Double Helix Ch. 06

I brought Wendy over to have a look. "This came from Tilly's designer," I said. "This part talks about the regulation of her emotional states and feedback mechanisms between systems. Then we get into neurotransmitter effects and I get lost," I pointed to the screen, "about here."

I looked over Wendy's shoulder as she read through a couple of pages. She looked over at me. "Okay, what are we looking for?"

I sighed, turned and perched on the edge of the desk. "Anything that can help us. I thought maybe we could get some insight from this into how her mind works." I gave her Kelly's suggestion, that pleasure had become a trigger for pain.

Wendy rested her chin on her fists and stared at the screen, swinging her legs in the too-tall office chair. She put a hand to the scroll wheel and slowly ran the page up. I saw her lips move silently as she read. "You know," she started, paused, and started again, "I think a benzodiazepine might work."

She looked at me and I shrugged. "A what?"

"Benzodiazepines, anti-anxiety drugs. I'm thinking alprazolam."

"Oh," I said, understanding now. "So you think we should treat Tilly with drugs?"

"Look, you need to get her to break out of her avoidance cycle. I think this could help take the edge off of her fear and help her think through her trauma. From what I can see here, anti-depressants would have little to no effect, but anti-anxiety drugs might just work."

"I wonder if Sasha could get it for us."

Wendy's brows rose. "You could get it. You work tomorrow, right?"

"Me? You mean . . ."

She nodded slowly. "You're the only person here who works at a hospital."

"I don't like the idea of stealing."

"Well then ask Sasha. But be prepared to wait a few weeks. Or never. She's having so many problems getting supplies."

"What if I get caught?"

Wendy smirked. "Don't get caught." Then her expression turned more serious. "I want to see Tilly get better. Don't you? How long do you think until she slips back into depression and tries to kill herself? Trust me, I think this will help."

That was how I found myself the next night walking up to the pharmacist with a forged request for alprazolam. Her name was Sheila, and I had given her orders for patient drugs at least a dozen times in the last month. Right then, though, I felt like I could have used a dose of the drug myself as I stood there with my heart hammering in my chest while she looked the paper over. "Just one dose?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Well," she said, waving the paper at me, "do me a favor and remind Dr. Karr that I don't like getting four of these in one day for the same person. If he's going to put a patient on medication, he needs to just do it, know what I'm sayin'?."

"I'll be sure to tell him," I said.

I waited while she prepared the medicine, placing two pills into a small plastic container. "Here you go," she said, handing it to me. It rattled as I took it from her. "Anything else I can do for you, baby?"

"No," I said, giving her a smile, "thank you."

I slipped the pill case into my pocket as soon as I was out of sight and remembered to breathe again. My nerves were on edge for the whole rest of the night, but I knew that I was probably home free. I was just terrified that the pill case would fall out or otherwise get noticed before I left for the night.

At the end of the night, I hopped on my bike and pedaled for home. Sasha's house was a bit over four miles from the hospital, so it took me about a half an hour to make the trip if going at a fairly leisurely pace. I could do it in under fifteen if I really went for it, which is what I did now, weaving between the street and sidewalk as needed to find the quickest path.

I took my bike around the house and through the side gate to the backyard. Sasha had told her neighbors that she was renting out a room to me, so no one would find it odd. I came in through the back door and spotted Sasha's mother standing in the kitchen. "Hello," I said in greeting, and started for the basement.

She said something to me in Russian, and though I couldn't understand the words, the meaning was very clear. She sounded outraged. I took a step back, raising my hands. "It's just me, Norm."

Keeping her eyes on me, the old woman edged her way along the counter. She snatched a chef's knife from a knife holder and held it towards me, spouting more warnings in Russian.

"Nonna," I said. "Nonna, it's me. It's Norm."

"Mamka!" Sasha said, skittering to a stop next to me on the slick linoleum. She stepped between me and her mother, speaking rapid-fire Russian. Nonna looked from her daughter to me and back again, anger turning to confusion. Sasha said something much slower and pointed at the knife.

Nonna set the knife down reluctantly. Sasha put an arm around her and guided her out of the kitchen, using her body to block her mother's view of me. I stood waiting, and Sasha came back a minute later. "I'm sorry," she said. "She has some bad days of late. She does not remember you today."

