Chapter Forty-Five

Analysis

General Malcolm Reed

I don't know if Ginny has no clue how much she sometimes telegraphs her intent, doesn't care, or is doing it deliberately with the possible goal of giving me a moment to prepare myself for her questions. I do know that every time she wants to talk about my interactions with Commodore Tucker's father, her demeanour changes and she very obviously reverts to her Southern roots, so much so that I realize service in the Fleet has actually significantly softened the commodore's accent. She begins by dropping her g's and the d's on her and's, then throws in a few idioms, a little bit of bad grammar (which by contrast leads me to realize that the commodore's grammar is very nearly perfect despite the Aw, shucks! backward,naive country boy persona he sometimes tries to sell when he's trying to charm something out of someone) and by the end of the session I'm getting the full, flat Florida drawl, complete with food analogies (often burned or buttered biscuits, which I have learned are a sort of hybrid of a bap and a croissant, leavened without yeast) and references to inept, poorly trained or unhygienic animals or their parts.

To her credit, she doesn't badger me, but does (as she said she would) regularly ask me about my conversations with Charles Tucker II. She generally seems far less interested in the dialogue than she is in how and why I have found it agreeable to speak with him, and particularly today, in what influence he has on me and why I allow it. Sometimes I answer her and sometimes I don't, but I always find myself dwelling on her questions, and, as I gradually improve my stamina, I find they sometimes keep me awake at night – at least for the few minutes I am able to resist the siren call of sleep after I lie down and the lights go out.

"Has Mr. Charlie given you any advice that you've found helpful?"

And then there's that little peculiarity. I'm curious, and her question's innocuous enough. "I'll answer that, if you answer a question for me."

She studies me speculatively, which I have to say I find rather encouraging, and says, "I guess that'll have to depend on the question. What do you want to know?"

I still have it in me to be quite a bastard and I think, if she'd agreed without thinking it over, I might have just forgotten about the thing I want to know and asked something so lewd and insulting she'd tell me to go fuck myself and end our session early, just to teach her a lesson. But she has taken a moment to think it over, so when she agrees, she deserves a legitimate question, not a query designed to piss her off.

"Why do you call him Mr. Charlie?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"When you talk about Commodore Tucker's father, you call him Mr. Charlie." I point out the obvious, wondering if she's not even fully aware of it. "Well, his name is Charles Tucker II. Forty years ago, he was honourably discharged from the Fleet as TS Tucker. His wife calls him Charlie, and his children call him Dad. I imagine most of his friends and neighbours call him Charles or Charlie, as do most of his colleagues in the Florida Citrus Grower's Co-op. Though I suppose, some of the members of the co-op as well as the various vendors and buyers with whom he does business might also call him Mr. Tucker depending on how familiar and friendly they are."

I give her this long explanation rather than simply repeating my question as a way of letting her know that I've learned a bit about the man in question. In a sense, I guess I'm throwing her a bone, a small reward for her diligence through these several weeks of my being alternately a miserable bastard, a co-operative patient, and, for lack of a more concise and accurate descriptor, an emotional and psychological train wreck.

"I mean, the way we address the people in our lives points towards our relationships with them, don't you think?"

"I suppose so," she agrees with a nod. "So, are you sayin' you're wantin' to know how I'm related to him?"

"Well, I know you're not actually related to him," I say. "You've told me yourself that you and the commodore are old friends, so maybe it's more like, What is your relationship to him?"

"Well, down home they call it 'dog kin'," she tells me easily.

