Bound by Suggestion

by L.L. Bartlett

  “No,” Richard admitted.

  “Then I shouldn’t be speaking to you about this. I mean, they’re his records. If he has a question about it, that’s different.”

  The truth was, Richard could have hacked into those files himself. And he knew enough about computer protocols to hide his tracks, too. But he’d wanted to do it the legit way before he had to resort to those tactics.

  “I really don’t want my brother to know about this. Not until absolutely necessary. And there’s a chance no one has tampered with his files. I guess that’s what I’m asking you to ascertain.”

  Wally thought it over. “I suppose I could at least give you that information. But I would need your brother’s permission before I told you who had accessed his files without his permission—or that of his doctor.”

  “Fair enough,” Richard said.

  Wally nodded, and his fingers played magic with the computer once again. He stared at the screen, his lips pursed as he studied the data.

  It didn’t take a computer genius to see that Jeff’s file had last been accessed only six weeks before. But by whom? Krista Marsh or Wes Timberly?

  Or somebody else?

  Krista’s car pulled up the driveway at eight fifty-nine. Okay, so I was watching from my window above the drive. A minute later she stood in my open doorway, breathtaking in a black cocktail dress, with a short spangled jacket.

  “Do you always make house calls dressed like that?” I asked.

  “Only when I have a command performance beforehand. And I was delighted to make an early escape. Can I come in?”

  I stood back and ushered her in.

  “Nice place,” she said, taking in the ten-foot ceiling, the natural finish and the comfortable furnishings. Her gaze stopped on Herschel. “You have a cat.”

  Glowing eyes glared at her from the cat’s perch on the windowsill.

  “You allergic?” I asked.

  “I’ll be okay, if I don’t touch him,” she said. “Do you have any wine? I could sure go for a glass.”

  Yeah. A bottle of nice Bordeaux I’d bought for Maggie. No sense wasting it. I got out the corkscrew, opened the wine and poured two generous glasses. This wasn’t how I’d planned the visit, acting sociable when I was pissed-off. Damn my good manners.

  She settled on the couch and removed her jacket, laying it on the arm. Thin spaghetti straps on her low-cut dress were all that kept it defying gravity. She slipped out of her heels and curled up on the couch, taking the glass of wine from me. She patted the cushion. “Sit,”

  I sat, feeling uncomfortable and totally out of control.

  “Let’s talk about what’s bothering you,” she said, her expression concerned.

  I took a mouthful of wine and swallowed. “My first session with Grace was uncomfortable enough. But I don’t remember a thing after she left last Thursday. Why?”

  “You told me you didn’t feel well. We discussed various biofeedback techniques.”

  Krista went over the therapy plan. I vaguely remembered that part of the conversation. But what about the trip home? Parking in Richard’s spot, hiking to my apartment and falling into bed. That was still a total blank.

  “Did you have a headache when you woke?” she asked.

  “No.” I’d felt great—relaxed, and rested.

  “Then it worked. And it will, every time.”

  “Every time?”

  “Guaranteed.”

  I searched her brown eyes. I wasn’t sure I believed her. In the midst of one of my skullpounders, I’d been known to get confused about the sequence of events, even double medicating myself on a couple of occasions. But if I didn’t have a headache, why had I blacked out? It scared me. She was the last person I’d been with. Shouldn’t that have scared her, too?

  But I didn’t voice that. I didn’t want to look paranoid, I suppose. I caught the scent of her flowery perfume—jasmine? A familiar fragrance—seductive and frightening at the same time.

  God help me, it excited me.

  Think of something else, I told myself.

  “Why are Grace’s sessions two hours? And why do you meet with her so often?”

  “I’ve spoken with her guardian—”

  “Guardian? I thought she was twenty-three?”

  “It has something to do with the terms of her trust. She’ll gain control of it in a few weeks, on her twenty-fourth birthday. Grace had emotional problems even before the accident that crippled her. Her father wanted her to be taken care of—protected—in case anything ever happened to him. It was a wise precaution, as it turns out. Unfortunately, her attorney is considering petitioning the court to remain her guardian, as she probably won’t be emotionally ready to make major decisions in the near future.”

