Chapter 6
Suzanne wasn't sure the nightmare was over. She was in her own bed again and the morning sun shone through her still-curtainless window. But the feeling of unspeakable evil, of shame and degradation, hung over her heart like a cloud, darkening the day and dimming her vision.
She had been awake nearly an hour but had not gotten the courage to get up yet. Perhaps she was afraid that she would discover that the sunny morning was a dream and the incense-filled room the reality.
Her doorbell rang. The sound was so abrupt, so penetrating in the early morning silence of her apartment that she knew, somehow, that she was back in reality. Whatever had happened to her the night before, real or fantasy, it was over for the moment. No more humiliation, no more leather-bound anonymous figures, no more strange new urges and feelings in her body.
She sat up, discovering that she wasn't as sore as she had been the night before. She threw on a robe as the bell made its strident demand yet again and slipped into her flip-flops. She welcomed the bell for the reassuring normalcy of its existence. After her bizarre experiences of the last night, something as mundane as a caller made her feel silly and ashamed of her fears.
It was only when she was halfway across the living room that she remembered that Roger had put her to sleep on the sofa and she had awakened in her bed.
She was freshly unnerved when she opened the door, and the sight of Craft's burned-out, shifty eyes almost looking at her only made it worse.
"Yes? W-what is it?"
"Thought I'd check and see if you were all right."
"I'm fine, thank you. Just f-f-fine." Suzanne stood with one hand on the door, barring entrance. She had nothing definable to pin her feelings on, but she could not bring herself to invite the manager in. Something in his manner...
"Well, ah, if you need anything, let me know.
"All right. I will. Thank you."
Craft turned to go, then turned back, a tight, curious look about him. "By the way, how'd you like the book?"
"B-book?"
"Yeah. The book I brought you to read."
"Oh!" Suzanne felt a sense of menace. "I've really no-no-not had time to read it, yet."
Craft nodded. "Well, keep it until you do. You might find it interesting." He turned again and went away. But not before Suzanne caught the edge of a smirk on his face.
She closed the door and stood for a moment with her back to it, shivering. Why was everything so frightening and strange in this place? What sort of people had she fallen among? And, most especially, what kind of creature was Dr. Roger Watlington, psychiatrist?
Suzanne went into the bathroom and started making up her face. She thought furiously. She was determined to make up her mind about this situation and these strange people before the day was out.
Several things bothered her. Why would one of the city's best psychiatrists live in a workingman's apartment building? He should be in Beverly Hills, or Bel Air, or any of the other places she'd read about that were abodes of the gifted and wealthy.
And what was the explanation for the sounds that regularly occurred from the doctor's apartment? The sounds of pain and brutality? For that matter, what of the chants she'd heard coming from Craft's apartment? Was there some sort of weird cult living here? Did she imagine all of it? Perhaps she was going a little off the deep end, hearing things that weren't there.
No, she thought, that's not true. The sounds were real enough. She had confronted the manager with them that first day and he'd admitted that they were real, if only indirectly. They existed and therefore required an explanation. Then there was her nightmare, the horrible hallucination of the night before. It had seemed so real!
Suzanne thought of a way to find out. She bent her arms and examined them in the light. Doctor Watlington had given her a shot after the hairy man's assault, and another when he'd put her under last night. But in her dream, she'd been injected another time. If she had hallucinated the experience of the gloomy room, she should have only two marks. There were three.
Suzanne steadied her suddenly weak legs by leaning on the sink. She stared at the two puncture marks in her left arm and the third in her right. For a time she simply stood, unable to move, her face pale. Then she set her jaw and marched into the bedroom. Swiftly she dressed and began to pack her suitcases. She heard a small sound behind her and turned to see the smiling figure of Roger Watlington leaning on the door frame, relaxed.
"What on earth are you doing, Suzanne?"
"I didn't hear you knock, Doctor."
Roger came off the door frame, hands still in his pockets, and strolled over to the bed. "I didn't want to wake you if you were still asleep. You went through some pretty heavy emotional trips last night."
Suzanne stopped packing and put her hands on her hips. "Then you admit it!"
"Admit what?"
"That all that garbage about hallucinations was just that - and that you and those horrible people did those unspeakable things to me in that nasty room of yours!"
Roger continued to smile and nod. "Good! Good!" He closed Suzanne's suitcase and sat on it. "You're retention is fine. I was worried about that."
