Chapter 15

Bob popped two Vivarin when he got into the squad car the next morning. She had kept him up all night, satisfying her own needs and making up for the dry spell Bob had been in. He felt drained, but also more relaxed than he'd been in years. He was no longer distracted, either. Lacey had another appointment with Claire, but he was no longer worried that she'd suddenly realize there was no past between them. That had already been addressed. Now all he had to worry about was the return of other memories ... darker memories. Still, if it happened, Claire would be there to soften the blow.

For two days, Bob went home to a Lacey who was bubbly and full of love and life.

Lacey liked her time with Claire. For much of the time they just sat and talked. Claire asked her to tell her whatever she could remember various things. She could clearly recall odd things, such as what her teachers had been like in high school, while things like what her first car had been were blanks in her mind.

On the second day there was another hypnosis session. Claire softly asked leading questions that brought memories of Lacey's college life, her husband and marriage back to her. Those memories had been suppressed, along with others that were much more dark and dismal, but could be separated, to a large degree, from them. It was as if Lacey's brain had taken all her bad memories, in one big lump, and shut them away in a box, where they could no longer be seen by her conscious mind.

The reason for the divorce was not one of the things that Claire instructed Lacey to remember. She didn't want to implant more false memories, but allowed Lacey to fix on the fact that Paul had been disillusioned with her and left it at that. She hated to do it, because, while remembering the divorce, Lacey remembered that it was because she had been raped. She had stuttered her way through that description.

"I was raped?" she asked.

"Don't worry about that now," said Claire. "We'll talk about that later. Paul was disillusioned because of that, right?"

"Yes. He said I wanted it to happen."

"Did you want it to happen?"

"No. I hated it." That answer was delivered in a flat voice proving the effect of Claire's posthypnotic suggestion against worry.

"All you need to remember, when you wake up, is that he was unhappy with the marriage."

"He was unhappy," said Lacey. "Yes ... he was unhappy."

Lacey's reaction to the return of those memories was surprising, to both Claire and, later, Bob.

"Do you remember your marriage now?" asked Claire, carefully, when she had brought Lacey out of the trance.

"Yes," said Lacey, frowning. "Paul was a jerk," she said. "Bob is twice the man he'll ever be."

"I never met Paul," said Claire, tactfully, "but I know Bob, and you're right. He's a good man."

"I still love him," said Lacey. "Bob, I mean. I love him even more now than I did before."

"I understand that," said Claire. "If I weren't happily married, you'd have some competition."

Lacey smiled. "I'm glad you're happily married."

In her apartment, that night, when Bob came to visit after his shift, she hugged him tightly.

"I know about Paul, now," she said, kissing him. "Some of what I thought was you, was actually him." She rubbed against him. "You're much better."

"Thank you," said Bob, grinning.

"I want you to be much better right now," she said, unbuttoning his shirt.

An hour later, he fell, limp again, to roll off her. She came with him, but only to her side. Her hand played with the hair on his chest.

"Much better," she said, kissing his shoulder.

Neither Bob nor Claire realized that, while she wasn't worrying about it, Lacey was now aware that she had been raped. She couldn't remember that. It was just a hazy ball of darkness in her mind. She realized, quite clearly, that that was one of the memories Bob was afraid of, and she was quite happy that it was only that ball of haze. She decided not to mention it to him. He probably knew about it anyway. He was a policeman, after all. With very little effort, she tucked it back in the box and didn't think about it anymore.

Don Simpson didn't say anything more to Bob about the task force, or the fact that the cases had, in fact, been quietly closed, with a synopsis that the suspected perpetrator was deceased and the women who were believed to have been his victims had been notified. It was only luck that the hypnosis session had happened prior to Detective Simpson calling Lacey at work.

"Mrs. Fetterman?" came a modulated voice on the phone.

"Yes?"

"This is Detective Simpson. I'm calling to give you an update on your case."

"Case?"

"The sexual assault investigation," he said, being politically correct.

"Oh." The box opened, but the memory was still a hazy, dark ball. "I don't remember much about it," she said.

"We have everything we need," said Simpson. "I just wanted to let you know that we believe the man who did it is now dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes, he was killed in an accident. He won't be able to bother you again."

"That's nice," she said, her voice slightly dreamy. "I won't worry about it anymore."

"Excellent," said Simpson, pleased that he didn't have to convince her, like he'd had to convince several others. "Thank you for all your help. We wouldn't have been able to identify him without it."

"You're welcome," said Lacey. One of her sales associates was standing impatiently, waiting to get a question answered. "I have to go now."

"All right. Thanks again. Good luck."

Lacey hung up the phone. Within ten minutes she'd forgotten all about the call.

It took two weeks before Bob thought Lacey was recovered enough to try racquetball. She was the old Lacey, there, with nothing forgotten. Two weeks wasn't enough, though. She could only go four games, and she lost all of them, even though the first two were very close.

They sat, panting, leaning against the wall, like they had done so many times before.

"You owe me," she said.

"What for? I won fair and square."

"I've never been this humiliated," she sighed.

"You're still recovering," he said soothingly.

"You still owe me," she said.

"OK, what do I owe you?"

"Two dinners at Santini's and..." She started adding on her fingers. "The way I see it, you took advantage of my sore side at least fifteen times."

"Hey, I just played to win," he said.

"I know that," she snorted. "But you took advantage of my injuries, so you owe me at least fifteen orgasms before you get to spurt in me again."

"Not fair!" he complained.

"Tough," she said. "Deal?"

"You want to try to get even? We've still got time." He grinned.

"And ten more orgasms for being cruel!" She rubbed her pussy. "BEFORE you can cum in me!"

She wanted to go to his apartment to clean up, and once there, she strutted around, naked, teasing him. He took her into the shower and held her in the corner, fingering her.

"Get ready for number one," he said, kissing her shoulder.

"I want them with you in me," she said, pushing at him. "Not like this."

"You can't change the contract once it's been signed," he said gleefully, prodding her deeply with his finger. He sucked at a nipple, knowing she'd go off.

"Ohhhhhh, I don't like you anymore!" she moaned, squatting a little, to give him more room.

"Yes you do," he said.

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