I've gone hot and cold all over. I have no idea what expression my face is making or if or how I should change it; it feels like a wooden mask. What does she know? She's seen me revert, and I told her myself about the incident in the kitchen on the day I met my new … my new Alpha; but nothing in my behaviour, as bizarre as I'm sure it seemed to her and everyone else, could have pointed toward the Wolf Planet and the way those brutes fucked with my mind, what I endured while I was being conditioned there – could it? What, if anything, has Charles told her? He promised to keep what I told him confidential, but he's certainly under no obligation to do so. After I submitted to him, the only way I could possibly compel him to do or to refrain from anything would be to challenge him, and that's not likely to happen as long as I'm here. Any challenge would have to be a fight to the death, and even if I did win (which in my current condition is far from a certainty, even if I was armed and he wasn't), Commodore Tucker would undoubtedly see to it that I didn't survive long enough to see what lies beyond this bunker.

By now I've been fretting quite long enough over what Ginny might know and how she knows it for her to have realized something about what she said has resonated with me, but she doesn't address it, at least not yet. She's actually very good about not pouncing when I reveal more than I intend, and I appreciate it. She doesn't let me get by without discussing things, but she does allow me time to compose myself before she presses me for more information.

"'Dog kin'?" I finally manage.

Her eyes are bright as a hawk's as she studies me briefly, and then says, "In the old-fashioned sense, of course, not the modern."

I don't mind letting her see how bewildered I am, and I'm relieved to feel my expression changing to broadcast this emotion. There's no shame in being confused by hearing an idiom one has never encountered before, particularly when one learns that it has both a current and an outdated meaning when it actually makes no fucking sense at all. It's possibly as much as half a minute before I even know what to say.

"I'm sorry, but I've never heard that phrase before," I finally admit. "What in bloody hell does it mean?"

"Don't worry about it, Malcolm," she says with a chuckle. "The modern usage is not widely known outside psychology an' the subculture who have adopted it to describe themselves. The former usage is actually more, well, archaic, I suppose, except among certain rural, more traditional populations.

"Dog kin, as it's usually used now, is one of many subcultures fallin' under the umbrella term otherkin, to describe people who genuinely believe they are other species, fictional or imaginary characters, or sometimes inanimate objects trapped in human form."

All I can do is laugh aloud – even if my throat feels uncomfortably tight as I do so – and say, "That's absolutely absurd!"

Only when she sighs and shrugs do I realize she was giving me the opportunity to open up to her about my more unusual behaviours. Well, fuck that for a lark! I feel my smile fade and give her a hard glare. I may be a long way from what most people would probably define as 'normal', but I'm not so deluded as to think I'm some bloody cur trapped in a man's body. I'm a man, a Human being, who was exposed to psychoactive compounds for an extended period of time while being brutally abused and humiliated by a pack of sentient brutes. I was conditioned to be a ruthless, cunning killer, and a loyal, biddable servant to anyone who had the power to command me. I even submitted to being physically mounted by the alpha wolf as a dominance display, because to refuse would have been the equivalent of signing my own death warrant.

I don't revert to Pack behaviours when I'm under extreme stress because I want to hide away in some ridiculous canine alter-ego. It happens because, after what I went through on Wolf Planet Mindfuck, I was left with a switch inside me that sometimes flips when I become overwhelmed. My humanity slips away from me like a dissolving fog and I'm left with the same stark clarity that kept me from dying on that cursed world: Submit and survive, fight and kill if you want to advance. I'm not ashamed of using those lessons to work my way up to becoming one of the most powerful men in the Empire. Nor am I ashamed, now, of how I fall into the submissive behaviours when I feel threatened by an enemy I can't defeat; only a fool would openly challenge a rival he knew he could not beat. I am, however, frightened and horribly humiliated by how terribly vulnerable I become each time I do submit, for submission is, in fact, throwing oneself on the mercy of another, and those who are as merciful as Charles Tucker II are few and far between.

By now, Ginny has clocked me thinking about my conditioning, how it has helped me and how it makes me vulnerable, and I don't bloody care. I'm not going to discuss it with her, not ever. I understand it, and that's enough.

"It's just completely fucked up," I tell her flatly, just in case 'absolutely absurd' isn't emphatic enough. It's sufficient to cover both how I feel about what was done to me and what I think about these nutters who think they're anything other than what their physical forms would indicate; and hopefully it's enough to tell Ginny that I'm not ready to open up about my episodes.

