaching Loretta all about the technique, and so far, I have found her to be a very gifted hypnotist. It is time for her to go on to the next step.”

The girl turned and looked back at the sexy woman in white. “Next step?”

“Yes,” I continued. “I have absolutely no doubt that Loretta will be able to put you into a hypnotic sleep with very little effort on her part. I know that you will be an excellent subject, and Loretta has a knack for making her patients fall very deep, very quickly. I only tell you this because you should know what is about to happen to you. In just a few minutes, she will have you in a deep, deep sleep.” Trudy seemed unable to take her eyes off my assistant. Her pupils seemed to be flickering between Loretta’s eyes and her breasts. “But there are different levels of trance,” I continued. “Loretta has never taken one of my patients to the deepest, most profound level. I am going to let her do that to you, now. It will be good practice for her. Plus, I am anxious to see what she will do with you, once she has you there.”

“D ... do with me?”

“At that trance level, changes can be made. Your mind will be like modeling clay. Loretta will be able to mold you ... shape you. Don’t be concerned. I will be right here, monitoring the entire process. You will come to no harm. But you will be helping Loretta immensely in her training. I would like to thank you for this. It means a great deal to both Loretta and me.”

“I ... um...” She kept staring at the nurse, still unable to look away. She was deeply flushed from her heavy breathing. “W ... what do you want me to do?”

I nodded to Loretta, hoping that she’d see my signal. She, in turn, had locked her eyes with the fidgeting housewife, but she must have seen me in her peripheral vision, because she picked up the conversation seamlessly. “I just want you to listen to me, Trudy. Just do as I tell you, and you’ll go into trance very quickly. You won’t even know when it happens.” As she said that, she walked around the enraptured woman like a wraith. I saw Trudy’s eyes widen before she turned away from me, following the gliding figure of my nurse. With a smooth motion, Loretta reached out and snapped on the computer monitor. I’d already programmed the device to come up on the page I wanted.

“Look at the computer, Trudy,” she said quietly. But the woman kept staring up into the nurse’s eyes, instead. I sighed silently. This wasn’t very good training. For all practical purposes, Trudy was already in a trance. But Loretta only smiled tolerantly. “Trudy?”

“Hmmm?”

“If you want me to hypnotize you, you must follow my instructions. Look at the computer, please.”

“Oh. Sorry.” The woman turned and settled her back into the chair. “OH!” she exclaimed in an awed whisper. The screen was split into four spinning spirals, each different, each mesmerizing. Loretta leaned slightly to her left to best see where Trudy was looking, but she seemed to take it in correctly, because when she tapped a few keyboard instructions, the screen zoomed into the spiral in the lower left portion of the screen, hesitated for just a second, and then it exploded into four new spirals which were all based on the chosen one. Trudy jumped a little. “OH!” she said again.

“Each time I program in a new set of hypnotic spirals, Trudy, I want you to take a deep breath and relax for me, okay?”

The woman took a breath and said “O ... um ... O-o-o...” But she didn’t make it through the entire word.

Smiling, Loretta tapped a few more keys and the spirals expanded and shifted again. “Take a deep breath, Trudy. Relax even more. Very good.” She cast a questioning look at me for guidance, but I stayed deadpan. She suddenly seemed resolved about something, and she said: “Good girl, Trudy. You’re being a very good girl.” Trudy’s breath seemed to catch slightly, but already Loretta was tapping the keys again. The images split and shifted. “Deep breath. Good girl. Relax. Oh, Trudy, you’re such a good girl. Keep looking at the spirals, please. You can’t fall asleep until I command it. You must obey.” Tap tap tap. “We are finding your perfect hypnotic spiral, Trudy. Whenever you see it, you won’t be able to resist falling into a deep, deep hypnotic trance. Just focus on the spiral you find most entrancing. Yes ... that’s it.” Tap tap tap. “And ... that’s it, Trudy. That’s your very own spiral. Whenever you see it, you will always, always surrender, just like you’re surrendering here to me. And you will always, always go down and down and down into a deep, deep trance, just like you’re in now. I will count to three, and you will fall asleep. One two three.” The girl closed her eyes and she slumped immediately down into sleep, her chin on her chest and her arms limp, one hand on her lap and the other hanging down beside her chair.

Loretta turned questioning eyes to me, but I just made a gesture toward Trudy that I hoped meant: “She’s all yours.” That made my nurse fix me with stern ... almost angry eyes. She snatched up a pad of paper and a pencil from my desk and wrote: “What am I supposed to do with her?” underlining the word “do” several times. I simply repeated my gesticulation. She narrowed her eyes at me, then turned toward the slumped girl. “Trudy,” she said. “I want you to tell me...”

