Chapter 3

After reading a half dozen more of Dagmar’s conquests (The one about her and Denis Leary was a masterpiece!), and succumbing to a strong compulsion to abuse myself (shame on me), I had to grudgingly admit that she was one of the better porn writers I’ve run across, and the imagery she created was just that much more titillating in that the stories were non-fiction.

Once I got back to thinking with my brain instead of my dick, I knew that the basic issue here wasn’t her fucking those boys. Hell, they’d not only get over it, they’d probably always treasure the memories ... that is, unless some lawyer smelled money and put a bee in their bonnets about a successful lawsuit being worth a lot of dinero. The promise of wealth is notorious for morphing complicit participants into injured parties. Except suing my aunt would be like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.

No, the real issue here was Aunt Margie. The poor woman was obviously ill! Shit, she was possessed! What could have pushed her to the point that she, or rather her mind, had to create a Dagmar to begin with? This is where I was out of my element. Milton was going to have to provide the answers to those questions.

After a second Heineken, something I rarely indulge in, I crawled into bed, tossing and turning through the night in a fitful sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.

Aunt Margie was signed out of the hospital by Dr. Milton at ten AM, and I walked her to my car, both of us avoiding any mention of the elephant lumbering along beside us. I stopped by the pharmacy to fill her prescription, then I drove her home and got her settled, making a pot of tea and calling the two piano students scheduled for that afternoon (both girls) to let them know their lessons were cancelled for the day due to Margie’s illness.

I was pretty sure Dr. Milton wouldn’t approve of me broaching the subject of her legal woes, but I needed to be sure of who (which version of Margaret Brenner) I was dealing with, so I sat on the couch beside her and brought out the diary.

“Do you know what this is, Aunt Margie?”

At first, she looked a little startled, but then she relaxed and said, “Yes, that’s Dagmar’s diary. Why do you have it? You didn’t read it, did you?”

“Yes, I did. Pretty interesting stuff, wouldn’t you say?”

She put her nose in the air and turned away, saying, “I wouldn’t know. I’m not the kind of person who reads other people’s diaries. That really is rather rude, Marty. I should think you would know better.”

I ignored the rebuke. “So, you do know this Dagmar?”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression. “Not really. It would be kind of hard to explain.”

I took her hand and urged her on. “Please try, Aunt Margie. When we go back to court in two weeks, whether you go to trial or not on these charges is going to depend a lot on what you know about Dagmar and this diary. You’re saying you don’t know what’s in it, but old Bullock is going to ask you how that can be when it’s in your handwriting and it was found in your underwear drawer. You knew it was there, didn’t you?”

Aunt Margie looked like she was getting agitated, and I really didn’t want to be dealing with Dagmar right now. Later, yes, but not now.

Still as Margie, she answered, “Yes, I knew it was there, but I didn’t read it, and I certainly didn’t write it, so how could it be in my handwriting? This is all very confusing!”

“Okay, okay, just relax. I’ll ask just one more question, then I’ll shut up and leave you alone. So, you know this Dagmar, or at least, you know who she is. What can you tell me about her?”

Again, she looked kind of puzzled. “Well, not much. I know she comes around from time to time. I’ve never really seen her, but I know when she’s been here because I find some of my clothes strewn about, I see that meals have been prepared and things around the house have been moved. I know it sounds like I’m hallucinating, Marty, but I’m not. I just know that she comes and goes and leaves behind traces of her having been here. That diary, for instance.”

Now, I felt like I was starting to get somewhere, so I broke my word and pushed a little harder. “Why haven’t you read the diary, Aunt Margie?”

“Because I’m afraid to! It’s not mine!”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, Aunt Margie. I won’t ask any more questions. Why don’t you take one of these pills Dr. Milton prescribed? It’ll help you relax.”

She nodded yes, so I got a glass of water from the kitchen and gave her the medication. I didn’t dare try to squeeze her for more information about Dagmar or the diary, but I suspected that, deep down in her mind somewhere, she knew, or at least suspected, what was in that diary.

Before I left Aunt Margie drowsing on the couch, I called Dr. Milton’s office and made an appointment for late afternoon. I was going to need his testimony, and at that point, I wasn’t convinced he was convinced of the DID diagnosis.

On the way to my office, I was trying to decide what to do about Harley. Judge Wilmer charged him very specifically with investigating the charges against Aunt Margie, and I didn’t doubt for a minute that, once old Harley picked up the scent of anything interesting, he’d be as single-minded as a bloodhound until he got what he was after. I didn’t want to just come right out and tell him what I knew about Margie/Dagmar, but I knew that if I withheld any information and he later uncovered it, he wasn’t going look too kindly on any duplicity on my part. I needed him on our side, and that meant I was going have to put some convincing arguments out there, and being first in line to cooperate with his investigation couldn’t hurt. The problem at this point was that anything I might say about Margaret Brenner having an evil twin was uncorroborated. With the exception of several (probably pleased and happy) teenage boys, I was the only person to have seen and spoken to Dagmar.