"Well, it exists nonetheless," she replies casually. "An' since I've never really studied the literature, observed, treated, or even knowin'ly met someone who identified as 'otherkin', I'll resist the temptation to judge whether it's a natural state of bein' for some folks, an illness, or an attention-seekin' behavior, an' stick with callin' it 'unusual'. Though I suppose, as with most things, it has a lot to do with the individual in question."

"I can see how it would," I agree. "So, what did you mean, when you used the term dog kin?"

"Dog kin, the way we use it down home, refers to family that ain't related by blood or law."

I think about this a moment, and reply, "You're talking about friends."

"No! Friends ain't nothin' like dog kin," she insists.

"Well, then very good friends," I venture.

"No!" she says again. "Dog kin an' friendship don't necessarily have a thing to do with each other."

"Well then, what in bloody hell is dog kin?"

"I've never had to explain it before," she says in exasperation. "Gimme a minute."

She slumps at her desk, one cheek resting in the palm of her hand, an action which grotesquely distorts her normally attractive features. It's nearly a minute until she opens her mouth to draw a breath, points a finger as if she's about to begin pontificating, then waves her hand as if batting the though away and says, "Nope, that won't work."

Another minute goes by, she sits up abruptly and grins, and points a finger in the air.

"I got it!" she declares.

"Imagine you're an average Joe, livin' your life on earth. You work your job, raise your kids, love your wife. Every fall you clean the gutters after the leaves finish droppin'. Every Saturday through spring an' summer, you cut the grass; an' dependin' on the climate, you shovel snow an' salt the sidewalk in the winter. You nag one kid to walk the dog an' the other to clean the litterbox. Every Tuesday night, you roll the garbage bin to the curb for the Wednesday mornin' pickup, an' about once a month, you wake up havin' to pee at three in the mornin' an' step barefoot on a cold, wet hairball the cat hacked up in the hallway on your way to the toilet. You don't know whether to be glad she doesn't do it somewhere that it goes unnoticed an' dries fast to the floor or to be angry that she does it right where you walk, an' you're mystified by how she always knows to do it when you're gonna wake up needin' to pee. Unless it's the sound of her hackin' that wakes you an' you just assume you need to pee; but then, it would still be warm when you stepped in it, wouldn't it? Anyway, you try not to yell about it because you don't want to wake the whole house, but your wife always hears your disgusted grunt; so she cleans up the mess while you clean your foot off an' pee. Then you think briefly about tying the cat up in a sack full of rocks and throwing it off the bridge on your way to work; but it's your kid's cat an' she loves it to bits, an' you've kind of gotten used to it snugglin' with you while you watch the evenin' news an' the kids do their homework, an' what the hell? You finally admit to yourself that you're kind of fond of the little hairball, too.

"So, you're a regular guy, right, ordinary life, borin', simple problems, yeah?"

"All right," I agree. I can't resist the bemused little smile that works its way onto my face. I have learned from speaking with the commodore's father that this type of descriptive storytelling is very much a Southern thing, but I'm glad Ginny seems to have wrapped things up with the cat.

"Then you come home one perfectly ordinary Tuesday night to find nothin' left of your home but a big, smokin' hole in the ground. While you were at work, your kids were at school, an' your wife was doin' the shoppin', somethin' sparked a fire an' your house burned right down to the ground. A couple of firefighters are hangin' around, soakin' down the hot spots, but the excitement is over an' the damage done. Your wife an' kids, who always get home before you, are standin' in the driveway, huddled together in shock. After a quick check to make sure they're ok, you walk around the property to assess the damage.

