Dr. Derek Vanderbilt has been my shrink for eighteen months. He’s the closest thing to a friend I have had for the last three years. I can’t find a photo of him online, which irks me to no end. For some reason, knowing what the person on the other end of the line looks like makes me feel like I have the upper hand … at least in my mind. We talk once a week, on Mondays at 2:00 p.m. He has strongly suggested that I increase my sessions to twice weekly, but I have ignored that suggestion. He doesn’t know I have a second shrink. If he did, he might not worry about my psychological health so much. I talk to Derek about my murderous inclinations, and the effects of my isolation. I don’t mind being killer-crazy, but I don’t want to be loony-bin-crazy. That would probably be bad for business—a bit of a turnoff.
Dr. Brian Anderson is my second shrink, my sex doctor. He is a sex therapist who is basically my gossip buddy. Finding a photo of him on the Internet was a cakewalk; he is a thin, white bald man whose photos absolutely SHRIEK gay, even though he is doing nothing but smiling into a camera with a business suit on. I wanted a gay shrink so I wouldn’t have to worry about turning him on when I describe my sessions. I talk to him about my customers, and he tells me their sexual motivations, and how I can best connect with them. That is the official description of our relationship, but mostly we just giggle about what goes on during my cam sessions. I have no one else to talk to about this, and due to our doctor/patient relationship, he is a vault.
“Tell me about your most recent fantasy,” Derek’s voice is smooth, deep, and masculine. I could listen to it all day long, though, at $150.00 an hour, I limit myself to hour-long sessions.
“I enter a house at night. It’s quiet. All I can hear is the occasional chirp of a smoke alarm. The sound drives me crazy. I can’t find anyone downstairs and as I climb the stairs, my heart is beating erratically. I am wet.”
“Wet—from rain?” Derek implores.
“No. Wet, as in aroused,” I clarify.
“Are you often aroused in your fantasies?”
This was taking us off topic, and I wanted to finish telling him my damn fantasy. He often did this, jumping on a random thing I’ve said and chasing it down ‘til we’ve exhausted the poor little subject to death.
“Sometimes.” I knew he wanted more, but I plunged on. “I start to go upstairs, and the third step squeaks—loudly. A dog from above me whines, and I know I must kill him to keep him quiet. I don’t want to kill him, so I almost turn around. But the need has taken me over, and is drumming so loudly in my head, along with the damn smoke alarm, that I have to satisfy it.”
I pause, but thankfully Derek stays quiet, and I continue. “The top of the stairs is lit by a small Santa Claus nightlight. I am confused, because it is not winter. I stare at it for a moment, before I hear a scratch on a door. It’s the dog. I reach for the handle, and suddenly I have a knife in my hand. I open the door slowly; the room is dark inside. The dog looks up at me. It is an old Golden Retriever. His back is swayed, and he is looking up at me with eyes of cloudy blue. His tail wags, and I start to cry. Not sob, just small streams of tears that leak from my eyes. I don’t kill the dog, but my thirst for blood is angry at me for my weakness.”
I shift, the memory of the dream filling me with renewed urges. “The pounding in my head increases. It’s like that feeling when you are really aroused; when your body is consumed with the need for release—you would do anything, and are in such a blind fervor that you lose all rational thought. The need overtakes my rational, compassionate side, and I rush into the room, worried that they are awake and that I have lost the advantage of surprise. I stop by the bedside, and wait for my eyes to adjust. I am mad at myself for leaving the dog alone, and I hear the soft pad of his old feet on the carpet as he walks over to me. He sits at my side and pants up at me. The soft pants of his happy breath increase the maddening chorus of my mind, and I know the only way to shut it up.”
I stop for a moment—breathing hard—the description of the fantasy making me excited, making the need stronger. It was a double-edged sword, talking to Derek. He helped me to calm the urges, but getting to that point often gave the urges strength.
“My eyes have adjusted and I see the room: a master bedroom. There are two bodies on the bed. The man has thrown the sheet off and is lying on his back. The woman is on her side, facing away from me. I go around to her side of the bed and do her first. Then I—”
“How do you kill her?”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Why?”
I take a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “I don’t want to relive this any more than I have to.”
“You are so descriptive about other parts of your fantasy.”
“It’s my fucking fantasy. If I don’t want to tell you how I kill her, I don’t have to. Just know that she’s dead, and my knife is bloody. Then I go to him. I take more time with him and start with his chest. I stab him there, which instantly wakes him up. I wait for him to see her, then I finish him quickly.”
“You don’t seem happy with this fantasy.”
“Do I ever seem happy about my fantasies? It’s just so fucked up. I hate that I enjoy the thought of this disgusting shit. Lately, it’s been depressing me more than usual.”
“Do you want me to prescribe you something?” There is something in his voice, in his question, but I can’t tell what it is.
“Fuck no. I want you to find the magic key that will make me normal.”
“No one is normal. Everyone is just pretending to be normal.”
“Don’t give me that shit. I used to be normal, and I liked it just fine.”
“Did your mother seem normal?”
I sigh, blowing out a huge whoosh of air and close my eyes. I had been wandering around the loft, my cell to my ear, so I plop down on my real bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Yeah, Mom seemed normal. It’s not like I had a second mother to compare her to, but she was great. She had fresh homemade cookies every Wednesday when we’d get home from school. And she loved coupons. Dad made more than enough money, but Mom was obsessed with couponing; she did it every night after the dishes were washed, while we did homework. She seemed happy, maybe a little detached from Summer and Trent, but as normal as anyone else.”
“Detached? Explain.”