Andrew Vachss - False Allegations

"Know what, Heather?"

"Why he did it," she whispered. "It seemed so strange to me." She pulled her hand away, put the tip of her finger into her mouth.

"Did you ever figure it out?" I asked her.

"No. It even…hurt a little bit. It doesn't hurt now, though."

"Did he want you to…shave everything too?" I asked gently. Getting close to it, but leaving her room to run if she wanted to.

"It's not shaved," she said, spreading her thighs even further. "It's gone forever. Electrolysis. I had it everywhere."

"Damn! That must have been painful. Why did—?"

"I told you before," she said. "I don't mind pain. I know how to take it."

"Do you—?"

"I don't want you to talk about it. I want you to look, okay? Just look. How old do you think I am? To look at me, I mean."

"Twenty–eight?"

"I'm not, you know. I'm…older than that."

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does . You know it does. To a man, I mean."

"Different men are—"

"Men are the same," she said in a harsh whisper. "All the same. Everyone I ever met. Except…one."

"Look, girl, you don't have to—"

"I don't have to do anything, do I? I know. That's true, now. I don't have to do anything. You don't have to either. But it looks like you want to. Do you?"

"Yes."

"Would you…do it like I want? I only…"

"What?"

"Could you…stand up? And not say anything?"

I got to my feet, watching her face.

"Come around. Behind me. Please."

I walked around to the foot of the bed. Heather bent forward and pulled a pillowcase off the pillow. She carefully fitted it over her head, all the way down to her neck. Then she dropped her shoulders to the bed, her buttocks high and elevated. The way she'd been on the floor of Kite's apartment after I'd climbed off her and released my hold on her neck.

I felt the baby oil girding my cock as I entered her. She was tight, but I couldn't feel even a trace of stubble—her sacrifice had gone deep. I felt the talcum powder on her wide hips, followed her deep–set spine with my eyes from the cleft of her rump until it disappeared under the pillowcase, heard her stifled breathing, felt the spasms inside her as she let go.

I was right behind her, locked in hard. She slowly slid forward on her belly, disengaging from me. Then she turned on her side and slowly pulled the pillowcase off her head. I lay down next to her. She burrowed her head in my right shoulder, whispered, "That was good, wasn't it?" a halo of anxiety around the soft words.

"Perfect," I lied, patting her black–cherry hair.

She drifted in and out of sleep after that. Every time she'd come around, she'd start talking. She never kissed or cuddled, but she'd always reach for my hand before she said anything.

"You didn't say anything about the…pillowcase," she whispered.

"I…"

"I know what you think. I have low self–esteem, right? But that's a lie."

"I don't—"

"That's those stupid talk shows. I watch them all the time. Hundreds of them. Every night, when I get home. I tape them all. For him. For the research. The people in the audience, they're…cruel. Some poor woman is sitting on the stage. All alone, telling her story. And no matter what it is, no matter what horrible things happened to her, some nasty smug little person stands up, grabs the microphone and tells her: 'You have low self–esteem!' Like that's supposed to be so fucking brilliant. Like it's supposed to fix everything. Low self–esteem…those people, they don't know anything about it."

I knew most of it by then. But I didn't push for the missing piece—I knew it would come.

"How did you know, Heather?" I asked her later, still lying next to her.

"Know what?"

"How to do it."

"I don't . Not really. I mean…"

"Not…what we just did. I don't mean that. When you made the…false allegation. About that professor? You said you knew what to tell the cops. About what he supposedly did. If you hadn't actually…"

"He loved me," she whispered. "A true love. When I was little, he loved me. If I hadn't…matured, he still would have, I know. Not my…boobs. That was all right. Little girls sometimes have them early. I did. When I was only ten, I already…But the…other stuff: hair and all…As soon as I did, he stopped. Just stopped. That's when he left."

"Your father?"

She found my hand in the moonlight, squeezed it into numbness while she cried for a long time.

The clock read almost three in the morning, before she got to the part I didn't know. "I would never have sex with him," she said. "He doesn't do that. He's not like other men. He's like a…god. It was hard, at first. I thought it was just me he didn't want. I did everything I could to…but he never paid any attention."

"Maybe he's gay," I said, voice neutral.

"He's not ," she snapped. "He's just…higher, that's all. Higher than other men. I'm with him all the time. For years. I even told him, if there was something…special he wanted, I would do it. Whatever it was. But that's not the way he is. He doesn't have those feelings. He's pure."

"But he likes it when you…dress up, right?"

"No! I mean, it doesn't matter. He sees the way men look at me. Women too, some of them. He knows I like that. He knows I'm…weak, I guess. People are weak—he always says that. It's the truth, what he says. But that doesn't make it bad."

"No."

"No, it doesn't. You thought him and me, we—"

"Sure. Why not?"

"It would be like having sex with a priest or something," she said. "I didn't use to see that, but I do now. I would never…"

I looked into her orange eyes and I got it then.

"When do you do the brain stuff?" I asked Perry two mornings later. It was almost eleven, the time he said he'd have free for me.

"Well…actually, all of this has been 'brain stuff.' We reviewed every available record, her self–report forms for past recollections and current symptoms, the cognitive and projective test results…and Jennifer has had a series of nonstressed, unstructured clinical contacts during which we monitored her heart rate. We videotaped all those interviews and time–sequenced the tapes with the continuous heart rate data. So, up to now, it's all been relatively unintrusive. She has been exposed to a variety of our team members. I don't do any of the initial work—I just kind of float around the perimeter so they grow accustomed to my presence. When I sit down to do the actual forensic interview, I want to be richly informed, but I don't want to be the gatherer of the information."

"Because…?" I promoted him.

"The nonstructured interview is a critical component," he explained. "But before we use that technique, we need to know some evocative cues: what will set them off. When it comes to memories, some of the most reliable and powerful cues are olfactory—smells. These tend to be very deeply ingrained…so that if a particular smell is associated with a buried trauma, one whiff and the patient can be right back there. A classic example is the smell of bleach; for many children, it is reminiscent of the smell of semen. Or ask a Vietnam vet about the smell of flesh and napalm—it doesn't go away. We see this with kids in here all the time, even when they're way too young to speak."

I still remember smells. From that foul war in Biafra. Dead flesh, ripe–to–bursting from the relentless jungle sun. And the terror stench from those packed–earth tunnels they called bomb shelters. That was just a stink—I've smelled it since, and I stay in control.

But I remember the smell of chains too. The chains they put on me in that basement of the foster home. To hold me against that post while they…