The Backwoods

by Edward Lee

  Now—to Patricia’s relief—Byron laughed. “Yeah, I guess it was a pretty dumb dream. I’m just glad everything’s okay.”

  Finally she had the opportunity to change the subject but to something not so okay. “Actually, there was a big shocker just this morning. The police have been here—”

  “Police?”

  “—and evidently two of the Squatters who live on my sister’s land were murdered last night.”

  “What!” he exclaimed.

  “Yeah, it’s the craziest thing. There have never been murders here ever; then all of a sudden Dwayne gets killed, and now this.”

  “I want you out of there right now,” Byron insisted. “Sounds like that backward boondocks place is boiling over. Get in the car right now and come home!”

  “Byron, now you are overreacting. It was drug-related, the police said, and it happened miles away out in the woods. Judy’s just finding out about it now, but even though it’s tragic and all that, it’s nothing for us to get all worked up over. A Squatter couple were secretly dealing drugs, and they got murdered by a rival drug gang—that sort of thing. It’s not like there’s a serial killer prowling Agan’s Point.”

  “Well, I don’t like it,” Byron affirmed. “The funeral’s over and done with, so there’s no reason for you to stay. You hate the place anyway.”

  “Byron, the whole reason I came in the first place was to give my unstable and fairly heavily drinking sister some support in her time of need. I’ll be back next week, just as we planned.”

  “Well, all right. But I still don’t like it. And you need to call me—”

  “I will, honey,” she promised. “Most of the commotion’s over now, so there won’t be any more distractions. And once I got Judy back on her feet, I’ll be home in a flash.”

  “Good.” He paused. “I really miss you and I really love you. You’ve only been gone for a few days and I’m already realizing how important you are to me. I guess I don’t show it much. . . .”

  “Byron, of course you do, so stop it.” She truly did love him—more than anything—and she did want to get back to be with him. Her little mishap in the woods with Ernie was just a fluke brought on by the stress of being back; it was simply a loss of control in a moment run amok. I do love Byron, she attested to herself. Ernie was no more than a man in a magazine ad whom she’d happened to notice.

  On the other hand—and as loving and genuine as he was—Byron did have his moments of insecurity. He was an overweight middle-aged man, and Patricia was still a well-endowed, beautiful woman. She knew it must be hard for him to deal with sometimes.

  “You never have to ‘do’ things to prove your love to me,” she continued. “Just being you is the proof. Please remember that. And I love you too, very much. Remember that too.”

  “I will,” he replied, a bit choked up.

  “I’ll call tonight, and every night I’m here. And I haven’t forgotten. I even have a cooler.”

  “What?”

  “Your Agan’s Point crab cakes, silly!”

  “Good. And the minute you get back here, I’m going to eat them off your beautiful, naked body. That’s a promise.”

  “Byron, nothing turns me on more than culinary sex,” she said, laughing, and then they bade their final “good-byes” and “I love yous” and rang off.

  Patricia lay back on the bed and let out a great sigh. The conversation left her relieved and ashamed at the same time, not a good combination. She had lied to him—little white lies, but lies just the same—and she had offered invented excuses, and maybe that was good, because it helped her confront something important about herself.

  It’s all me. It’s not Byron. There’s nothing wrong with my marriage, and there’s nothing wrong with him. So . . .

  And the coincidence jolted her. He’s been having dreams about me cheating on him, and I’ve been having dreams about me cheating on him. And today, with Ernie, I almost did cheat on him.

  It was with a total spontaneity that she roved through her cell phone’s address book and found herself looking at Dr. Sallee’s number, and before she knew what she was doing, the line was ringing.

  He probably doesn’t even remember me, she thought. She’d seen him only once, when she and Byron had returned from Agan’s Point after Judy’s wedding. When the receptionist answered, she said, “Hi, my name’s Patricia White. I had a session with Dr. Sallee several years ago. I was wondering if I could arrange a phone consultation. I could give you my credit card number over the phone.”

  “Is your home address still the same?”

  “Yes.”

  Keys were heard tapping. “Yes, we still have it on file.”

  “Great. Then if possible could you give me a time to call back for a consultation?”

  “One moment, please.”

  As Patricia waited, she didn’t even know what she would say once she got the consultation. I don’t really even know why I called. . . .

  “Dr. Sallee is available now,” the receptionist told her. “I’ll put him on.”

  “Thank you—”

  “Patricia White?” the next voice asked.

  “Yes, Doctor. You probably don’t remember me but—”

  “The real estate lawyer with blazing red hair—of course I remember. How are you?”

  She was flattered he remembered her. “All in all, I’m fine, but . . . I’ve been having some problems for the last several days.”

  “When you came to me last time, we’d nailed your problem in general as a reactive symptom of monopolar depression. You’d left town to attend your sister’s wedding, at a place called . . .”

  “Agan’s Point,” she helped him.

  “Yes, the crabbing town. Your depression was activated by memories of a sexual trauma—a rape—that you suffered at age sixteen. We agreed that this depression was entirely location triggered, and decided that as long as you kept your distance from Agan’s Point, the depression would not recur. I presumed this theory worked, because I never heard from you again. Am I wrong?”