"How have you been?" I asked. I'd barely said two words to Sasha in the last few days.

"Not good," she said. "Come, let's talk about it."

I followed Sasha into the little den that was next to her office. She reached for a large book high up on a bookshelf, set it aside and reached up again, coming down with a bottle of clear liquid that was a bit less than half full. The label read "Stolichnaya". She set it down and got two glasses from a drawer. She poured two fingers in both glasses and motioned for me to sit with her on the couch. She sipped her vodka and sighed with appreciation. "Go on, try it," she said. "I've been nursing that bottle for over a year and I won't have a drop of it go to waste."

I looked at the liquor with new found appreciation and took a sip. The flavor was smooth and mild but burned all the way down my throat. "Not bad," I said. "So what's going on?"

"The agency phoned me today to tell me that we will not be receiving a shipment this week. That will squeeze what we have on hand quite a bit, but we'll be okay as long as they get us one next week, but everyone will be eating a little light."

"Lighter than we have?" I asked.

"I'm afraid so. I wish the bureaucrats would get off their asses and fulfill your ration request. It isn't much, but it would help."

"Sorry, still waiting on that."

"Have you been watching the news?"

I shook my head, "Not lately, no."

"Well, the Senate is set to vote on a bill next week, the Fair Banking, Lending and Investment Act. If it passes, and it probably will, it effectively nationalizes the entire financial sector of this country. You think things are bad now, wait until that thing goes into law. I work for an investment firm. I hear they're already considering how many people they'll need to lay off before the end of the year." She took another, longer sip. "I may not have a job in six months."

"That would certainly ruin my day."

"Well, don't think it won't happen to you, too. We're going to be seeing unemployment double, maybe more, from all the secondary effects that this kicks off. God damn, you'd think those bastards would realize they've done enough damage already." She shook her head and gulped the last of her vodka. "Well, that's enough of my complaining. You probably need to get to bed, yes?"

"I do," I said, and poured back the rest of the vodka. The burn made my eyes water.

"Haha!" Sasha laughed. "Your face is turning red, Norm. I did not know you were such a lightweight."

"There's usually orange juice involved when I drink vodka," I admitted. "And even that is pretty rare. Too expensive."

Sasha nodded. "One thing about the Rot, it cleaned up a lot of alcoholics. That bottle there cost me almost three hundred dollars." She looked at my reddened face and laughed again. "Oh, don't ever change, Norm."

I said good night to her and descended the stairs. Nock raised a hand in greeting and I flashed him a wave of my own. checked my room first. Nissi was there, but sleeping, so I went to Tilly's room, opening the door and letting the light from outside illuminate enough for me to see that she was sleeping. She was sleeping fitfully, mumbling and twitching. Her nightmares had reduced in frequency and severity since I began treating her, but they had never entirely gone away. I put a hand on her arm to wake her. Her eyes focused on me.

"You were having a nightmare," I said.

She shook her head slightly. "No, not really." She reached for the lamp and flicked it on.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said. "You seemed distressed."

I thought I saw her cheeks color slightly in the pale light. "I was dreaming about you."

I could guess from how she said it what she meant. "So was it a bad dream or a good one?"

She hesitated. "Well, in my dreams, I think and do things that would terrify me otherwise. What we were doing. . ." she shuddered. "It sickens me now, but in the dream I think I must have wanted it."

"Do you know why you feel that way about sex?"

Tilly shook her head and hugged her arms against herself as if she had gotten a sudden chill. She had to know, deep down, that she had been raped, but she had gotten so adept at avoiding it that it was second nature now.

I knelt next to the bed. "Do you trust me, Tilly?"

She looked at me, holding my eyes with the intensity of her gaze. "Yes."

"I want to help you get well," I said. "I think I know how we can do that. Will you let me?"

She turned away. "I just don't know. I don't want to hurt you, Norm. What if I lose control?"

"We'll have others there," I said, thinking it through. "Stan and Nissi. They're just as strong as you."

Tilly seemed to consider this. "If it doesn't work," she said quietly. "Will you help me kill myself?"

"Oh, Tilly," I croaked, and swallowed against the lump in my throat, "please, you can't ask that of me."

"I'll do it," she said, "but that's my condition. I heard you and Wendy talking. You have access to drugs at the hospital. You can find me something that will just put me to sleep and let me slip away."