  “She came from money?” I asked, remembering Grace’s shabby clothing.

  “Her father was the late William Vanderstein,” Krista said with awe, like I was supposed to be impressed. The name meant nothing to me.

  Krista sipped her wine.

  I caught the scent of her perfume again and, impulsively, I leaned forward, my face hovering only inches from Krista’s. Our eyes locked. I kissed her warm lips. She let me, melted into me. Her hand snaked up my back, fingers curling in the hair at my collar.

  She pulled back and smiled. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

  “You should’ve said something sooner.”

  “I wanted to. But the timing wasn’t right.”

  I met her penetrating gaze, my every muscle tensing with . . . excitement? Trepidation?

  I pulled her to her feet. She didn’t protest as my fingers sought the zipper on the back of her dress. With her thumb, she slid a strap over one shoulder, then the other, and the dress slid to the floor. She stood before me in a garter belt, black stockings, and nothing else. She leaned over, unfastened the garters on her left leg, licked her bottom lip, and gathered the stocking in a neat bundle. Laughing, she stepped closer, playfully whipped the featherweight hose across my face.

  “Do you want to do the other?”

  Our eyes held. A bright flare of desire coursed through me. I looked deeply into her dark eyes. “You are beautiful,” I whispered, letting my fingers brush against her silken skin.

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  I touched her waist, let my hand travel down her hip. Crouching, I pressed a kiss against her thigh as I unfastened the garters. Carefully, I followed her example and gently gathered the stocking. She stepped out of it. I rose, reached for her hand, and welcomed her to my bed.

  She lay back, watched me as I shed my clothes. I got in next to her and traced my finger and thumb over her left nipple and, in the dim light, watched it harden under my touch. Cupping her breast, I felt an unnatural firmness—a wrongness. A saline-filled plastic bag sewn under her smooth skin.

  Disappointment flooded through me. Of course they weren’t real. The woman didn’t have an ounce of fat on her. No sensual curves to explore and memorize. Just skin and sinewy muscle stretched over a framework of bones. She wasn’t a natural blonde, either, although I guess I’d intuitively known that.

  Worse, we shared no mental—spiritual—connection.

  I pulled my hand away.

  “Something wrong?” she murmured.

  Yeah. She wasn’t turning me on any more. And it was obvious to her as her hand had also stopped its gentle massage.

  “Mind games,” I whispered. Did she think I might be impotent? I hadn’t been . . . until that moment.

  Krista shifted position, straddling me. I stared up at her in the thin light. Her hair hung seductively around her face, her smile provocative. The silhouette of her perfectly contoured breasts was outlined against the glow from the lights in my living room. Then she bent low, trailing kisses down my throat, across my chest, her hands caressing my ribs. Her warm soft lips traveled down my belly. I lay back, closed my eyes and went with the flow, proving that impotence was not my problem.

  She was better than the twenty-d
ollar hooker who did me in the parking lot of a bar in San Francisco when I was nineteen. But the experience was just as hollow.

  She didn’t ask me to pleasure her, and I didn’t offer. After, she lay beside me in the darkness, didn’t snuggle close. I didn’t wrap my arm around her like I would have with Maggie.

  “Are you okay?” she asked finally, her voice sounding small.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you thinking of someone else?”

  “No.”

  But I was.

  She wasn’t Maggie. There was no route I could take to find her soul. I’d had sex with women I didn’t love before. Why was this so achingly empty?

  We lay there for a long time.

  “I have to go,” Krista said at last. “I’ve got an eight o’clock appointment with my manic depressive.” She leaned over, kissed me, her lips lingering, her breath warm on my face. I tried to respond in kind and we wasted another minute or two pretending a passion that neither of us could muster.