Suzanne stepped aggressively up to the doctor's seated form. "Don't evade me! Tell me the truth! That was all real last night, wasn't it? Wasn't it!"
Roger nodded. "Yes, quite real. But-" he held up a placating hand. "But only in your mind, Suzanne. Only in your mind." He patted the bed. "Sit down and let's talk about it."
She shook her head. "No. I'm going to talk about it all right. To the police! You and your whole filthy crew will be behind bars for this."
Roger shook his head. "I think not. And if you'll just calm down, I'll explain why."
"Calm down! Calm down! Why, I'm not even-"
"Have you noticed, Suzanne, that you haven't stuttered once since I came in?"
Suzanne started to yell again, then stopped and shut her mouth. The remark had been so out of context that it stopped her, did indeed calm her down. And he was right. She hadn't stuttered.
She sat. Time enough to listen to his story. She had the proof of his guilt on the insides of her arms. "All right, Roger. Let's hear your version."
Roger leaned over and patted her on the shoulder. "That's better. Now we can get somewhere." He settled himself more comfortably and began.
"First off, you must realize that I know every aspect of your fantasy. You answered my questions in detail, describing everything that was happening to you." He gave her a penetrating look. "Including your feelings as they happened, Suzanne. AD your secret fears and pains, and the uncertainties brought on by your new urges."
"What are you trying to prove, Roger? You could know those things as easily by having been part of them as by having me tell them to you in a supposed trance."
Roger continued to smile. "What interested me the most was the use of myself and Flo and Phyllis as symbols. And of course, Mr. Baumler, my next-door neighbor, upstairs. I recall that you saw him when he and Flo and I came down together the morning you arrived."
Suzanne felt a doubt creeping into her mind. It was possible that she could have done that - attached faces she knew to her hallucination.
Still, there were the needlemarks. She wasn't ready to swallow it all yet.
"Okay, what does that signify?"
"I don't know. It's odd that you should see the people who have tended you since your unfortunate experience as your oppressors-as you put it in your sleep. One would think that we would have represented rescuers or some such."
Suzanne thought a minute. "Tell me why I should have fantasies about a place like that? I've never seen a room like that before, or even read about one."
"Common enough. Everything you described; whips, candles, a tall chair; people in black leather with their sexual organs exposed... that's all phallic. Even the dark room and the brass gong are sexual symbols.
"Your fantasies were a symbolic reliving of the debasement you experienced in the man's truck - as they were intended to be. By making you relive the experience, and letting you do so in terms of your own visualizations, I found out some of your inner drives and fears, learned a little more about how to help you." He smiled and gave a little nod, a friendly gesture that said, See, I told you so.
But Suzanne still held one card in her hand. And she played it now. "What about these?" She held out her arms, inner sides exposed.
Roger looked first at her arms, then at her face, perplexed. "What about what, Suzanne?"
"Two shots, three marks, doctor."
For a moment Roger continued to be puzzled. Then his face lit with comprehension and he smiled. "Oh! The man in black with the needle, after your ordeal in the hallucination!" He touched the freshest of the marks. "That shot was real. I gave you a shot to pull you out of the dream and let you sleep. I told you I was doing it, and you translated it into the leather-suited man's action." He released her arm and stood up. "So much for your fears, Suzanne." He stretched hugely and sighed. "Well, I've got rounds to do at the clinic. I'll stop back in tonight."
Suzanne shook her head. "No. No more shots. No more hallucinations."
He laughed easily. "Yes, I can understand how that wouldn't appeal to you now." He buttoned his coat and inspected himself briefly in the dressing table mirror. "But I don't think it will be necessary. I know fairly well what your basic problems are and how to cure them." He offered his hand. "Walk me to the door?"
Suzanne accepted gingerly and they walked in silence through the apartment. At the door, Roger spoke again.
"Tonight - and henceforth - well just talk. I think that's all that's needed. Meanwhile, you take it easy. Watch TV or something. Rest. And don't worry about people in black suits, eh?"
"All right," she responded. She closed the door behind him and went to the couch. He had made a lot of sense, she thought grimly. But there was one, tiny little point that didn't fit. She remembered the entire episode with the crystal clarity of detail only possible to those who have lived through an experience of high emotional impact. She could remember every gesture, every word, everything about the room.
And try as she might, she could not remember the brass gong that Roger had mentioned so casually. Mentioned it as if sure that she could have seen it. Mentioned it with the offhanded ease of a person long familiar with it and the room it was in.