"The fire burned so hot, it took the garden shed with it. All that's left of the tools, the mower, an' your son's bike are the metal bits. Your daughter's playhouse was farther away, so it didn't ignite, but it has melted into somethin' out of a Salvador Dali paintin'. You find the dog under the neighbor's porch. He's got second and third degree burns on all four paws an' you're sure the vet'll have to amputate his tail, but when you call him gently, he crawls out, lays on your feet an' gingerly wags his scorched stump while lookin' up at you with his tongue lollin' out as if to say, 'We've had a very bad day an' I'm so glad you're home.'

"You carry the dog to your wife an' kids an' ask them to tend to his feet and what's left of his tail. One of the firefighters offers the use of their first aid kit, an' you nod your thanks an' continue your walk around.

"You find the cat in the apple tree in the side yard. All the twigs on the house side of the tree are twisted an' black, an' you realize the fire was so hot it almost ignited a livin', well-watered tree. The poor cat is so frightened she has more than doubled in volume with all her hair puffed out, an' you know right away, you're gonna have to wrap her in your jacket if you don't want her to shred your skin.

"It takes about three tries, each climbin' higher into the tree, an' you've been scratched in the face an' but on the hand an' damned near fell out of the tree once, until you finally get the cat all bundled safely inside your jacket. By this time, of course, you're lost your way an' aren't sure quite how to get down, so the firefighters have to rescue you an' the cat. At least it's a small tree. They can get you down with a little aluminum extension ladder. They don't need to call a ladder truck.

"You give the cat to your daughter, hug your wife an' kids. Your little family is intact. All you have are the clothes on your backs, a couple sacks of groceries your wife brought home from the market, an' whatever the kids might have in their lockers at school; but you are all alive, an' so, you are thankful.

"Now. What happens next?"

Ginny looks at me as if she expects an answer. I have to admit, she's done a good job making this little family real to me. I was her protagonist when he found the dog and actually thinking of Beans when the patriarch rescued the cat.

I shrug and say, "I suppose we need somewhere to go. But you're the one telling this story."

She grins and nods. "A friend will let you an' the wife an' kids spend a night, maybe two, in their guestroom. You can kennel the pets at the veterinary hospital where they'll be well looked-after, an' you an' the family can get cleaned up, rest a little, an' find temporary housin' at a local motel. Your friend does this because he likes you.

"A good friend will let you stay a week or two. You can keep the cat in the downstairs bathroom off the garage an' the dog can stay in a crate in the spare room. You don't have to split the cost of the groceries, but if y'all wanted to buy the Sunday roast, that would be great. It'll give you time to buy yourselves some clothes an' essentials an' to find temporary housing. Your good friend does this because he cares about you.

"A really good friend will let you stay until the insurance pays out. Since that's likely to take a few weeks, or even months, maybe you can alternate buyin' the groceries. The pets are welcome, too, but please keep them off the furniture an' crate them when you're not around to supervise them. It gives you plenty of time to restore your wardrobes, an' you don't have to worry about temporary housing. You can look for a place to move into as soon as the insurance money comes through, either a rental home while you rebuild or a permanent rental. Your really good friend does this because he loves you.

"But dog kin will let you move in with them, no time limit given. Buy groceries or don't, it's up to you. If they have clothes that fit you, you're welcome to wear what you like. They go through their closet with you, to help you pick out what you need, an' their wife an' kids do the same with your family. Their house is your house, an' that goes for the pets, too. When the insurance check comes in, they'll be offended if you offer them money to cover the extra expenses you an' your family have created for them, an' they'll tell you to take your time figurin' out what you want to do next. You're welcome to stay as long as you need.

"An' when the insurance comes through an' the house is rebuilt, an' the wife suggests a trial separation because of the strain the whole ordeal has put on the marriage, dog kin will let you stay with them while the wife an' kids an' the cat an' dog move into the new house because, well, the wife an' kids should have the house. An' when you go to visit the kids an' end up meetin' the wife's new boyfriend, dog kin will sit up with you while you kill a twelve-pack. An' the wife divorces you an' marries that boyfriend, dog kin will split a bottle of whiskey with you. Nothin' will ever be said about you findin' another place. Dog kin will see to your final arrangements if you never get your life back together.