  Then she was on her feet, heading for the living room. I scooped up my robe, knotted it at my waist, feeling awkward. She’d shimmied into her dress, struggling to yank up the zipper. I pulled it up the last four inches.

  Krista gathered her stockings, jacket and purse. “You’ll be there for Grace tomorrow, won’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good-night.”

  I closed the door behind her, listened to her footsteps on the stairs and the door slam shut. Her car’s engine fired up and I watched from the window as she backed down the drive. Then I headed for my sideboard and the new bottle of bourbon. A splash of soda later, I sat on the couch.

  Bothered. That was the only way to describe what I was feeling. But the elusive reason for it—memory of it? —wouldn’t surface.

  Herschel jumped onto my lap. He’d pulled a disappearing act while Krista was there—not easy in a four room apartment.

  “Mrrrowww.”

  “Amen.” I smoothed Herschel’s fur. In a heartbeat he was purring.

  There could never be anything between Krista and me. She’d come to convince me to continue with Grace’s sessions, giving me a blow-job to placate me from quitting.

  It had worked—for the time being. Yet knowing I was a means to an end still left me feeling degraded.

  Why was I worrying about it anyway? She’d said either Grace or I could back out at any time. We were supposed to remember everything that went on in those sessions, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember much. And she still hadn’t given me a decent explanation of why.

  Did Grace remember? Was that the source of her anger toward me?

  I needed to see—talk—to her, without Krista present, to compare notes. But right then I wanted to be brain dead. To not know. To not care about anything.

  Hours later I awoke with a start. Thanks to the security lights outside, a glow edged the heavy drapes at my bedroom window. The clock on the nightstand read 3:42 a.m. I lay there, waiting expectantly, anticipation causing my fists to clench.

  This was stupid, lying there staring at the phone, expecting her to—

  Brrriinng!

  I waited interminably long seconds for it to ring again before I snatched it.

  “Hello?”

  Silence.

  A long silence.

  “Hello?” I tried again, unable to keep the expectation out of my voice. “Maggie, that you?”

  Still no answer, but I knew it was her.

  I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, my hand clenched around the phone. “Maggie, why are you calling?”

  There was no anger in my voice. I didn’t want her to hear anger. Possibly puzzlement, because ten days after our break-up I was still bamboozled by the whole mess. And much as I wished I could deny it, I missed her. I missed the way she touched me in the night. I missed her silly laugh. I even missed her auburn hair in my bathroom sink.

  “Maggie?”

  The line clicked dead.

  I rolled over, hit the lamp switch and punched in the code for call return. The phone company’s automated voice spit out the number of the last caller. The exchange was right “Seven, five, four, three.”

  “Maggie,” I murmured and the phone slid from my grasp.

  She’d called. A thrill of hope coursed through me. She missed me. Or had she called out of guilt? Could that be all she felt for me after thirteen months of intimacy?

  I still love you, she’d said, then she’d chosen Doug over me. And here I was pining away for her.

  You are stupid.

  What was that old joke about enjoying being kicked in the head because it felt so pleasant when it stopped?

  Herschel jumped onto the bed, startling me. The phone was still off the hook, its annoying bleat cutting into my brain. I replaced it and a purring bundle of fur settled against my chest. My hand found his head, scratched that special place behind his left ear and the purring went into overdrive.

  Eventually the cat drifted off to sleep, but I kept staring at the wall. I tried not to think about Maggie. Tried not to remember the nights we’d spent in that bed, the pleasure we’d given each other.

  The sun was beginning to peek around the corners of the drapes by the time I fell back into an exhausted sleep. But instead of visions of Maggie, and the way things used to be, my dreams were filled with sickening sensations of bondage and torture, where I tormented a victim without a face.

  Chapter 11

  “You’re going to have to tell him,” Brenda said, buttering her toast while she studied the array of jams and jellies before her on the kitchen table.

  Ordinarily, Richard couldn’t abide such clutter, but since her pregnancy, Brenda had craved a variety of sweets. It was less hassle for her to sample jam from each of the jars, rather than dirty seven or eight additional containers.