  “It did work,” she said. “I felt fine after that and have for the last five years. But for the last few—”

  “Where are you right now, exactly?” he interrupted.

  “Agan’s Point,” she slowly admitted. “This time for a funeral—my sister’s husband.”

  Dr. Sallee’s voice came after a long pause. “That’s regrettable. So your depression has recurred. . . .”

  “No, that’s the surprising part. It’s almost the opposite. For the days I’ve been back in Agan’s Point, I haven’t felt depressed at all. I’ve felt great; I’ve felt enthused.”

  “Strange,” the doctor said, “but considerable.”

  Now Patricia mulled over words in her mind, trying to choose the right ones. “I don’t really know how to say it, but—”

  “Just say it,” Dr. Sallee suggested.

  The words leaked out slowly: “Something about coming back has made me feel more sexual than I’ve felt in years. It’s actually scaring me, and I’m beginning to feel out of control.” In spite of the miles between them, her face reddened. “I’m . . . masturbating much more than normal, and every night I have very intense sexual dreams, which is unusual for me—”

  “Sexual dreams? Masturbation? There’s nothing abnormal about that,” the doctor told her. “This is all an aspect of passive sexuality. There’s nothing out of control about it.”

  Passive sexuality, she thought. She was even more embarrassed to tell him the rest. Her throat choked up. “I’m almost ashamed to continue. . . .”

  “Patricia”—he chuckled—“I’m your counselor. We’re essentially strangers, not to mention the fact that everything you say to me is in professional confidence. My rates are high, so you might as well get your money’s worth. Make me work for it. I can’t help you unless you tell me everything that leads you to think you’re out of control.”

  It made perfect sense. So she said it: “I almost cheated on my husban
d about an hour ago. That’s never happened before. And I was going to do it. . . .”

  Dr. Sallee didn’t seemed the least bit fazed. “Is there trouble in the marriage?”

  “None,” she said. “It’s the best marriage any woman could ever ask for. I’ve never not been sexually fulfilled with my husband. We’re perfectly compatible in every way, even sexually—especially sexually.”

  “Was the person you almost cheated with a stranger?”

  “No. A boy—er, I should say a man my age—whom I grew up with. We were best friends since childhood.”

  “Any sexual experiences with him in the past, before your marriage? A high school romance, perhaps, experimentation when you were younger—playing doctor, and the like?”

  “No. I know he wanted that, but I was never interested back in those days. I was always very goal-oriented as an adolescent, and even through college.” Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, she thought. I never really noticed you over all those years. So why now? “I’ve seen him maybe three times since I left Agan’s Point over twenty years ago. But this time, when I came back for the funeral . . . something happened. I just all of a sudden find him very attractive.”

  “Hmm,” came the counselor’s response. “From a clinical standpoint—so far, at least—this all sounds very good.”

  The-remark astonished her. “Good? I’m in total turmoil!”

  “I said from a clinical standpoint. In the past, whenever you returned to Agan’s Point, you’d become clinically depressed. Today you’ve returned to Agan’s Point, but you’re not depressed at all. You feel great—to use your own words of a moment ago. You feel enthused. Your depression is gone, so that’s a good thing.”

  Now she saw his point, but he still wasn’t seeing hers. “Yes, I feel enthused, but I also feel very, very sexual—”

  “To the point that you nearly committed an infidelity,” he added, “and this is what’s bothering you now.”

  “Exactly. It doesn’t make sense. It makes me feel like I must be sick or something, because—”

  “Because,” he kept finishing for her, “it doesn’t seem right for you to feel sexual in the very place that has always reminded you of the worst trauma of your life, which just so happened to be a sexual trauma.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” she said, sighing in relief that he’d made it easier for her.

  His voice almost sounded bored as he continued. “In my job, I’ve had many patients who were victims of sexual abuse, multiple rape, sexual torture, and worse. You’d be surprised how many women, for instance, will go years or even decades without ever telling anyone—even their counselors—that they experienced orgasms during their trauma, because in their minds it seems wrong, it seems shameful, it seems sick to experience pleasure during a revolting ordeal. In truth, quite a considerable percentage of rape victims experience a sexual release, and it doesn’t mean they’re sick at all. It’s just their body reacting to a primordial function. It’s not sick, it’s not shameful, and its not abnormal.”

  Patricia calculated this with a reserved interest. She, too, had experienced orgasm during her rape—the first orgasm of her life—and she’d never told anyone for the same reasons the doctor had just cited. I never even told Dr. Sallee, she realized, and now I guess I know why he never asked.

  Suddenly there was a tear in her eye, but it was a quietly joyous one. “You have no idea how good that makes me feel.”

  “I’m glad,” the doctor said. “And you should be glad, too, of a lot of things—at least based on what you’re telling me today. Most rape aftercare revolves not so much around psychotherapy, medication, and group counseling, but around the evolvement of the individual, coming to terms and dealing with it. It’s clear to me that you’ve done this.”

  This was good to know, but it still didn’t solve her problem. “It’s like the old problem is gone, but now there’s a new one.”