When I arrived at the office, Charlene handed me a bunch of messages along with the will she’d finished organizing the afternoon before. I asked her to call Harley and ask him to drop by sometime during the day if he had a few minutes, but to call first. I wanted to be prepared.

I spent a couple of hours doing lawyer work; returning calls, answering emails, setting up a deposition, then doing a final proof of the will. Once the billable work was dealt with, I planned to spend the rest of the afternoon organizing Aunt Margie’s defense. Even if Dr. Milton conceded that DID was a possibility, it was going to be hard to sell it to a jury. I didn’t want to think about what failure would mean to Margaret Brenner. She could actually go to prison for this!

I handed the will back to Charlene. “Looks good. Make an appointment for Mrs. Horsley to come in and sign everything. You might as well get her bill ready while you’re at it. I’m gonna be tied up for the rest of the day, so no calls, please, that can wait until tomorrow.”

“Okay, Marty.”

I turned to go back into my office, but she stopped me with, “Um, Maaaarty?”

When she draws out Maaarty like that, I have a pretty good idea what’s coming. But I had a lot of work to do, and I really wasn’t in the mood.

“Yes, Charlene?”

“Can you arrange some free time this afternoon for ... well, you know?”

“Darn it, Charlene, haven’t you and William managed to make up yet? You know I don’t feel right about this. Hell, I feel guilty every time I run into him at the grocery store. Sometimes, the way he looks at me, I think he knows.”

Charlene’s long-time boyfriend, William, is the assistant manager at the local Kroger’s. They’ve had a tempestuous relationship since high school, getting engaged and un-engaged at least a dozen times through the years. Every time they break up, Charlene becomes inordinately needy.

She put on her stubborn face and insisted, “Well, I can’t make up with him ‘til he says he’s sorry about Georgia. He cheated on me!”

“Well, hell, Charlene, you’ve been cheating on him with me for years! What’s the difference?”

“Yeah, but he promised me he wouldn’t! C’mon, Marty. Pretty please? I just get so horny when William and I are on the outs. Besides, he doesn’t do it as good as you do.”

Charlene’s arguments defied logic, but I knew she’d be pouty about it for the rest of the day if said no. I looked at my watch and gave in. “Well, okay then, I guess I can spare a few minutes. Lock the door.” I knew I shouldn’t, but she was just so damn good at it!

Fucking testosterone!

Her eyes brightened as she hurried around her desk to hang the OUT TO LUNCH sign on the doorknob and lock up. I parked my butt on the edge of my desk and waited.

She closed my office door behind her, drew the curtains on the windows and assumed the position on her knees in front of me. She knew she could get me going with just a look, and that look was one of wide-eyed innocence tainted with more than a hint of wickedness. Some kind of witchery, probably.

What we did - our routine - was never ad-lib. The scene was a reenactment of a porno movie on an unmarked VCR cassette we’d snuck from her dad’s collection when we were kids. I guess the scenario stuck in Charlene’s brain and caused her to invent some fantasy about being a porn star, and she loved playing the role of the hot red-head in that movie.

“What color are your undies today, Marty?”

She asked that every time as she ran her hand up my pant leg and rubbed my growing bulge. The rule was that I couldn’t do anything to alter her fantasy. I had to remain completely passive as she prepped my dick and her pussy for business. It’s the same scene we’ve been playing since we took each other’s cherry when she was thirteen and I was fourteen. You’d think it would get old after a while, but it never failed to get me turned on. Her, too, apparently.

The undies question wasn’t meant for me to answer, since part of her fantasy game was guessing. “Let’s see,” she mused, “It’s Thursday, so I think you’re wearing your silk, navy-blue boxers.” This is where she slowly unbuckles my belt and unzips me.

She burst out with a girlish giggle when she pulled down my pants and saw that she had guessed right. By now, the boxers were distorted by a substantial tent in front. With that same lascivious grin on her face, she undid the single button and snaked her hand through the fly and around my rapidly swelling Johnson, evoking a sharp intake of breath on my part.

Charlene had another rule for our game. I wasn’t allowed to shuck my underwear, but rather stick my dick through the fly for her to play with, suck on, and finally fuck. She imagined it would save a couple of seconds if we were interrupted and had to get dressed quickly. That was the situation in the movie between the two people who were married, but not to each other. For the same reason, she wouldn’t take off her skirt or completely remove her panties.