  Richard stared down at his own uneaten breakfast, and then back to Brenda, who’d decided on the raspberry preserves. “I know. But I’m not sure how to approach the subject. I mean, coming right out with it would be damned awkward.”

  Toast still in hand, Brenda struck a theatrical pose. “How are you today, Jeffy? Fine weather we’re having. Did I mention someone’s been tampering with your medical records?” She slumped in her seat, returning her breakfast to her plate. “No, I don’t suppose that would go over well. Too bad you don’t know who did it.”

  “I could find out . . . but if I do, Wally Moses is sure to suspect I’ve been in there, too, and report it. I’m hoping he’s already informed on whoever’s been messing with Jeff’s files.” Richard stared into his rapidly cooling coffee. “Jeff’s the one who needs to ask about it, and now isn’t a good time for me to bring it up.”

  Brenda capped one of the jam jars. “Why are you tippy-toeing around his feelings like this? Jeffy’s no fool. He’d know you were only looking out for his welfare.”

  Richard shrugged. “I keep remembering what Jared Crain said. That Wes might use dirt on my family against me.”

  “How could Jeffy having insight be used against you?”

  “How many in the medical community view psychic phenomenon as mental illness? Take that with our mother’s breakdown, and her alcoholism . . . .”

  “I see what you mean.” Brenda sighed. “I still think honesty is the best policy.”

  “I’ll be honest with him, but I have to wait for the right moment to broach it.”

  Richard sipped his tepid coffee and grimaced. He got up, dumped it in the sink, poured and doctored a fresh cup.

  He leaned against the counter. “The last couple of days Jeff’s seemed . . . fragile.”

  “Talk to him.”

  Richard shook his head. “It won’t do any good. He’s going through something he doesn’t want to share. And I can’t make him.”

  “But you can be there for him.”

  “He knows I am.”

  “Yes, but it wouldn’t hurt to remind him.”

  It was time to mention the inevitable. “He might op
en up to you. He has in the past.”

  Brenda frowned, her gaze dropping to the table. “He’s afraid to. He’s been hiding from me for months. Ever since—”

  She wouldn’t voice the truth they’d all been avoiding.

  Much as Richard didn’t want to admit it, it ate at him that Jeff was attracted to his wife—maybe even loved her, though he’d never allow himself the luxury of even harboring a fantasy of a life with her because he loved Maggie, too. Yet he loved Maggie differently. And, Richard knew his brother would never do anything to come between him and Brenda.

  So much love and so much hurt. That was the life Jeff was stuck with.

  “since December,” Brenda finished lamely.

  Richard nodded, searching for the right words to get the conversation back on track.

  “Jeff is so damned scared of people finding out what he can do. Telling him that what he wants kept most private has been compromised, and who knows how it could be used against him—and us . . . .” Words failed him again.

  Brenda pushed her plate aside, capping the rest of the jam jars. “Putting it off is just going to make it worse.”

  She was right, of course. She was always right. But the timing wasn’t right.

  “I’ll tell him. Before the weekend.”

  Now he just had to find a way to do it.

  I could’ve told Krista I couldn’t find a parking spot. That would’ve been a good excuse for being late. I could’ve told them both that I’d overslept. I could’ve made up any number of lies, but the truth was I just didn’t want to be there. And it was obvious Grace felt the same way.

  Walking into Krista’s office was like walking into oppressive sludge, worse than drowning in quicksand. When your nose and mouth filled with liquid dirt you were guaranteed a quick end. Instead, emotional crude oil clung to me in a slimy morass, denying me that blessed oblivion. It lingered, and no matter how much I scrubbed, it didn’t wash off.

  “Take a seat,” Krista said, indicating my usual chair. “We’ve already lost fifteen minutes of precious time.”

  I sat, not motivated to apologize.

  “We didn’t think you’d even show up,” Grace said, making no effort to keep the belligerence from her voice.