"I can't." I slumped, staring at the floor. "I just can't do that."

"What you feel right now," she said. "Every moment, that's what I feel. Good feelings don't make it go away. In fact, they make it worse. It just grows and swallows them up. Ignoring the pain takes all my effort, all my willpower. I'm so tired, Norm."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I won't help you commit suicide."

"Fine," Tilly said, an edge in her voice. "Then you can forget about whatever you have planned. I'm not playing along."

I stood with an effort. My body felt heavy and weak. I paused at the threshold to look back. Tilly lay on her back, staring up at nothing, looking just as she had that first time I had brought her dinner. "Good night," I said. I waited for a moment and closed the door.

I stripped out of my clothes, pausing a moment to place the pill case in my dresser drawer, and slid into bed next to Nissi. I gently prodded her to make room and she.turned on her side. Once I was in bed, she snuggled close, grinding her ass not-so-subtly against my crotch.

"Hmm, nice thought," I said.

"But not in the mood?" she murmured.

I sighed. "I'm sorry."

"What's wrong?"

I told her about Tilly's ultimatum. Nissi lay silently in the dark listening, but I felt her tense up, coming fully awake. "I can't believe she would do that," she said, once I had finished. "That's just. . . it's wrong, is what it is. I just want to go over there and slap her."

"I don't think that will help."

Nissi reached back to caress my shoulder. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I don't think we can do this if she won't cooperate."

"Have you considered agreeing to it? You wouldn't have to keep your promise, you know."

"She'll know I'm lying if I do that."

"Oh, right."

We lay in the dark for a time, and I started to wonder if Nissi had fallen asleep. "I'll do it," she said at last.

"What?"

She turned to look over her shoulder at me. "I'll do it. I'll promise to help her kill herself if your plan doesn't work out."

"You can't be serious. No, you can't do that."

"I can," she said. "So you'd better be sure you get this thing right. I don't much like the idea of helping her suicide, either."

I lay there brooding. "No," I said at last. "It has to be me. I can't let you take this on."

"You're going to help her get well," Nissi said. "I know it."

Except that I didn't know it. "I'm going to need you and Stan to help me," I said. "We're going to do this tomorrow. Wendy too. If Tilly turns violent, you'll need to restrain her. Can you do that?"

"I'll do whatever you need, Norm." She brought my hand to her mouth and kissed the back of it.

I started my preparations in the morning. After my morning sparring with Wendy, I went upstairs to find Sasha and explain to her what I needed.

"Five of you in my greenhouse?" she asked. "Why don't you just go from door to door, knock and say, 'Hi, we all live in Sasha's basement'? And what about Nissi? No one can see her and not know what she is."

"She'll put on a hoodie or something," I said. "We'll be careful."

"No," Sasha said, wagging a finger at me. "Not in the greenhouse. You bring her up here, into my living room. The walls here are well insulated. If she does something like she did a month ago, no one should hear her from the outside. I will take my mother out shopping. You call me when you are done."

"Alright," I agreed. "I can live with that." It would change my plans a bit, and I had wanted the evoke the same surroundings as my previous sessions, but a change of scene might actually be a good thing. "I want to start this afternoon."

"Yes, fine," Sasha said. "I can take a break from work."

I returned to the basement and headed for Tilly's room. She was lying on her bed awake, in the same position I had left her last night. "You want to make a deal with me?" I demanded. I slammed her door with enough force to startle her. "Fine. I'll do it. But I want something more from you. You promise to do exactly as I say. No tricks, no games. You do your best to cooperate. If I feel like you are holding back, I'll stop things right then and there, and the deal is off. Do you understand?"

She nodded mutely.

I relaxed and let the anger leech out of me. "Good. I know that this is going to be painful for you."

"I'm scared," she said.

"I know." I wanted to go up to her and comfort her, but I knew that she wouldn't welcome the contact, not right now. "We'll start after lunch, okay?"

She nodded again.

Tilly didn't come out to eat with us, but I decided it was best to give her this time alone. Wendy tried to bring food to her, but she refused it. Again, just as well. She might have a problem keeping her food down.

I took Nissi's hand and gave it a squeeze, stood and went to Tilly's door. I knocked and pushed it open. "It's time, Tilly."