"Dog kin does not do this because they love you. Hell, they might even actively dislike you, but somethin' somewhere in your two families' shared past happened that has intertwined you. You assume maybe a hundred years ago, your great-granddaddy saved his great-granddaddy's farm by lendin' him a tractor or somethin' when his was broken down at just the time he needed it an' couldn't afford to fix it an' would have lost his crop, an' therefore his farm if not for the loan of that particular item. It doesn't really matter exactly what happened, but it was the kind of favor that can never be repaid, because it was a small act that saved a family, saved their lives an' their livelihood; an' everything that old farmer had, everything he left to his kids, everything they made from that inheritance, can be traced back to that one, small act of kindness. So, like it or not you're dog kin.

"Friendship is individual an' interpersonal. Dog kin is clannish an' inter-generational. You're bound together like family, more than family, 'cause if family does somethin' bad enough, you can disown them, dog kin goes deeper than your DNA."

I'm quiet for a long time trying to make sense of this. My thoughts on the matter are too confused right now to give her any kind of a reasonable response, so I tell her what first came into my mind.

"That sounds every bit as ridiculous as people who think they're dogs trapped in human form."

Ginny looks a little disappointed at my response, and I really can't blame her. She went to a lot of effort to make a point, and I seem to have missed it. I also believe she was trying to get me to talk about my wolf behaviour, but that's not going to happen. Still, I did promise I'd answer her question.

"You wanted to know if the commodore's father had given me any useful advice or insight," I recall.

"And?"

"Yes, he has."

She looks at me expectantly, wanting more. I shrug and say, "That answers your question, doesn't it?"

"Malcolm…"

She tries to keep the frustration out of her voice, but even if she'd succeeded, I'd have known what she was feeling. I'm sure, from her point of view, she feels like I'm fucking with her just for the hell of it, but that's not the case. I want to make her understand.

"I'm sorry, Ginny, I'm not intentionally being an arsehole," I say rather reluctantly, "but that's all I'm comfortable telling you right now."

Then, over the next ten seconds or so, the most unexpected thing happens. Her eyes start to glisten, her nose turns slightly red, her complexion gets blotchy, and when she speaks her voice is thick. "Why, Malcolm?"

It's easy to fake crying. Not a tactic I generally employ because it makes one appear weak, but it's something I've studied because in my line of work it's important to know when emotions are real. The shedding of emotional tears, as opposed to simple, natural eye lubricant or the reflexive tears that wash away irritants like dust and caustics like smoke and onions, depends on increased blood flow to the lachrymal gland.

The brain is fed primarily by the internal carotid artery. The kidneys are fed by the renal arteries, and the liver by the hepatic. The iliac arteries narrow into the femoral and then the popliteal arteries which divide into other small vessels that sustain the legs and feet. The subclavian arteries work the same for the arms and hands. The organs and structures of the face are primarily fed by the aptly named facial artery. These larger vessels branch into smaller and smaller vessels until they get down to the capillaries that are really only wide enough to let one cell pass at a time. This basic knowledge of the circulatory system is useful in my work for three reasons. One, it can prevent a subject from dying before an interrogation is over. Two, a small cut easily mended made in the right place can provide a strong incentive for a subject to talk before he bleeds out. And three, when an interrogation is not as fruitful as one might have hoped, it can provide a dramatic way of disposing of a less-than-informative subject that, when witnessed by others, can render them significantly more co-operative.

Because the lachrymal gland is so small, only about two centimetres long and less than half that in width, the body cannot selectively direct blood to it and bypass the surrounding structures. It is fed by the capillaries, and increasing the blood flow to the tiny capillaries that supply the lachrymal gland requires increasing blood flow to all the surrounding tissues of the eye, face and neck. The increased blood flow is responsible for the blood-shot eyes, puffy skin, blotchy complexion, and in part, for the choked voice that comes with crying.

