Page 189 of Let the Game Begin

A cold shiver ran down my spine because that was exactly what had been happening to me on a regular basis. And when it happened, it was so intense that it made me…afraid.

“The disorder can also involve insomnia, panic attacks, impulsive behavior, and psycho-sexual dysfunction.” He looked at me and I clenched my hands into fists, trying to breathe.

“Delayed ejaculation, in your case, which is primarily situational. In one of our last sessions, you told me how that manifests in some of your sexual relationships, especially when you seek out women who remind you of Kim and therefore allow your mind to be convinced to relive your trauma. Is that still the case?” He interwove his fingers, looking sympathetically at me as he waited for my response.

Yes, goddamnit, yes, that was still the fucking case.

It was no coincidence that intercourse lasted so long for me and that my thrusts became increasingly energetic as I embarked on a violent, anxious race to orgasm. For most men, climax was all about losing control and letting go. For me, however, it meant going to war with myself because my mind had been conditioned to avoid fully enjoying a woman.

“What does all this have to do with the riddles?” I said, trying to cut to the chase because this conversation had become a Rubik’s cube I couldn’t solve.

“DID can also include dissociative amnesia. Subjects find themselves in places with no memory of how they got there, they find unfamiliar objects or…” he paused, which only increased my agitation. I was jiggling my leg, clenching my hand into a fist over and over like I could prevent my life from bouncing away from me like an unruly tennis ball. “They may find notes or other writing that they don’t recognize as their own and cannot explain. They might do things and not remember…”

A chilling silence descended inside those four white walls and not because I was buying his theory but because I had begun to seriously wonder if he wasn’t the one showing signs of a mental imbalance instead of me.

“I have never had amnesia. What the fuck are you talking about?” I said vehemently, leaping up as the chair I’d been sitting in suddenly felt like nothing so much as an expanse of sharpened blades.

Dr. Lively gave me an almost pitying look before getting gracefully to his feet and putting his hands in his pants pockets.

“The son of a bitch called me using an anonymized number. I heard his voice through a modifier. He threatened me and caused the accident that almost killed my brother. Do you have any idea the gravity of what you are suggesting right now?” My voice kept rising. It seemed inconceivable that this man who I once thought knew me better than anyone else in the world, this man who had watched my mind develop since childhood, could insinuate that I was that kind of psychopath.

“When you were a child, you used a burner phone to fake calls from Kim. You claimed that she was the one who called you and that you had spoken with her. But Kim was in a psychiatric facility at the time, isolated from the outside world and sedated practically into a vegetative state for her own protection. Yet you continued to insist that she was calling you, and when I found out you were lying, you explained yourself by telling me that it was the Boy. That he wanted to play and it was all his idea. Do you remember that, Neil?”

He came around to my side of the desk and I stepped back, disturbed by what he had just told me.

No, I didn’t remember that at all.

Dr. Lively regarded me sadly, his shoulders slumped, lips folded into a bitter line.

Perhaps he was lying to me. Maybe he just wanted me to see him again so he was trying to convince me of the seriousness of my issues so I’d agree to restart therapy. He was a psychiatrist, after all, so he knew how my mind worked.

I stepped back further, increasing the distance between us until my back collided with the door handle.

“I am sorry, Neil. The human mind is a vast cosmos and the most fragile among us get lost inside it very easily,” he said, giving me an anguished look as I opened the door and left his office with all speed.

I met Chloe in the waiting room and signaled that it was time to leave. She jumped up to walk alongside me, hurrying to keep up with my longer strides.

“What’s going on?” she said softly, sounding both worried and out of breath. Instinctively, I put my arm around her shoulders so I wouldn’t scare her. I gave her my most certain, most arrogant smile as I led her to the car.

“Nothing. Dr. Lively says I’m in tip-top shape,” I said tonelessly, opening the car door for her. “Do you want to get some of the good ice cream before we go home?” I suggested, full of false joviality.

My mind was a complex, even confusing cosmos, but I was going to force myself to find my way through it. To prove to Dr. Lively that he was wrong.

40

Selene

Halloween.

The long-awaited day had arrived. Children went from house to house, reciting the fateful incantation, “Trick or treat!” The pumpkins had carved faces—sometimes smiling, sometimes scary. The interiors were lit with candles or artificial lights.

I didn’t want to go to Bill O’Brien’s party, but Alyssa insisted that I had to come or else she wouldn’t go either, so I gave in. The iconography of Halloween was all death, monsters, dark magic, the occult, and evil things, but I wasn’t quite sure that the dress Alyssa had selected for me to wear was evoking any of those things. She, on the other hand, had settled on a look decidedly more suited to the occasion.

“You look great,” I said, looking her over head to toe.

Alyssa and I were in my room as I appraised her simple yet sexy witch costume. The black polyester bodice hugged her breasts tightly and her tulle skirt, cut shorter in the front and longer in the back, was overlaid with a layer of satin-y fabric and another one of seductive lace. A pair of black fishnets and a pointy hat completed the whimsical look, while her bold makeup in shades of black and purple made her look more aggressive and sultry.

“You don’t look half bad yourself,” she said, examining my body, and atwinge of embarrassment made me wobble in my high heels. I didn’t look scary at all, far from it.