But I waved Loretta into silence, snatched up the pad, ripped off the page she had used and wrote: “Deepen her first!” She took a breath and nodded. Then she went through a couple of the exercises I had instructed her on, the old “balloon on the wrist” technique and then making her believe she was walking down a staircase, going deeper into trance with each step. I wrote again: “Make her respond.” And then I wrote: “Make her sit up.” Finally, I thought that Trudy was deep enough that I wrote: “Try having her open her eyes.” After a full fifteen minutes of this, I wrote: “Now. Find out what her problem is and solve it for her!”

Loretta’s countenance remained frustrated toward me, but finally, she took on a look of resolve and she nodded. “You are as deep as you can possibly go in your trance now, Trudy,” she said gently. “Tell me how deep you are.”

“I am as deep as I can go, Loretta.”

“What can I do to you here?”

“You can shape me. Mold me. I am a piece of clay,” the young wife intoned. Loretta seemed shocked by this. It hadn’t been part of her induction, but the words I had used beforehand had obviously had a deep impact on her.

My student cleared her throat. “Yes. That is correct. Good girl. And now, tell me why you came to Doctor Herringwick. What did you confide in him?”

“My husband is having an affair. He’s fucking one of my friends. He’s probably with her right now.”

Loretta cast a questioning look at me. I just shook my head, walked around my desk, and sat down in my desk chair, then I put my feet up onto the desk’s surface and leaned back, resting the back of my head in my hands. Exasperated, she picked up the pad of paper again, but I just shook my head and closed my eyes, ignoring her.

“Um ... how long has this affair been going on?” Loretta asked uncertainly.

“I don’t know. At least since my wedding day,” Trudy said solemnly. “Lisa was one of my bridesmaids. They did it in one of the spare bedrooms, about an hour before the service started.”

“Geez. How do you know that?”

“I saw them. I was looking for a safety pin, and I knew there was one in that room. They didn’t hear me, so I just closed the door and left them there.”

“And ... and you still went through with the wedding anyway?”

Trudy shrugged. “I’m not ... a very assertive person. Plus, my father had spent all that money, and all the people were showing up.”

“What happened when you confronted your husband about this?”

“Oh ... I didn’t confront him. Like I said, I’m not a very assertive person.”

“You’re not a... ?” Loretta seemed genuinely dumbfounded.

This was it. This was the point at which she either asked the right question, or took the wrong track. I chanced a peek at her from my reclined position and held my breath. The pause was very long.

“Have ... have you told anybody else about all this?”

Whew! Right question.

“I told my cousin, Ava. I told her everything. I always tell her everything.”

“You and your cousin are close?”

Trudy laughed. “Oh God, yes. She’s my best friend in the world. We were roommates in school ... all four years. She was my maid of honor. She’s ... my everything!”

There was another long pause. I could almost hear the wheels turning in Loretta’s head. “And ... what does Ava say about ... your husband’s infidelity?”

“She wants me to leave him and move in with her. But ... that’s just Ava for you. She pitched a fit when I started dating Chaz ... and again the first time he hit me. She begged me not marry him ... and begged me to stay with her instead.” Her voice took on a sort of whiny tone. “She’s always begging me. I wish she’d just tell me, instead.”

Bingo.

I heard Loretta move a chair. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, I sat forward and watched her as she turned the other woman to face her. “Trudy, I want you to stay in your deep, deep trance; and I want you to continue telling me the truth; and I want you to look at me. Yes, good girl. That’s it. Just like that. And now, I want you to tell me what you really, really feel toward Ava.”

“I love her,” the woman said without hesitation.

“And ... have you ever told her that?”

“Oh, no. I’m not a very...”

“Assertive person,” Loretta said along with her. “Yes, I know. How do you think Ava feels about you?”

“Oh, she’s in love with me, too. I know it ... but she’s really self conscious. About being a lesbian, I mean. I think that maybe she wants to ... you know ... take charge and make me do the things that she wants me to do. You know what I mean? She even kissed me once ... but ever since, she’s been apologizing for it ... like it was a big sin, you know? And ... I should have told her that I liked it, too; but I’m not ... you know ... assertive enough.”

“Why?” Loretta couldn’t seem to keep herself from asking. “Why did you marry Chaz?”

“He told me to.” She shrugged. “When we first met, he told me to go out with him, and so I did. He told me he was going to have sex with me, and I did that, too. He was the first guy that ever really told me to do anything. And so ... I do. He told me I was going to marry him ... it was never really a question at all. I do what he tells me. Because I’m not a very...”