Anyone can fake crying. All one need do is strain the facial muscles a bit. Pull a few faces and fake some whimpers or sobs, and anyone who doesn't know enough to be sceptical will believe it before the blood flow starts and the tears begin to fall. Then one can really sell it when the anatomical changes take place.

Of course, people naturally make painful facial expressions when they're feeling intense painful emotions. Feelings really can physically hurt. So a contorted face is not proof that someone is faking tears.

On the other hand, when one is not pulling faces, only genuine emotion can cause the increased blood flow and subsequent anatomical changes associated with crying.

And Ginny's expression hasn't changed.

I won't say I feel sorry for her, I'm not that soft; but I appreciate her sincerity enough to want to give her something in return. I can imagine that she's crying out of sheer frustration because she wants to help me and I won't – can't – give her the tools she needs.

"The day I suffered that … break, the commodore's father could have easily hurt me or humiliated me, but he didn't. Instead he took me aside and had a private word. All we did was talk. He didn't judge me for anything I told him. He doesn't judge me, Ginny. We just talk."

"Malcolm, I don't judge you. I've told you that many times," she says in a sad little voice that only serves to anger me.

"I know you have – so many times, in fact that you can't even hear the lie in your own words!" Goaded beyond endurance by this outright lie, I shout back at her. "Every time I come in here, you judge me. You're trying to fix me, Ginny, which means you have already determined that I am broken. That there is something wrong with me, and I am not ready to admit that, Ginny! I am not ready to admit that I am evil. Not to you. Not to anyone! Certainly not aloud!"

I have gone hot and cold all over again, and I'm actually trembling with the chill. I've said far more than I intended, and been far more honest than I would have imagined possible. Ginny waits quietly for me to get control of myself. She is still weeping as I rub my hands together to warm them and then rub my arms to calm the gooseflesh.

"I can talk to Charles," I finally tell her, my own voice less steady than I'd have preferred it to be, "because he doesn't expect anything more from me. I don't have to admit that there's anything wrong with me. He doesn't tell me I'm evil, so I don't have to confess my sins to him. We just talk."

Her tears are still falling, maybe even faster now than they were before, but to my bewilderment she's smiling. When she doesn't speak for several moments, I feel the urge to prompt her, even if it is in a goaded voice.

"What?"

She grabs a tissue and mops herself up, blowing her nose in a not-entirely-ladylike fashion, and then looks at me again with eyes that still glisten.

"Normally, I'd apologize for losing it that way in session," she says, "but this time, I'm glad I did. I don't think I'd have learned what I did if I'd been able to keep it together.

"I have never said you are evil, Malcolm, and that's not just a matter of semantics. I don't think you're bad or malevolent or malicious or horrible or any of the synonyms of any of those words. I don't believe people are made that way. Deep down, I'm not even convinced you're all that mean.

"I think you were hurt, a very long time ago, and I think everything you have done since then has been either an act of retribution or an act of self-defence. I think you've spent most of your life either taking revenge for that original harm or preventing anything like it from ever happening to you again."

"So, I'm a victim, not a monster." I can't keep the bitterness and anger out of my voice.

"No, Malcolm, you're a survivor," she says earnestly, and I get the impression from her tone that there really is a difference. "But after all this time, I think you deserve to do more than just survive. I think you deserve to live. You deserve to have fun and care about people and have friends and love somebody.

"You deserve to have a life, Malcolm, one that consists of more than just one long struggle of self-preservation, and that's what I want to help you achieve."

If I accept her tears as sincere, and I really have to because what happened to her can't be faked, then I suppose I've got to try to accept her words now as genuine as well, and that's going to take a while. It's been a long time – far too long – since I took anyone or anything at face value, and bad habits are hard to unlearn.

"I think we're done for today," I tell her quietly.

She quirks the corner of her mouth into a little half-smile and nods. "I think you're right."

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