  “But is it a grievous one?” he asked, already knowing the answer. “Is it a debilitating one? No. In fact, it’s got nothing whatever to do with your trauma of so many years ago. Let me allegorize. Are you computer literate?”

  She frowned at the question. “I think so. We have a network at the office, and I do all right.”

  “Good, then I’ll use my favorite comparison on you.” He chuckled. “Lawyers tend to be objective thinkers; they deal in black-and-white terms. But this is not a black-and-white issue, is it? The human brain is the most sophisticated ‘thing’ in the world. Ten trillion brain cells, one hundred trillion synaptic connections. . Think of it as a computer. That computer is programed by the experiences of life, good and bad. Well, sometimes the files glitch; sometimes they get viruses and have to be cleansed. A rape, for instance, can be thought of as an infected file, a file gone bad, a file that’s no longer functioning in synchronicity with the other files it’s been programmed to operate with. When we can’t delete a bad file, we try to quarantine it, and sometimes we can’t even do that because the file is so out of sorts. Your rape experience is a bad file, Patricia. You’ve been quarantining it for years, which has worked, but now the computer is appending that file, to make it more serviceable to the system—rewriting the file. This is a sophomoric analogy, but it might help you understand. As far as your rape is concerned, the file has been rewritten; it no longer has a negative effect on the system.”

  Dr. Sallee’s simile did let her see the problem in a clearer light. “But what about—”

  “An unexplained heightened sexuality in a nonsexual setting?” he finished for her yet again. “Same thing, different program. Only in this case there was never a bad file. Think of it, instead, as a scheduled maintenance activation. The way a calendar program will flash reminders on your screen at a preset time?” Another chuckle. “You’re approaching your mid-forties, Patricia, which is the actual sexual peak for most women. Consciously, you’ve been groomed by your social and professional environment—a very specific environment. You’ve never wanted children, for instance, because it doesn’t suit the course you’ve chosen for your life, and part of the reason you chose your mate is because he doesn’t want children, either. Some people simply don’t, but all people—all mammals, in fact—have an inborn instinct to reproduce. It’s in our genes whether we like it or not. It’s in our brains, our computers, so to speak-it’s one of the operations programs. . As we get older—women, especially—that program begins to run faster, to try to become the priority over other programs. It’s trying to beat the inevitability of still one more program—one called menopause—an infertility program. In ten years—less, perhaps—your body knows that you will no longer be able to reproduce, so it’s lighting up your sexual awareness, going for that last chance of reproductive success. It’s all genetic, subconscious. It exists independent of your values and domestic and personal desires. What I’m trying to tell you, Patricia, is that an inexplicable sexual spike at your age is perfectly commonplace. It has nothing to do with your rape, and it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It doesn’t mean that you’re a tramp or a cheat or a deceptive person. All it means is that you’re a perfectly healthy middle-aged woman. For your entire adulthood, you’ve excelled in everything, and you’ve been in total control of yourself. You still are. The reason it’s happening now is simply because you’re in a different place, away from your spouse, and your subconscious mind is selecting ‘targets’ of sexual opportunity. Almost every single female patient I have in your age group is experiencing the same thing. It’s normal, Patricia. And you won’t cheat on your husband even when it seems that your body and your mind want to. What’ll happen instead is you’ll return to your home soon and probably have a lot of great sex with your husband.”

  Now Patricia was the one chuckling.

  The doctor began to finish up. “But until you do return home, you’ll still experience this, so just be ready for it. It’s okay to masturbate; it’s okay to have sexually vivid dreams. It’s all part of your sexuality. The important thin
g is not to worry about it, and don’t get yourself worked up. Nobody knows you better than yourself, Patricia. You know you’re not going to cheat on your husband, don’t you?”

  It was with every confidence now that she answered, “Yes.”

  “In that case, I can say that I’m happy to have gotten to talk to you today, and unless there’s anything else bothering you, then we should hang up now so I won’t have to erroneously bill you for therapeutic services that I haven’t earned.”

  The man was a hoot. ″Thank you very much, Doctor.”

  “And thank you. The disappearance of your depression proves that . . . I must be a fairly good doctor.”

  “That you are. Have a great day.”

  Patricia hung up, feeling exuberant. I’m not a cheating, conniving sex maniac after all. And he’s right. I’m cured of my Agan’s Point depression. This knowledge was an optimal way to commence with the rest of the day.

  With that off her mind, though, she was reminded of more serious matters. Judy, she thought. Just when she gets over one tragedy, she gets hit on the head with another one: the murder of the Hilds. By now, she was sure Ernie had explained what he knew of it, and Patricia supposed she should check on her soon to see how she was taking the news. But first . . .

  She started up her laptop and went online. Her mailbox remained free of anything from the firm, so next she took to Googling around a little.

  Crystal meth, she thought. She’d heard of it, of course, just errant pieces sometimes in the news, but she really didn’t know anything specific about it. In a moment, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s official Web site opened before her. A highly addictive Class II narcotic as defined by the Controlled Substances Act, she read. A superstimulant that produces long-lasting euphoric effects. When she added the word ingredients to her search, other, more obscure pages came up. Active ingredients: pseudoephedrine.