She was dressed and seated on her bed, hands folded in her lap. "Alright," she said simply, and stood to follow me.

Nissi, Stan and Wendy met us in the main room and followed us up the stairs. Sasha and her mother were seated in the living room, all dressed to go out.

"Time to go, mamka," she said, standing and helping her mother to her feet. In moments, they were out the door.

"Have a seat, get comfortable," I said to the others, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. When I came back, the sound of Sasha's car was fading into the distance. Tilly was seated on the recliner, with Stan and Nissi sitting next to each other on the sofa along the adjacent wall. Wendy sat on the rug to leave open the space next to Nissi.

I handed Tilly the water glass, snapped open the pill case and spilled two round, white pills into my palm. "Take these," I said. "They will help you stay calm."

Tilly popped the pills and took two swallows from the glass. I took the seat next to Nissi. "It takes a few minutes for the effects to be felt," I said. "A bit longer for full effect, but we can get started before then."

We made small talk while we waited. After about fifteen minutes, I waved the others to silence. "How do you feel?" I asked Tilly.

She nodded slowly a few times. "Better, I think. A little drowsy."

"Good, that's normal," I said. "Now I want you to think back to before you came to Sasha's house. Think back to the house you were in before, in Cleveland. Do you remember that?"

"Yes," she said.

"Describe the house."

"It was a smaller house and older, one story, blue with white trim. We lived in the attic, but we all had separate rooms."

"Who lived with you there?"

Tilly took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Jeff was our host. He was a general contractor. He was gay and had a regular partner who lived on the east side, in Collinwood. His name was Kenneth, but we never met him. Jeff hardly ever brought him to the house. Besides me, we had an Eddie and a Peter." She smiled slightly. "He was of Mexican descent, so he told us to call him Pedro."

"Good, that's good," I said. "How long did you live there?"

"Four years, eight months. I wasn't quite sixteen when I got there. I lived at another house for two years before that."

"Okay, you told me that you went to see a psychologist in Chicago. Now I want you to think back to what happened just before that. You were there with Eddie and Peter, and something happened, didn't it?"

Tilly was looking down at her hands clasped in her lap. Her voice sounded more distant when she began to speak. "It was late. We had all gone to bed for the night when I heard a commotion downstairs, a crash and some yelling. I woke the others and we waited in the common area. There was a hidden trap door that led up to the attic, with a retracting staircase. It swung down and Jeff came up the stairs. He had a gash over his eye and another on his cheek. When he saw us, he kept saying how sorry he was. A man came up right behind him, holding a gun at his back. I knew he was. . . off. His scent, his posture, the way his pulse quickened when he saw me. I could feel the violence in him."

Tilly had stopped, so I prompted her for more. "What happened then?"

"Three more men came up. Eddie told Peter to go into his room and shut the door, and he did. He told me to do the same, but the man with the gun said, 'no, she stays'."

Tilly's breathing was quick and shallow now. "It's okay," I said. "Take a minute to relax, we'll wait."

Tilly took several slow, deliberately deep breaths. "I'm alright," she said. "Two of the men came over and grabbed me by the arms while the third pushed Eddie over into a corner. He pushed him down and kicked him a few times. The man with the gun sat in one of our chairs, motioning with it for Jeff to have a seat opposite him. 'Have a seat, man,' he said. 'Watch the show.' I could have struggled against the two men, but I kept thinking of that gun, so I let them drag me to the center of the room. The man with the gun said, 'Take off your clothes, girl.'"

Tilly had stopped again. I stood and went to her. Kneeling in front of her, I took her hand. "It's okay," I said, "we're here for you. You can do this, Tilly."

She kept her eyes on her lap, but resumed her story. "I was frightened before. Now I was terrified. He pointed the gun at me and cocked the hammer. 'Take them off, now,' he said. I did, removing first the top, then the bottom of my pajamas. As I did, he took out a cigarette and lit it. All four men looked me up and down. I could feel the desire pouring off them. The man with the gun was the worst. His desire was twisted somehow into a kind of ravening hunger that turned my stomach. 'Bra and panties, too, bitch,' he said. I took off the bra first. I was crying. I don't know when I had started, but that's when I noticed it. I stepped out of the panties and was standing in front of those horrible men, completely naked."