She seized upon the suggestion, not because she wanted to talk to anyone, but because it would at least give her some more time to think. George drove her to the psychiatrist’s office the next day. The road from Ocean City to the upriver city passed through natural woodland. Dogwoods bloomed in white splendor. The world was renewing itself in pastel green and bright colors.
It was obvious that either George or Dr. Braws or perhaps both had talked to the psychiatrist in advance. He was a kindly, bald, corpulent old man with a chubby, friendly face. She could not see herself telling this nice man that she had committed casual adultery. She said banal things about being tense without knowing the reason, about the shock of the incident with the cat. He let her talk without really saying anything for a long time. When she fell silent, he shocked her.
“Did you have the shotgun out to shoot the cat?” he asked.
“No,” she said automatically. “Yes, perhaps. Oh, I don’t know.”
“Have you ever killed anything, Gwen?” he asked.
“No. Oh, insects. Plants.”
He was silent, his head nodding. Finally, to break the silence, he asked, “Plants?”
“Isn’t that silly?”
“Not at all. There’s been some very interesting work done in the field. There are those who think plants have feelings, that they, for example, scream when they’re plucked or broken.” He was looking at her closely. “You’ve always been good with animals?”
“Always. They seem to like me.”
“Why, do you suppose?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think they can feel the love.”
“And you’ve never been attacked by an animal before?”
“No. Yes. Once there was an opossum.” She told him. Anything to keep away from the subject of that rutting on the balcony. She was not ready to face that herself, much less share the knowledge with another.
The interview seemed aimless and meaningless. She talked when she was primed with a question. She knew she was defeating the purpose and felt guilty for wasting money just to have a friendly chat with the doctor. She knew, too, that George must have mentioned the way she felt about sex, but the doctor made no attempts to open that can of worms. He merely smiled and nodded and talked about animals, and children and plants. He was quite good, for, before the end of the hour, she was at ease with him. Feeling that she had been manipulated, she was moodily silent on the way home.
By a supreme effort of will power, she was able to perform her connubial duty with George, faking her response all the way and feeling violently nauseous. During her next interview with the psychiatrist, she brought up the subject of her dreams.
“Interesting,” he said. “Why, do you suppose, are you having recurrent dreams of such a bloody nature?” She shook her head. “Have you ever seen anyone lose a limb, say in an automobile accident?”
“No.”
“Have you read accounts of torture and dismemberment?”
“Oh, not really. I avoid such things usually. I guess I must have read about the Inquisition when I was in school. I can remember a few things about it, and witchcraft, I mean the methods used against so-called witchcraft. They were pretty bloody, but it has no real fascination for me. I mean, if I were touring a castle or something I wouldn’t ask to be shown the dungeon and the rack and things like that.”
The doctor took a surprising tack. “I understand that in some of the more primitive Arabian countries they still lop off a hand in punishment for petty theft.” He studied her closely and saw a slight frown. “And the American Indians were rather inventive. There was one particular case. A novel was written about it. A Kentucky frontier woman was kidnapped by Indians. She watched them kill all of her children except for one babe in arms. Later, she witnessed that child being killed by having its head dashed out against a rock. And she was forced to watch the torture of a young white man. He was hoisted up by thongs strung through his shoulder muscles, and roasted by fire all the while. When he tried to lift his feet out of the fire, he’d put weight on his mutilated shoulder muscles. Then they cut off his limbs, cauterizing the stumps, one at a time, being careful to keep him alive as long as possible.” He was looking at her through half-closed eyes. He saw her tongue flick out to lick her lips, and saw her eyes narrow in thought.
“That doesn’t shock you?”
“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” she said evenly, “but when you’ve felt it happen to you, it loses its shock value.”
“In your dreams, you mean.”
“Yes, but it’s so very, very real.”
“Why, do you suppose?”
She smiled. “If I knew, would I be here?”
“In these dreams, are there particular people involved?”
She thought. “No. They are unseen. They are huge. They come at me and I’m unable to run.”
“They? Men? People?”
“Yes and no. Things. Huge teeth. Metal teeth sometimes.”
King grunted. He was eighty-two years old. A Freudian by training, he’d developed some rather independent ideas in thirty-five years of practice in an area of the country where psychiatry was not fully understood. He was recognized as an authority, was often used as an expert witness in court cases, and was consulted by physicians all over the Southeast. There was something about the girl which appealed to him, something which roused his interest. However, his eighty-two-year-old mind, although still sharper than many a third his age, had its moments of forgetfulness. There was something, but he couldn’t place it. He had done his best, during that first visit, merely to gain a measure of ease with the patient. It was expected that the patient would withhold information and skirt as far as possible the underlying cause of the problem. In past years he had been recognized in his circle as one of the more patient men, willing to ease up on problems. But now that he was eighty-two, feeling time running out, each new case seemed to take on a sense of urgency. Dr. King didn’t like unfinished things. Ideally, at some future date about which he did not care to speculate, he would close his last case, wrap it up neatly, complete his report and file it and then go to sleep in his office chair and not wake up.
“You are much too pretty to be eaten by nightmare things,” he said, rising with effort, grunting, and stretching his old legs. “Please do me a personal favor and stay uneaten until you can see me next week.” He smiled toward the door, indicating that she was to go. “Sooner if you like,” he added.
George was in the waiting room. There were no other patients. He grinned and put both his hands on Gwen’s head. “Looks as large as ever,” he said.
Dr. King was in the doorway. “You have a seat, child,” he said to Gwen, “while I talk with your husband. We’re going to ask him to reveal all your weaknesses.” He chuckled happily. “Actually,” the old man said, when George had closed the office door behind him, “I just want to ask one or two questions. For example, what does she do?”
“Like when I’m working or something?” George asked.
“Like when she’s alone,” the doctor said. “When she has time on her hands.”
“Well, she paints a little.”
“Interesting. Is she involved with the painting?”
“Yes and no,” George said, thinking about it. “She’s not very passionate about it, I guess.”
“Get her other things to do.” He stifled a tired yawn. It was past his nap time. “How about children? Nothing better than a child for keeping a woman busy.”
“There’s nothing wrong with either of us,” George said, “at least not that the docs have found. We’ve done nothing to keep from having a child for months now.”
“She likes animals,” King said. “Get her a new puppy, a very young, sickly puppy. Nag her a bit about housework, in a nice way of course. From what I can gather you two live a lonely life. Get some people around you. Work her hard. Get her interested in as many things as possible. It is too early, of course, for me to offer an opinion, but in childless women of her age, there is often a tendency to grow lazy, morbid, moody. They feel life is passing them by. They need things to do.”